The documentary I watched is the film version of that book, and it relies heavily on Strassman, who seems like a pretty unusual guy for clinical psychology. I was impressed with him. (Less so with his test subjects. I have no fundamental beef with the 'aging hippy' set (guess I'd better not considering this board's demographics) but it's hard to take them seriously as skeptical observers when it comes to hallucinogens.)
There are a couple of things that really intrigued me about the accounts of trips given in the film, and I wonder whether those of you who have had the experience can relate...
1. A number of subjects reported that they experienced the *same* hallucinations across repeated trips. I have a very hard time understanding how this could be possible. Given that DMT is partially responsible for dreaming, are we just talking about the same mechanism that allows us to have recurring dreams? It makes me wonder whether there is a neuroscientific explanation for either of those phenomena (recurring trips/recurring dreams.)
2. I was very struck by the sense of awe/wonder that all of the subjects were left with. This may have been selective editing on the part of the documentarians, or selective choosing on Strassman's part, for that matter. But most of the Erowid accounts I've read squared with this. It seems that every person who tried DMT had an intense spiritual experience, with a ton of crossover (meaning that multiple subjects experienced the same things.)
Common crossovers: the trip preceded by a chaotic whirl of complex geometric patterns; a feeling of entering a 'spirit' realm; communing with or at least encountering foreign, spiritual beings (either aliens or angels, depending on who's telling the story); complete breakdown of the concept of time; and a sense of spiritual awakening that oftentimes negated the fear of death.
I think I could account for almost any one or two of these crossovers as being standard byproducts of hallucinogenic experience. But all of them at once, across dozens of people? I'm really at a loss. How can a simple chemical compound, interacting with an instrument as complex as the human brain, produce such similar experiences across so many subjects? It seems impossible to me.
Does anyone know whether other hallucinogens behave in a similar way? I'm asking specifically about mental effects. I've never heard of LSD, for example, having a 'standard' trip in which many observers encounter the same hallucinations. Mushrooms share some common elements - shifting textures from hyper-dilated pupils, the phenomenon of a mushroom 'voice' - but nothing as extensive as DMT accounts.