What is the Spirit Molecule and My Experience with It -- DMT -- N,N-Dimethyltryptamine and Near Death Experience

Several years ago, my Uncle Felix died of some type of bone cancer at the age of 55. During his illness, I was online for hours trying in vain to learn of something or someone who could end his pain and cure him of his cancer. As days went into months, and the realization that most of us in my family were denying was starting to set in, I began to read up on death and what the final hours of my Uncle Felix's Journey might be like; the point where the physical body can no longer live but the mind's will and desire to live flickers on and off like a low lit candle flickering off and back on until that final flicker off and life is extinguished, and ceases to be.

What is Dimethyltryptamine?

Dimethyltryamine, otherwise known as DMT, is a naturally occurring tryptamine found in many animals, plants and in humans. DMT is also a powerful psychedelic which makes it a Schedule 1 type drug under the U.S. DEA's list of Drug classification. The DEA has ruled that there are no medical uses for DMT, and has made it an illegal substance to buy, possess or distribute.

DMT has been found to be an endogenous compound produce naturally in the human brain. Its exact role and presence in the human body is not fully understood by medical science. It is hypothesized that DMT is produced in the Pineal Gland since melatonin and serotonin are produced there, both are structural analogs of Dimethyltryptamine (DMT), and all it takes is an enzyme to make the change from melatonin or serotonin into DMT. It is hypothesized that the human brain produces DMT every single night while sleeping, and that it is most likely created in the Pineal Gland. DMT is credited for creating the lucid dreams that every human being experiences every night, even if they don't remember them when they awake.

The Pineal Gland is the little red dot.

Dr. Rick Strassman conducted a study from 1990 -1995 on N,N-dimethyltryptamine (DMT) and its effects on humans. During the 5 year study, Dr. Strassman administered about 400 doses of DMT to about 60 volunteers. The study would result in Dr. Strassman's book, DMT: The Spirit Molecule: A Doctor's Revolutionary Research into the Biology of Near-Death and Mystical Experiences and a documentary of the same name. Dr. Strassman recorded the effects and experiences of the volunteers while under the influence of DMT. He refers to DMT as the "Spirit Molecule" because many of the volunteers had visions, voices, and powerful and positive emotions that he associated as religious experiences while under DMT. I watched Dr. Strassman's documentary with much interest and great appreciation with the understanding that My Uncle's last moments on Earth would possibly be a painless and great mental experience.

I then found more research on Hallucinogens and the terminally ill. Around 1965 through the early 1970's, Dr. Stanislav Grof treated patients that had terminal cancer with LSD before anyone ever spurted the words "Acid Trip." The patients reported to Dr. Grof that their anxiety about dying had greatly diminished, and made the quality of life better for those patients waiting for the final moments.

Then the "War on Drugs" started in the 1970's and all research and funding stopped on the study of psychedelics like LSD or even on plants like Marijuana. Then in the 1990's Dr. Rick Strassman cracked the door open to the study of psychedelics on the human anatomy. Many World wide studies on psychedelics have since been conducted. For example, in 2005, Dr. Charles S. Grob conducted a study on psilocybin, a hallucinogen or psychedelic and its effects on terminally ill patients. All of Dr. Grob's patients reported a positive experience as well as less anxiety about their impending death. The patients came to understand and accept their deaths.

My Uncle Felix's passing was a very difficult experience for me. I had experienced death before, but this time it was especially close. My Uncle Felix was more like an older brother than an Uncle, and his death at the age of 55 seemed very unfair. I felt cheated of a friend and family member. I questioned my existence and the existence of anything and everything around me. I eventually rebounded and as the saying goes, "time heals all wounds."

It was a couple of years after my Uncle's passing, when a friend of mine talked about his experience with DMT. I remembered Dr. Strassman's study and documentary, and then told my friend that I would be interested in he ever came across some. I then pursued more information and learned that the certain native tribes of South America drink a brewed tea called Ayahuasca, and its active ingredient is DMT. These natives somehow learned that DMT is metabolized by the liver within 15 minutes or so, thus when they make their Ayahuasca tea for their ceremonies, they include a plant that neutralizes the enzyme in the liver that processes DMT. This allows for a DMT experience to last several hours. I saw a documentary on Ayahuasca, Vine of the Soul and was now convinced that given the opportunity, I would try DMT.

My friend told me to come over to his place because he had some DMT for me to try. He had already tried it, and now it was my turn. I all I had to do was relax and get comfortable as though I was going to recline and watch a movie or fall asleep watching that movie. I did that, then he had me sit forward while he prepared a "smoke hit" of the DMT. He placed some DMT powder on a glass pipe he had heated and I inhaled the smoke. Within seconds I felt a vibration of sound, like 3 small shock waves near my ears, and the unstoppable urge to close my eyes and sleep.

I laid back, my eyes rolled back and I could not help the smile that came across my lips on its own. I melted into that smile that now felt like a large wavy smile that I could see as I sunk into the dark abysss of the couch. I was physically sitting on the couch but could no longer feel it. I no longer felt my body or anything else. I was floating in a surrounding darkness for a split second. Then I looked up and saw a large smiling 3D Buddha outlined by different colored fractal shapes. The entire Buddha was covered by these blinking and moving shapes. His robe, his smiling face, his eyes, his body, and even the floral patterns in his robe were outlined by blinking moving shapes that looked like marching ants.

This is similar to what I experienced, except it was the Chinese version of Buddha Smiling
It felt like I was floating without a sense of body or time. I saw sounds in the forms of "light rays." The longer the sound, the longer the "light ray." In those moments, I felt as though my physical self did not exist. It felt like I did not know that I did not exist, as though I had forgotten myself or who I was or ever existed. In those moments it did not matter. Nothing mattered. Time did not exist. It felt like floating in space, almost ghost like. I felt so at peace and alleviated of the human body constraint. I imagine that is what the mind or soul must feel like without flesh, just floating there in that vastness, seeing that smiling Buddha felt eternal. The overwhelming sense of tranquility felt all encompassing, and then my eyes slowly fluttered open, as though they were no longer taped shut. I felt my hands and arms and then my body again, and just like that I was awake.

10/29/16
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sources:

wikipedia.org
wikimedia.org
http://thescienceexplorer.com/brain-and-body/psychedelic-drug-may-be-released-our-brains-we-die
http://www.dailymail.co.uk/health/article-2984116/Terminally-ill-LSD-says-former-government-drug-tsar-sacked-saying-acid-safer-alcohol.html
http://www.nytimes.com/2012/04/22/magazine/how-psychedelic-drugs-can-help-patients-face-death.html
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/15780487
https://www.dea.gov/druginfo/ds.shtml
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC5021697/
https://www.rickstrassman.com/

picture sources:
pic 1
pic 2 / wikimedia.org
pic 3 / wikimedia.org
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pic 5