Recently while watching a hawk trying to catch a mouse outside my window one morning, I began having a very unusual effect happen with my vision. It was quite curious; when I looked a certain way or focused my eyes a certain way the grass of the lawn outside rendered itself into a rich mandala-like pattern. It was unmistakable, and it took me by surprise. It would go away as I moved my eyes but I found that it would also come back and I would see the same pattern. It looked as if the landscape had arranged itself in a very coherent pattern visually. I wasn’t under the influence of any substance like a psychedelic.
I have never taken DMT, however, years ago when I was new to awakening, I often saw patterns like this in my mind and they were very similar to what I would later learn are called a Yantra, a mandala made up of triangular geometry. When I saw images in Indian culture that reminded me of the same patterns I saw in my mind’s eye, I figured that this may in fact be tied to some inner effects that awakening can have and artists illustrated them in the spiritual iconography of the yogis and yoginis who were experiencing this phenomenon as a result. I considered also that it was quite possible that in awakened states we may release small amounts of DMT, a substance that is in many plants and is produced by the body. It is a powerful psychedelic and if you are familiar with Terrence McKenna or Joe Rogan, you are likely to have gotten an introduction to its use and its effects.
People describe experiences of enhanced perception both visually but also of seeing other worlds open up to the mind and visual cortex when larger doses are taken. DMT is also present in the mixture called ayahuasca. What is so interesting to me is how both the ayahuasca, DMT, and awakening experiences all have the effect of aiding in the release of stored emotional blocks. I have considered that part of awakening involves the production of dmt (along with a host of other chemistry clustered in the endocrine system).
In the wake of my unusual encounter with my hawk as it tried to capture a mouse in the grass outside (actually it looked like it was playing with it…it never looked like it had actually found the mouse but that the mouse was hidden under a layer of dead grass thus protecting it—the effect was like a cat playing with a mouse, never really serious about catching it and eating it), I watched a video of a Joe Rogan podcast dealing with Covid and in the suggested section was a video of a graduate student describing the geometry of the DMT experience. It is entitled “The Hyperbolic Geometry Of DMT Experiences” on Youtube. It was an oddly timed discovery as I would soon find out.
I skimmed through the video and I came to a slide describing the different visual effects at different dosage levels. What was so interesting is the description of one dosage level that was identical to something I had seen the day I was looking outside my window that morning with the hawk. I will show you how the grass looked in a screen capture of their slide below:
What I saw corresponded to a known dosage amount, which is 4-8 milligram. I have wondered if it was possible during awakening, particularly with kundalini, whether we are experiencing elevated levels of dmt production, perhaps enough to briefly cause effects like the one I had recently seen.
I have observed that kundalini has had a very tangible series of physiological effects on the body, namely the endocrine system (which consists of the sexual organs, adrenal gland, pituitary, pancreas, thyroid, and pineal). The pineal gland is one center where dmt is suspected to be produced in small amounts in the body. Since I wasn’t that informed about the dmt trip aside from a few descriptions in videos, I found it interesting to find through some research that naturally occurring dmt experiences can be induced through breath work and meditation. Here was one source that describes a few of the symptoms of the natural dmt experience:
Common symptoms are as follows: pressure in the middle of the head and behind the sinuses, flashes of light with eyes closed, the feeling of the body vibrating as if laying on top of train tracks, twitching of the limbs, and a feeling of heaviness of the body.
http://q4lt.com/dmt-making-101
These are all symptoms that can be experienced with kundalini. One is suggestive of a third eye activation (not to say the pineal is the third eye—the third eye is a chakra and thus part of the energy body’s inner senses). Additionally, “ego death” and loss of ordinary identity happens at the correct dosage, another possible symptom depending how far along in the process that you are. Bliss has been reported as well as being able to overcome emotional issues from earlier life (including enhanced problem solving and intuitive powers of the mind). These are also features of kundalini (or can be experienced). My sense has been that the dmt experience is an analog to kundalini. Named the “spirit molecule” it may well be that what we are dealing with here is an experience native to kundalini.
Finally, what I found was that I could see the patterns when my eyes were slightly “defocused,” something that was hard to determine how to repeat simply because being far-sighted myself, it was hard for me to defocus naturally. I would say that there was a very slight defocusing of the eyes when this happened. I thought I would bring this experience forward for all of you psychonauts who are interested in the spectrum of experience possible with kundalini in specific but also how it may in fact be related to how dmt may be involved.
While it was known that the pineal gland in rats had dmt in them, it was not clear whether human pineal glands did the same production of dmt. In a recent study it was found that trace amounts were found in the human pineal gland as well as in the neurons of the brain also. That study is linked here:
UPDATE: the morning after preparing this post, I looked out my window and found the same hawk doing the same thing it had been doing the week before. And like last week, I found myself watching the hawk and discovered that the landscape began to change in ways that were consistent with the video that I mentioned that described the different dosage points of dmt. This time, I had two different visual effects. the first was one in which the landscape began to appear to break up into a series of points, like clumps of grass. These clumps appeared very regular and I wondered over how I could be seeing this the way that I was. Was it just that the landscape was that regular? The sun came out and highlighted the landscape and the effect became more pronounced. I looked away and the effect went away. Then, a moment later, while watching the hawk the landscape bloomed into this “chrysanthemum” effect like it did last week, but only for a moment. What this reminds me of is the effect that I sometimes get with certain types of lighting that put out a particular wavelength of light, like sodium lamps. It is almost as if the light is polarized and moves along certain lines somehow, which then highlights certain parts of the scene along with the light, producing a strange radial effect. Whatever is happening, it is not permanent and seems to be tied less to my eyes as it is my perception, which I sense involves inner sensing as well as physical sensing.
I will add that a couple of months ago I had a hawk feather show up at the bottom step of the deck where I live, right in my path. Who knows really. Messenger?
DMT is a material that breaks down very fast in the body. It is one reason why dmt trips are of such short duration (unless when using ayahuasca which has an added ingredient that slows the breakdown of dmt in the body, thus extending its “lifespan” in the brain and body). Is it possible that as the body releases dmt that we can have very short bursts of visual phenomenon and changes in consciousness? I will say for the record that for the forty minutes prior to seeing this this morning, I was in a meditative state with off the charts high bliss. Who knows for sure, but it seems worth paying attention to.
Waking The Infinite 