Close your eyes so you can see...

a river... calm stream is whispering softly...
a tree... thick trunk with many long branches, reaching far...
two guys... they came here with a purpose. One has a bag with various psychedelics, the other one is about to take a prodigious amount of DMT, one of the most powerful psychedelics out there.

Ground Control to Major Tom
Ground Control to Major Tom
Take your protein pills and put your helmet on
Ground Control to Major Tom
Commencing countdown, engines on
Check ignition and may God's love be with you

He's nervous, knowingly taking a step into the unknown...
This guy was me. Despite being an experienced psychonaut, I was terrified of what was about to transpire. This is the second time I'd smoke DMT and the this dose is 3 times bigger than that of the first experience.

That first time was groundbreaking enough, full of happiness and beautiful visions. And that rainbow that shone in the last rays of daylight filled me with hope when I was down...
But this one was supposed to take me out of this world completely. And it did... kinda...

The other guy, Juan, extracts the substance from the root of mimosa hostilis. Apparently it's pretty easy to do, it's even possible to purchase grounded roots of the mimosa and avoid most of the hassle. Aside from DMT, he's got cannabis wax to wrap the DMT crystal. According to him, it expands usually short DMT trip from 5 to 10-15 minutes or so.

This is Major Tom to Ground Control
I'm stepping through the door
And I'm floating in the most peculiar way
And the stars look very different today

Using a gas burner he heats up the metal bowl of his bong.

-- Ready?
-- Give me a second...

Taking a deep breath I overcome the primal fear, same kind of fear you feel before jumping off a cliff to the dark waters dozens of meters below.

-- Okay, drop it!

So he drops the psychedelic bomb in the bowl glowing red. The brownish pearl starts to boil, yielding thick white smoke. I inhale all I can, let it out and take another hit. As my lips touch the bitter glass the second time, everything it already changes. My perception starts to fall apart. All my thoughts and emotions wiped without a trace, leaving only the ringing silence in their wake and a realization that

SOMETHING IS HAPPENING

Ground Control to Major Tom
Your circuit's dead, there's something wrong
Can you hear me, Major Tom?
Can you hear-

And then it happened.
The disintegration.
I ceased to exist.
Died.

---

In the absence of the observer nothing makes sense (remember quantum mechanics?). There was no space, no time, no light, no matter. It could last for millennia or a nanosecond.

Let there be light!

And there was light.
And there was an observer to perceive it.
And then the observer became self-aware, which came as an enormous shock.

I exist!

Then the awareness started to expand, bringing new conceptions such as color, sound, shape, volume...

One step ahead of it was perception, that was giving the aware Observer new things co comprehend and integrate into a whole picture.
It was not a pleasant process by any measure - it was very hard to learn to exist. The Observer felt like a kaleidoscopic lens on the fringe of the tremendous and unimaginable ABSOLUTE projecting its light on the canvas of the Void.

Thus, step by step, in a strenuous rebirth effort the Observer became "I". It became me, the one writing these lines now.

And I'm floating around my tin can
Far above the Moon
Planet Earth is blue
And there's nothing I can do

As I understood what matter is, I also noticed a human (also a new thing to contemplate). I didn't know who he was and it made me realize that I have no idea who or what I am. There were no such things as past or future, thus no memories were available. Was I a human too? Did I have a body then?

Spoiler: Yes, I had a body that was thrashing and screaming and howling, clawing at the ground beneath.

Finally, after an eternity of reassembling myself I came back. Instead of 15 minutes of pretty visions in my head, I got 54 minutes of excruciating process that I'm not sure how to call. A self-rediscovery? Or a legit rebirth in the same body? I don't know. I really don't know who I am anymore. A new being or a thoroughly fucked up old one? Ironically, in search of answers I only found more questions.

In conclusion I can add some details from outside - as Juan told me the next day, I happened to intake a "heroic dose":

So let it be a lesson to all: Do not bite off more than you can swallow.

---

Note: All pictures (except last 3) are taken from the internets, original sources preserved. Also this post employs some fragments of David Bowie's song "Space Oddity".