Phenomenological Reflections on 5-MeO-DMT

In the beginning we start with an empty sheet of paper. That’s God. Or at least a metaphorical conception of it. We start with an empty sheet of paper. And then we do origami. A fold. Then another. Then another. Sooner or later you have a shape. Like a little critter. Or a symmetrical arrangement, like a Mandala. This is not a perfect metaphor. Because the real thing is also very fluid and multiphasic, and a sheet of paper doesn’t capture it. But it is one perspective that contains an important visual expression of a core metaphorical idea: symmetry breaking starting from the “zero state” is what takes us, one step at a time, from a state of oneness with God to the particular circumstances of a human experience.

I remember the night that I first really, really enjoyed it. Everywhere you let go is replaced by perfect standing wave patterns that fill up a subpsace that expresses a subsymmetry by breaking a global symmetry. There is a lot of richness and beauty in nearly deconstructed states. The superposition of points of view about the self can form an alloy of self-other, neither, both, and neither both nor neither self nor other contextualized centered consciousness.

The subconscious stores information in the form of amodal representations. Attention field lines are parallel to each other and therefore never touching. Their valence, by default, is probably really high. They have resonant modes, and that produces a sense of knowing. The frequencies together produce a spectral signature of such sense of knowing.

When the phenomenal world is about to achieve a perfect alignment on many levels, when these field lines become parallel along some axis, things can get really… interesting. Not only because deep alignments can discharge a lot of energy, but because they do something else to the organism as well. They allow it to move on from any particular stance. But before we get there, let’s talk about this sense of alignment.

We hypothesize that at the peak of a moderate dose of 5-MeO-DMT one can experience moments of extreme alignment. In the extreme form, you actually “disappear” for a split second, perhaps multiple times, and then in higher doses, continuously for long periods of time. The quality of waking up to “nothingness” again and again is itself a certain kind of material composition for the sense of reality. A special kind of feathery fabric of nothingness.

We are curious about how this moment arises and passes for three reasons. First, because the Buddhists keep saying we should pay attention to those moments (aka. cessations). Second, because valence structuralism suggests this is an important hint. And third, because so far it seems to feel pretty great at an empirical level. The moment things “click” together, if they ever do, feels like a discharge. Ahh, the relief and release, forgiving and forgetting, unwinding and decompressing. It’s always relaxing in precisely the ways in which you don’t expect to be relaxed. (Note: the buddhists will emphasize that this isn’t a real enduring relaxation either, but we will discuss that later) 5-MeO-DMT feels like a muscle relaxant hooked to an alien intelligence. Like, if you thought that “hey, my shoulders feel tense, I will get them to relax” you end up instead getting the surprising feeling that there are like 7 layers of conditioning that are holding in place the state of your energy body for you to feel that kind of stress. And the “energy” of five relaxes the outermost layer you can feel, which in turn massages the 6th layer, which loosens the 5th layer, which softens the 4th layer, which slightly vibrates the 3rd layer, which touches the 2nd layer, which kisses the 1st layer, and that may do the trick. What trick? It’s hard to tell, but after the session you know that you somehow feel lighter. It’s as if the fact that the 5-MeO didn’t even really change directly the regions of tension you felt somehow still influenced the surrounding context in such a way that such tension is less of a problem now. Well, in some cases the 5-MeO can directly, directly, bulls-eye shoot hit in the target the exact tension you had in mind. But that’s only if the energetic intelligence of the state (a concept to be unpacked sooner or later) determines that’s the best way to actually relax you as much as it can.

To me, when the state successfully breaks up the patterns of tension, it tends to happen over the course of minutes and I feel them liquefy (to an extent) and sublimate into spacious light qualia.

On the Topological Underpinnings of “Non-Dual” Stage Upgrades

• A participant shared an anecdote on the night before he left about having a shared cessation with their spiritual teacher when they said goodbye to them in the process of leaving the place where they were meditating. His teacher “dropped the mic”, so to speak, and didn’t even acknowledge verbally what happened. But the participant is sure on a felt-sense basis that the “cessation was shared” between the two of them.
• We also know from Ingram’s MCTB chapter The Three Doors that the moment before cessation can have various “shapes” which I can only imagine really refers to the structure of attention field lines of the state right before and right after.
• Shinzen Young’s transverberation discussion suggests a possible permanent topological addition to his experience where he is in constant contact with “Source” (a possible cessation object – in the diagram symbolized by a torus connected with a blob). Here we could imagine him being bound to a big object that would normally be “unconscious” (parallel field lines in a torus) now in a hybrid structure where some of the field lines do cross in a region of the object. It is at a global scale a torus, so in a way he may be inheriting the topology of the cessation object.
• Practitioners who have witnessed the “four visions” may be topologically bound to a giant Mandala superconsciousness of some sort. This and a powerful mushroom experience I had years ago seeded my intuition for a “Buddhafield”.

Early on, after having that conversation with the retreat participant, the cluster of ideas that I felt like exploring in the state orbited around cessations and the unconscious. I asked two trusted participants to be side by side with me during my first 2.5mg trip. I tried to focus on the possibility of merging with a “Buddhafield” (defined as a region of the field where field lines are default parallel), to the best of my understanding. It honestly sort of worked. Of course it could have been just the drug. But the set and setting was absolutely delightful. The desire to be in deep concentration during the experience was reinforced by the social setting, so whether or not there was a field effect, it felt very real in the world simulation.

On Buddhafields

Speculatively, a large enough reserve of cessation objects can “be” and “exist” in a state of “knowing” without ever having to express qualia in any recognizable way. These, as a collective, can form a “field” of “liberated objects”. The feeling of encountering this kind of mental object (this kind of Soulmaking) is akin to encountering configurations of the field that are perfect in valence aggregated over eons of years by liberated souls. For every problem, there is a Budhafield out there. But to tune into it, you need to trust the unconscious, and let it guide you close to where the relevant shapes are. They can’t see or feel, so the voyage is through a kind of knowing and intuition. It’s profound.

Of course I am aware that this is very likely a high-level and fairly top-down way of making sense of something that is perhaps best expressed by extremely technical second-to-second microphenomenology. You see, I can very much entertain that the specific way in which my world simulation melts is sort of like cinematic crack for subagents with a craving for deep (poetic and resonant) renderings of metaphysical possibilities, among which the concept of Buddhafields holds a special place in my heart. Yes, but also the love feels genuine, so regardless of its fabrication status it feels healing either way.

The Insight Into Symmetry and Valence

There is equanimity and acceptance when we experience the more symmetrical states available during 5-MeO-DMT. This experience of clearly seeing how symmetry and valence are related can be deeply impactful and release enormous tension and yet feel like a light feather. Poetically, it feels as if “only in the dark, a soul can turn itself off without alarming itself.” Let me explain.

Under normal circumstances you need to sort of flinch away when you are approaching the moments of symmetry. Or you need to be rocked to sleep, to be hugged and blanketed, cozied into, a moment of acceptance. Gently convinced, guided by pleasure, and encouraged by a welcoming vibe, is when you finally get to let go and dive deep into the symmetries.

But with a very technical approach to paying attention to experience, the radical letting go can happen on an entirely different level. I don’t mean necessarily deeper. Just very different. In this case, the experience would be one of experiencing a very clear understanding of the connection between symmetry and valence. Or at least a particular cut of it. A significant enough level of clarity of what was taking place that it allowed me to update very deeply on the reality of this connection. And it is the sort of thing that I think “if you blink you miss it”. Or that I can imagine many would resist, for many reasons. It’s just that at this point in my life the realization was ripe for harvest. Many parts of my being that had hesitated on it over the years came into alignment to update together.

I thought that there was a special connection between this insight and the process of becoming light. Well, of course all of the 5-MeO-DMT effects seem deeply connected. But what I mean is that insight into symmetry and becoming light feel like the same thing: light qualia traveling in a state that feels subjectively weightless having clear awareness of itself. Traveling in all directions at once without an ability to orient itself. With no way to orient itself, there is not way for it to break. It is perfect from within.

5-MeO-DMT Self/No Self

Fractally, each component of the LCD screen of consciousness is suffused with a material that seems remarkably flexible in its “stance” with regards to self and no self. In a way, it’s as if you disconnect a constraint that is usually always applied to perception and enforced with valence gradients and loosen it so much that any piece of light, tactile sense, audio qualia, etc. can easily be ascribed to someone, to yourself, to the Big Self, to Eternity, etc. and it doesn’t really matter. So you end up tuning into the sense of self that feels the best in the moment, or that exists at your growth edge along the path of de-reification (if that’s something you’re pursuing).

I think this is related to field lines becoming more parallel across the board. Why? Because field lines that don’t meet don’t need to form a center along which other sensations self-organize around. In other words, field lines that are parallel can just be without having to become for each other. They don’t even exist, in a sense, at least while they don’t interact at all, they don’t exist because they are not something that can be interacted with by others. But they can still be, or so we infer. Thus perhaps even a cessation is a state of being, even if it is not, technically, a state of consciousness.

Frequencies of 5-MeO-DMT

One interesting effect you can get with the Kasina (strobe glasses) is de-reification at high doses. This happens in the range between 35 and 50 hertz. There the last remnants of oscillatory behavior in the visual field slowly fade away. I’d like to suggest that good 5-MeO-DMT experiences tend to involve a phase transition like that: you go above a certain frequency which the organism is not really capable of processing in its normal energetic channels and in a way the oscillations disappear. They feel continuous. But below a certain dose, a somewhat dysphoric ~35hz vibration can dominate.

This might be explained in terms of Psychedelic Thermodynamics as follows: the system that generates gestatls in our experience works through a process of stochastic resonance. It seems to me that the background energy that 5-MeO-DMT causes the field of awareness to vibrate at has a smooth spectrum akin to black body radiation. It is the gestalt generator that takes those background vibrations and absorbs their energy piecemeal. What happens with 5-MeO-DMT is that the background energy gets so strong in amplitude, and so high in average frequency, that the gestalt generator more or less gives up for a while. The phenomenology is similar to strobing lights above 35hz. Namely, it’s so fast that gestalts dissolve rather than become reinforced (as with mushrooms or ayahuasca).

Periodic Table of Moments of Clear Perception

Based on a conversation with the advanced meditators at the retreat, we came up with the following list of “key insights” that 5-MeO-DMT might be able to facilitate:

• Notice Witness, Self, No Self, No Self and No Center
• Both Expansion and Contraction at the Same Time
• The valence gradient peaks, so that you see the peak state of each of the Jhanas and each of the alloys that you enjoy (if you want to look and make them not a big deal in your life).
• The massless light transition, where you neither gain nor lose anything – the feeling that arises from this vista is a sort of weightless.
• Solidity and weightlessness at the same time.
• Union with someone else, with animals, plants, minerals, abstract beings.
• Insight into the transition to standing wave pattern from a specific perspective.
• Suffering de-reifying through equanimity.
• Geometric frustration: experiencing clearly how negative sensations are grounded on pockets where “the flow” collides with itself.
• Experiencing clearly the way in both “moments of eternity” and the passage of time are part of the same nature. Moments of eternity are just as transitory as everything else. They just now how to briefly capture attention to create the illusion of stillness.

Presumably, clear perception allows for the buildup of these moments. And each of these moments is then a possible contributor to the unconscious reservoirs of “timeless and perspectiveless points of view” (the building blocks of the sense of knowing).

One of the meditators in the retreat said that their insight that led to “centerlessness” did a permanent transformation. Something got locked-in, to the point that they now sometimes need to remind himself that others have a center when modeling them. They says that the 6th Jhana is irrelevant for them now because they already always are in a state similar to it (but that can co-exist with their normal state). From a “path” point of view, these seem like the most significant transformations we could hone in on. But if you ask them, they will emphasize that there is a risk of bypassing important insights. “Could a table of 108 key insights suffice?” – I asked them. “Perhaps, worth trying for sure” – they responded.

In order to not bypass important insights that are key for moral development we need to ensure that 4th path (and similar) are combined with additional work. But this is not infinite. I could imagine a trading card game and album that has a few hundred cards/stamps that covers what needs to be learned. Non-trivial, but tractable.

5-MeO-DMT Objects

You may be surprised to hear of “5-MeO-DMT objects”. Isn’t it a de-reified state of consciousness? Here I am taking a poetic license to try to get at something real and profound but hard to talk about. When I talk about 5-MeO-DMT objects I’m trying to point to something that lives in a similar layer of abstraction as when we talk about a “C++ object” in “object-oriented programming”. The 5-MeO-DMT objects I’m trying to point at are clusters of mental moves that generate a sense of being, whether or not such sense of being is shaped in a way that allows for intentional objects to arise and be processed in the normal way. I think that if one looks carefully, a strong 5-MeO-DMT trip has a cornucopia of these objects and they change and evolve during the experience, and that is even though the self-other distinction is radically lessened.

Mathematicians have the knowledge of having experienced states of understanding. They are really aware that there is a “there there” when it comes to having a clear perception of a “mathematical fact”. In a similar way, some of the skillful things you can do on 5-MeO-DMT are like gems that you encounter along the way. You know there is a “there there”, and that in all of eternity countless others have seen the same things, even if right now (or ever!) there is no language for it. I am an epistemological optimist and also think that there are 5-MeO-DMT-specific reasons why we can actually develop a language for all of this. But even if it is impossible to develop a language for it (why?), we will see countless beings encountering these spaces. You see, near “Source” there is a limited number of ways to start breaking the symmetries. If every “perfect object” in the subconscious can be embodied as an object of cessation, you can in principle reconstruct your shape by paying attention to how you got there and how you exited it. Even if the moment itself is completely impossible to remember. You don’t gain or lose anything (again) but it changes the way you look at it.

Different alloys of self-other, self-self, no-self + self, and so on, can produce beautiful works of art. Some can have specific metaphysical flavors, depending on what kind of spiritual flavor comes through. The Jain concept of anekantavada (or multi-sidedness) can be a powerful emergent theme of one of these experiences, if one happens to stumble upon an alloy of perspectives that expresses it clearly. In other words, 5-MeO-DMT objects are not just geometric or topological. They are *epistemic*. They contain and encapsulate an alloy of points of view on the nature of reality. Think of them as a precious new kind of fabric that expresses and remembers information in ways not usually possible.

5-MeO-DMT Geometry

The general direction is one of unblocking the flow of energy. So in many ways one finds the surprising effect of geometric simplification. An object that used to have very intricate and solid boundaries can, in the typical 5-MeO-DMT fashion, sublimate into light that has very little resistance. So the “geometry of attention flow” tends to become simple, and in a good experience, largely laminar and Euclidean-like.

That said, the spaciousness can have quite an exotic geometry. The geometry of a very different balance of expansion and contraction than either normal, classic psychedelic, and dissociative states. During a peak experience, the spaciousness tends to be free from any kind of geometric frustration. It’s as if you were getting an injection of a type of movement/energy that doesn’t interfere with itself. And so it is actually difficult to infer your geometry because you don’t have a point of reference. You don’t have internal boundaries to go off of. At the same time, this spaciousness can be extremely coherent in inexplicable ways. After certain levels of saturation the movement of anything suffused with it can suddenly act in unison, such as turning on and off at once. One can infer that this process involves many different regions of the world simulation tuning into a common medium that has a shared resonance and coordinates near instantaneously across regions. In fact, there is a sense in which parts of the world simulation collapse into the same point and are clearly one for periods of time (an effect that we conclude must be what the radical disappearance of internal boundaries feels like from the inside).

5-MeO-DMT Entities

The experience of coming up on 5-MeO-DMT often has the sense of touching base with divine beings that have figured out how to be in a peaceful, liberated state of existence. Someone said they feel like divine statues; they can be sensed by the way you reflect on them . They are not really conscious in any conventional sense of the term. It’s more, to me, as if you gained access to the intelligences of the subconscious. As if being able to turn on the lights in the depths of the unconscious, which holds structures for which we currently lack words.

5-MeO-DMT Crystals

Unlike classic psychedelics, which feel crystalline in nature, the embodied feeling of 5-MeO-DMT is one of being an isotropic material. Taking seriously the idea that on a biological level we _are_ a liquid crystal could be a fruitful avenue for future research. Making an educated, if certainly quite wild guess, I’ll say that DMT makes the liquid crystal that implements our world simulation crystalline, whereas 5-MeO-DMT makes it isotropic. I intend to develop a whole psychedelic replication paradigm based on this guess.