Flickering
Bluelighter
One frequent thing people report from DMT is deja vu, "I've been here before!" I have a theory I mean to test by smoking some in the near future. I've never taken DMT before, but the time is coming up.
I have excellent long-term memory. I have a collection of memories from ages three and four, and a smattering of others at two and a couple going back to eighteen months, some of which I've had confirmed from an outside source actually happened. Laced in each of these earliest memories was a sense, often pre-lingual, of burgeoning self-awareness. Orienting my sense of self in time, being aware that the present moment is just one in a continuum. Each moment comes back to me as a sort of subtly spiritual experience.
The impressions I get from those times are often quite surreal and deep. To a mind that's just barely learning language, the entire world seems timeless, eternal, and magic. Possibilities are unbounded, creativity is unrestricted. I don't hesitate to say that childhood is essentially its own kind of psychedelic state, especially in its depths where ego is at its most primordial.
Sometimes, I seem to remember things that couldn't possibly have been real, at least not in this world. They're too fantastic, too otherworldly. These barely-recalled, yet distinct and insistent impressions, ebb from the edge of my awareness in day-to-day life and I often wonder if it's simply the beginnings of insanity, because so few others seem able to relate. I've managed to strengthen these feelings while on LSD and mescaline, entering deeper the phenomenon I call the 'Themescape', but it still feels like a mere hint of something I was once completely submersed in.
So, here's my idea.
What I am remembering are, literally, early childhood dreams. Indeed, whenever someone says DMT takes them somewhere familiar, they too are recalling the barest traces of those long-ago dreams. I'm better suited to remember them than most, because of my long-term memory and strong sense of self. But most people won't even recall that much, due to amnesiac effect of leaving those early years.
From a spiritual perspective, it may be that the pineal gland secretes DMT into the brain not only in near-death experiences (Rick Strassman's hypothesis), but also during dreams in early childhood, while the mind is at its most open and unbounded. It could even be that this is a reminder of 'where we come from', greater dimensions of being and whatnot. As we grow older, and more grounded in the world, memories of that spiritual place we were once cradled in get parsed, so that we can adapt fully to our experience on earth, with our senses filtered to survive in our environment (that one's Aldous Huxley's idea). Certainly I've heard something along these lines from several mystical paths - anthroposophy, for example, describes the initial phases of 'incarnating' as being gently released from the warm home of the spiritual world into the kali yuga veil of Earth.
I'm making some real leaps here, but I mean to test my theory when I smoke DMT for the first time in a month or two. I feel as ready as I'll ever be. If I find myself somewhere holy, and wholly familiar, then I'll know I was right.
Until then, though... if you've done DMT, what do you think of my hypothesis?
I have excellent long-term memory. I have a collection of memories from ages three and four, and a smattering of others at two and a couple going back to eighteen months, some of which I've had confirmed from an outside source actually happened. Laced in each of these earliest memories was a sense, often pre-lingual, of burgeoning self-awareness. Orienting my sense of self in time, being aware that the present moment is just one in a continuum. Each moment comes back to me as a sort of subtly spiritual experience.
The impressions I get from those times are often quite surreal and deep. To a mind that's just barely learning language, the entire world seems timeless, eternal, and magic. Possibilities are unbounded, creativity is unrestricted. I don't hesitate to say that childhood is essentially its own kind of psychedelic state, especially in its depths where ego is at its most primordial.
Sometimes, I seem to remember things that couldn't possibly have been real, at least not in this world. They're too fantastic, too otherworldly. These barely-recalled, yet distinct and insistent impressions, ebb from the edge of my awareness in day-to-day life and I often wonder if it's simply the beginnings of insanity, because so few others seem able to relate. I've managed to strengthen these feelings while on LSD and mescaline, entering deeper the phenomenon I call the 'Themescape', but it still feels like a mere hint of something I was once completely submersed in.
So, here's my idea.
What I am remembering are, literally, early childhood dreams. Indeed, whenever someone says DMT takes them somewhere familiar, they too are recalling the barest traces of those long-ago dreams. I'm better suited to remember them than most, because of my long-term memory and strong sense of self. But most people won't even recall that much, due to amnesiac effect of leaving those early years.
From a spiritual perspective, it may be that the pineal gland secretes DMT into the brain not only in near-death experiences (Rick Strassman's hypothesis), but also during dreams in early childhood, while the mind is at its most open and unbounded. It could even be that this is a reminder of 'where we come from', greater dimensions of being and whatnot. As we grow older, and more grounded in the world, memories of that spiritual place we were once cradled in get parsed, so that we can adapt fully to our experience on earth, with our senses filtered to survive in our environment (that one's Aldous Huxley's idea). Certainly I've heard something along these lines from several mystical paths - anthroposophy, for example, describes the initial phases of 'incarnating' as being gently released from the warm home of the spiritual world into the kali yuga veil of Earth.
I'm making some real leaps here, but I mean to test my theory when I smoke DMT for the first time in a month or two. I feel as ready as I'll ever be. If I find myself somewhere holy, and wholly familiar, then I'll know I was right.
Until then, though... if you've done DMT, what do you think of my hypothesis?
