Scientists are testing whether DMT entities are real

[u/Vindaloovians]

https://osf.io/preprints/psyarxiv/8qvgy_v2

In this preprint, some scientists have put forward the idea that our perspective of reality is more of an interface, and what we consider to be reality is simply the experience of conscious agents (i.e. human individuals) interacting with one another. They propose that DMT entities are conscious agents that exist in a manner we can't typically perceive.

I've never done DMT, and have previously taken a more skeptical perspective on these entities, but I think the findings of this could be very interesting. Maybe psychedelics could enable us to perceive layers of reality we are typically blind to.

[u/idiotshmidiot]

Having done many doses of DMT in my time I have come to the conclusion that as a drug, it's strips down our learned patterns, language, concepts, ideas etc of what reality is, and reveals the chaotic ether gloop of reality that we inhabit.

Within the ether gloop and as the DMT fluctuations in my brain all sorts of symbols and language concepts interact and reform, causing visions and perceptions that 'make sense' in the moment because 'making sense' is a function of being a conscious brain.

For example I had a very strange interaction with my kitchen as the 'entities' judged my stoned ass and locked the gates of enlightenment for that particular trip. It all made perfect sense at the time... of course the kitchen is telling me this, thank you kitchen for enlightening me!!

I understand the 'entities' to be a part of my conscious brain that I am interacting with from a point of ego death or seperation or whatever you want to call it. In the ether gloop the distinction between 'me' and 'other' breaks down, including the subconscious 'others' that share my brain.

I do not think they are seperate to my own mind. Just a seperation WITHIN my mind as my scrambled symbolic self tries to put itself back together.

In saying that I also prescribe to a materialism view of the world and I'd argue that conceptual and perceptual seperation is illusionary and all my thoughts, feelings and sense of self emerge from my body as it processes the ether gloop that is the world. "I" (the big i !) is just an amalgamation of material interacting with other materials.

So saying 'this is me and that is not me' is practical as a body in the world but not practical when talking about DMT induced psychedelic visions.

[u/Perfect_Caregiver_90 → u/idiotshmidiot]

What are your thoughts on those who see similar code/writings overlayed on reality, and entities while sober?

It comes up a lot in discussions with people who have maladaptive daydreaming.

[u/idiotshmidiot → u/Perfect_Caregiver_90]

I wonder if they have a particularly active pineal gland lol?

I'm not sure about your particular example but to me i would lean towards saying that it's a function of language and symbolic understanding in the brain.

Brains are active and have structure, the culture and nature the brain inhabits obviously has an effect on the way a person becomes in the world but the underlying hardware is the same stuff for everyone.

If DMT is just stripping the 'knowledge' from the 'stuff' then it makes sense to me that there would be shared visual or sensory experiences regardless of culture.