[Edit:
CAUTION: 5-MeO-DMT and "DMT" are NOT the same substance. 5-MeO is far more potent and far less hallucinogenic.]
In this thread, I want to start a discussion about the substance 5-MeO-DMT [henceforth "5-MeO"]. Particularly, I want to focus on:
How the experience
can (e.g. when used by a meditator while meditating) resemble going through the formless jhanas, and perhaps even a nirodha samapatti.
Whether and how a 5-MeO experience can be orchestrated (including set, setting, and integration) to facilitate insight.
Whether and how 5-MeO can be used judiciously on an ongoing basis to catalyze path progress.
My experience:Recently, I experienced the substance 5-MeO for the first time. I meditated for 15 mins or so prior, settling into 4th jhana, then while reclining in my bed alone in the dark, insufflated 15 mg (Note: 5-MeO can be in a salt or freebase form (most common); insufflating the freebase can be quite painful). Very quickly I was in the deepest 5th jhana I have ever experienced. I felt so deeply merged into the vastness of space that it was both incredible and disconcerting, even though I regularly meditate into 5th jhana.
From there, the experience accelerated into deeper territory. It wasn't quite the same as formless jhana experiences, because sometimes there would be huge waves of ecstatic energy experienced throughout the body. Nevertheless, the same layers of mind seemed to be being peeled away one-by-one. The 5-MeO progressed me into 6th jhana (it seemed pretty forceful; I was just surrendering to it as much as possible) with still some additional body-energy experiences. Soon I found myself confronting the void of 7th jhana. On the precipice, a wave of sheer terror arose on account of the forcefulness of being merged into such a deep void, coupled with the recognition that this progression was showing no signs of slowing down. I was able to again surrender to it, and had a wonderful disintegration into void.
[Aside about where I'm at - EDIT: I don't ID as having entered the stream. [after learning a bit more about the definition of stream entry, I have to revise this, as I now believe that I met the criteria for entering the stream during this experience, years ago] I did have a week long or so A&P experience some years ago, but returned back close to "normal."[not exactly true; just didn't remain at the depth of no-self that I was in for the afterglow]. For the last 6 months, I've meditated about 1.5-2 hours / day. I rarely am able to meditate to 7th jhana, except on retreats, which I haven't been on in about a year. I meditated to 8th jhana once or twice, which preciptated my stream entry in the afterglow, if I'm remembering correctly. Haven't been back to 8th in years.]
Whatever minimal experience there still was in that 7th jhana-like state seemed to stop, and I entered unfamiliar territory. There was barely any vestige of conscious awareness left at this point, so in that sense it felt kind of like one might imagine dying would feel like. At this point, there was a sense of consciousness flickering like a light bulb, and I can't be sure that I didn't lose consciousness for some time. The next thing I remember was experiencing some kind of undifferentiated null state that was even more primordial than the 7th jhana void. There was no ability to be contemplating this state while in it, but some ability to recognize what it had been like after emerging. It’s how I imagine being in the womb would feel like. Eventually (no sense of time whatsoever at this point), some experience came into this null state. There was an auditory tonal tinnitus experience and kind of a white-light experience, although it didn't quite seem visual, just kind of the subjective impression that a white light might make. From there, layers of mind started coming back online one-by-one. This felt like being reborn.
In retrospect, it would have been best to have drawn out the experience by staying in meditation with the unity/beingness for as long as possible, but I was so amazed by what I had just experienced that I started writing down an account of it.
Psychedelics often give one a sense of being "reset," but often leave me with a certain type of hangover of being trapped within the mind. The mind is typically a much better place to be post-trip than pre-trip, because there's a freshness and greater integration and perspective. However, it's unmistakably harder for me to access consciousness beyond thought/ego for a few days post-trip.
The post-trip experience with 5-MeO was opposite to that. For days afterwards, I was tapping back into similar body energy and had easier access to perspectives outside of thought and ego and easier access to the formless jhanas than I had had in a while. I couldn't meditate back to the same depth as the 5-MeO experience itself, but could get closer more reliably. And I felt more deeply immersed in quasi meditative states throughout the day.
My experience doesn't seem to be that unusual compared to Erowid trip reports and what's reported in Tryptamine Palace (one of the few books on 5-MeO). Yet the typical psychonaut doesn't have the meditative experience that I have. It's been well-discussed, e.g. in Zig Zag Zen, that a lot of the boomers who got into Eastern spiritualties did so at least partially on account of an initial taste of nondual experience from psychedelics, especially LSD. It seems that 5-MeO offers a far purer and deeper nondual experience than the classical psychedelics (LSD, psilocybin, mescaline). This makes me wonder why there is so little knowledge and use of it among serious practitioners (e.g. very few mentions on this forum). I also haven’t seen accounts of people taking up a serious spiritual practice after experiencing 5-MeO. I wonder why?
The real questions that I want to discuss in this thread are:
Can 5-MeO be useful as a part of practice? Specifically, I'm thinking along the lines of:
- Useful for motivational purposes - I.e. a direct experience of what no-self states are like as motivation to practice to realize them on an ongoing basis.
- Useful for getting a feel for the next step or two in meditation practice. E.g. ability to access states on one's own that were impossible previously, and ability to regularly access states that were difficult previously.
- Useful for weakening identity-view. Being thrust into such deep no-self states seems to at least temporarily weaken identity view in the aftermath. Can this afterglow be leveraged for insight work? Is the afterglow similar to that from Nirodha Samapatti?
I found at least one account of someone (Martin Ball) purporting to have realized ongoing nondual experience through the intentional and repeated use of 5-MeO along with some yoga-energy practices. He has a book on it called Being Human. So there is plausibility.
It makes me wonder what the potential would be if this community started systematic intentional experimentation, comparing notes as we go. I for one at least intend to do this. I’ll keep posting here if there’s interest and collaboration.