There’s a small, albeit growing subculture of Angelenos who like to experience the sensation of death recreationally. I am one of them. By now, you may have heard whispers about the powerful, life-altering psychedelic known as DMT. Today, I’m going to share some of my experiences.
Proponents refer to DMT as a “medicine,” not a drug. And for good reason. When used carefully and intentionally, this simple molecule can change your life and fundamentally alter your perspective of the world. Still, it goes without saying to use discretion, follow your gut and do your research before you decide to undergo this experience. It is not for the faint of heart.
Safe journeys.
I believe in God because I’ve met it.
But the God I’ve met is not the lord of any particular religion or doctrine. It’s not a Christian, Jewish or Muslim god.
The God I’ve met doesn’t have a book of rules for what we can or can’t do. It has no sex or race, and certainly no white beard.
In fact, this God doesn’t even have a personality or any preferences.
The God I’ve met is pure energy.
The energy of the entire cosmos, outside and independent of time, in all directions, forever.
You may think you can imagine something this vast, but it’s impossible if you haven’t experienced it.
In the past five years, I’ve experimented all over the world with different forms of meditation, putting myself in trances, and other strange things that go bump in the night — including testing the effects of many different plant medicines.
One of these medicines, DMT, is a psychedelic that many refer to as “the spirit molecule.” It’s the active ingredient in the sacred brew ayahuasca. Scientists believe your brain releases large quantities of it when you’re born and when you die.
Through DMT (short for Dimethyltryptamine), I’ve actually seen what I can only describe as “the Death Tube.”
The Death Tube is that spiral, radiating staircase that many people have described in near-death-experience documentaries as the “white light.”
Don’t go toward the light, Johnny! Johnny!
As you ascend the tube, you can feel your entire ego, your entire personality, crumbling beneath you and falling into an infinite sea. Your brain is a computer on the verge of rebooting.
You’re about to wipe the slate clean. This is your Morpheus moment.
Imagine the terror of knowing that everything you’ve ever thought, felt or remembered was going away. That none of this, including you, was ever real — yet being somehow delighted and utterly content with the irony of it all.
Imagine feeling the full intensity of every emotion in the human catalog, from heartbreaking despair, to tremendous joy. The energy, wisdom and power developed over centuries of human evolution courses through you, releasing a choreographed stream of every color, image and vision you’ve ever had in your entire life, superimposed on top of itself, all at once.
Every feeling of gratitude you’ve ever had, multiplied by one million.
Every loving memory with your friends, loved ones and partners, magnified.
All of it, tempered by the intense fear that it was all coming to an end. That you were soon to be no more. Or that you never were.
“This must be what it’s like to die.
Imagine your spirit, woven into the collective spirit of every other being that has ever lived or ever will live, instantly endowing you with the knowledge of every word that’s ever been thought, said or written — now and in the future.
Once you move beyond the self, all fear dissolves.
And just when you think you can’t take any more, you’ll break into a trillion mirrored pieces and shoot through to the other side of infinity, down the spiral, radiating white tube.
You emerge on the other side into what I can only describe as a divinely loving, celestial void. Except there is no you. There is the presence of God, with no form. It knows you, because you are it.
It’s a homecoming. It’s looking in the mirror. The entire act is self-referential.
You will realize that you are God.
The reason it’s been so hard for you to see this simple fact is the same reason you lose your glasses while you’re still wearing them.
The reason you cannot see that you are God is the same reason the fish does not know it is wet.
There is no judgement in this elevated place.
There is no grand review of your life or criticism. There is no score being kept or grades being given.
There is only unconditional, total and complete love and acceptance for all that is. There is complete empathy and understanding, beyond the capacity of human intellect, which is often overridden by pride and emotion.
Pure love.
This love is so overwhelming, my words don’t have the precision or depth to describe it. It’s so utterly filling and transcendent that the experience has etched a permanent mark on my soul.
The moment was fundamentally life-altering.
Anybody in the world who is cruel would only need experience this once to feel utterly ashamed and repentant. It is the Universal Equalizer.
I know that my perspective will not necessarily match up with everyone’s particular religious or spiritual beliefs, and I can understand that. I have no desire to convert you to my way of thinking and seeing the world.
But this isn’t speculation on my end.
These are experiences I’ve actually had — subjective as they may be — and for that reason alone, you can take what you’d like from them.
Daniel DiPiazza is the best-selling author of Rich20Something: Ditch Your Average Job, Start an Epic Business and Score the Life You Want.