Do Not Enter The Machine

 November 25.

It has been several weeks since my last experience. I have been extremely occupied with a career change and getting settled in with my new schedule. I’m really looking forward to this experience.

There was no kaleidoscope like before. The vision began immediately. I was greeted by a man that I thought looked like Michelangelo. He wanted me to look at a machine he had created. It seemed autonomous. When I looked at the machine it saw me and changed direction to move towards me. There was a bright shining center to the machine that was its eye, and it was made of many moving parts and gears. As it drew closer to me, I began to see that the machine was not mechanical at all, it was made up of millions of people trying to climb and scramble over each other to get to the center. No one person seemed to care about the person next to them other than to use them as a step to get closer to the center. They looked like a bunch of bugs with no care other than their own hunger.

Michelangelo asked me if I wanted to go inside this machine. I hesitated to answer because I was curious, but it didn’t look enjoyable. He told me that all of these people are wasting their time, most never make it to the center. He told me I was different and that I should stay outside with “Us”. It was not difficult to convince me, the machine looked bad. Michelangelo walked me around the back of the machine where he showed me what happens to those that make it to the center. People that make the climb and use their fellow man to step on are eaten by this machine and liquified in a process and then turned into donuts and pastries that these people like Michelangelo then eat. He asked if I wanted to eat a donut. The donuts had strange hieroglyphic writing on them. It seemed so weird, I refused.

To me, this machine represented the ‘rat race’, possibly greed, lust, arrogance. The shining center being wealth, power or status. None of the things that make a real wholesome existence truly rewarding. The people that make up this machine are lost in a perpetual cycle of self-destruction and are only seemingly free after stepping on their fellow man only to be liquified and turned into a snack.

I’ve been very conflicted about this experience. Everything I have encountered, until now, all seemed mostly or entirely benevolent and well meaning.  I wouldn’t go as far as to say what I encountered this time was necessarily bad or evil, but strangely at ease with the process in which this machine devours misguided people. Maybe these people can’t be saved? It was their own greed and desire that had them chasing the light within this machine after all.

Michelangelo did warn me not to go in, so I have to give credit where it is due. Benevolent or not, I have yet to receive bad advice from anything I encounter. I’m still not sure if I would eat one of those donuts.

 Some time had passed since that journey. My head felt clear. I felt present back in this world, but I had not yet opened my eyes. I decided to go in again.  

After a few hits I was presented with the face of a dragon, as if he was blocking me. He looked like the dragon you would see in a parade like Chinese new year. Except this one had feathers like a native American head dress and eyes at the end of each feather.

I thought I had tried too early after the previous journey, or possibly I hadn’t done enough. I’m already here so might as well do more. I could still feel the pen in my hand. I kept my eyes closed so as not to interrupt the vision. I took 2 more hits. Just then a man steps out from behind the dragon and tells me that was enough, and he motioned me to follow him in. The man was dressed similar to the dragon, all flashy with different colors and feathers. We were on a long row of neon lights that looked like a rope bridge. At the other end of the neon bridge were multiple rooms made of gold. Each room led to an infinite number of rooms, like looking into a tesseract. The dragon still did not want me there, he kept staring down at me as if to intimidate me. Ironically, in a previous journey, I was taught by a shaman to stare down a dragon and not let it intimidate me. I used this technique he showed me, and the dragon became embarrassed and would no longer look me in the eye. At that point I was able to move around the golden room freely. The man partnered with the dragon was shedding golden scales from the dragon and showering me with them. He told me they represented love, wisdom, and good fortune. But he had a difficult time explaining that because apparently humans (incorrectly) separate the meaning of love from things like wisdom and respect. In their world, he said, it was all one thing not to be categorized separately. So, to give them to me separately was odd but it was the only way I could understand it.

As I left the man and the dragon, I was greeted by a cat. The cat wanted to show me that the kaleidoscope visions most people see (on DMT) were just an illusion. It’s like a picture to distract you. He showed me how the depth of the vision can be a trick and that it was always a one-dimensional image. The cat said that if you learn the trick to the kaleidoscope, you will understand the energy that makes existence possible. He quickly turned his example sideways to show me energy that was feeding the kaleidoscope image but turned it back just as fast. I wasn’t supposed to see that, he told me.

I thanked the cat and the vision ended.

I’m left wondering how many of my visions have just been a distraction or an illusion. Obviously, there’s some irony in that question. Because how can you explain the dmt experience to begin with? You can just as easily explain consciousness and life as you can explain what you experience while using dmt.