Thank you for that interesting story! I have gone my whole 33 years, and have never had anything to do with this plant (or what it produces), it seems everyone I know tells me it is wonderful, and can cure cancer and somehow they think it is the one thing that can fix everything!
I was fortunate that I was homeschooled growing up in CA, and was never exposed to such things. I started working at 15, and collage at 16 (2 hours away from home, I lived in a youth hostel for travelers during the week, and went home on the weekend) by then I knew my own mind, and never got in trouble! When I was 18 I traveled, (I was studying historical clothing in museums, for my apprenticeship as a historical costumer) and hitchhiked around Europe (stupid I know) and always marveled and how stupid all the doped up, drunk people where!
I am grateful you are the only person who affirms to me this is a dangerous drug, at this point in my life I am receiving more peer pressure than ever before, people always telling me it is natural therefore it is "GOOD"!
I do notice these people do not seem to have any drive, and I am full of drive, always full of ideas and working on a million projects. I hope one day soon, I will be able to help many poor families help themselves by, building their own house, growing their own foods, and being their own Doctors. I have spent basically my whole life learning, researching and teaching how to be self sufficient, and now it seems many things are coming together, I find it all very exciting!
I believe you said many years ago, Dr. Christopher had also written about this subject, could you direct me where I can read what he had to say!
Another thing I have run into here in Ecuador, is the plant ayahuasca and San Pedro. It causes your brain to release DMT (which I am told only usually happens at birth and death).
They actually call it "The Spirit Molecule". I originally thought you must be an idiot to force your brain to do this over and over, and now my husband has been told by people that do it (usually at a "ceremony" with a shaman, they have demons come to them and enter them (most think they are spirit guides). One man did it, but then when he saw the demons, he started praying to GOD, and prayed he would never do this again, and for God to forgive him, and no demons tried to enter him!
There was another guy there and he was scared, and did not want the demons, he was thrashing around (at this point you are paralyzed, as well as vomiting and pooping your pants) so the shaman held him still and the demons entered him, against his will with the help of the shaman!
The craziest part of all this is these are American people, that are paying $200-$300ea to do this ceremony, they think it will be a good time!
I would love to know what you, think of all this DMT release and what this is really doing to the brain of these already crazy people!
Blessing to you!
Here is a clip I got of the net about it, to further explain what it does!
DMT released when your born and when you die. this is a book review from the book spirit molecule by Dr Rick strassman
From 1990 to 1995 Dr. Rick Strassman conducted U.S. Government-approved and funded clinical research at the University of New Mexico in which he injected sixty volunteers with DMT, one of the most powerful psychedelics known. His detailed account of those sessions is an extraordinarily riveting inquiry into the nature of the human mind and the therapeutic potential of psychedelics. DMT, a plant-derived chemical found in the psychedelic Amazon brew, ayahuasca, is also manufactured by the human brain. In Strassman's volunteers, it consistently produced near-death and mystical experiences. Many reported convincing encounters with intelligent nonhuman presences, aliens, angels, and spirits. Nearly all felt that the sessions were among the most profound experiences of their lives.
Strassman's research connects DMT with the pineal gland, considered by Hindus to be the site of the seventh chakra and by Rene Descartes to be the seat of the soul. DMT: The Spirit Molecule makes the bold case that DMT, naturally released by the pineal gland, facilitates the soul's movement in and out of the body and is an integral part of the birth and death experiences, as well as the highest states of meditation and even sexua| transcendence. Strassman also believes that "alien abduction experiences" are brought on by accidental releases of DMT. If used wisely, DMT could trigger a period of remarkable progress in the scientific exploration of the most mystical regions of the human mind and soul.
and this is his introduction to the book
In 1990, I began the first new human research with psychedelic, or hallucinogenic, drugs in the United States in over 20 years. These studies investigated the effects of N,N-dimethyltryptamine, or DMT, an extremely short-acting and powerful psychedelic. During the project's five years, I administered approximately 400 doses of DMT to 60 human volunteers. This research took place at the University of New Mexico's School of Medicine in Albuquerque, where I was tenured Associate Professor of Psychiatry.
I was drawn to DMT because of its presence in all of our bodies. Perhaps excessive DMT production, coming from the mysterious pineal gland, was involved in naturally occurring "psychedelic" states. These might include birth, death and near-death, psychosis, and mystical experiences. Only later, while the study was well under way, did I also begin considering DMT's role in the "alien abduction" experience.
The DMT project was founded on cutting edge brain science, especially the psychopharmacology of serotonin. However, my own background powerfully affected how we prepared people for, and supervised, their drug sessions. One of these was a decades-long relationship with a Zen Buddhist training monastery.
The Spirit Molecule reviews what we know about psychedelic drugs in general, and DMT in particular. It then traces the DMT research project from its earliest intimations through the maze of committees and review boards to its actual performance.
Our research subjects were healthy volunteers. The studies were not intended to be therapeutic, although all of us believed in the potentially beneficial properties of psychedelic drugs. The project generated a wealth of biological and psychological data, much of which I have already published in the scientific literature. On the other hand, I have written nearly nothing about volunteers' stories. I hope these many excerpts from over 1000 pages of my bedside notes provide a sense of the remarkable emotional, psychological, and spiritual effects of this chemical.
Problems inside and outside of the research environment led to the end of these studies in 1995. Despite the difficulties we encountered, I am optimistic about the possible benefits of the controlled use of these drugs. Based upon what we learned in the New Mexico research, I offer a wide-ranging vision for DMT's role in our lives, and conclude by proposing a research agenda and optimal setting for future work with DMT and related drugs.
The late Willis Harman possessed one of the most discerning minds to apply himself to the field of psychedelic research. Willis, earlier in his career, had published the first and only scientific study using psychedelics to enhance the creative process. When I met him 30 years later in 1994, he was president of Institute of Noetic Sciences, an organization founded by the sixth man to walk on the moon, Edgar Mitchell. Mitchell's mystical experience, stimulated by viewing the Earth on his return home, inspired him to study phenomenon outside the range of traditional science, which nevertheless might yield to a broader application of the scientific method.
During a long walk together along the central California coastal range one day, he said firmly, "At the very least, we must enlarge the discussion about psychedelics." It is in response to his request that I include highly speculative ideas and my own personal motivations for performing this research. This approach will satisfy no-one in every respect. There is intense friction between what we know intellectually or even intuitively, and what we experience with the aid of DMT. As one of our volunteers exclaimed after his first high dose session, "Wow! I never expected that!" Or, as Dogen, a thirteenth century Japanese Buddhist teacher said, "We must always be disturbed by the truth." Enthusiasts of the psychedelic drug culture may dislike the conclusion that DMT has no beneficial effects in and of itself; rather, the context in which people take them is at least as important. Proponents of drug control may condemn what they read as encouragement to take psychedelic drugs and a glorification of the DMT experience. Practitioners and spokespersons of traditional religions may reject the suggestion that spiritual states can be accessed, and mystical information gained, through drugs. Those who have undergone "alien abduction," and their advocates, may interpret as a challenge to the "reality" of their experiences my suggestion that DMT is intimately involved in these events. Opponents and supporters of abortion rights may find fault with my proposal that pineal DMT release at 49 days after conception marks the entrance of the spirit into the fetus.
Brain researchers may object to the suggestion that DMT affects the brain's ability to receive information, rather than generating those perceptions themselves. They also may dismiss the proposal that DMT can allow our brains to perceive dark matter or parallel universes, realms of existence inhabited by conscious entities.
However, if I did not describe all the ideas behind the DMT studies, and the entire range of our volunteers' experiences, I would not be telling the entire tale. At best, The Spirit Molecule would have little effect on the scope of discussion about psychedelics; at worst, the book would reduce the field. Nor would I be honest if I did not share my own speculations and theories based upon decades of study, and listening to hundreds of DMT sessions. This is why I did it. This is what happened. This is what I think about it.
It is so important for us to understand consciousness. It is just as important to place psychedelic drugs in general, and DMT in particular, into a personal and cultural matrix where we do the most good, and the least harm. In such a wide open area of inquiry, it is best that we reject no ideas until we actually disprove them. It is in the interest of enlarging the discussion about psychedelic drugs that I've written The Spirit Molecule.