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Once I Had Made Up My Mind

5-MeO-DMT

by Mr. Mackey

Citation:   Mr. Mackey. "Once I Had Made Up My Mind: An Experience with 5-MeO-DMT (ID 88358)". Erowid.org. Feb 21, 2011. erowid.org/exp/88358

Hello, I think an introduction is in order, because my life in the past couple months undeniably affected how I reacted to 5-MeO-DMT. In the past three to four months I have been tripping on a near weekly basis. Previous to this period of time, I had been in a long term relationship (well, long considering I’m 19 years old) that just ended after 2.5 years. I ended it for quite a few reasons, but what is important to note is that I have been going through some changes in life, one of those “trying to find myself” types of things. I have also felt as though a burden was lifted.

During the relationship, I used psychedelic drugs somewhat occasionally, usually ever 6-8 weeks, sometimes sooner. I have also used quite a few drugs in general, but the past 2-3 years my use has been almost exclusively psychedelic drugs. I’ve had the pleasure of using 2C-I, 2C-E, 2C-P, 2C-T-2, mescaline, MDMA, MDA, bk-MDMA, 4-AcO-DMT, 5-MeO-DMT (smoked), Toad venom, DMT, DPT, harmaline/harmine mushrooms, LSD, LSA, Salvia, DXM, nitrous, Ketamine and 4-MeO-PCP. I consider myself to be relatively experienced and I like my sensory stimulation quite a bit.

Prior to this IV experiment, I had smoked toad venom once, and 5-MeO-DMT about 3 times. I had not “broken through” with any of my previous trials, and this was the ultimate goal of this experiment; to break through. Smoked 5-MeO-DMT (and toad venom, which for me is nearly identical in effect to 5-MeO-DMT) was very intense, but I consider myself to be in the group of people who love its effects. My friends and I agree that the afterglow is quite “rolly” for lack of better words. I was quite excited but nevertheless had a healthy bit of respect/fear for 5-MeO-DMT. My IV/IM experiments with DMT and DPT humbled me quite a bit, but in a way that was extremely similar to climbing my first (hopefully there will be more to come) fourteener; I was left in awe and aware of my own fragility, but very aware of my own strength and fortitude, my ability to persevere.

We milked my friend’s toad and had prepared the smoking utensil to be used. I had opted to use my 3mg 5-MeO-DMT shot that I had prepared a couple days ago, because I wanted to breakthrough, and wanted there to be enough venom to go around. We meditated shortly as a group, although I had been meditating for about ten minutes prior. My two friends lay on the designated toad venom mattress and smoked their dose. We watched them grin and giggle and generally enjoy themselves. The rest of us piled onto the mattress and the next two prepared themselves to smoke toad venom. I was very nervous, but it was the type of anxiety I associate with rollercoaster’s or rock climbing.

Once I had made up my mind, I knew there would be no turning back, I was completely committed to the idea for better or worse. I sat down on the futon mattress, propped myself up against a pillow. I swabbed my arm with an alcohol pad and slid the needle into my vein. I pulled back on the plunger. Nothing. Slightly annoyed I pulled out, pumped my fist and went for another one, slightly meatier looking. I registered, saw the blood swirl into the barrel and began to depress the plunger. 5 units in, with 20 units to go, the first rush began to hit me. It felt similar to smoking it but the magnitude of intensity was exponentially greater. I began to tremble and breathe heavily.

Unfortunately, this made it difficult to continue depressing the syringe with the gentle care required. I attempted to depress the plunger slowly, but I was beginning to trip quite hard, and the remaining 20 units plunged into my arm. I knew relatively quickly that most of the shot had missed its vein, because my arm began to sting intensely, and the rush was subsiding in intensity as quickly as it had come.

I had been worried that ~3mg would not be enough to break through. I couldn’t have been more wrong. Within about one minute after injection, I could feel the shot beginning to take hold. I assume that most of the shot, or at least 20/25 units missed my vein and went subcutaneous, so my dosage was probably closer to 2.3-2.4mg subq rather than IV. Thankfully, it was much slower than the initial rush, and I could, to the best of my ability, enjoy the raw intensity of it. My heart began to beat very hard, while my body simultaneously began to feel dissociated. I felt heavy and slow, and crawling from the bed to the floor took tremendous effort and a great deal of grim determination. My sense of boundary was obliterated and I was beginning to experience an unsettling amount of difficulty differentiating between my various limbs and the room around me.

I attempted to steady my breath, but soon gave up, opting instead for the “direct experience” approach. I felt my heart racing wildly and it began to feel as though I was falling. More accurately, it felt as though there was, at that point, no longer any difference between me and the room. My jaw seemed to stretch into the ceiling while my hands were great, large and crude tools of manipulation, no longer of any real purpose or utility. I was suspended in space, surrounded by emptiness infinite in all directions. I began to think about the cliché routine of asking myself about the imminence of my own death. I knew intellectually that I was safe, but I could not help but acknowledge that the sensation could only be described as dying. My self, my fears, worries, attachments, all of these things were no longer relevant. The only thing that was in essence real was the single eternal moment that I found myself occupying.

By this time, everybody had finished smoking the toad venom and were coming down, chatting amongst themselves. I however, found myself still tripping harder and harder. In retrospect it was probably only 4-5 minutes into the experience, but my perception of time was for all intensive purposes, gone. I was aware of the concept of time, but knew only that for me, it was no longer something that applied. I didn’t want to try and figure out how long it had been or would be.

I opened my eyes, and the ceiling was covered in intensely intricate 5-MeO-DMT-esque patterns. They were not however, the most prominent effect, and they were for the most part, only visible with eyes open. It felt as though the sum total of the universe’s energy was currently occupying the tiny vessel of my body. It felt tremendously uncomfortable, and yet, it had an almost orgasmic quality to it. A concussing and contracting, some strange ejaculatory shudder that encompassed every fiber of my existence. The sensory stimulation was violent to say the least, and the sound of people talking, set off a spiraling sensation of nausea. It occurred to me that I would probably throw up, and I considered briefly trying to communicate my need to either be moved, or have something to vomit in. I very quickly abandoned any hope of attempting to communicate, deciding that I would help clean up if I did, and that my gracious host would understand the situation without any explanation.

I decided to accept that I was dying, or dead, or in some ways, had already been dead for quite some time. Part of me felt as though I had just woken up, that this was the real truth of the nature of existence, that my life prior to this point had been spent in preparation, that I had been unaware. Waves of compassion and fear began to flow through me. The compassion and fear, love and hatred, these distinctions no longer existed, and it was both beautiful as well as disheartening. Above all else, it simply was. It occurred to me perhaps hundreds of times throughout the experience that any words or attempts to qualify the experience would be futile, because it was paradoxically the sum total of all experience, as well as being the complete absence of any experience.

I was in a strange limbo, caught between rapture and terror, at the discovery that the basis of my existence was emptiness, without form or figure, defined principally by its lack of definition. As of late I have been particularly interested in Buddhism, and I cannot deny that my choice to describe these experiences using Buddhist terminology is a reflection of this. However, these terms are, from a linguistic standpoint, the closest approximations that I have. Sunyata, Luminous Emptiness, anatman, a bardo realm. These concepts revolved around each other throughout the entire experience. I was painfully aware of the beauty and tragedy of my own death, or the realization that the very concept of me as I had conceived of myself was illusionary.

Each breath I took was labored, requiring a great deal of mental and physical fortitude. I felt that running and hiking and meditating had prepared me for this, and if I wasn’t as mentally and physically fit as I am, I would hesitate before embarking again. I was aware of the nature of my breath as being fundamentally the same as my surroundings, as though the air was composed of the same not-self that I was. Normally when I meditate, I like to count my breaths, focusing on the In and then the out. However, I could draw no distinction between in and out and it felt as though hours were going by in between each breath. I was breathing my not-self in and out, and I felt a tremendous surge of pleasurable energy.

I was coming down, but still tripping quite hard, still on the verge of death-ness. I became more aware of my auditory perceptions and the room around me. The lights seemed uncharacteristically bright, and the music sounded strikingly clear. The music was beautiful, and the sound of Teardrop by Massive Attack was endowed with all that is beautiful in life. The sensation of emptiness began to change into a sensation of oneness. This oneness was distinctly different from the emptiness that preceded it, in the sense that it was at its most basic essence a positive thing, whereas the emptiness was neither good nor bad. The emptiness was pure transcendence, which was beautiful, but largely incomprehensible to me now, in the world of sobriety.

The oneness was markedly more pleasurable, and I found myself shivering in ecstasy, as though every molecule that was a part of me was vibrating with the visceral vibrant vitality of living. I was being reborn again and again, on a moment by moment basis. Each breath was my first and the air felt hearty and filling. The waves of euphoria began to build as I became more aware of my self returning.

Strangely enough I experienced an intense wave of what I can only identify as romantic love, except that it was directed at both myself, and the concept of living. It was gut wrenchingly beautiful and slightly confusing. What was most peculiar about it was that it felt exactly like romantic personal love, or at least what I have identified in the past as romantic personal love. I was plunged into a glimpse of memory, of the people I have loved in the past. After this torrent of emotion, I found myself slightly sad, sad with the idea that I haven’t always loved myself, that I doubted and second guessed and even hated myself for different parts of my life. But all those feelings of loathing and fear were gone, replaced by a never ending well of infinite self-love, love for life and living.

Any fear or doubts I had about death have been dispelled, for even though I know I took a very powerful drug, I cannot dispel the sensation that what I experienced was in some way indicative of what death is.

All in all this was the single most intense psychedelic experience I have had, and it lived up to and surpassed every expectation I had about it. I wonder what a full IV dose would have been like; part of me is terrified of that level of intensity coming on that quickly. But in due time my curiosity will get the best of me and I shall return. The experience has left me with a sense of revitalization and rebirth, distinctly similar to, but much less confusing than the afterglow I have following a DMT breakthrough. I feel that my life has in a bizarre way, become pregnant with profundity, that my life is important, and that my actions have very real consequences, the implications of which are more visible to me now than they have ever been before.