Before becoming a medicine ceremonialist and just barely aware of the existence of 5-MeO-DMT, in a room with the view of a Costa Rican jungle I had my first experience with the sacrament. As a psychotherapist recently gone through a spiritual awakening, my worlds of psychology and spirituality are merging and 5-MeO-DMT has led to rapid shifts in my healing from undercovering repressed trauma to learning to open to states of ecstasy and oneness with the Infinite-Eternal-Divine in my daily life. Feeling the call to come back again and again to this medicine, I quickly recognized its potential as a healing tool not just for myself but for humanity.
I can still remember my first experience. Within seconds of inhaling the milky vapor I expanded into an experience I had not known was possible. My system shocked by the sudden transportation into ecstatic bliss and sweet sublimity so vastly different from than the mostly dense, heavy life I had known up until then, I primal screamed for several minutes, which is what eventually landed me back into my body and that reality more quickly than I was ready for. Although I was served again, this time with its cousin Bufo provided another wondrous journey, the first blissful express trip to everywhere and nowhere with the Pure Molecule was the one that led me to feel like I was given the keys to the kingdom. I declared, “this is my medicine.” In the coming two years I deepened my journey with the sacred molecule. In my latest journey as I came back into my body, ego, and identity as a healing practitioner, I uttered the words, “5-MeO is the medicine for humanity.”
5-MeO-DMT is a psychoactive compound (not scheduled in Canada) of the tryptamine class. The entheogenic medicine that can lead to spiritual experiences has been used for centuries by Indigenous Peoples in the Amazon, Caribbean, often derived from trees, such as Yopo, and made into a snuff; more recently in the southwestern territory of the USA and northern Mexico it is secreted from the glands of the Bufo alvarius toad or synthesized in a lab (Donovan, 2024). Still it is far less utilized than psilocybin mushrooms or DMT, this atypical psychedelic has so far been used by only 1 in 33,000 people (Delgrasso, 2024), and, therefore, is still highly niche with largely unrealized potential.
From my psychotherapist lens, I am particularly interested in its role in the development of new neural pathways, especially in those with mental health conditions who greatly need a range of tools for returning to better functioning. Up to 70-75% have reactivations that occur usually at night, affectionately referred to as “night school,” where one can continue to process insights and learnings. Around 80% of people find the reactivations pleasant and beneficial. The medicine helps to create new neural pathways to make desired behaviours more attainable. Neural repatterning can continue for 4-6 weeks after the experience.
The 5-MeO-DMT journey tends to be a highly affective and somatic experience. For some it is very visual with fractal patterning representative of sacred geometry that enhances the experience and for others the focus is more energetic with little to no visuals. While experiences vary as much as the people who use it, most come out having had a beautiful, embodied experience of being completely connected. Given the high possibility of reactivations and if one allows for the time and space for integrating, perhaps with a psychedelic-assisted psychotherapist or integration specialist, the beneficial effects long continue after the medicine session. For many it leads to rethinking of priorities with a noticeable calming of nervous system or loosening of rigid cognitive patterns, as well as positive behaviour changes motivated by the experience of unity consciousness.
Donovan, H. (F.I.V.E.). 2024. 5-MeO-DMT, Psychedelics & Psychosis [Webinar]
Delgrasso, A. (2024). Defining 5-MeO-DMT in Historical and Cultural Contexts, World Futures, DOI: 10.1080/02604027.2024.2330255
Author:
Christina Clapperton, MEd, MSW, RSW, EMDR, is a counsellor in Nelson, BC, most known for EMDR therapy that incorporates inner child work and healing dissociative and behavioural patterns that stem from trauma. Christina fosters movement from post-traumatic stress to post-traumatic growth through mobilization of the body’s innate intelligence to heal and through ancient technologies in animism, tantra, and kundalini yoga as well as entheogens as a ceremonialist and psychedelic-assisted psychotherapist. She is committed to helping clients in all stages of their journeys from finding relief from distress, to making meaning out of trauma, and to accessing their vital life force energy to feel vibrant, blissful, and full with the joy of living.
