I first heard of DMT back in 2012, during a chaotic time in my life when I wasn’t sure if the world was ending, or beginning, if the apocalypse was on the horizon, or if we were on the precipice of merging into singularity. Crazy, I know, but my anxiety was just a reflection of the rabbit hole of conspiracy I immersed myself in — something I did in order to numb the pain I was feeling with regards to the state of my affairs at that time. I was in an unhappy relationship, felt trapped, and had no idea of what my real purpose was supposed to be. I felt like a firefly stuck inside of a mason jar with no holes for air.
During my pre-teen angst-y goth chick phase, I used to listen to a lot of Marilyn Manson, and I remember one of his songs had the lyrics “when all of your wishes are granted, many of your dreams will be destroyed.” That is exactly how my life felt. I was a warden in a prison I created, and didn’t realize that I had the key within myself the whole time. During my descent down the rabbit hole, I happened to stumble across a documentary on Netflix entitled DMT: The Spirit Molecule, which helped introduce three little letters that would completely shift the shape of my life.
The documentary reignited an interest I had in the subject matter, because years prior, I was completely captivated by the story of a girl I went to high school with, Teresa Schroeder, who suffered from a snowboarding injury that left her paralyzed from the neck down when she was 21. Instead of going the traditional route, she went down to Peru for experimental holistic treatments with ayahuasca, and had amazing results (doctors said she would never recover, but she could almost walk on her own two years after the injury). Her courage, and medical miracle never left my subconsciousness.
I knew ayahuasca would be something I would experience in the future, but first, I had to try DMT. [Note: DMT is the main psychoactive ingredient in the ayahuasca medicine brew.] I wasn’t sure how, why, or when it would happen but I knew I needed a miracle of my own, to help my emotional paralysis.
One of my best friends lives down in Wilmington, North Carolina, and during this personal apocalypse I was going through, I had been spending a lot of time down there. During one serendipitous visit, he told me he had a friend, who had a friend that could get DMT, and a few weeks prior he had the opportunity to try it and experienced something beautiful beyond words. We decided to find this friend, and embark on the experience together. I was excited, but also extremely apprehensive: “What if it doesn’t work? What if I see something completely terrifying? What if, what if, what if…?”
All the “what ifs” were answered the night I made acquaintances with DMT. Sitting outside, in my friend’s backyard with a fire pit in the middle of us, stars illuminating the evening sky, and the English psychedelic music project Shpongle playing in the background, I took a leap of faith and inhaled. It launched me into the noosphere and dissolved the barrier of body into a world that was boundless. The pain of the inhalation of DMT’s smoke was the initiation into a reality that is beyond the three-dimensional. I closed my eyes as the effects began to take place…All that was corporeal vibrated away, and all that existed was the all that “is.”
The “is” was alive, was everything, colors beyond the spectrum of imagination, and a sensation of love that I can only equate to what it must feel like to be back in the womb. I entered a warm cosmic bath that embraced my soul, and reunited me with spirit. All of the pain and suffering I was carrying with me was released through the exhalation, and I was in a place of understanding, and appreciation of the curriculum life had thrown at me. Good, bad, indifferent, all that I experienced in my reality as “Jenn” began to make sense, because the darkness of my life was only there to serve as a teacher that helped me to appreciate the stars. DMT acted as an intelligence, an organic technology that scanned my consciousness to show me what I needed to see — not necessarily what I wanted to see.
DMT showed me is that there is something that is beyond me, beyond you, beyond us all, and no matter how dire life may seem, there is a purpose to the pain. It is up to you to transmute the darkness into light, to rise above the illusion of separateness, to be formless, and malleable to whatever conditions life throws your way. It was as though I downloaded a whole different type of emotional, and mental programming that helped me to remember something I forgot. It wasn’t necessarily about learning anything new. It was the long lost reunion with a type of gnosis that I felt as a child, but lost during the trials and tribulations of adulthood. The experience only lasted about 10 minutes, but it felt like a life time.
As I vibrated back into my body, and opened my eyes, I felt that my heart became open as well. Something that had been feeling suffocated, confused, and trapped was open, receptive, and completely humbled. The symphony of the stars above, the blessing of friendship I felt with my companions, the dance of the fire that warmed us, and the cool chill of the winter wind that kissed my face, allowed me to really feel and understand the magnitude of how beautiful life really is, and that it should never be taken for granted, not even for a moment.
The suffering I was feeling through what I dubbed as my “apocalypse” was just an illusion, and the reality was that I was only experiencing an unveiling of my truth, which is the true definition of the word apocalypse in the first place. I came to understand that there is no permanence, besides impermanence. Life can change as quickly as you allow it, and just ten minutes can change the trajectory of your life in inconceivable ways.
Through opening the eye inside with DMT, the “I” outside completely transformed, and charted a course which lead me to where I am today. While the experience is not for the faint of heart, DMT showed me that looking within is the key to understanding you are never without. It was the key that unlocked the prison my mind had created during that particular period of darkness. I learned that no matter what is happening in your present moment, it should be viewed as a tool to help chip away all that is not you, to find who you really are.
