As a preface, if you’d like to learn more about 5-meo DMT please see my blog on 5-meo-DMT.
I took a deep inhale, and within seconds, the medicine surged through me with its familiar, overwhelming intensity. No matter how many times I had embarked on this journey, the moments leading up to it always carried the same nervous anticipation—like standing at the edge of an airplane door, ready to jump into the unknown. Ready to freefall and trusting that my parachute would open and save my life. Only this, this experience had no parachute. And that terrified me. Was this the price of freedom? Was letting go and collapsing into the ‘what is’ a letting go of everything I knew about myself? Everything I believed to be real? Allowing all my knowing to be released like a dandelion blown away in the wind. Was I ready? Apparently, I was since I was sitting here inhaling with an agreement to sacrifice ‘me’.
Sitting cross-legged on my living room floor, heart pounding, I steadied myself. The pipe pressed against my lips, and I filled my lungs as deeply as I could, holding my breath and then exhaling.
And then—
I was gone.
The room, my body, my thoughts—all dissolved. Was that the right word? It was all still here and yet not at the same time.
For a moment, I thought I was dying. Or had I already died? It’s a strange thing. All my life I wasn’t afraid of death (or so I thought) and was seeking an escape to life. Life didn’t make sense to me. I wanted to live in spirit and not in the body. It’s not until you have that moment where death knocks on your door that you realize your innermost point of wanting life. I DID want to live. I did want to continue this life and make it beautiful. Yet in this experience, I knew that I needed to let go and in some sense die. A flicker of awareness checked in: Was I breathing? Yes. Okay, I’m here. I’m fine. And with that, something in me just let go.
Unlike previous experiences where I was met with fractals of white light or brilliant rainbow white light, there was no visual spectacle this time. Instead, there was simply awareness of the present moment. A presence so profound that it felt like heaven, but not in the way I had once imagined.
The thought arose: This is heaven.
And then another: It’s not that I am in heaven—it is that God is here. And I am God in heaven.
In that moment, I wasn’t sure whether there was an I. Yet some part of me was here, or was it God here? No separation, no time, no seeking—just the vast, eternal Now, unfolded in absolute perfection. It was neither something to attain nor a place to reach. It had always been here, waiting beneath the illusion of self, every grasping thought, every moment of forgetting. God was here and I was in God. I was being reborn.
I still have this yearning. This yearning to go back into that stillness and into that sacred unfolding, in order to re-remember that moment of certainty that all was and is here and now. Awakening is not a journey to somewhere else, but a return to what has always been and always is. We are all that, here and now.
Petra Valica
This article was written for educational purposes. I don’t condone the use of any illegal substances, and as with any potent psychedelic substance, please be responsible and use a supportive, experienced guide or facilitator who can contribute to a safe and meaningful exploration of the 5-MeO experience.
