The 6 Levels of DMT | Psychedelics Described

dimethyltryptamine is a compound full of Mystique it has been called The Spirit Molecule it is a component of substances that have been used in spiritual and religious ceremonies for Untold millennia and the experience of it can dissipate in barely more than an instance in the context of Our Lives unlike most psychoactive compounds dimethyltryptamine is native to the human body it's a naturally occurring endogenous byproduct within a huge variety of plants and animals it's something that our biology knows intimately and that our bodies are very good at cleaning away because of this even very strong amounts of smokes or vaporized dimethyltryptamine typically wear off within about 15 minutes you're watching the six levels of dimethyltryptamine a key Concept in describing dimethyltryptamine is the idea of breaking through a breakthrough is when a psychedelic experience is intense to the point that you no longer perceive yourself as being in the physical room where your body objectively is as with other psychedelics it only happens during strong to extreme intensity experiences on dimethyltryptamine the famed magnitude of breakthrough dimethyltryptamine experiences combined with the short-lived duration has resulted in a lot of people treating it almost like a terrifying spiritual roller coaster that you hop on change your life and Hop Off however this is rarely how it plays out even when you're trying and it's not to order dimethyltryptamine can be now before we go any further please note that this video is for educational purposes only keep in mind that everyone responds to psychedelics differently a huge portion of people seem to have uncommon or even abnormal experiences of psychedelics in their sensitivity to amount subjective effects and physical side effects don't expect to have the same experience as me or anyone else it's really best to have an open mind When approaching mind-altering substances and to prioritize safety and your own mental and physical well-being also please see the description for a list of the sources my co-writer and I used in making this video which is heavily based on an article I originally wrote for effectsindex.com and informed by my perspective as a professional psychedelic researcher experienced Psychonauts longtime writer in the field of subjective effects and the creator of the subjective effect index if you aren't familiar with my psychedelic experience intensity scale you can watch my dedicated video on the seven levels of the Psychedelic experience Linked In the description though this video will discuss some common effects of different experience intensities of inhaled vaporize nnimethyltryptamine specifically we have not included level zero sub perceptual as it typically is not relevant to inhaled dimethyltryptamine and with all that said let's get started level one subtle this level of dimethyltryptamine experiences can actually be kind of relaxing at the lightest amounts the effects are indistinct but colors in the room can become brighter Vision can assume sharper particularly when viewing fine details you can begin to experience a subtle visual drifting sounds or especially music can become just slightly more noticeable or enjoyable the textures and pressures of your clothes the furniture you're sitting on or objects you're holding can become more noticeable your eyes might seek out patterns or notice that shapes in your surroundings resemble symbols or faces your mind can become prone to wandering thinking in ideas more than in words and perceiving the mundane is more interesting than usual there can be some form of mild paresthesia which are internal Sensations such as slight tingling warmth buzziness or effervescence that may feel like they're moving across your skin in your veins or running down your spine level two mild at this level the effects from Level 1 become a bit stronger more perceptible and more distinct visual drifting can become more pronounced and complex textures and patterns can begin to mirror and replicate in Your Vision which we call symmetrical texture repetition colors can appear to change not just brighter but distorting to a different Hue which we call color distortion faint yet colorful psychedelic geometry can begin to appear especially as a closed eye visual details of things you can see become more extreme distorted and exaggerated which we call ascetic distortion parasisia can become more noticeable while it may not be sedating exactly you may be inclined to be still and quietly taking the experience people also sometimes feel that dimethyltryptamine has a well of its own the subjective effect index has a wide category of autonomous entities this category comprises all forms of beings that are perceived as an effect of an altered state of consciousness and it seemed to have their own feelings thoughts or sense of agency a sensed presence is the perception of an autonomous entity without any specific hallucination people may perceive a sense presence from the dimethyltryptamine itself that it has opinions about them or that it may approve or disapprove of the fact that they are taking dimethyltryptamine and want them to stop or continue once a person has some experience with dimethyltryptamine they may even fill the dimethyltryptamine has a mind of its own while sober level three moderate even about a breakthrough level 3 takes you distinctly outside a sober mental state the effects are disorientating and depending on personality and current mental health some may find the come up for anxiety-inducing or terrifying dimethyltryptamine is safer than substances like alcohol by many metrics but it can briefly reduce or suspend a person's feeling of control over their own mind and reality if you feel like you must rely on your own feeling of control losing it can be quite challenging generally the visual effects from previous levels will be present and intensified symmetrical texture repetition and visual drifting may become much more intense an effect which we call ascetic distillation may occur which we Define as a reduction of detail that maintains or enhances ascetic appeal giving the world a painterly or even cartoonish appearance creative external hallucinations may occur such as transformations of objects in your environment visual geometry May obscure parts of your vision the external world may become disorientating and difficult to understand due to a combination of the visual and cognitive effects You Close Your Eyes there will likely be very complex geometry with very bright colors and high contrast designs that can shift in complex multi-dimensional ways a variety of internal hallucinations may also occur even though you still have awareness of your physical body your impression of your surroundings may change even if you can see some version of the location you're in and remember things about it it may feel like it is in some way a different place than before as if some level of mundanity has been stripped from it and it is metaphysically transported at this level a brief but powerful sedation can set in making your body feel heavier like you're sinking more deeply into the furniture you may become increasingly inclined to lay down which becomes more overwhelming at higher levels your proprioception or your internal awareness of the position of your body may become distorted aspects of your body may feel as if they're drifting further away close to a breakthrough you may feel less intrinsically connected to your body even if you're still receiving sensory input at this level the dimethyltryptamine trip will have a defined Arc of come up Peak and come down different effects will Surge and recede which causes other effects to become more noticeable until the Psychedelic effects evaporate all together level four wrong if you know this channel you know that we take a materialist stance we personally think that the complexity of the human brain and the strangeness of the material world can explain the Psychedelic experience without necessitating the supernatural magic psychic powers or alternate Dimensions consider this a warning regardless of what you or I see or experience on dimethyltryptamine we will assume that we will all simply trip in Bulls that said I'm happy to agree to disagree and I do know some people who I view as reasonable that disagree with me on this point at level 4 are strong experiences the effects of dimethyltryptamine become characterized by all-encompassing geometry and hallucinatory states the user typically feels like they have broken through into the hallucinatory dimethyltryptamine space and the trip begins to follow distinct durational stages which have been well documented by psychedelic communities online strong dimethyltryptamine experiences are typically the minimum that is considered a full dimethyltryptamine experience to many online and the vast majority of trip reports seem to be for strong heavy or extreme experiences foreign the first stage is taking off which culminates in breaking through at this stage effects become stronger until they overwhelm the experience of the sober or outside world there are many different forms of taking off that have been reported on dimethyltryptamine and some examples include increasingly intense geometry which becomes so all-enveloping that the visible environment is completely blocked out and replaced feelings of being suddenly pushed through and onto the other side of a membrane the environment forming into a geometry-filled tunnel which the user moves into as it widens and subsequently encompasses their entire vision the environment splitting into separated sections leaving a gaping Chasm filled with high level geometry as the user separates from their body and is then catapulted directly into it at a high speed waiting rooms the second recognized state is a waiting room initially after breaking through there is sometimes a brief period of time during which a person has broken through and no longer feels that they are in the sober world but they are not yet on the so-called other side this stage may have hallucinatory motifs such as being in a literal waiting room but its primary characteristic is a feeling that a person is waiting for something or that something is about to happen the waiting room doesn't always take place during a breakthrough trip which will go into a bit more later and also sometimes a waiting room Fizzles out and never actually pushes through onto the other side the other side once the waiting room stages either finished or skipped over you'll typically feel that you have broken through into what is commonly referred to as the other side or hyperspace the third stage foreign ly wide variety of potential hallucinatory content can manifest on the other side but there are certain themes and archetypes that have been reported as particularly common a common experience of this stage is that it is a hallucinated alternate reality that feels more real than everyday life or may feel oddly familiar or accompanied with feelings of harm in regards to this Terence McKenna is absolutely quoted as saying it has the quality of an event rather than an experience foreign in terms of the visual aesthetic these hallucinatory spaces settings and scenes are usually overlaid with or made of and comprehensibly complex psychedelic geometry [Music] examples of dimethyltryptamine spaces include Landscapes fractal Scapes rooms buildings cities tunnels Caverns non-euclidean structures resembling a hive or nest womb-like environments and anything and everything else that the human brain is capable of rendering dimethyltryptamine spaces sometimes contain autonomous entities these entities can take any form and we will go into the statistical data on this later but they commonly manifest as otherworldly creatures aliens and spirits of a colorful and geometric appearance entities may act as if they have been waiting for your arrival and they are usually unfazed by the person's sudden apparition upon noticing you dimethyltryptamine entities May enthusiastically greet you the reactions of surprise indifference or ambivalence are also common entities May convey a sense of urgency as though attempting to demonstrate a multitude of incredible things during the short amount of time that they have before the trepense the communication Styles entities use very significantly and may include spoken language direct manipulation of the visual environment choreographed movements telepathy information filled beams of energy objects that convey information or any combination of the above and they often present themselves as Unknowing the messages from entities often feel personalized and related to your life or emotional well-being but can also contain aspects that seem entirely nonsensical or ineffable when removed from the context of the experience even while experiencing intense hallucinations at this intensity range you may still feel partially connected to your physical body as you Traverse hallucinatory spaces people often automatically close their eyes and allow themselves to be immersed in the internal experience however if you suddenly open your eyes Midway through the trip you will likely leave the hallucinatory space at that point the Open Eye visual effects will typically be less intense but if you close your eyes again you could either emerge back into the same hallucinatory scenario or simply experience intense psychedelic geometry for the remainder of the trip [Music] many report feeling surprisingly lucid and clear-headed during low-level dimethyltryptamine breakthroughs in comparison to equally intense experiences on psilocybin masculine or lysergic acid diethylamide although they are common it is worth noting that these entity-filled hallucinatory spaces do not occur for every person and typically are not consistent in their manifestation between trips a certain number of people do not seem to experience hallucinations at all and instead simply find themselves engulfed in all-encompassing high-level geometry during the stage of the dimethyltryptamine experience it's also worth noting that people with aphantasia or those who do not mentally visualize may never experience visual effects at all and dimethyltryptamine or any other hallucinogen after between 2 and 10 minutes of this stage dimethyltryptamine trip will begin to wear off and move into its fourth and final stage the final stage concludes the trip beginning with departure from the other side you may feel a sensation of being pulled progressively further away from the dimethyltryptamine space the hallucinations may become increasingly vague and ill-defined until imperceptible or there may be some other breaking apart or disintegration of the hallucinatory space during this process the entities will sometimes Bid Farewell and encourage the person to visit again once the departure is complete you will typically be back in the room where you took off still experiencing strong visual geometry which progressively fades in the same way that a dream is commonly forgotten upon waking up detailed memories of dimethyltryptamine experiences also often deteriorate once the trip has ended this Amnesia can be mitigated by quickly documenting the trip through taking notes recounting the trip to another person in detail recording a narration of the experience etc etc even as the overt psychedelic effects fade you may experience a sense of being bathed in Euphoria and all sometimes complete astonishment at what you have seen or experienced the geometry typically Fades over the course of another five to ten minutes leaving a strong body height that can persist for up to half an hour in extreme cases level five heavy level 5 or heavy experiences will generally still have about the same stages as strong experiences but the trip will begin to be characterized by a disintegration or complete loss of your sense of self or ego which we call absent selfhood instead of just breaking through to the other side of the dimethyltryptamine space you may temporarily lose touch with what the mundane world is what time is and who you are as an individual the hallucinatory visuals of the other side will sometimes increase in Clarity and overall complexity the content of these hallucinations is more likely to adopt themes that are commonly interpreted as otherwildly alien Transcendent or from a higher plane of existence on the other hand some people also report that their hallucinations do not become better defined at higher levels but instead break down and become increasingly fast moving formless rapidly shape-shifting and incoherent the Psychedelic headspace at this level becomes even more intense and there is a much higher likelihood of intense transpersonal States and spirituality enhancement these states may include feelings of inextricable unity between oneself and the rest of existence metaphysical insights into the supposed nature of reality and feelings of deep spiritual reverence towards the universe as a whole for more information on the full range of mystical and transpersonal experiences please see mine and my co-writers Taylor string a heavy experience is the level at which the Practical upper limits of what the substance is capable of producing is reached many people don't experience any further insights or therapeutic benefits Beyond this level level six extreme an extreme dimethyltryptamine experience is the level at which the effects have become so powerful and pronounced that the person will typically be rendered unconscious and amnesic at most this level can provide similar potential psychological benefits as the previous level but it generally cannot go beyond that at this level the peak will simply include absent Salford blacking out and becoming unconscious for a period of time that can range anywhere from 10 minutes to half an hour in extreme cases although extreme psychedelic States may be attractive to certain individuals it's important to consider that this level of intensity is both less therapeutic and explorative than the previous level however it is also worth noting that dimethyltryptamine is considerably less dangerous at this range than most other psychedelics due to its extremely short duration and comparative lack of intense physical side effects someone who is inexperienced with psychedelic substances may experience anxiety and fear throughout the duration of the trip at any level this is not an inherent attribute of the dimethyltryptamine trip but is more likely a response to being thrust into a profoundly complex bizarre overwhelming and unfamiliar situation as with any hallucinogen it is always safest to slowly increase an inexperienced person's amount in small increments over the course of multiple trips at the rate which the user is comfortable with and with sufficient time to reflect and integrate instead of just a thrill seeking in one's own brain physical side effects dimethyltryptamine induces much fewer physical side effects than more typical psychedelics many people experience no specific physical side effects at all from inhaled dimethyltryptamine likely because it never interacts with the stomach though it does require inhaling very harsh hot vapor which many people find difficult and very uncomfortable or even painful this can be mitigated somewhat but is not entirely avoidable [Music] we conducted a poll on my YouTube Community Tab and found that more than half of respondents who have tried inhaled dimethyltryptamine don't experience any negative physical side effects at all and only 12.5 report physical side effects that negatively impact the experience for those who do experience side effects the most common are nausea headaches feelings of breathlessness and altered the thermoregulation such that they become overly warm or uncomfortably chilled during or shortly after the trip After Effects despite the brevity of a dimethyltryptamine trip many people can experience very powerful After Effects a lingering sense of cognitive Rejuvenation well-being and mental Clarity can sometimes last for hours days or even weeks after a dimethyltryptamine experience getting therapeutic benefits Beyond just an Afterglow can rely much more on setting intentions ahead of the trip and mindful integration afterwards [Music] foreign ER and co-writer Emily here to speak on the more academic side of things as Josie mentioned earlier some research has come out last May in 2022 about the content of dimethyltryptamine hallucinations and other effects reported in a set of trip reports to give you a general idea of the methodology researchers Lawrence Carhart Harris Griffiths and Timmerman collected sorted coded and statistically analyzed trip reports that had been posted to the dimethyltryptamine subreddit excluding reports as needed such as those for five Meo dimethyltryptamine or acodimethyltryptamine or alternate routes of administration you can find a link to the article in the description I'll be discussing the numbers for the segment of reports for just dimethyltryptamine no additional reported compounds as is typical for n and dimethyltryptamine the reports were majority level 4 or higher experiences often breakthroughs which is probably because those are the kinds of dimethyltryptamine experiences that are most recognized as significant and worth sharing I find the results really interesting but as I dug deeper into it I began to notice some things that I personally attribute to the limitations of using trip reports for data of this kind many psychedelic experiences include so many different effects both vague and distinct expected and unexpected that people will vary significantly on what they think of to write down for example only 31 percent of reports mentioned seeing fractals geometric shapes Kaleidoscope effects mandalas chrysanthemums sacred geometry or unspecified patterns basically anything we would consider psychedelic geometry from our personal experiences and conversations with Psychonauts these results seem to be out of step with the typical experience so we went to Josie's Community Tab and created a poll after we tweaked our phrasing to avoid confusion for those who haven't tried dimethylcryptamine our results pretty closely matched what we would expect after isolating just the responses from people who have tried dimethotryptamine and rounding as needed we find that around 73 percent of people from our pole sample see psychedelic geometry every time they inhale and end dimethyltryptamine and only around seven percent never see any patterns fractals Etc so for psychedelic geometry to be reported less than a third of the time supports what I have long suspected that people will often emit effects from their reports that are very basic normal or even mundane to experience Psychonauts this isn't necessarily A Fault of the trip reporters or the scientists to be clear they know the limitation of using trip reports in the article itself it's just a natural limitation of the form and I think we will never be able to really put together a solid picture of common psychedelic effects from trip reports alone on the other hand I suspected that effects like autonomous entity contacts would be much more likely to be mentioned in trip reports entity encounters were indeed the most common individual effect noted in the trip reports which sent me right back to Josie's Community tab the results of this poll seem to indicate that 44.8 percent of trip reports including entities isn't necessarily that far out of the ordinary since entities were the most common noted effects here are some of the stats on the entities themselves looking at the most common attitudes for entities we have benevolence as the front runner with 36.3 percent of entity is being identified as benevolent kind compassionate or altruistic welcoming and loving were also fairly common attitudes making up 12 and 8.3 respectively much less common were negative attitudes like malicious or threatening entities with 5.2 percent and angry or sad with 2.9 percent playful or mischievous entity is made up 4.7 percent the most common actions reported for entities also think it's a pretty positive picture with guiding showing and comforting slash protecting taking up the top slots with 23.2 percent and 11.6 respectively examining observing scanning or analyzing come next with 7.6 percent which I see as a fairly neutral action though may be more positive or negative depending on a person's self-analysis or attitude toward themselves dancing singing or partying occurred among 7.2 percent of entities which is interesting in that it's the action category that is the least explicitly interactive with the subject most identified categories are directly interacting with or acting on the subject whereas dancing singing or partying could be something an entity is doing for themself the remaining action categories are all under five percent and the ones with at least 50 incidences in descending order are testing or offering a choice surgery procedure operation injection or experimentation implantation of device healing controlling or altering the visuals of the experience transferring knowledge and beckoning or summoning two most common visual descriptors for psychedelic entities were basically no description at all either entity or presence not otherwise specified or female entity or feminine presence not otherwise specified together these two categories made up more than half of entities that 56.6 percent this implies that for many people who encounter entities and write about their experiences the behavior of the entities is more significant than their visual appearance it's also interesting to see that masculine entities not otherwise specified was not a category which implies that entities are more likely to have overt feminine characteristics than overt masculine characteristics among the trip reporters on the subreddit though it was much more common for entities to have no gender at all looking at the results and reading trip reports I started to think that the level of human-like characteristics detected from entities may vary humans typically have a gender or at least situate themselves in a society with gendered expectations we have ages and stages in a finite lifetime we have families and relationships to each other entities may give impressions of these human-like characteristics but they can also seem to be completely inhuman without a number of human-like traits yet still be highly intelligent and have a sense of agency which is something we often don't experience outside of hallucinations we did also run a poll on this topic and I don't want to draw any really strong conclusions from it at this stage it seems like the way that people conceptualize gender in relation to hallucinations is something that could be very complex and could be both related to what people see and how they describe it but there was some speculation in the comments that people might be more likely to see entities of the opposite gender from themself so I don't know where we're going to take that observation right now but it's it's something that I am like really curious about before I finish there was one other little thing in this study that started bugging me if you're familiar with the way we or dimethyltryptamine Nexus talk about waiting rooms they'll note that it's a stage of transition between starting to come up and being in an immersive hallucination involves a feeling of waiting for something significant to happen which could involve visual hallucinations such as a waiting room or a fractal sleep Passage well in their data waiting rooms are categorized as a type of room location that people might hallucinate and was noted in 2.9 percent of reports I did suspect that the waiting room stage is less ubiquitous than people might think but I didn't even know what exactly this 2.9 number was telling me if they were looking for someone to say that they found themselves in an actual waiting room so obviously I went back to Josie's Community tab for a fresh pull and okay so the waiting room stage is probably reasonably common though not at all ubiquitous this possible confusion and interpretation is just something that can happen when normal people try to make sense of Internet stuff particularly in Niche online communities even so it's so exciting to see research like this coming out there is increasing effort and money going into the field of documenting the effects of psychedelics we're living through a cultural transformation and attitudes towards psychedelics in the mainstream and I applaud these researchers for contributing to the field even though I think the methodology has significant room for improvement personal commentary it would not be an understatement to say that dimethyltryptamine is one of the most important and intriguing psychoactive substances in existence the ease through which it can reliably transport the majority of people into inevitably complex and profound psychedelic States is perhaps completely unmatched however it is because of these capabilities that this substance has developed a reputation which is surrounded by misconceptions and cultural mysticism more so than any other psychedelic compounds for example in his book The Spirit Molecule Strassman speculated that dimethyltryptamine may be released by the pineal gland during birth death and dreaming scientists have investigated this idea and at the time of writing it looks like the pineal gland is probably not involved in any notable releases of dimethyltryptamine another common claim that I personally disagree with is that dimethyltryptamine literally transports the user's Consciousness to an alternate Dimension a higher plane of transcendental existence particularly as popularized by Terence McKenna I can definitely empathize with these perspectives given how dimethyltryptamine experiences can be incomprehensibly profound and bathed in a feeling of the hyper real more genuine than that of mundane life however scientific inquiry has increasingly demonstrated that the human brain is functionally an unbelievably powerful supercomputer so much so that it is arguably the most complex system in the known universe I would therefore definitely advise against underestimating its abilities to render and simulate inevitably complex hallucinatory environments beings and life-changing transpersonal or mystical experiences finally I also disagree with the common notion that dimethyltryptamine is only for the most experienced of Psychonauts a lot of people seem to think that dimethyltryptamine experiences have to be extreme or even overwhelming either because they think that it's an inherent quality of the substance or because they think that only breakthrough experiences count however it's important to remember that this compound has an intensity range based on the amount consumed just like any other psychedelic in fact when consumed to add subtle to moderate amounts this compound is wonderful for beginners as it allows a person to experience psychedelia for a few minutes before promptly returning to sobriety in comparison most other psychedelics which are consumed orally force a person to commit to a several hour trip in which a difficult or challenging experience becomes much more likely dimethyltryptamine like other psychedelics will not change your life on its own the experiences people have on dimethyltryptamine can be meaningful profound terrifying confusing and interesting but so can other experiences it's so common for people to have intense beautiful experiences that feel profoundly meaningful sober or not but a few weeks later life is back to normal almost as if it never happened conversely dramatic experiences stick to our mind Like Glue dredging back up at the slightest provocation getting through and past our traumas Tech's work and it's not always possible the way we might want it to be dimethyltryptamine can be a tool that's incredibly useful and important but it shouldn't be exalted as a Divine Miracle nor treated like a toy if you've made it this far into the video thanks so much for watching this video has been a huge project to definitely the biggest that we've done on this channel we're really proud of How It's all turned out it's been four months of work for us to try to get this out here and we're so excited to to finally have it out to everybody yeah so I just want to credit the artists that we collaborated with directly first of all I suppose I wrote the original article that this video was based on but Emily here turned it into an actually workable script and put a lot of effort into making this video possible we also worked with the Psychedelic artist hypnagogist who did a ton of the video editing and the introduction animation sequence for this video also worked with Foss form previously known as Woodfield and he did the audio editing for this video as well as local Vision who did the replication effects that you can see around me right now so as you may be aware YouTube is getting increasingly strict when it comes to psychedelic or psychoactive substance related content on this platform which has led to us having to self-censor quite a bit and over time it's just becoming increasingly impractical to have this sort of stuff on this website so if you could consider supporting me on patreon I would greatly appreciate it the lowest tier gives access to a private Discord server which I'm active in on a relatively daily basis and the height is allow for one-on-one direct communication with me in which I can do things such as provide mentorship or analyze your experiences this video has taken so much effort that my next plans for the channel are shorter form in nature we're probably going to release a few different videos on the topic of specific visual distortions showcasing them with accompanying replications some other video essay topics that we've had coming down the pipeline is we've been thinking about it for a while one on Shadow People and especially the high Batman there's definitely some more things to talk about that now since it has had this little cultural moment and then also I am looking forward to doing some more content about some of the research that's coming out about the subjective effects of psychedelics and especially comparisons between different psychedelics you can follow us both on Twitter at our various social media handles thanks again for watching and we'll see you next time [Music] [Music] [Music]

Channel: Josie Kins

Views: 949,892

Keywords:

Id: 8mZEtiMvqIU

Length: 38min 54sec (2334 seconds)

Published: Fri Feb 24 2023