Rex was at peace with his experiences, and he incorporated them into his understanding of the increasingly complex and symbol-rich dreams that began developing. He also started reading more seriously about psychedelic plants and shamanism.
Before one of his last pindolol days, he asked me to look at a festering mole on his leg. I urged him to immediately consult with a dermatologist, who diagnosed malignant melanoma. Rex could not be in any more studies until his cancer was worked up and treated. Thankfully, the melanoma had not spread, and he was treated successfully with simple removal of the tumor. By that time, though, I had left New Mexico.
Sara entered the DMT project when she was forty-two years old. She was living with her second husband, Kevin, their young child, and two older children from her first marriage. Sara worked as a freelance writer and was attending graduate school. She was a solidly built woman with red hair and twinkling blue eyes. Her manner was direct, and her mischievous grin often emerged during conversations about any and all topics.
Sara probably had suffered from the most serious depression of any of our volunteers, having overdosed on prescription tranquilizers in her midtwenties. She had to be involuntarily hospitalized for two weeks after her suicide attempt and subsequently took antidepressants for several years. Nevertheless, her mood had been excellent without any medication for over a decade, and she was one of our most content and insightful research subjects.
Sara told us that an “angel” had visited her once when she had had a high fever as a child, and she now had “spirit guides” with whom she communicated for advice and support. She considered herself “more sensitive than most people to healing and psychic energies.” Sara practiced the Wicca religion, as did Rex, and they knew each other through the greater Wiccan community.
Sara volunteered for this study for “personal understanding and expansion of consciousness. I hope I will come to a deeper understanding of myself and my relationship to the universe and unseen worlds.” Her fears hinged on “being lost in an abyss, and of not being brave enough to face the challenge.”
Sara’s low-dose experience was typical of that of the other volunteers—pleasant, relaxing, with a sense of more to come. Her high-dose session the next day, however, was deep and profound. Let’s turn to her notes, which she sent me within a week of that morning’s events:
“Rick said, ‘All right; we’re going to start now in about 15 seconds.’ His hand was cool on mine, a comforting last connection to reality. I tried to count the heartbeats, something intellectual to hold on to. I got to three beats.”
There was a sound, like a hum that turned into a whoosh, and then I was blasted out of my body at such speed, with such force, as if it were the speed of light. The colors were aggressive, terrifying; I felt as if they would consume me, as if I were on a warp-speed conveyer belt heading straight into the cosmic psychedelic buzzsaw. I was terrified. I felt abandoned. I’m completely and totally lost. I have never been so alone. How can you describe what it feels like to be the only entity in the universe?
There are sounds: high-pitched singing, like angel voices. But they aren’t comforting. They are very impersonal and don’t care about me. They are simply part of the background noise of blasting through the void of the universe. It felt like going backward from life in a physical body to life as simply an energy form with no body. The essence of who I am was alone in the void, back in the staging area for life where souls wait to incarnate. I was in a place where there are no physical life-forms, only colors and sounds. The singing angels were there only to observe me, not to comfort me. But even though they didn’t comfort me, I did bring back an incredible sense of Love.
A male presence tries to communicate with me, but I don’t understand. I use my mind to ask, “What?” The reply is garbled. It (he) is trying to tell me I will see something. But what? I try to ask, “Will I know it when I see it?” The presence tells me I will see something. Is it by the horizon’s light I see in the vast darkness? There is a great roaring sound. It interferes with the voice because I know it is a jet “out there.” I’m coming back. The Voice is gone.
It starts with my face seeming to harden up, become firm rather than nebulous. I feel the blood pressure cuff inflate. The rest of my body comes together, and I know I’m completely back. I lift up the eyeshades. I feel a deep and poignant love for Laura and Rick, whom I see first. I turn my head to see Kevin. What a beautiful relief.
Sara also came back for the tolerance study. Let’s again refer to her notes from that remarkable day. They require almost no additions from the ones I took at bedside.
Dose #1:
The first trip was lots of spinning colors. I was scared, but I kept telling myself, “Relax, surrender, embrace.” Then I saw what I can only describe as a Las Vegas–casino type of scene, all flashing and whirling lights. I was rather disappointed. Here I’m expecting this profound spiritual experience and I get Las Vegas! But then, before I had much time to be disappointed, I “flew” on and saw clowns performing. They were like toys, or animated clowns. I had the overwhelming urge to laugh. I was kind of self-conscious about it at first, but I couldn’t contain myself and I laughed out loud watching those clowns.
Rick told me the clowns are a common experience. In fact, he said, “Oh, you saw the clowns?” as if they were old friends or something. Then he said, “Yes, they’re hilarious.” I felt more confident and not as scared.
Dose #2:
This time the aggressive spinning colors were almost familiar. Suddenly, a pulsating “entity” appeared in the patterns. It sounds weird to describe it as “Tinkerbell-like.” It was trying to coax me to go with it. At first I was reluctant, because I didn’t know about finding my way back. By the time I made up my mind that I did want to go with it, I could tell the drug was starting to wear off, and I wasn’t “high” enough to follow it. I told it, “I can’t go with you now. See, they want me back.” It didn’t seem to be offended and, in fact, “followed” me back until I sensed it had reached its boundary. I felt like it was saying good-bye. Reentry was slow, and I was reluctant to take off the eyeshades.
Everyone’s eyes were so sparkling when I took off my eyeshades!
I knew Sara was on the verge of some breakthrough, but that her strong reaction to the colorful hallucinations were somehow holding her back.
“Can you stop short of contact with the colors? You can’t help seeing them, but you can stop yourself from responding to them.”
She asked, “Is it best to hope and intend for something, like to see that little pulsating shining creature again?”
“The best is to have no intention. If you intend something and it doesn’t happen, you’ll bump against it. You’ll react against it. Just feel your body lying in bed and try and empty your mind.”
She nodded, and we all paused to look out the window, remarking on the beauty of the thunderheads building in the spring sky.
Sara looked exhausted.
Dose #3:
I realized what Rick said was true, that the most intense part of each trip was spent tangled up in these colors. This time, I quickly blasted through to the “other side.” I was in a void of darkness. Suddenly, beings appeared. They were cloaked, like silhouettes. They were glad to see me. They indicated that they had had contact with me as an individual before. They seemed pleased that we had discovered this technology. I felt like a spiritual seeker who had gotten too far off course and, instead of encountering the spirit world, overshot my destination and ended up on another planet.
They wanted to learn more about our physical bodies. They told me humans exist on many levels. I needed to reconnect with my body in time for the blood pressure check and blood sampling. It was as if they, rather than Laura, were collecting the information, and they appreciated my doing it for them. Somehow we had something in common. They told me to “embrace peace.”
I could feel myself begin to slip away from them as the drug wore off. As I started to come down, I saw thes
e things from their world that I really can’t describe. I thought of how the South Pacific natives could see only Captain Cook’s small boats, and not his big ships, until they actually climbed on board and touched them.
The reentry was very difficult. I felt sort of lost, but I sensed a tractor beam of Kevin’s love and followed it in.
My notes state that Sara got up to use the bathroom. Upon returning she said, “I’m tired, but I’m ready for the fourth dose.”
“This is the last dose. You can really go for it.”
Kevin added, “Make sure you return.”
At 5 minutes, her blood pressure and heart rate went up higher than they had all morning, even compared to her 2-minute reading, when people’s responses are usually greatest. She obviously was exerting herself, but at what, we would find out only later. At 10 minutes, my records indicate that she murmured,
We have things we can offer you too. Spirituality. . . . Okay, hurry up. Right there, right there. I did it for you. There, you can go out.
Sara’s notes from dose #4:
I went directly into deep space. They knew I was coming back and they were ready for me. They told me there were many things they could share with us when we learn how to make more extended contact. Again, they wanted something from me, not just physical information. They were interested in emotions and feelings. I told them, “We have something we can give you: spirituality.” I guess what I really meant was Love. I tried to figure out how to do this. I felt a tremendous energy, brilliant pink light with white edges, building on my left side. I knew it was spiritual energy and Love. They were on my right, so I reached out my hands across the universe and prepared to be a bridge. I let this energy pass through me to them. I said something like, “See, there I did it for you. You have it.” They were grateful. I was coming down off the DMT, losing altitude. I would have to go back.
I was a little disappointed that experience was spent “giving” when what I wanted was spiritual enlightenment. Should I have asked for something to take back first? I guess I don’t feel comfortable in my role as an earthly spiritual emissary. But I did my best. I always knew we weren’t alone in the universe. I thought that the only way to encounter them is with bright lights and flying saucers in outer space. It never occurred to me to actually encounter them in our own inner space. I thought the only things we could encounter were things in our own personal sphere of archetypes and mythology. I expected spirit guides and angels, not alien life-forms.
My own notes add this little exchange toward the end of her session:
I saw some equipment or something, sticks with teardrops coming out of them. It looked like machinery.
“It may have been machinery.”
Sara’s notes describe her state of mind after these sessions:
“It’s difficult to sort through all this. Was it real? It certainly seemed real, but so do dreams when they are happening. But there was something about this that was different from a dream, even the lucid dreams I sometimes have.
“Were there really other life-forms out there? Did I really send them the power of Love and spirituality? Even more disturbing, did they somehow mark me? Are they watching me somehow? It makes me feel a little crazy and very confused. Even worse, I feel very isolated in my experience. How can anyone except someone who has been there understand? Maybe this stuff did make me go nuts. I know it sure changed my life. Now, what am I going to do with it? How do I keep something this big inside?”
I was not at all familiar with the alien abduction literature before beginning the DMT study. Neither were many of our volunteers. I knew almost nothing about it, and had little desire to learn more. It seemed much more “fringe” than even the study of psychedelic drugs! However, once we began hearing so many tales of entity encounters, I knew I could no longer plead ignorance of the larger phenomenon. Despite my better judgment, I now feel compelled to weigh in with my opinion regarding the experience of contact with “alien life-forms.”
Let’s review the popularly reported “alien abduction” experience. We will see the striking resemblance between these naturally occurring contacts and those reported in our DMT study. This remarkable overlap may ease our acceptance of my proposition that the alien abduction experience is made possible by excessive brain levels of DMT. This may occur spontaneously through any of the previously described conditions that activate pineal DMT formation. It also might take place when DMT levels rise from taking in the drug from the outside, as in our studies.
Our current culture is fascinated with the alien abduction experience. Psychiatrist John Mack has published many reports from “abductees,” people whom he now calls “experiencers,” in his books Abduction and Passport to the Cosmos.1
As the event begins, Mack says, “consciousness is disturbed by a bright light, humming sounds, strange bodily vibrations or paralysis . . . or the appearance of one or more humanoid or even human-appearing strange beings in their environment.” Mack emphasizes the sense of high-frequency vibrations many abductees report, which may cause them to feel as if they are coming apart at the molecular level.
Some find themselves in familiar environments, like “a park with swings,” and figures “emerge” out of the background. Abductees also often find themselves on some type of examining or treatment table. Experiencers are absolutely under the aliens’ control. Despite the obviously unexpected and bizarre nature of what they are undergoing, there is no doubt in their minds that it really is happening. Thus, they describe their experiences as “more real than real.”
Varying degrees of anxiety occur in this preliminary stage, especially if it feels as if one’s consciousness is separating from the body. For many, the experience of fear is by itself somehow transformative. “Letting go” into the terror seems to change the nature of the experience from negative to positive. The individual may “float” or otherwise make their way “into a curved enclosure that appears to contain computer-like and other technical equipment.” Once the person arrives, “[s]trange beings are seen busily moving around doing tasks the experiencers do not really understand.” Abductees commonly report seeing energy-filled tunnels and cylinders of light in these environments.
The “typical” alien looks like the ones portrayed commonly in the media: large head, skinny body, big eyes, small or no mouth, gray skin. However, Mack also reports frequent descriptions of reptiles, mantises, and spiders.
Some abductees feel there is some kind of neuropsychological reprogramming, or an enormously rapid transfer of information between the beings and experiencer. Aliens may communicate using a language of universal visual symbols rather than sounds or words.
Many abductees report a complicated scenario revolving around the aliens using their reproductive machinery to breed “human-alien hybrids.” However, Mack reports that the hybrid project “is by no means all that happens. . . . They may be gazed at closely . . . and otherwise examined, probed, and monitored. Sometimes the experiencers feel that their health is being followed, especially through ano-rectal and colonic examinations, and they even report healings. . . . On other occasions, the experiencers report probes being inserted into their brains through the nose, ears, and eyes, and they may feel that their psyche has been transformed. . . . Implants are inserted under the skin . . . and they may feel certain that these represent some sort of tracking or monitoring devices.”
Abductees report “that the beings appear to be greatly interested in our physicality and emotionality, seeming, as is said of angels, to envy our embodiment . . . they need something that only human love can provide.” This may even take the form of alien-human sexual encounters. These experiences “can range from cold and bodiless to ecstatic, beyond what is known to them in earthly love.”
As Mack describes, the “experience of connection between one or more of the alien beings and the abductees with whom they relate is a powerful and consistent aspect of the experience. . . . Commonly the initial memories . . . are of cold, indifferent conta
cts in which the aliens (especially the gray reptilian or praying-mantis-like beings) render the person altogether helpless.” It is common for abductees to feel as if there is one alien in particular with whom they have a special relationship. It’s as if this alien is “in charge.”
The relationship may later evolve into a greater sense of familiarity, meaningful connection, and even love between the abductee and the alien. Several of Mack’s subjects report that they are “greeted” by the aliens when they emerge into their reality; the aliens say telepathically, “Welcome back!” Some report a life-long series of encounters beginning in childhood.
Experiencers often report that the aliens are urgently notifying them that Earth is in danger. Their abduction relates to this, inasmuch as they either provide reproductive material for the hybrid project or decide to spread the message of environmental degradation to a wider audience.
As Mack’s work with his subjects has progressed, he notes another common, perhaps even basic, element of the abduction experience. This is the transformational and spiritual nature of the encounter: “[t]he collapse of space/time perception, a sense of entering other dimensions of reality or universes . . . a feeling of connection with all of creation.” Abductees’ sense of belonging in that realm may be so acute as to create a yearning for it—a desire “not to come back.” Many abductees no longer feared death, knowing that their consciousness would survive the body’s death. One even considered the idea of killing himself so that he could return to the blissful state he encountered during his abductions.
The resemblance of Mack’s account of the alien abductions of “experiencers” to the contacts described by our own volunteers is undeniable. How can anyone doubt, after reading our accounts in these last two chapters, that DMT elicits “typical” alien encounters? If presented with a record of several of our research subjects’ accounts, with all references to DMT removed, could anyone distinguish our reports from those of a group of abductees?
DMT: The Spirit Molecule: A Doctor's Revolutionary Research into the Biology of Near-Death and Mystical Experiences Page 23