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If You’ve Met Aliens While on DMT, These Scientists Would Like to Hear from You

73 points by fraqed 9y ago

kreutz 9y ago
The book A Demon Haunted World: Science as a candle in the dark by Carl Sagan goes in depth as to the origin of peoples propensity to believe that they have indeed encountered such creatures. I would highly recommend reading it.
- benbreen 9y ago
  I love Carl Sagan and especially love when he branched out into topics like this. But I also wonder if he ended up being on the right track - does anyone happen to know if contemporary research backs up many of his speculations about human evolution in books like Dragons of Eden or Demon-Haunted World?
OrganicMSG 9y ago
I saw them a few days after taking DMT. I was sitting on a sofa, reality paused, some tube-limbed harlequins stepped out sideways into it, cut a few things up, looked inside them then put them back together, then they fucked off and reality restarted.
- deleted 9y ago
  [deleted]
- OnMyPhone 9y ago
  That's what my buddy said about them too. He only saw them when he blasted off, but could feel them around for a while after. Definitely on my todo list.
  - andrei_says_ 9y ago
    Having met a person who started having regular psychotic episodes after a dmt trip, I’ve removed this from all of my todo lists. She would start hissing, cursing in gibberish, clawing etc. and is the most horrific thing I’ve witnessed to date. If there’s demonic possession, this must be what it looks like. So, no thank you.
    - hosh 9y ago
      It sounds like some wires got crossed up on the way back down; it might be fixable, though probably not through conventional means. (Stuff like tantra or properly taking part in Ayahuasca with a trained shaman comes to mind). But then again, when I hear about those God-drunken yogis wandering around in India, sometimes with followers, I wonder too if this was her destiny. Blasting out on a whim without preparation is like getting launched into outer space without a spacesuit. (And the things we think we are preparing for are usually the very things that create a lot of turbulence in the journey). Lots of people are lucky, have guides watching over them, the way little kids gets watched over by parents on the playground. ("Ok, come away from the busy street -- oh look, would you like to play with this?") Sometimes, people are not so lucky. There is a vast knowledge and wisdom in the old traditions about this, and scientific knowledge is ill-equipped to understand or even handle the misadventures. I wouldn't say never though. DMT is an endogenous neurotransmitter produced by the pineal gland, so under rare circumstances, dosages of DMT can be released naturally and directly into your brain.
      - loceng 9y ago
        Re: wires getting crossed - If our energy systems aren't flowing properly then our own magnetic field and energetic defences are prone, weak. Part of how Ayahuasca/DMT functions is breaking down/limiting the ego mind's control, so if someone's maintaining normal appearances using ego mind's control - then who knows what's underneath once ego has lost its grasp. This is in part why yoga styles like Kundalini and Laughter Yoga are contraindicated for people with schizophrenia, as these practices purpose is to let go/challenge the ego, and therefore it seems that a person prone to a schizophrenic state uses ego control to gain function.
        loceng 9y ago
        How I despise quantitative commentary via downvotes instead of qualitative conversation. Edit: It's been a wild ride so far watching the votes go from the initial 1 down to -2, back up to 0, back down to -3, back up to 0, back down to -1 and so on.. Looks like this comment got zinged now too with a downvote. Thanks for the entertainment all. And yes, I'm aware it's in the HN rules to not make comments like this - consider it as peaceful protest for change.
  - hosh 9y ago
    I had a couple friends encountered the time stop during Ayahuasca. There were beings that showed up to intervene in some things. One of my friends noticed that these beings noticed he was present and were mildly surprised. Good times.
pietroglyph 9y ago
It seems like an anonymous internet survey won't solicit very high quality data... I suppose even a rough idea of how common these experiences are is a start.
tzahola 9y ago
Universal love, transcendent joy! http://slatestarcodex.com/2015/04/21/universal-love-said-the-cactus-person/ http://slatestarcodex.com/2015/04/21/universal-love-said-the...
- filoeleven 9y ago
  That was fantastic, thanks for posting it! It would make for a great story to be read aloud too, if one could find a way around the several-dozen-digit number...
nul_byte 9y ago
I have seen them doing an ultra marathon on the second night of no sleep. It's weird how you brain fills so much detail in. The creatures I could see were like gollum from LoTR but with reptilian skin..they were either smoking pipes or playing elaborate music on instruments I have never seen before..
- ghostbrainalpha 9y ago
  Which Ultra Marathon? Did you enjoy that experience, or did you take it as a sign you are pushing your body to an extreme that may be unhealthy in ways we don't understand?
- ZeroGravitas 9y ago
  The non-fiction book "Why people believe weird things" begins with the author's recounting of his own meeting with aliens, during a coast-to-coast cycle race where he had gone without sleep. In reality it was his crew trying to get him off his bike before he fell asleep and fell off
stupidcar 9y ago
If I had to hypothesize, I'd say that most hallucinogens generally stimulate lower-levels of the neocortex's sensory perception hierarchy, resulting in a distorted and more vivid experience of basic things like colors, textures, etc. But DMT is somehow particularly able to stimulate a higher-level representation that corresponds with the perception of a fellow intelligent creature. This is combined semi-randomly with one or more high-level representation of animals and objects to create the perception of intelligent "aliens" with a bizarre form.
- 0xdeadbeefbabe 9y ago
  What is wrong with hypothesizing that invisible beings around us can only be seen under certain circumstances?
arx1422 9y ago
Every few years I get stuck for a few moments in the state between sleep and waking up. Always manifested the same way. In the middle of a dream environment a gateway with a totally alien, totally inexplicable intelligence would appear. I'd be paralyzed by it for a few seconds. As I got older a realized the terrifying alien world/intelligence was waking consciousness intruding into the dream state. Always interesting after I wake but true Lovecraftian horror as it happens.
- aalleavitch 9y ago
  This is called sleep paralysis. It’s surprisingly common, and the source of a lot of folklore and ghost stories. I get it often: https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sleep_paralysis https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sleep_paralysis
pstuart 9y ago
They weren't aliens, they were Persian elves.
- benbreen 9y ago
  Can you elaborate? I see to be one of those rare people who is genuinely fascinated by peoples' DMT experiences (and dreams!). Speaking personally, I've done DMT twice but never at the doses necessary to break through. I've experienced ego death from psilocybin but it seems as if the DMT experience is different in terms of the vividness and visual complexity.
  - tzahola 9y ago
    Google “machine elves”
    - pstuart 9y ago
      I just did, and that was indeed the experience.
  - pstuart 9y ago
    It was like a Persian carpet come to life, shapes becoming animated elves and constructing more elements in the carpet. That's my memory of my memory ~30 years ago.
herbst 9y ago
I've done DMT quite a few times and I can totally see why religious people make this a religious experience. Or as in this case use aliens or other 'mythical' creatures instead of God figures. There is this very strong feeling of being connected to more and just being able to get a short glance to a different world that is always there but hidden from you. Most people will explain it like this, but everybody also ads 'graphics' or concepts based on their own believes in order to even comprehend the experience. I love DMT but I also highly believe that we are seeing some kind of natural process in our brains here and not some kind of deeper connection. In other news I saw genesha dancing for me on a rainbow of thousands of never seen colors and I had a fox helping me getting back from something I can only describe as lost in my own head. Dmt is strange but beautiful

73 points by fraqed 9y ago

The book A Demon Haunted World: Science as a candle in the dark by Carl Sagan goes in depth as to the origin of peoples propensity to believe that they have indeed encountered such creatures. I would highly recommend reading it.

benbreen 9y ago
I love Carl Sagan and especially love when he branched out into topics like this. But I also wonder if he ended up being on the right track - does anyone happen to know if contemporary research backs up many of his speculations about human evolution in books like Dragons of Eden or Demon-Haunted World?

OrganicMSG 9y ago

I saw them a few days after taking DMT. I was sitting on a sofa, reality paused, some tube-limbed harlequins stepped out sideways into it, cut a few things up, looked inside them then put them back together, then they fucked off and reality restarted.

deleted 9y ago
[deleted]
OnMyPhone 9y ago
That's what my buddy said about them too. He only saw them when he blasted off, but could feel them around for a while after. Definitely on my todo list.
- andrei_says_ 9y ago
  Having met a person who started having regular psychotic episodes after a dmt trip, I’ve removed this from all of my todo lists. She would start hissing, cursing in gibberish, clawing etc. and is the most horrific thing I’ve witnessed to date. If there’s demonic possession, this must be what it looks like. So, no thank you.
  - hosh 9y ago
    It sounds like some wires got crossed up on the way back down; it might be fixable, though probably not through conventional means. (Stuff like tantra or properly taking part in Ayahuasca with a trained shaman comes to mind). But then again, when I hear about those God-drunken yogis wandering around in India, sometimes with followers, I wonder too if this was her destiny. Blasting out on a whim without preparation is like getting launched into outer space without a spacesuit. (And the things we think we are preparing for are usually the very things that create a lot of turbulence in the journey). Lots of people are lucky, have guides watching over them, the way little kids gets watched over by parents on the playground. ("Ok, come away from the busy street -- oh look, would you like to play with this?") Sometimes, people are not so lucky. There is a vast knowledge and wisdom in the old traditions about this, and scientific knowledge is ill-equipped to understand or even handle the misadventures. I wouldn't say never though. DMT is an endogenous neurotransmitter produced by the pineal gland, so under rare circumstances, dosages of DMT can be released naturally and directly into your brain.
    - loceng 9y ago
      Re: wires getting crossed - If our energy systems aren't flowing properly then our own magnetic field and energetic defences are prone, weak. Part of how Ayahuasca/DMT functions is breaking down/limiting the ego mind's control, so if someone's maintaining normal appearances using ego mind's control - then who knows what's underneath once ego has lost its grasp. This is in part why yoga styles like Kundalini and Laughter Yoga are contraindicated for people with schizophrenia, as these practices purpose is to let go/challenge the ego, and therefore it seems that a person prone to a schizophrenic state uses ego control to gain function.
      - loceng 9y ago
        How I despise quantitative commentary via downvotes instead of qualitative conversation. Edit: It's been a wild ride so far watching the votes go from the initial 1 down to -2, back up to 0, back down to -3, back up to 0, back down to -1 and so on.. Looks like this comment got zinged now too with a downvote. Thanks for the entertainment all. And yes, I'm aware it's in the HN rules to not make comments like this - consider it as peaceful protest for change.
- hosh 9y ago
  I had a couple friends encountered the time stop during Ayahuasca. There were beings that showed up to intervene in some things. One of my friends noticed that these beings noticed he was present and were mildly surprised. Good times.

pietroglyph 9y ago

It seems like an anonymous internet survey won't solicit very high quality data... I suppose even a rough idea of how common these experiences are is a start.

tzahola 9y ago

Universal love, transcendent joy! http://slatestarcodex.com/2015/04/21/universal-love-said-the-cactus-person/ http://slatestarcodex.com/2015/04/21/universal-love-said-the...

filoeleven 9y ago
That was fantastic, thanks for posting it! It would make for a great story to be read aloud too, if one could find a way around the several-dozen-digit number...

nul_byte 9y ago

I have seen them doing an ultra marathon on the second night of no sleep. It's weird how you brain fills so much detail in. The creatures I could see were like gollum from LoTR but with reptilian skin..they were either smoking pipes or playing elaborate music on instruments I have never seen before..

ghostbrainalpha 9y ago
Which Ultra Marathon? Did you enjoy that experience, or did you take it as a sign you are pushing your body to an extreme that may be unhealthy in ways we don't understand?
ZeroGravitas 9y ago
The non-fiction book "Why people believe weird things" begins with the author's recounting of his own meeting with aliens, during a coast-to-coast cycle race where he had gone without sleep. In reality it was his crew trying to get him off his bike before he fell asleep and fell off

stupidcar 9y ago

If I had to hypothesize, I'd say that most hallucinogens generally stimulate lower-levels of the neocortex's sensory perception hierarchy, resulting in a distorted and more vivid experience of basic things like colors, textures, etc. But DMT is somehow particularly able to stimulate a higher-level representation that corresponds with the perception of a fellow intelligent creature. This is combined semi-randomly with one or more high-level representation of animals and objects to create the perception of intelligent "aliens" with a bizarre form.

0xdeadbeefbabe 9y ago
What is wrong with hypothesizing that invisible beings around us can only be seen under certain circumstances?

arx1422 9y ago

Every few years I get stuck for a few moments in the state between sleep and waking up. Always manifested the same way. In the middle of a dream environment a gateway with a totally alien, totally inexplicable intelligence would appear. I'd be paralyzed by it for a few seconds. As I got older a realized the terrifying alien world/intelligence was waking consciousness intruding into the dream state. Always interesting after I wake but true Lovecraftian horror as it happens.

aalleavitch 9y ago
This is called sleep paralysis. It’s surprisingly common, and the source of a lot of folklore and ghost stories. I get it often: https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sleep_paralysis https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sleep_paralysis

pstuart 9y ago

They weren't aliens, they were Persian elves.

benbreen 9y ago
Can you elaborate? I see to be one of those rare people who is genuinely fascinated by peoples' DMT experiences (and dreams!). Speaking personally, I've done DMT twice but never at the doses necessary to break through. I've experienced ego death from psilocybin but it seems as if the DMT experience is different in terms of the vividness and visual complexity.
- tzahola 9y ago
  Google “machine elves”
  - pstuart 9y ago
    I just did, and that was indeed the experience.
- pstuart 9y ago
  It was like a Persian carpet come to life, shapes becoming animated elves and constructing more elements in the carpet. That's my memory of my memory ~30 years ago.

herbst 9y ago

I've done DMT quite a few times and I can totally see why religious people make this a religious experience. Or as in this case use aliens or other 'mythical' creatures instead of God figures. There is this very strong feeling of being connected to more and just being able to get a short glance to a different world that is always there but hidden from you. Most people will explain it like this, but everybody also ads 'graphics' or concepts based on their own believes in order to even comprehend the experience. I love DMT but I also highly believe that we are seeing some kind of natural process in our brains here and not some kind of deeper connection. In other news I saw genesha dancing for me on a rainbow of thousands of never seen colors and I had a fox helping me getting back from something I can only describe as lost in my own head. Dmt is strange but beautiful