ABSTRACT

N,N-DMT, or simply ‘DMT,’ is a psychedelic substance that, when vaporised as freebase or smoked in ‘changa’ blends, induces experiences of a deeply strange nature. This strangeness pertains not only to how radically different DMT experiences are to ordinary experience, but even to the already strange experiences induced by other psychedelics – LSD, psilocybin, mescaline, and ayahuasca (a brew that contains DMT as a primary psychoactive component). In this talk, I will present a phenomenology of DMT experiences, basing my description on an extensive phenomenological qualitative analysis of over 500 first-hand descriptions of DMT experiences, i.e., ‘trip reports.’ I will focus upon detailing the two defining characteristics of DMT experiences. First, I will discuss world shifting as the experience of being transported from the ordinary world of experience to an entirely different ‘world,’ ‘dimension’ or ‘realm’ that is commonly known in the psychedelic subculture as ‘hyperspace.’ Here, I will classify the different temporal stages of the trip to hyperspace and further classify the different ‘layers’ and more particular ‘environments’ of hyperspace that are commonly experienced. Second, I will discuss entity encounters as sensing the presence of, meeting, or interacting with what are experienced as autonomous hyperspatial beings. As I will elaborate, DMT entities can be classified into four broad types according to their general disposition towards the experiencer (friendly, benevolent, indifferent, and hostile) and further subclassified according to their more specific manner of interaction with them.