DMT “other” - relation to Buddhism

Debate Room
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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.

  1. "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.

  1. "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.

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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”.

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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.