DMT Death Trip

I first discovered dimethyltryptamine (DMT)—or as some mystics claim: it discovered me—down in that labyrinthine virtual underworld that is the dark web. I was searching for something to buy with the Bitcoin that had been gifted to me by a random anon from the anonOps Internet Relay Chat room back in 2009—back when whole Bitcoins were easy to find and I wore a Warner Brothers Guy Fawkes mask as I played at computer terminals late into the night.

After initially recoiling in horror at the terrible monsters of the dark web I became more and more obsessed reading the advertisements for various illicit performance enhancing substances: Including speed, steroids, nootropics, and psychedelics. But it was an out-of-this-world website for DMT that completely fascinated my attention. I was promised a short, relatively safe, and non addictive fifteen minutes of chemically induced religious ecstasy, a glimpse into the occult mechanics of consciousness, and even temporary enlightenment (whatever that was supposed to mean.) All for a very reasonable price! The product image on the website was of a tiny pile of clear DMT crystals, apparently extracted from the ayahuasca vine of the Amazon. The webpage was decorated with technicolor fractal geometric Aztec patterns. Reading further I was informed that five percent of the the proceeds would go to protecting the Amazon jungle and its native peoples.

There were also rudimentary notes on mysticism, awakening, and safety procedures associated with ego death. Information apparently passed down from ancient shamans and sent out through the optic-fibre nerve of the internet to every wanna-be cyber-psychonaut who so desired it. Information about death and after-death, the meaning of art, free will, consciousness, what is meant by the soul, and something about the relationship of madness and shamanism. All of this was completely and diametrically opposed to my then disenchanted, rational, robotic and even semi-autistic world view where music and love were simply noise to a child who worshipped the machine, atheism, and science.

A few days later a small package arrived at my doorstep, inconspicuously stamped with a familiar geometric sigil placed just under my address and alias. The package contained a set of marker pens and inside the empty chamber of one of them was a zip-lock bag of the crystals. I hid them inside my computer case, where they stayed for about six months.

I remember sitting alone at the centre of my empty hospital-fluorescent-white cubic studio apartment breathing deeply and deliberately, calling up all of my courage and calm. I’d packed a freshly cleaned glass water pipe with a thin layer of dried and ground blue lotus—used as a burning agent—, gently placed the crystals on top, then covered them with more of the blue lotus herb. Then I held the loaded pipe to my mouth and began attempting to empty my mind, sitting with crossed legs, as my heart beat against the rib cage of my chest and I advanced towards ego suicide.

I read silently from notes I’d taken from that original website: “I am not my thoughts, I am that which observes, the witness, the all-seeing I, the axis centre of nothing around which the world turns; I am not my fear, I am not the thoughts that swim across the waters of consciousness. Let it all pass on by until nothing remains.” titled: Self-annihilating Talk.

Finally telling myself that all great knowledge is acquired only at great risk, and pledging my allegiance to the universe where I acquire the DMT knowledge, I draw in deeply and calmly to the cracking sparks of the water pipe directly under my astonished eyes. The vapour flowed out in an azure of tribal tattoo patterns that permeated all space around me. I placed the bong down between my legs and let myself fall back onto the bed. Laughing out loud as I look down to what appears to be a giant phallus (the bong) far off down there between my legs—and from out the opening ejected my mystical smoke spores.

Further I fell down, down through the bed, into the bedrock of the back of my mind.

The world gave way; the dream began.

To be continued ...