DMT and "elves"

[Irish Murdoch]

Good Lord! After watching "Trust Me I'm a Healer" with "shaman" Peter Aziz last week, I did a little Internet-based poking around on the subject of ayahuasca, the drug that Aziz supplies to people who attend certain of his workshops. That research revealed that ayahuasca contains DMT, so I went on to read up on that.

Now, in my youth, folks, I was an enthusiastic recreational drug user. However, my corner of the Industrial North, with its chip shops and whippets, never saw anything as exotic as DMT, so I never tried it. Reading the descriptions of its effects on various websites, I wouldn't have cared to either: it sounds pretty hellish. It seems that just about everyone who takes it has the impression of intensely realistic meetings with "alien" consciousnesses, which users seem to refer to as "elves". The sites where people maintain this are too numerous to list: a simple search on DMT will find them for you.

What amazes me is this, though: in the many, many accounts of DMT experiences online, just about everybody seems to claim that these elves have objective existence: that they really exist, in the same way as shoes, cabbages, and computers do. Why do they all seem to think this? Why does their reasoning not run as follows: "Hmmm ... I ingested a powerful hallucinogen. Maybe, then, those creatures I was talking to weren't real". I mean, they've taken something that has a huge effect on brain chemistry, and they know that they have, but still they insist that they have actually visited another dimension. I don't get it. Perhaps somebody willing to admit that they've taken DMT could enlighten us ....

 

[baron]

As good a place to start as any (if you can grit your teeth through the Mr Strassman's interminable ramblings about the legalities inherent in setting up his trials) ~

http://www.amazon.co.uk/Dmt-Molecul...ef=sr_1_1/026-0866127-5360445?ie=UTF8&s=books

I don't think you're going to get far asking "why" and expecting anything resembling proof, as clearly the experiences are subjective, and that doesn't tend to go down well in these forums.

 

[JonWhite]

I've not taken DMT but as another who had a mis-spent youth ingesting whatever recreational drugs came to hand, whilst tripping on LSD or mushrooms I had incredibly powerful and very "real" experiences. I remember spending hours totally entranced by the "underlying cosmic swirl" of a carpet or the incredible beauty of seeing music as colours (I also recall having a two-way conversation with a cash-point machine!). If DMT experiences are even stronger...

Whilst obviously they were simply hallucinations due to temporary chemical imbalances, at the time it would have been easy to see them as being of something beyond. Throw in an emotional need or disposition looking for something more, a naive acceptance of books such as Castanada's or Huxley's "The Doors of Perception" which claim/confirm that such experiences are indeed of other "planes/realms" etc beyond our own, and a peer group/authority figure all into much the same and it would be quite easy to get lost in believing the experiences as validating the whole as a real "truth".

Most people grow out of all that stuff, I guess some people sadly don't.

 

[Dancing David]

I would be concerned the only people I know who had flashbacks did DMT or STP.

 

[Irish Murdoch]

I've not taken DMT but as another who had a mis-spent youth ingesting whatever recreational drugs came to hand, whilst tripping on LSD or mushrooms I had incredibly powerful and very "real" experiences. I remember spending hours totally entranced by the "underlying cosmic swirl" of a carpet or the incredible beauty of seeing music as colours (I also recall having a two-way conversation with a cash-point machine!). If DMT experiences are even stronger... [snip]

Gosh, Jon, it seems we had the same youth! And, I'd like to point out, kids, that in retrospect it was very definitely misspent. If I had my time again I'd go through my teens with a clean, clear, sober mind, if only to avoid being so credulous about Castaneda, and so taken in by Huxley's babble.

I quite agree that, while on acid or mushrooms, it would have been easy to think that what was going on was in some way real (though for the most part I didn't--my mistake was, at worst, to take it as in some way significant). But these DMT folks seem to retain that sense after the drug has worn off. I wonder if it's because of their oft-reported claim that it leaves their sense of self completely normal and intact, so that it's as if they were sitting at home watching Coronation Street, except that they are in a bejewelled dome structure, being communicated with telepathically by aliens. Even so, you'd think that afterwards they would think "Ah yes, but I took a drug, didn't I?". I'm just interested in the sort of psychological constitution that can conveniently overlook that fact, and go on to populate the universe with elves.

 

[JonWhite]

Gosh, Jon, it seems we had the same youth!
snip
I'm just interested in the sort of psychological constitution that can conveniently overlook that fact, and go on to populate the universe with elves.

It wasn't you piloting the spaceship that chased me through The Octagon shopping centre was it???

Many users of hallucinogens often seem to share similar experiences. Perhaps with DMT for whatever brain/chemical similarities it's in the form of interpreting forms as elves or spacemen. There are plenty of people out there who populate their universe with lizard men, Thetans, or no end of other nonsense without using any drugs at all. Why is avery good question!

 

[Deetee]

What do the S. American Indians who use this Ayahuasca stuff report seeing?

I presume the generic term elf can be applied to any hallucination of a diminutive humanoid (except in LOTR where they were much bigger than the dwarves and were normal human-sized).
In Ireland they are all green and are called Leprechauns.
Most of the people in Iceland are reputed to believe in elves (not that I saw any evidence that they thought this when I was there last year - it seemed to be one of those tales designed for the tourists).

ETA

Here is some art work by someone who paints under the influence of the stuff. No elves, just brilliant colours and angels and stuff.

Perhaps a cross posting to the thread about the girl who paints angels is appropriate at this point, now we know how she does it?

 

[Irish Murdoch]

Most of the people in Iceland are reputed to believe in elves (not that I saw any evidence that they thought this when I was there last year - it seemed to be one of those tales designed for the tourists).

This is off-topic, but I didn't see any evidence when I was there a couple of years back. What I did see, though, was a very civilised and fascinating country. Who would have thought that corrugated iron could make such nice houses?