Levels of Experience
by Peter MeyerBased upon...reports...I tenatively put forward the following classification of levels of experience associated with the effects of smoking DMT. This classification should be tested in the light of further reports....
Level I: Pre-Hallucinatory experience
This stage is characterized by an interior flowing of energy/consciousness. It may be extremely intense. It may have a positive feeling content.Level II: Vivid, brilliantly colored, geometric visual hallucinations
Here one is observing a patterned field, basically two dimensional, although it may have a pulsating quality. One may remember having seen this before.Transitional Phase (Level IIB?): tunnel or breakthrough experience
One may see or fly through a tunnel (a passage to the next level). A veil may part, a membrane may be rent. There is a breakthrough to another world (or perhaps even a series of breakthroughs).Level III: Three- or higher-dimensional space, possible contact with entities.Alternatively, it may also happen that the transition from Level II to Level III is abrupt, almost instantaneous, with no experience of transition.
This stage is characterized by the experience of being in an "objective" space, that is, a space of at least three dimensions in which objects or entities may be encountered. Sometimes the entities appear to be intelligent and communicating beings. This stage may be extremely energetic with an experience of everything happening incomprehensibly fast. Alternatively is may be relatively coherent.Travel is possble at Level III. One may, for example, assume the form and consciousness of a bird, and fly as a bird does (cf. Castaneda, The Teachings of Don Juan pp. 191-196). The limits of of this stage, if any, are unknown. There may be transitions to further stages.
Psychedelic Monographs and Essays #6, p46
