DMT “other” - relation to Buddhism

rat_spit · May 4, 2025, 10:47am

Here’s a large scale DMT experiment showcasing the predominant feature of the “other” experienced in “breakthrough” doses of DMT.

One thing which caught my eye was the following:

The subtheme of ‘the Cosmic Game’ represents a constellation of profound communications expressed independently by five participants. Three of these had remarkably comparable messages; that the universe is a vast interconnected playground for beings to simply enjoy. AF is reproduced here, yet both her and SH were interfacing with a playful, flirtatious, feminine creature, functioning as both guide and teacher of such universal insight:

“Oh God, very very sensual. And this, like ‘it’s a game, it’s’ all a game’. They were playing with me, and they were like ‘come and play’. It was all a game, it was very very playful. Just enjoy… It’s like I’ve known them before, they were like ‘Yeah you know the game’, this is the relation. I know the game… They were showing me things. The main thing was this geometrical figure that kept changing shapes and colour. And they were…saying ‘Look what we can do, look what you can do!’. Very interacting, very interacting… These sensual females, they were like ‘Ok you wanna do this, Ok we are ready, whatever you want to do, we are ready’… They were telling me that I’m like them and I have to enjoy the pleasure of this existence, and life is fun, and it is all about playing and enjoy life and all that life has to offer… It was very liberating, and just like, let it out…just be… I had that sensation of just existing… I just opened myself…even the crying was like Yeahhh, crying, just Ahh, let it go!… It was showing me the things that exist. This exists and this exists, and they all had a pattern, they all looked like each other… They exist…in everything. We all exist in the same way. So there’s no separation of things… Everything already exists and is it out there”

This has a parallel in Buddhism.

"In the second case, owing to what, with reference to what, are some honorable recluses and brahmins eternalists in regard to some things and non-eternalists in regard to other things, proclaiming the self and the world to be partly eternal and partly non-eternal?

"There are, bhikkhus, certain gods called ‘corrupted by play.’

These gods spend an excessive time indulging in the delights of laughter and play. As a consequence they become forgetful and, when they become forgetful, they pass away from that plane.

"Now, bhikkhus, this comes to pass, that a certain being, after passing away from that plane, takes rebirth in this world. Having come to this world, he goes forth from home to homelessness. When he has gone forth, by means of ardor, endeavor, application, diligence, and right reflection, he attains to such a degree of mental concentration that with his mind thus concentrated he recollects his immediately preceding life, but none previous to that. He speaks thus: ‘Those honorable gods who are not corrupted by play do not spend an excessive time indulging in the delights of laughter and play. As a consequence they do not become forgetful, and because they do not become forgetful they do not pass away from that plane. Those gods are permanent, stable, eternal, not subject to change, and they will remain the same just like eternity itself. But we were gods corrupted by play. We spent an excessive time indulging in the delights of laughter and play, and as a consequence we became forgetful. When we became forgetful we passed away from that plane. Coming to this world, now we are impermanent, unstable, short-lived, doomed to perish.’

"This bhikkhus, is the second case.

https://www.accesstoinsight.org/tipitaka/dn/dn.01.0.bodh.html

The possibility of a DMT ontology (ie. shared among users) which details encounters and phenomenon predated by the words of the Buddha strikes me as fascinating.

mordant · May 4, 2025, 12:42pm

It is interesting but there are multiple possible explanations. Humans have characteristics and thought processes in common, and so would tend to have commonality in their hallucinations or delusions.

People’s recalled dreams have enough consistent content for instance that dream dictionaries have been constructed in an attempt to interpret the symbolisms. We all think symbolically, and so the symbols our dreams conjure are similar and classifiable, especially among those of generally similar culture. That doesn’t constitute an “ontology” in the sense of “evidence for some greater or parallel reality”. I find dream interpretation mildly useful and interesting to get a sense of what my subconscious is ruminating about or “trying to tell me” but it has never been revelatory, only explanatory. “Oh, I’m processing my wife’s death, that’s what the smoldering tree stump at the foot of my bed had to do with”.

Simon_Moon · May 6, 2025, 6:53pm

These sorts of “parallels” seem to me, to be somewhat spurious.

Given enough imagination, and some cherry picking, “parallels” can be found in all sorts of places.

Just pick which dots to connect, bias how one connects them, ignore the dots that don’t fit, and one can come up with almost anything. This is how conspiracy theories are created, and ancient alien theories are invented.

Sheldon · July 5, 2025, 8:10am

Well, they both involve imaginary or hallucinatory experiences, that occur entirely in the mind.

That depends how you’re imagining a shared experience, the drug has an effect on the brain, people who take it experience hallucinations, these are not real, by definition, so the fact that human brains under the influence of strong hallucinogenic drugs, imagine things that are sometimes similar, doesn’t seem very surprising to me.

The claims about Buddhism are entirely anecdotal as well, they were not conducted under strict clinical trials, so one ought to be very cautious about pointing to “similarities of experience” here as if they represent evidence that what is imagined during those states are real, or it just reads like more of the subjective bias that abounds in all religions, and their claims.

Ding ding ding, we have a winner…note how this explanation doesn’t violate Occam’s razor, doesn’t posit anything we have no objective evidence is possible, and involves objective facts about human brains sharing common traits and experiences and how they are processed and stored.

Two for two, the leap from shared common experiences under the influence of mind altering drugs, and anecdotal religious claims about “similar” experience, representing “evidence” those experiences are some parallel reality, is wildly subjective.

I’d have said entirely spurious, since no objective evidence was presented of any kind, to support that part of the assertion.

Exactly, without strict protocols to remove subjective bias, the claim has no more meaning than any other subjective claim. Like two people claiming to have experienced mermaids, one entirely anecdotal, the other under mind altering hallucinogenic, and a third person claiming this “shared” experience represents evidence mermaids might be real or possible.

The human brain is capable of imagination, that we imagine similar things sometimes, especially involving strong subjective beliefs that people are very emotionally invested in, doesn’t seem very surprising really. People make the same spurious assumptions about what human brains imagine when they are “dying” or being starved of oxygen during cardiac arrest.

Kevin_Levites · July 5, 2025, 11:17am

I want to disagree, and point out that Ratspit may have some legitimate points.

The beings encountered in the DMT experience (which are sometimes called “machine elves”) seem to be similar to many other phenomena that have occurred in many different cultures.

As examples:

I have always thought that the machine elves have a lot in common with the Jungian archetypes, and I believe that the machine elves provide evidence for Jung’s “collective unconscious.”
The Voudun religion (“Voodoo”) has an entire system of individual spirits–called loa, or lwa–with distict personalities that seem to behave like machine elves, and like Jungian archetypes.
The Jinn in Muslim folklore are very much like loa, machine elves, and also like Jungian archetypes.
The Kami nature spirits in the Japanese Shinto religion also seem like machine elves, loa, jinn, and Jungian archetypes.
The spirits in the Dreamtime of the Native Australians seem to be another example of everything that I have already mentioned
Many shamanistic practices in aboriginal tribes involve the ingestion of psychedelic plants to connect with the spirit world, which is populated by beings that give advice and offer profound insights.
People who experience sleep paralysis may find themselves confronting aliens who want to abduct them for medical experiments. These “alien greys” seem–to me–to be very similar to loa, kami, jinn, and machine elves.
Many of the saints in Catholicism seem to have had experiences where they encountered angels, the Blessed Virgin, and so forth while they were in a “state of religious ecstacy” that was brought on by solitude, illness, fasting, and so forth.
Many people have experienced very similar spiritual phenomena while floating in a sensory deprivation tank.

It also seems that the human brain produces its own DMT, and that this DMT can be released under extreme conditions, which is a common explanation for the subjective phenomena that accompany near death experiences.

I also find it interesting that in most of these cultures, physical extremes are neccesary to gain access to the spirt world.

In Voudun, there is extreme dancing accompanied by repetitive songs and chants, in the Bible and the Koran, we have mystics who fast and wonder in the desert, and in Asia (in Shinto and Buddhism), we have people engaging in extreme meditation.

This has led me to believe that DMT may be implicated in the many nuances and variety of spirituality, and that the brain is hardwired to perceive certian specific things when it is exposed to DMT, and that we interpret these common experiences through the lens of our culture.

I don’t mean to sound like a New Age guru, so I hope someone calls “bullshit” if anyone disagrees with me.

Please see below snips:

https://www.google.com/url?sa=t&source=web&rct=j&opi=89978449&url=https://www.verywellmind.com/what-is-the-collective-unconscious-2671571&ved=2ahUKEwj86p_1xKWOAxVEQjABHXHTNGwQFnoECE8QAQ&usg=AOvVaw1t87AX2NfGTZgVcTy-f8-I

https://www.google.com/url?sa=t&source=web&rct=j&opi=89978449&url=https://www.monsterchildren.com/articles/what-are-the-machine-elves&ved=2ahUKEwjFlO2Gw6WOAxUvTTABHVjlKKQQFnoECAsQAQ&usg=AOvVaw1xcuRncNqfk4G2N7ZUOOQG

https://www.google.com/url?sa=t&source=web&rct=j&opi=89978449&url=https://www.thecollector.com/voodoo-lwa/&ved=2ahUKEwitmPuty6WOAxUKRjABHcgII9MQFnoECDoQAQ&usg=AOvVaw32f-xyfV6Ed7-AKrAWORrN

Redirect Notice 2gIguzoo8wA0k9RnysYzT4FTq9ia0_KQnxH3An3loVoXapq&ved=2ahUKEwjvj9q-x6WOAxW2QzABHarPA_cQFnoECEkQAQ&usg=AOvVaw1ZzfXKkUV_CeiIBhdukSnn

https://www.google.com/url?sa=t&source=web&rct=j&opi=89978449&url=https://www.psypost.org/study-provides-evidence-that-dmt-is-produced-naturally-from-neurons-in-the-mammalian-brain/&ved=2ahUKEwjS8tHUy6WOAxWlSTABHXmsJkoQFnoECFUQAQ&usg=AOvVaw0nqoFlP0Ev74F0d88olDe_

https://www.google.com/url?sa=t&source=web&rct=j&opi=89978449&url=https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/15881271/&ved=2ahUKEwja5uXwy6WOAxWAtoQIHQhCEokQFnoECEUQAQ&usg=AOvVaw0ad2vh9PxjfrWjoApBjRmK

Below, please see image of a Voudun loa:

Now a DMT being:

A jinn from Muslim folklore:

Below, image of a spirit from Australian Dreamtime:

And finally, an alien grey:

mordant · July 5, 2025, 12:08pm

Again, why would we expect that such experiences would be anything but similar, among experiencers of the same species? Or more exactly, why would it be hard to cherry pick similarities among those claimed experiences?