Experiences

> Ayahuasca, drank
> Salvia Divinorum Leaves, smoked
> Psilocybin Cubensis Mushrooms, tea
> DiMethylTryptamine (DMT), smoked
> Ayahuasca, drank
> Salvia Divinorum Extract, smoked
> DiMethylTryptamine (DMT), smoked

> Ayahuasca, drank
I was down in the Amazon rainforest with the shaman Don Juan. I drank approximately 1.5 oz of ayahuasca with a group of about ten people. It was a healing ceremony held at the shaman's house near Iquitos, Peru. After vomiting and hallucinating for over an hour, a very memorable event occured.

There I was, sitting in the shaman's house with the others, just attentively waiting for what was to come, when an octopus appeared. It was certainly an octopus, a clean, pink octopus, but it had a human quality to it that reminded me of Hindu paintings of man-lions and human looking elephants. It had the eyes of Ganesh, like a wise woman staring at me with compassion. I was hypnotized by her as she slowly spun, with tentacles outstretched in all directions. "This is amazing" I thought. And it was.

This female goddess-like spirit floated up close to my face, so that we were only a few inches from touching. I smiled because I could see that she was kind and intelligent. She was not going to harm me. She was my friend, my ally. We communicated in a psychic, wordless way and then this pink octopus wrapped her tentacles around my face. I wasn't freaked out by it. I found it a little bit amusing but quickly moved her up onto the top of my head, where she began doing something in a very diligent manner. It appeared she was altering my head in some way but I couldn't really tell because it was all happening underneath her. She must've been working with her mouth, or beak, or whatever.

When she had finished making her head accessory for me, she began to put octopus eggs into my head. Actually, she was putting them into a sack she had built inside my head, but either way, it was a tad unusual. She must've put about fifty octopus eggs in there. I'm not sure how they all fit, but now I've got a whole bunch of octopus eggs in my head. The octopus didn't leave, though. I took her and put her inside the netting on the outside of a bag, which a little boy was holding for me. I really don't know where that boy came from, he just kinda appeared with the bag, but somehow I felt like he'd carry that bag for me now, if I need to put stuff in it or take stuff out. Wait a second the boy is holding the bag with the octopus that put eggs in my head? Man. This was getting crazy... and I loved it.

I again sat in the slithers of intermission, considering what a fool I'd been for thinking I knew anything about anything. The world was quickly becoming ridiculously amazing right before my eyes. It was like seeing for the first time, after years of being blind. How had all this been here but I didn't know? There were millions of worlds right in front of my nose, yet I had missed them all these years. I pondered the octopus and decided that there was definitely a message in there. I felt that the octopus was a symbol of wisdom, especially with eyes like hers, and that the giving of eggs was like her planting the seeds of wisdom inside my mind. These eggs hold so much potential for me, but only if they hatch. And for these eggs to hatch I need to care for them, keep them warm, and never forget about them, for they will open up into the greatest lessons in my life.

I felt truly blessed.

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> Salvia Divinorum Leaves, smoked
I had just moved out to Oregon and one day a new friend, Alex, introduced me to Salvia Divinorum, Divine Sage. When he had described his experiences with it I was quick to ask if I could try it. He came over the next day with a two foot smoking aparatus and a bunch of long, light green, dried leaves.

He said it took a few really good hits from the water piece to get "in there." I took the first hit and held it in while he packed another. I exhaled and then on my next inhalation, took in another, really large hit. I again held it in while he packed a third hit. He handed me the glass aparatus again but as he handed it to me, he disappeared. In fact, my whole room, the house, the whole planet disappeared.

I found myself on what looked like the planet Mars. I looked around curiously at the reddish rocks and barren terrain. What the fuck was happening?

"Are you gonna take that last hit?"

I could hear Alex as clear as day, but I could not see him, even though he was only a few feet away from me. Either way, my brain still hadn't gotten anywhere close to caught up, so I thought, "Yes, I am gonna take that last hit."

Only when I looked for this rather large item that was in my hand, I could not find it. I began looking around, as if perhaps I had set it down somewhere on the surface of Mars. I remember looking behind a nearby rock for it, to no avail. Then, I found something. It had a hole in the end so I thought it must be it. I put it to my mouth and tried to take a hit, but I was confused. It was actually the lighter.

"I think you've had enough."

Again I heard Alex's voice crystal clear. He took the aparatus and the lighter out of my hands. At this point I realized that what was happening was that I was feeling the effects of having smoked salvia for the first time. I became quite relieved and the confusion vanished. I stood up and looked around. I was in another dimension or something. I held out my arms and they stretched out farther than I could see. My hands dissolved into nothing. I began swinging my arms around, watching the long coils spiral off into space. It was crazy.

Then I felt so much energy I just had to run. So I ran in a little circle around in my room. Around and around until I realized that I WAS in my room, that Mars was no longer here and that Alex was back. I began to try to explain why I was running but I couldn't speak. Everything was still going too fast.

Then the incredible energy started dropping. Like water leaking out of a pitcher, the energy level went from my head down to my feet and out completely. As it reached my chin, releasing my mouth, I began to talk.

"I can talk now," I said. "I can still feel it, it's still in my legs, now it's gone."

Wow. That was crazy. I talked with Alex about what had happened. What did I look like, did I say anything, what did he do, was it funny?

Yes, it was terribly funny, and we laughed hard for a long time. I went on to build a great relationship with this amazing plant, Salvia Divinorum. It was the spirit of this plant who pointed me in the direction of plant spirit medicine. She helped to teach me about the spiritual dimension, to expand my belief system and to enjoy my life even more. She is my ally.

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> Psilocybin Cubensis Mushrooms, drank as tea
I had made a large batch of tea for an after party I was attending later on that evening. I used an ounce of mushrooms in around 1.5 liters of water, so I felt each cup would be a good dose. Unfortunately, the after party wasn't much of a party, and I decided not to break out my special tea. I took it home and put it in the fridge.

Well, I let it sit for a couple of days before I decided that I needed to do something about the situation. I decided to take the entire bottle with me out into the woods behind my back yard. I was not planning on drinking it all, but I did bring the whole bottle with me, and I did drink it all, out in the woods by myself.

At first I just began to feel pleasant and warm. I smiled and looked around at the beautiful ferns that gave the forest floor a soft green carpet. All the plants seems to glow with more vibrant colors. I was connecting deeply with nature, sitting in the ferns, feeling the spin of the earth and the movement of the roots beneath me, feeling the gentlest breeze across my face, smiling and breathing in the fresh, spring air. It was a familiar feeling, bringing me back to a state of childlike innocence, where every butterfly and every tree was a marvel to behold.

Then I stood up. I was feeling very excited and energetic. An energy had come upon me all at once and I now had to move. I could feel this energy like a powerful tingling sensation that ran through me, entering at one point in my body and leaving out another. I began to let my body move in reaction to the flow of this seeming outside influence. With no music to listen to, I was now dancing in such a beautiful way, a way I had never moved before. I was loving it! I watched as my body smoothly rocked and swayed, my arms collecting the energy and releasing it.

It was nothing less than a shamanic dance. I really had nothing to do with it. I had no thoughts at the time, nor do I recall any feelings. I remembering looking at myself as the energy moved me but there was nothing else. It was much like a dream. I didn't even think it was me, because my arms and legs moved without my will controlling them. It actually felt like a spirit had entered my body and possessed me or something. I had had similar experiences when dancing or playing the drum, but never to this extent. There was no music yet my body seemed to move in an almost scientific rhythm, like the physical rhythm of nature was guiding it.

I danced like this for maybe twenty minutes. There was hardly ever an expression on my face and I never seemed to tire. I was really dancing too. I wasn't jumping up or down but I was kicking my legs out and waving my hands around and swinging around at the waist. It was a certainly a workout yet I acted as if I was asleep, calm and cool like I was Bruck Lee or something. It was far out.

Then, I stopped dancing and fell onto my knees. Almost immediately I began to throw up. I puked rather violently for about two minutes and then sat back on my knees and relaxed. My eyes were filled with tears and I was sweating.

"That was fucked up." I said outloud.

I looked around again. Now the colors of the plants were like neon lights. Everything was made of millions of tiny balls of light that moved in circular patterns, blending into even larger circular patterns that seemed to make my entire field of vision into a screen. I let the tears in my eyes well up and watched all the little balls blur into one another. Were the tiny balls on my eyes? Was I seeing tiny bacteria on the surface of my eyeball? Or was I witnessing the flow of energy in its natural course? Some might say I was just halucinating. I wouldn't say "just."

I spent several hours out there in the woods, until it was dark. I had found a tree to perch in and had made like a jaguar and chilled for a while, just observing. A few wild pheasants came by and I thought, "If I were a jaguar, I'd probably catch one of them." It was as close to nature as I'd been in a long time. I came back to the house feeling as alive as ever. I felt I had purged all my negativity and reconnected with the great mother. I also felt that perhaps I really could become a shaman. That evening in the woods was a very positive influence in my decision to go down to Peru.

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> DiMethylTryptamine (DMT), smoked
I put about a twentieth of a gram of the tiny, pale orange crystals my friend had given me onto some herb. I was with my roomate, who had just smoked the same amount, but hadn't held it in for a very long time. It was the fall of 2000.

We were both trying DMT for the first time, so he was a little tentative. He said he didn't really get out there so I decided to go for it. I was going to try to hold my hit in as long as I could. I said a prayer that the spirit of DMT show me something in my life, my path. I turned the lights off and put a Fela Kuti CD on softly. Sitting on the floor, I lit the the bowl and took a deep breath in. I handed the bowl to my roomate and laid down on my back.

Almost immediately, I began to see a network of circular patterns of energy wherever I looked. I was lying on my back, looking at the ceiling and it was so intriguing that I began to look back in head in an attempt to see as much as I could. It was amazing because I was still totally conscious. I knew that I had smoked the DMT and this was the effect. This was totally different than salvia, where I would often forget what the hell I had done to get where I was.

Mezmorized, I watched the ceiling as I slowly exhaled my hit. Then, from within one of the circular patterns, there appeared a female spirt. She was made of these colored energy patterns as well, yet somehow took the form of a cartoon-like female. She danced in and out of the circular patterns as they spun through and around her. She was definitely looking at me, paying me a visit. I looked at her face and felt loving compassion. I thought perhaps she was an angel.

Then a rather peculiar looking male spirit appear from behind the female. He danced in a very bizarre and comical way, like some sort of Disney mime. He kinda frightened me and I quickly looked over to the right, catching a glimpse of my end table and lamp. I didn't want any distractions so I decided to close my eyes. My room disappeared and the two spirits remained. They could tell I wanted to interact with them and they zoomed right up close to me and motioned with their fingers for me to come with them.

The three of us then travelled through some dimensional time warp or something. It looked a lot like how the Millenium Falcon travels at light speed. We quickly arrived at an enormous hall filled with tall file cabinets. The hall was so big that I could not see the walls, it seemed to go on forever. I followed the male and female spirits down the main aisle of this building to one of the rows where we turned right. Then we moved down a little and stopped at one of the file cabinets. The male pulled one of the drawers open and the female pulled out one of the folders. Somehow I knew that this was my folder.

They put the folder on a nearby table and opened it up. They began pointing at the sheet of paper that sat at the top of the stack inside my folder. They would look at me and point and then look at the paper and point. I understood that they wanted me to see what was on this piece of paper. I examined it and saw what looked like a logo. It was a four part image where four repeating parts joined together to form a sphere. I looked harder but I just couldn't comprehend it all. Each time I thought I knew what it was, it would change. It was like some holograph or something. I studied that thing for as long as I could but after a few minutes, a red theatre curtain began to drop with the folder, the spirits, and the everything else on one side and me on the other. The man and woman bent down to wave to me as the curtain reached the floor. It was very cute to see and I tried to wave back.

I opened my eyes and I was back in my room. I was crying. I began to touch my face gently with my fingertips. I could still see the patterns of energy wherever I looked. I sat up and faced my roomate sitting on the couch. His whole body was a vibration of moving colored lights. I began to describe what he looked like, then I remembered what had happened. I got so excited I jumped up and started screaming for a pen.

"Please give me a pen, Oh my god, I need a pen before I forget." I wanted to attempt to draw the image I had seen. I made my best attempt at recreating it but knew that I could never actually reproduce it, at least not in this dimension. What I produced, however, was a logo for the Electronaut, a magazine whose goal was to introduce ancient spiritual techniques to modern culture. It eventually led to the founding of this program. I'm not sure if I would have had such dedication to this cause if I didn't honestly believe that I was meant to do it.

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> Ayahuasca, drank
This was during my third ceremony with the shaman Don Juan. It was held in his house near Iquitos. The ceremony had been going on for a couple of hours and I was feeling the effects of the brew and Juan's icaros in a big way. I was feeling very confident about what I could do in this state.

Sitting there in my white, plastic chair, I considered the concept of visiting with spirits. I had communicated with them using my mind, telepathically. I wondered if I could focus my intention on visiting with a specific spirit and thus travel to wherever and see and speak with them. I felt quite certain that this was possible. It seemed like as long as I could imagine it, it was possible. I immediately considered visiting with Buddha. But for some reason, I decided that he must be bombarded with visits and because I didn't have a real reason to see him, I shouldn't bother him. Perhaps I could feel his compassion just by thinking about him, and wanted to let him be in peace. My mind raced as I tried to pick someone else to visit.

Bob Marley. It was so simple. Many times I had thought about who I'd most like to have seen in concert: Jimi, Miles, and of course, Bob. Since I'd been in Peru, I'd heard more Bob Marley songs than anything else. His music is like a global peace movement. I grew up with it, danced to it, smoked herb to it, drove my car to it, went to sleep with it. If there was anyone I'd like to bring back, it would be him. He helped to build a cultural perspective that may save the human race. I wanted to visit Bob Marley, to say thank you for letting me know there was a path to follow.

So, I started saying in my mind, 'I want to see Bob Marley,' over and over again. I closed my eyes and entered an infinitely deep black void, like outer space. There were no snakes, no spirits, nothing. I was just calling out to Bob, expressing my intentions to the universe. I called many times with great determination. After a short time, a spirit appeared, walking out of the darkness into the area a few feet in front of me. It was Bob Marley. Even though I had just been calling to him, I couldn't believe my eyes. I knew it was him, but I was still frozen. I fumbled to say something, mumbling in broken spanish that it was an honor to meet him. Why was I speaking in spanish? no idea. Bob put up his hand and said, "Ya man, ya," nodding and smiling gently. I loved him more than ever.

'Bob doesn't speak spanish, silly,' I reminded myself. Then Bob waved goodbye and laughed a little as he turned and walked away. He knew I didn't need him for anything. I giggled a little too, thinking about how dumbfounded I'd become. 'What a cool guy Bob was,' I thought. He really was. And I had just met him. I really felt like I had just met the one and only Bob Marley. It was totally awesome and I wanted more. I wanted to visit with another spirit, another good one like Bob. I started thinking about the people that I'd looked up to over the years, the ones who had played important roles influencing my life. I quickly decided on who it should be.

Babatunde Olatunji was a truly remarkable man. He introduced the western world to tribal African rhythms with an album called 'Drums of Passion' back in 1969 and ever since has taught the world the ancient music of his homeland. I had seen him in concert twice. I purchased my first drum a few weeks after seeing him perform at the University of Massachusetts. He was more than just a musician. He was a spiritual leader who used the drum to express the truth of universal energy. His message was 'love, love, love.' He touched my soul in a similar way as Bob had. He had passed two days after I arrived in Peru. I felt I would need to travel to visit him rather than call him to me. I looked up to him like a teacher and had a tremendous amount of respect for him and everything he had done for me and humankind itself.

I closed my eyes and concentrated on going to see Babatunde. I saw myself flying through the infinite blackness of the outer reality, or whatever it was. Soon I arrived at a set of stairs with a very large, fat man sitting on the steps. It didn't look like Babatunde, who was actually a small, skinny man, but I knew that it was him in spiritual form. I knew he had a powerful spirit and I assumed that this was how his spirit looked. I took a seat on a stair beneath him and put my arm on his knee, looking up at him in admiration. I loved him. As I looked at him, He began to transform, similar to the way the monsters would. He didn't turn into a monster though. Instead, he shifted into a gorgeous pegasus, flapping its wings, then into a beautiful orchid, then petals of color poured out of it as it morphed through animals and plants and drums and people. It was an unbelievable display, making today's cinematic special effects look simple.

I stared at this moving miracle or shapes and figures as it danced right in front of my face, brushing up against me as colors swirled around to reconfigure Babatunde's spirit into another lion or blooming vine. It was like he was showing me what he could do, performing for me in another dimension. I was loving it. Then Babatunde took the form of a horse and somehow pulled me on top of him. I wasn't riding him, however. He was trying to have sex with me. It wasn't normal sex at all, but it definitely felt like sex. I decided my love for him had gone too far and now was turning sexual. I wasn't down with it. I pushed away and politely said, 'no.' Then I moved away from him quickly and decided it was time to leave. I wasn't mad, just a little confused.

'So Babatunde likes sex,' I thought. Not a big deal. It was quite interesting to me how the spirits seemed to have very distinct personalities and powers. Possibilities were endless now, at least in this dimension of reality. Everything I had read or heard but didn't believe now needed reconsideration. I was open to just about anything right about now. I wanted to take advantage of the situation at hand. I thought I should visit with someone else, or I should learn something that I could only learn in this state. My mind raced through all the opportunities that lay before me. Whatever I could think to do, I could do. But what should I think?

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> 10X Salvia Divinorum Extract, smoked
I put about an eighth of a gram of the extract on a little herb in a bubbler. I sat down in an empty room in the dark with the doors closed and the shades drawn. It was nighttime and the room was almost completely black. I had been smoking the extract every day for the last four days, trying to improve my environment and to find the perfect dosage. I had a friend sitting in the other room so that immediately after I could talk about the experience with him.

Before lighting the bowl I said a prayer outloud. I said something like, "To the spirit of salvia, please allow me to see a piece of your wisdom." I took a deep breath, exhaled heavily and then lit and inhaled the salvia extract smoke throught the bubbler. I took a big hit and set the bowl down quickly. Still holding in the hit, I laid down on my back and closed my eyes. I slowly exhaled the hit and the effects of the salvia began to come on strongly.

I felt my mind bending in a familiar way. Something was happening that I could only describe as a shift in dimension. I opened my eyes (I think) and realized that I was no longer in my house. I found myself in the jungle with huge tropical trees towering over me. I was not alone, however. I was sitting in a circle with a group of tribal indians from the rainforest. In the center of the circle was a shaman, or tribal elder of some sort. He was deep in thought. He then pointed at one of the men sitting with me. The man got up and walked off into the darkness of the jungle. Then the tribal elder began to think deeply again.

My mind started racing. I wasn't wondering what I was doing in the rainforest, I was wondering what I should do if the shaman pointed at me. What was going on? What were we being selected for? I began to worry that I would do the wrong thing if I was chosen. Then a voice not my own said, "Don't worry, you will not be selected." I began to relax, at which point I realized that I had just moments earlier been sitting in my room, smoking salvia.

As my mind put together that this scene was not "real," the trees morphed back into the wooden vertical wall panels of the room. The indians disappeared and I found myself alone again in the dark. It was amazing to watch one dimension turn into another. I slowly regained full consciousness, feeling the salvia spirit leave my body through my feet, releasing each part of my body on the way down, until I was me again. I touched my face and said quietly, "hello?" to make sure I was all there.

When I had composed myself, I got up and quickly went into the other room to relay what had happened to me to my friend. His questions allowed me to put the scene back together more accurately and talking about it allowed me to remember the experience much better. Two months later I went to Peru for the first time.

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> DiMethylTryptamine (DMT), smoked
I put about a tenth of a gram of the orange crystals on a little herb in a bubbler. This was the second time I would smoke DMT. I had been drinking and I didn't feel it would be good to smoke under the influence of alcohol, but I let two incredibly curious friends talk me into it. We went down to the basement into an empty, carpeted room. We turned the lights off so that only the light from the hall came through the door. I packed hits for them first and then packed a bowl for myself. I put a large moth ball-like crystal on top of some crystal dust on top of the herb in the bowl. This was a lot, and if I wasn't intoxicated, I probably would've reconsidered my dosage. We were all going to be 'in the zone' together, staggered by about ninety seconds, the time it took me to pack each bowl.

I normally say a prayer before doing something like this. Having experience with salvia divinorum, I know that this helps prepare me and perhaps has influence in the spiritual dimension as well. I was, however, not in the best state of mind, having come back from a bar late at night. I said a quick prayer about learning but didn't really give it a lot of attention. I'm not really sure why I was doing it.

I took a large hit, as usual, and held it in as I laid back on the floor. I knew instantly that this was a really big hit. I heard a large buzzing which was getting louder and louder, as if I was standing on train tracks and the train was coming. I could hear it buzzing and now crackling. I was about to be struck by this train and I couldn't move to get out of the way. I had my eyes closed but as the sound got louder the light got brighter, it was blinding me... then BOOM! I broke the dimensional barrier and produced a psychic boom of some sort. I really don't know what the fuck was happening, it was all coming so fast I could hardly handle it. I was dumbfounded.

The room in the basement was gone, as were my two friends. There was not one recognizable item there. It seemed like I was in a dark cave, although I could not see any walls, or floors for that matter. It was just some space with darkness everywhere, yet light enough to see the entities that seemed to live there. I wish I had gotten a better look at them, but as far as I know, they were elf-like creatures, only a sixth of my height. They were like children.

Immediately after 'breaking through' into the DMT zone, I encountered this group of little elves. They began leaping into my chest, one at a time. They would just jump up and land inside me somehow. Each time an elf entered into my chest, what looked like a film projection would appear from my body out, filling the scene and replacing it with the new projection. New realities seemed to be beaming out from my chest, one after another. I hardly had time to comprehend one reality before an elf was jumping up on me and a new projection was beaming out of me.

I just tried to observe what was happening. It was like trying to watch TV on a roller coaster, a little too much to take in all at once. I couldn't make out what these elves looked like nor could I put together any of the scenes that were flipping in front of me. Perhaps I could have if I was sober going into this, but I doubt it. I watched the elves and the reality beams for a long time, which was actually probably only a minute. Then things really started to get strange.

My entire life began flashing before my eyes. Thousands of memories from my childhood to the present literally zipped through my consciousness so fast that I couldn't actually see any of them. It was like my life was playing on thousands of huge screens and I was quickly zooming past them, really quickly. Then clear as day, I heard one of my best friends voice say, "all I know is that when my friends smoked it they said they died." Panic rushed through me.

"I'm gonna die!"

I realized this the instant before it happened. It was as if I had been falling this whole time and now I had hit the ground. It was all over. The moment of truth had arrived...

I was dead.

I instantaneously accepted this fact and watched my dead body lying on the floor as I floated above it. Then I began to move through dimension after dimension. The further I travelled, the less I remembered who I was until finally, my identity dissolved and there was no longer a me. I saw nothing because there was no me to see it. Black. . . void.

I opened my eyes to find myself back in my body on the floor of the room in the basement. I was still hallucinating intensely, seeing everything as a flowing movement of colored energy, but I was back in the room. I didn't remember anything at first, I just knew that I had lost consciousness and was now regaining it.

"Holy shit!" I managed to say outloud. I began to put together what had happened. At first, I remembered the elves and the reality beams and got incredibly excited and enthusiastic. Then I remembered the death and became freaked out. I couldn't decide if I had really died or not. Neither of my friends had had an out of body experience or had seen any elves. It was a while before I smoked DMT again.

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