The God Molecule

In the summer of 2018, I travelled with a party of inner explorers to a magical village in the mountains south of Mexico City called Tepoztlan. The town is still ancient in many ways: cobblestone streets meet crumbling pueblo-style buildings and a bustling town market where villagers trade their goods. Stray dogs criss-cross the streets feeding on what they can find. The town is ringed by avatar-esque jungle, towering cliffs wrap the city like a protective coat against the impulses of the modern world. It is said that the cliffs blocked radio and TV signals and it was one of the last places in Mexico to come online. The ruins of a mayan temple built high in the mountains loom down like a gargoyle. Locals say aliens have been sighted landing there. By the time I left, I believed them.

The purpose of our trip was to experience the potent psychedelic 5MeO-DMT (5-methoxy-N,N-dimethyltryptamine) or the venom of the Sonoran Desert Toad (Bufo Alvarius). DMT is a naturally occurring substance in many plants, animals and even humans. It’s the active ingredient in the popular plant medicine Ayahuasca. In one paper, participants likened it to having a near-death experience. There is still much research to be done regarding DMT, but it has been nicknamed “The God Molecule”. Veteran psychonauts agree that the 5mEO-DMT variant is the strongest psychedelic experience currently known.

Our guide for this journey was a well respected practitioner from Mexico City. Her background was in journalism, and when she found psychedelic plant medicine she decided to dedicate her life to the expansion of consciousness through alternative therapies, power plants, sound, light and mother tinctures. Prior to our trip, she sent us a checklist of safety precautions, screening for mental illness and prescription drugs that may affect the medicine. We were asked to abstain from alcohol and drugs for the week prior and fast the day of the experience. 5MeO-DMT is not a controlled substance in Mexico which hosts the annual World Bufo Alvarius Congress.

I remember waking up the morning of our experience with apprehension. I rarely smoke and I was worried that my fragile lungs might cough up the hit. I opted to go last in our group of six, giving myself space to back out, god forbid something happened to one of the other explorers. Our guide and her assistant sat us down under a giant tree in the beautifully manicured jungle garden we had rented for the weekend. She smiled and looked deeply at our souls. In her brown eyes I saw safety and comfort. I knew I was exactly where I was supposed to be.

Each person was to have their own experience which would last around 15 minutes. We were encouraged to meditate, write intentions and relax in our own thoughts prior to lift off. I watched as each person before me walked back from the tree. Smiling, shaking their heads but unable to give adequate words to describe what they had just experienced.

I have written before about the challenge of describing psychedelic experiences. Namely because your point of reference, your ego, your “I” simply does not exist. So to say “I” felt this just doesn’t do it justice. Perhaps that is the beauty of the transcendent psychedelic experience is that you can’t explain it. A place so ethereal that words don’t do it justice. Yet we try.

With five successful blast offs and safe landings it was finally my turn. I sat beneath the tree, eye-to-eye with our guide. She blessed my dose and heated the glass pipe containing the 5MeO-DMT. She passed the glass to my lips and encouraged me to inhale and hold to ten. One…two…three… Her assistant gently laid my body down into the soft grass. My awareness of the grass or body ceased to exist. Profound white light filled my soul whether my eyes were open or closed. My eyes did not exist. I was light. I was infinite. I was heaven. I was connected to all souls. I was oneness. Later I would realise that all the things were but one thing, and that thing was Love – capital “L” Love.

How long this state lasts for is impossible to tell. You transcend time and space. My body started to re-materialise to the sweet melody of our guide’s voice, accompanied by instruments she gently played. I remember rolling over onto my stomach and holding onto the earth like I was a passenger holding onto the outside of a spaceship. I stuck my hands into the grass and breathed in Mother Earth, the sweetest breath I can remember. Euphoric waves of bliss poured through my veins. I examined the grass closely and watched as an ant traversed from blade to blade. I marvelled at the miracle that is life. I looked up to see the smiling faces of my guide as she knew what I had just experienced. She knew that I now knew that her and I were one. I rolled over onto my back and inspected the giant tree above. I realised the tree was a part of me and the tree appreciated the attention.

In the last three years, the popularity of 5MeO-DMT has exploded. From endorsements by podcasters like Tim Ferris, Joe Rogan and Aubrey Marcus. To the New York Times best-selling book “How to Change Your Mind” by Michael Pollan and celebrity users like Elon Musk and Mike Tyson. The overwhelming demand has caused a sharp drop in toad numbers. The full history and push for conservation is explored in Hamilton’s Pharmacopeia produced by Vice. If you’re looking for a place to do your own research into 5MeO-DMT I recommend starting here.

Healers say when you experience transcendent states of bliss like that in a 5MeO-DMT trip that trauma healing can occur. One theory is that the momentary state of bliss is so perfect that every experience you have had up in your life, including your trauma, led you exactly where you are. It creates a sense of gratitude for all that has come before and lays the pathway to reframe the baggage we carry with us. A study by Uthhaug et al. (2019) with forty-two volunteers showed that a single inhalation produced sustained enhancement of satisfaction with life, easing of anxiety, depression and post-traumatic stress disorder. Furthermore, the experience of body death is akin to dying so the fear you may hold toward death can be reframed to Love. When you can live life not scared of death, you can truly live.

My journal entry from that day read “no words”. It was not that there was nothing to write about, it was just that words didn’t seem appropriate. Here, three years on, I sit and reflect about what impact that fifteen minute out-of-body experience has had. Since that moment, I’ve cultivated a deep connection with Mother Earth and a need and want to be a better passenger for her. I feel an unbound unity with those around me, knowing that when we blast off and our ego is dissolved, we are but one unified whole. I now lean deeper into my meditation practice where moments of transcendence like this are possible. I continue to do research into transcendent states. I have since had one other 5MeO-DMT experience again in Mexico City and I will revisit this medicine when available to me.

These moments of transcendence are available to us in many modalities. In near-death experiences. In intense pain. In orgasm. In childbirth. In ecstasy. In exercise. In breath-work. In K-holes. In music. In meditation. These are life defining moments. The moments that appear on the highlight reel of life. They remind us that we are more than just our meat suits and we are part of something greater. The one indivisible whole, and when you find that moment it lasts forever.