
Why Do DMT Users See Insects from a Parallel Universe? - quakeguy
http://sprott.physics.wisc.edu/pickover/pc/dmtinsect.html
======
GuiA
There is some evidence that seems to indicate that the humans have an evolved
"built in" reaction to snake/snake like patterns:

[http://www.psychologicalscience.org/journals/cd/12_1/Ohman.c...](http://www.psychologicalscience.org/journals/cd/12_1/Ohman.cfm)

 _As reptiles, snakes may have signified deadly threats in the environment of
early mammals. We review findings suggesting that snakes remain special
stimuli for humans. Intense snake fear is prevalent in both humans and other
primates. Humans and monkeys learn snake fear more easily than fear of most
other stimuli through direct or vicarious conditioning. Neither the
elicitation nor the conditioning of snake fear in humans requires that snakes
be consciously perceived; rather, both processes can occur with masked
stimuli. Humans tend to perceive illusory correlations between snakes and
aversive stimuli, and their attention is automatically captured by snakes in
complex visual displays. Together, these and other findings delineate an
evolved fear module in the brain. This module is selectively and automatically
activated by once-threatening stimuli, is relatively encapsulated from
cognition, and derives from specialized neural circuitry._

This makes sense, as humans have evolved along venomous snakes for presumably
a very long time.

Is it possible that when drug users of a wide variety of backgrounds report
similar hallucinations (here insects), it taps into similar mechanisms,
activating neural pathways that deal with the recognition of insects?

~~~
lukeholder
Interesting that Satan is described as a "serpent" in the Old Testament/Garden
of Eden story.

~~~
endianswap
I know this is off topic, but Satan didn't exist when the OT was written, by
the way.

[http://www.biblicalarchaeology.org/daily/biblical-
topics/bib...](http://www.biblicalarchaeology.org/daily/biblical-topics/bible-
interpretation/how-the-serpent-became-satan/)

~~~
smithkl42
Not quite true, or at least not so baldly. Job describes the "satan", or
accuser, in a manner that clearly anticipates his later depiction as "the
accuser of the brethren" in Revelation. And while not providing a name, the
descriptions of the mythical falls of the kings of Babylon and Tyre in Isaiah
and Ezekiel seem to draw on legends similar to the later Christian elaboration
of the story of demonic rebellion and exile.

------
3131s
Datura users are also commonly reported by observers to act out hallucinations
involving insects. While the user often recalls an entirely different mental
experience, it's common for their physical selves to be seen picking at
imaginary bugs on the floor in a primal manner (among other reflexive actions,
such as convincingly smoking imaginary cigarettes).

It is interesting and darkly humorous (keep in mind that datura is very
dangerous) to read the Erowid trip reports for datura. Quite a few of them are
along the lines of "I took datura, I had vivid hallucinations for three days
with no relation to reality, and then I woke up naked in a hospital / jail".

[https://erowid.org/experiences/subs/exp_Datura.shtml](https://erowid.org/experiences/subs/exp_Datura.shtml)

~~~
Itsdijital
A long time ago I had an experience not with datura, but a close relative -
benedryl (both are dissociatives).

Came home after rolling on ecstasy all night and wanted to go to bed. It's not
that easy though after taking a bunch of stimulants. So I took a little bit of
a lot of benedryl (iirc ~200mg or 8 pills). Ripped my bong for a bit and felt
nice and chilled out. About 30 minutes later though, things started to get
weird. Was taking a piss and all these really vivid tears started appearing,
like someone ripping the movie screen of my vision with intense psychedelic
swirls and stuff behind it. These weren't like lsd or mushroom hallucinations,
they were far more real and vivid. It wasn't anything overwhelming though,
just small little pockets here and there.

I went back to my room, and holy shit, there were thousands of flies pouring
out of my blinds. Like this amorphous mass of flies dripping from between the
slats. All the other hallucinations were gone. It was just the flies, and I
cannot stress enough how real it was. I went up to it and could get in real
close and see all their little wings and glittery eyes. I got in bed and now
there were hundreds of spiders crawling on my computer chair. I just laid in
bed watching in awe of how real it looked. Then huge spiders started crawling
on my ceiling, like the ones from jumanji. It was unsettling, but I was oddly
sober (mentally) and knew how common reports of insects and dissociatives
were. Except for the psychedelic rips, there were no other hallucinations
besides the bugs. I don't even have a fear of spiders or bugs, and always
assumed that was the underlying cause.

~~~
nv-vn
Isn't it technically the deliriant effect that causes these hallucinations
(and not the dissociative effect)?

------
hanibash
My latest working theory for why DMT elicits similar experiences across
different users was actually inspired by Google's "Deep Dream" art:
[https://research.googleblog.com/2015/06/inceptionism-
going-d...](https://research.googleblog.com/2015/06/inceptionism-going-deeper-
into-neural.html)

"We know that after training, each layer progressively extracts higher and
higher-level features of the image... The final few layers assemble those into
complete interpretations—these neurons activate in response to very complex
things such as entire buildings or trees."

I'm not an expert, but from the little I know of neuroscience, the human brain
also has higher level interpreters inside of it. It is why, for example, that
pareidolia (seeing faces in objects) is a thing
([https://www.reddit.com/r/Pareidolia/](https://www.reddit.com/r/Pareidolia/)).

"So here’s one surprise: neural networks that were trained to discriminate
between different kinds of images have quite a bit of the information needed
to generate images too"

"One way to visualize what goes on is to turn the network upside down and ask
it to enhance an input image in such a way as to elicit a particular
interpretation"

So I believe that what DMT is doing is triggering our high level interpreters
to make sense of thoughts and emotions that we have. We do the same thing when
we dream, where we interpret an event of the day in a very vivid, novel
fashion, sometimes even creating story arcs around it.

~~~
pault
I had the same thought when I first saw deep dream (which look exactly like
drug hallucinations) and read the explanation behind it. That's when I first
had my "oh shit" moment, realizing that DNN researchers really are onto
something. I started taking discussions about AI a lot more seriously after
that.

------
dboreham
Hmm...I've never tried psychoactive drugs but way back when I worked on
hardware I was debugging a board in a lab that had poor ventilation, cleaning
flux off it with Freon when I saw a little green Dragon rise out of the green
solder resist film and breathe the tiniest lick of fire at me.

------
boatroad
I haven't met anyone who described insects. Most of the entities experienced
seem to be abstract, with the possibility of focusing it into an object but
not a negative one. DMT seems to be generally a positive euphoric experience
filled with geometric shapes of love. Although a mild dose can be unpleasant.

What I've experience sometimes looked like UFOs, that when you focused on them
would burst into the sky far away. Like a ship taking off in a rapid
dimensional-type shift. Similar to the graphics in the movie Dr. Strange.

The presence is more like feeling the wind, and getting a sense that the wind
itself is saying hello and making fun of you.

------
benevol
I've seen the roots of a tree (at at distance of about 300 feet) through the
ground, while on LSD (about 500ug). I'm sure those really were the roots,
because the visible part of the tree (the trunk and the roots that came up
above ground again at a few spots) matched completely with roots in the ground
I was seeing. The image was stable and lasted for about 45 seconds. Something
(not like an external voice, more like an internal voice/thought/intuition
told me "yes, of course, you just need to tune into the frequency of the thing
you want to see"). As soon as I tried thinking/questioning, the view vanished,
and I guess it was because of the ego starting to interfere.

Conclusion: We still have _no clue_ what reality really holds and how to use
our brain in order to access our real potential. Interesting times to come,
stay tuned.

~~~
pseud0r
I've had similar experiences, but I don't think they're anything other than
internally generated by the brain, especially since I've also been able to
morph what I've seen into other objects at will.

I've also been able to see objects in more detail on LSD, like I was wearing
extra glasses or something, but again I suspect the extra details were just
created by my visual system, though it would be interesting if there were more
scientific studies of this stuff.

~~~
collyw
I do a few outdoor sports and I have noticed that when I get into a
particularly bad scenario time seems to slow down. Actually I am not sure that
it does, but the adrenaline seems to turn off the filtering so I remember it
in slow motion and in a lot more detail.

------
anigbrowl
I believe this world is basically a playpen in a universe having 5 spatial
dimensions.

I've had a very interesting side-effect immediately after coming back from a
DMT trip of being able to see around things. Like you look at a box on the
table in front of you and you can see the side facing away from you. Faded
gradually after 5 minutes. This seems like extremely fruitful territory for
trying with ESP test cards, MRI imaging and more.

~~~
ajkjk
Why would you believe that?

~~~
anigbrowl
Because that's my experience. I investigate theoretical models but I don't
have the math skills to develop the idea more rigorously at present.

~~~
michaelmrose
Can you elaborate on "I investigate theoretical models"? Are you involved in
some branch of math or science?

~~~
anigbrowl
No this is strictly amateur hour and most of my ideas are probably not even
wrong. If I went into any more detail I'd feel like a crank, though :)

------
oh_sigh
Do people of all cultures see insects, or is it just westerners on DMT?

For example, I've heard that schizophrenia manifests itself in different ways
across cultures. Voices are almost always negative/destructive in western
cultures, but often times take on playful manners in non-western cultures.

~~~
burgerdev
It is most prevalent among westerners writing fiction novels about alien
praying mantis entities[1].

Jokes aside, as far as I know DMT is not the only compound that makes you see
insects. For me, it kinda makes sense to interpret little 'irregularities' in
your visual / tactile perceptions as, say, ants.

[1]
[http://sprott.physics.wisc.edu/pickover/neoreality.html](http://sprott.physics.wisc.edu/pickover/neoreality.html)

~~~
burgerdev
On the other hand, perhaps insects are ideal for (subconsciously) describing
alien encounters. The mind has a good understanding about how insects look
like (not like us), but it can barely imagine how it _feels_ to be an insect.

------
nhaliday
I have no idea what a DMT trip is actually like but I liked the depiction in
Enter the Void:
[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BCIe9gh84NE](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BCIe9gh84NE).

~~~
byuu
Just a fair warning, I've never once seen a depiction of the effects of any
kind of psychedelic drug that matched the effects I've personally experienced.
And I've tried quite a few of them.

A lot of the experience is the head space and body load, which you're just
never going to get from _way_ over the top visual approximations. If you
haven't experienced those, you aren't going to be able to imagine them very
accurately.

The actual hallucinations are often much more subtle, but it's the headspace
that makes them seem more significant. For instance, the most psilocybin does
(for me) is cause text on a screen to wiggle around by a few pixels, and
things to kind of zoom in and out by maybe 1% of their actual size, and colors
on pictures to kind of bleed around by a few pixels if you stare at it long
enough.

Now granted, I have not tried dimethyltryptamine. I don't have the courage for
that one yet :P

~~~
atom-morgan
> For instance, the most psilocybin does (for me) is cause text on a screen to
> wiggle around by a few pixels

Take more. I've been sitting in my living room literally holding my eyelids
open seeing a completely different world. I agree 100% about the visual
depictions though. Never gets close.

~~~
byuu
I've gone as high as I could before the body load became truly threatening.
That's around 5-6g of cubensis, or 50mg of 4-AcO-DMT. Psilocin and its analogs
tend to cause hypothermia for me that gets worse as dosages increase. Freezing
cold yet sweating profusely. Muscles unable to keep still. At that level, it's
a struggle for me to stay conscious and not black out. I have to move
constantly to avoid that. It ceases to be enjoyable beyond 2-3g or 20-30mg
here; low visuals there but amazing euphoria. Though to be honest, the
constant nausea ruins regular mushrooms regardless of dosage.

I think there's just something off with me and visual hallucinations. I've
gone as high as 1.5g on dextromethorphan, and the most I've gotten there was
seeing the vague outline of what looked like my room while my eyes were
closed, or seeing a grayscale wall that seemed to go up forever. Sometimes
with eyes open it seems like in the darkness there's a shadowy silhouette of
some other place, but the second I try to focus on it, the illusion breaks.
Much more boring than the description sounds.

Note that I'm only 150lbs, too. So it's not a mg/kg dosing issue.

> I agree 100% about the visual depictions though. Never gets close.

It makes me wonder if they're just trying to give a good show for the viewers,
like the way they portray computer hackers and such. Or if the people making
these depictions have just never in their lives tried psychedelics themselves.
Probably the former.

------
junkyarddog
Six to seven foot tall praying mantis like entities are a common element in
many alien abduction accounts. They're typically in the background, silently
watching the proceedings while letting the little greys carry out the
examinations.

In "DMT: The Spirit Molecule" author Rick Strassman theorises that DMT enables
the brain to tune in to other parallel realities beyond "channel-normal". If
the interdimensional hypothesis for alien abductions is correct, perhaps DMT
allows one to occasionally tune into the source of this mysterious phenomenon.

------
swayvil
Maybe they visit a parallel universe where they meet insects.

~~~
colordrops
Funny how most in this thread are unwilling to interpret the experience at
face value, probably because of certain taboos among scientific and
technically minded types.

~~~
JabavuAdams
Maybe people here have more knowledge of neuroscience, and physics, than the
general population?

Knowledge brings biases, of course. But those biases aren't necessarily wrong.

You have a blind-spot (at least one) on each retina that you never see. Does
this mean that there is a secret hole in reality, just out of sight, that
science won't accept? Or does it mean that there's an area on your retina with
no visual sensors, and that the brain fills in the gaps?

~~~
colordrops
I'm not saying that the experience is not likely an illusion. But its funny
that you mention a blind spot, because why entertain every theory except the
most obvious one?

~~~
krapp
When you try to apply supernatural concepts to the natural world, you either
have to dismiss the relevance of the body of scientific knowledge which
contradicts the premises of magical thinking, and assume that the universe
doesn't actually follow any knowable physical laws, or explain it within the
constraints of what is known to be true in the universe in which we live.

There is no scientifically credible evidence that the mind exists as a
coherent entity outside of the brain - and there is evidence that the mind and
the brain are the same thing, or at least, that the latter cannot exist
outside the former.

There is also no scientifically credible evidence that arbitrary and
instantaneous travel to parallel universes is possible. Rather, it appears to
either be impossible, or at least, infeasible without burning entire galaxies
to a cinder - about as difficult a problem as traveling faster than
lightspeed.

One can credibly dismiss this theory because it requires astral projection and
ESP to be true, despite there being no evidence of truth behind either, and
the laws of physics (in particular, the laws of thermodynamics) to be false,
despite the evidence in their favor.

~~~
colordrops
You are making far too many assumptions here. I said nothing of "supernatural"
or "unscientific" ideas, and "magical thinking" is an insult in my opinion. I
said nothing of the mind and brain being separate entities or astral
projection or ESP. You are applying your own failure of imagination in
explaining the concept within your limited realm of knowledge and projecting
it onto me.

You are mistaking explanation for reality. Your ability to explain something
using whatever mental tools you happen to possess at the moment doesn't make
that the truth. People three thousand years ago explained things with the
tools they had, and ended up creating religions, which are in all likelihood
not very accurate representations of reality. In the cosmic scale, our
knowledge of reality now will probably look more primitive to humans in 10k
years, than humans of 3k years ago look to us. It's needlessly self centered
to think otherwise, and we are probably wrong about almost everything we know.

~~~
krapp
You're essentially claiming that "the map is not the territory," which is
correct and, indeed, a fundamental scientific premise.

However, for the models that science provides to be useful, they need to
appear, predictably and repeatably, to describe the real world. I don't know
what science will look like in ten thousand years (and neither do you) but
given that current knowledge of physics, biology, neuroscience, etc do seem
true to a reasonable degree, it seems unlikely that the science of the future
would somehow discredit modern science entirely, while coincidentally
validating a _more_ primitive, shamanic point of view regarding altered states
of consciousness.

Accusing me of being ignorant and self-centered in defense of a premise you
can't support beyond faith and personal belief seems hypocritical. And as far
as imagination goes, accepting altered states at face value is _literally_ the
least amount of imagination or intellectual effort one can expend in
attempting to understand them.

~~~
colordrops
Once again, assumptions. "A more primitive, shamanic point of view". "faith,
personal belief". This is quite the opposite. No one is asking you to believe
anything. There is no presumption of human-like deities without a shred I'd
evidence. There is just direct, personal observation of phenomena. Choosing
the most obvious explanation for it doesn't make it pseudoscientific crankery.
It is just a first pass of a hypothesis without much evidence for anything
else. And it is no more or less valid than other hypothesis.

~~~
krapp
The hypothesis you're presenting _not_ the _most_ obvious, Because it requires
discrediting existing and established science and starting over from "direct,
personal observation of phenomena," as if humanity hadn't already been doing
that for centuries, with the cumulative effort of that observation being
_precisely_ the process by which we arrived at the conclusions that modern
science reaches.

The flat earth may once have been obvious to many people, but it would be
absurd to expect anyone to approach any modern discussion about geology from a
first principle that all hypotheses regarding the shape of the earth are
equally valid, and require that the curvature of the earth be reproven with
each discussion. Some hypotheses have evidence to support them, some don't,
and there is good reason to assume that the hypotheses which have evidence are
more true than those which don't.

Now, mind you, sometimes the hypothesis with evidence is proven false, because
the nature of the evidence has been misunderstood. Miasma theory was proven
false by germ theory. The luminiferous aether was proven false by quantum
mechanics. The solid state universe was proven false by cosmic expansion.
Plenty of accepted science has been proven false. Hell, people once believed
the only reason the brain existed was to keep the skull nice and round.

But you have to _prove_ the existing paradigm _wrong_ before you assert that
another is more correct.

~~~
colordrops
The problem here is that science isn't the only paradigm or even the most
relevant paradigm with which to interpret these experiences. That is not to
say that scientific method cannot be applied, but there is little in the way
of frameworks and tools for exploring altered states of consciousness and
subjective experience. There isn't anything even close to a consensus on the
nature of consciousness or whether it even exists, let alone the specific
phenomena experienced subjectively by consciousness, so trying to cram them
into inadequate scientific models will not bring about much insight. This is
all addition to the fact that science has really only tackled the capture of
knowledge about the objective world, that being the shared world between
humans, but is not the best tool for approaching the subjective individual
experience. Philosophy and metaphysics are better suited to this, as science
says nothing about the "reality" of something.

------
splitdisk
The more common term is "entities" or "elves"-and I can't really say I've ever
seen them.

~~~
DaiPlusPlus
I read that "The Machine Elves" are more associated with LSD than DMT. Perhaps
they activate different parts of the brain associated with object recognition
- LSD for humans and faces, and DMT for insects/reptiles as other comments
have speculated - it makes me wonder what myriad other substances out there
that we haven't discovered yet and what otherworldly effects they could have.

~~~
notmarkus
"Machine Elves" was coined by Terence McKenna to describe the beings in the
DMT world. He didn't do much LSD and wasn't a big fan of it.

Maybe others have had different experiences but at the very least the origins
of the term are tied to DMT.

~~~
Lapsa
^_^
[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=j9z4uYEKvJw](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=j9z4uYEKvJw)

------
nsxwolf
What if it's real? What if the DMT is disabling some kind of filter that
normally keeps this reality hidden?

~~~
scrollaway
Occam's razor says no.

~~~
axefrog
Occam's razor is a guideline, not an immutable law.

~~~
oniMaker
Occam's razor would immediately discard quantum theory. Does that make it
false?

~~~
dragonwriter
> Occam's razor would immediately discard quantum theory

No, it to wouldn't; quantum theory is quite plausibly the most parsimonious
explanation consistent with the evidence.

~~~
oniMaker
The point is that it would seem ridiculous to start from nothing and jump to
such a counter-intuitive theory.

~~~
dragonwriter
Occam's Razor has nothing to do with starting from nothing, it has to do with
selecting among competing explanations for a set of known facts.

------
tudorw
"CYP2D6 is therefore a relatively highly specific, high-affinity, high-
capacity 5-methoxyindolethylamine O-demethylase. Polymorphic cytochrome CYP2D6
may therefore exert an influence on mood and behavior by the O-demethylation
of these 5-methoxyindolethylamines found in the brain and pineal gland."

[https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/12777961](https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/12777961)

------
omio
SG-1 fixed this once...

------
wyck
Is there a theory that the DMT "beings" are actually your bodies cells and
proteins visualised and communicating as different entities?

The whole "You should not be down here, but hello" at a very very self macro
level? Maybe even at the atomic level?

~~~
waqas-
> "You should not be down here, but hello"

this line sent shudders down my spine. does this happen to everyone?

------
coldtea
Because they read about others seeing them, so they already have an
expectation of what to see in their minds.

------
BrailleHunting
This is either a joke or a bunch of conspiracy theorists of the trippy-dippy
sort.

------
toruk_makto
this explains mr. mime in my visuals

------
nether
I saw these weird drapes folded around me that were brown, green, and white
stripes. They were gently heaving, and I knew that they were living creatures
that were watching over me. I didn't take enough to have a full breakthrough,
but in that moment I was certain that I was dying, with all of my
consciousness welled up into my head, as if that's all I was. When I came to
and regained awareness of my limbs, I was relieved to feel tears on my face
because I guess that meant I was still alive. For a couple of weeks I wondered
if I really had died. The feeling was that strong. Now, I think that's absurd,
but still a tiny part wonders...

The lesson learned was that I needed to start questioning my convictions more.
Just "feeling sure" isn't enough to certain of something. I try to maintain a
little bit of skepticism and doubt toward every thing these days.

~~~
Figs
> Just "feeling sure" isn't enough to certain of something.

Back when I was a teenager, I got interested in the idea of lucid dreaming.
One of the suggested ways I'd read of gaining awareness that you are in a
dream is to habitually ask yourself if you're dreaming -- sooner or later,
you'll do it in a dream.

I tried that for a while, and sure enough, I _did_ actually ask myself if I
was dreaming while in a dream, and concluded that I wasn't in dream, because I
just felt sure that I wasn't dreaming! Was rather amused when I woke up and
realized that I actually had been dreaming all along...

What I should have done -- as I later learned -- was to try to do something
impossible while _anticipating_ that it will happen. For example, jump with
the intention of levitating, _expecting_ to just hover in the air. Dreams work
on anticipation -- what you expect to happen is what happens next. (That's why
nightmares always seem to do whatever you're afraid is going to happen next;
you expect your fear to come true, so it does.)

Empirically testing reality on occasion is a good thing to do; sometimes
you'll find out that what you think is real is just a dream.

~~~
Neliquat
Best tests. Easily done in the waking world (which is which?) Without looking
like an idiot. 1. Lightswitches, they dont work right in dreams, shading is
hard. 2. Clocks, or digital readouts. Time has no refrence and displays are
oddly hard. 3. Hands. You do not know the back of your hand. Might be why so
many people stare at their hands on psychedelics.

~~~
pera
Right, "complex scenes" are never completely static; spaces and textures
changes if you move around. I find that particularly interesting because I can
perceive and remember details (for instance the pattern of a mosaic), but
whenever you check again, it change, so it seems like the _buffer_ were this
images are coming from is separated from the region of my brain in charge of
remembering my current dream.

------
ge96
wow this website is like a trip in time back to the 90's like that internet
explorer website that depicts Bill Gates as a devil hahaha

~~~
ge96
not related, it annoys me that hackernews.com is not part of this site (I
don't think so) it reminds me of that guy that wouldn't let go of dropbox.com
and put ads on it... again did not research... but I'd think that url
redirects here. Oh well. Pretty sweet that ycombinator seeds startups... was
not aware, just came here for tech/code stuff.

------
api
[https://www.quantamagazine.org/20150820-the-case-for-
complex...](https://www.quantamagazine.org/20150820-the-case-for-complex-dark-
matter/)

Sorry had to do it.

~~~
brianberns
So, assuming you mean to imply that DMT "insects" are real creatures composed
of dark matter, such a being would still be affected by Earth's gravity if it
was nearby, even if it couldn't interact with our "normal" matter at all. This
seems to imply that it would be pulled through the surface of the earth,
towards the center.

So if any of you see intelligent insects walking around on your next DMT trip,
ask them how they keep from being sucked into the planet.

~~~
aoeuasdf1
Easy, they live on a planet of dark matter :)

