"A touch of the Gods"
Psychedelic Entity Encounters
Would you take a psychedelic if I told you that on the trip you could meet a benevolent entity who could change the meaning of your life?
Life-altering and healing effects of psychedelic experiences aren't limited to mystical or spiritual states. Encountering entities while traveling might also blow your mind open.
N,N-Dimethyltryptamine (DMT), a psychoactive compound found in the Amazonian brew ayahuasca, frequently elicits encounters with discarnate entities.
Entities? Yup. Words used to describe these entities include aliens, guides, helpers, elves, dwarves, imps, angels, spirits, gods, insectoid-aliens, animals, plant spirits, and more (1-4). The entities are described as being autonomous, possessing agency and intelligence, as well as being supremely powerful, wise, and loving. Entity encounters are described as having purpose and intention behind them (5), and elicit mostly (but not always) positive emotions, such as trust, joy, love, kindness, and friendship. Psychedelic users commonly report communication with the entity – either through language, telepathy, or “just knowing” – where the psychedelic user receives a personal insight (e.g. into the user’s behavior, emotions, relationships, or life’s path), message, task, or mission, information about the Universe/reality, and sometimes the idea that you are learning through the experience. They often express concern for human welfare (6).
While statistics from research studies on psychedelic entity encounters are fascinating (and I’ve included them below), it’s the user quotes that truly capture the awe-inspiring experience of meeting a sentient entity while tripping. It’s best to let users describe their own experiences:
“I’m not into angels or any of that stuff. But these beings I encountered, I think they’re fucking angels [laughs]. They were so immense and awe-inspiring and terrifying and powerful . . . you can’t explain it . . . [they had] ninety thousand million facets to them and then one point they’d be grotesque with like these hundreds of tongues and mouths and eyes and then they’d just grow these god heads and I kind of experienced them as vortexes of deep power, divine vortexes of energy and . . . the only model that I could ascribe to them was an angelic being . . . they were quite terrifying but it was so beautiful as well and I felt deeply honoured . . . a touch of the gods . . .” (7).
“In front of me are two quiet, sun-lit Gods” (4).
“All I remember is I was shown how our physical three-dimensional reality fits into the reality of the bigger universe that lies behind our three-dimensional universe” (2).
“I then was given the understanding that all life, all we know, all I am, is energy, this energy is timeless and will continue on. I knew now the reality of this time and space is just something my energy has chosen to reside in for now” (6).
“…death is just the beginning of another greater universe” (1).
“I was being shown the interconnectedness and there was a sense of having to try and pay attention…to lessons…about compassion, gratitude, empathy, and kindness” (5).
“The plants want to save us from misery and take us to mystery” (8).
The experience was “more real than normal reality” (1)
After the psychedelic entity encounter experience, ~70% of respondents reported that the entity continued to exist in some real but different dimension or reality and ~80% said that the experience altered their fundamental conception of reality (1).
Although this is certainly interesting in and of itself, I am once again bewildered by the overwhelmingly positive, long-lasting, and powerful effects on users. These psychedelic-induced entity encounters have life-altering benefits similar to those described in the literature about psychedelic-induced mystical/spiritual experiences, such as:
Over 50% of respondents reported that the entity encounter was one of the top five or single most personally meaningful, spiritually significant, or psychologically insightful experiences of their lives (1).
More than half of those who identified as atheist (or agnostic) before the experience DMT entity encounter no longer identified as atheist afterwards (1).
One-third (36%) of respondents reported that before the encounter their belief system included a belief in ultimate reality, higher power, God, or universal divinity, but a larger percentage (58%) of respondents reported this belief system after the encounter (1).
Most respondents reported persisting positive and desirable changes that they attributed to the encounter experience, including well-being and life satisfaction (89%), life’s purpose (82%), life’s meaning (81%), social relationships (70%), attitudes about life (88%) and self (84%), mood (67%), and behavior (71%) (1).
But how does meeting an angel or elf – in which you had no belief before the encounter – so drastically shift life satisfaction, purpose, and meaning?
One explanation (which should be familiar to regular readers of this newsletter by now) is that the psychological insights provided by the entities facilitate new perspectives and catharsis around the person’s life events (9). Another possible explanation is that the ontological shock and awe that accompany these entity encounters may break open new ways of thinking (i.e. psychological flexibility), leading to positive changes in attitudes, mood, behavior, and overall wellbeing (1, 9). Think about it: you’re feeling stuck, hopeless, and certain that nothing will ever change, and suddenly, bam! On a psychedelic trip, you meet a loving, otherworldly entity who reveals the source of some your life’s problems. Revelation. Suddenly, anything seems possible!
No matter the mechanism, they do often elicit healing...while flipping worldviews.
From a materialist, reductionist, physicalist point of view, entity visions must be a brain malfunction of some sort. Although, as a neuroscientist, it is not obvious to me why the brain would create an “other” (i.e. the entity) during a “malfunction” – wouldn’t it be more likely to simply dissolve boundaries altogether? Some have proposed that the entities represent parts of ourselves, our psyches, that we are unfamiliar with (10, 11). These unfamiliar parts are then projected as an entity – but why would our brains/psyche project mythical elves, insectoid aliens, or Gods rather than, say, a cuddly bunny? Or… are there genuinely parallel realms inhabited by sentient entities?
In any event, what will psychiatry and psychology make of this entity-enabled healing as psychedelic-assisted psychotherapy hits the mainstream? The behavioral health paradigm in Western culture is largely based on the idea that visions of religious, mythical, or mystical themes are hallucinations and indicators of mental illness. But these visions heal. And what’s to be done when the patient insists the entity was real and continues to exist in another dimension? Have they disassociated from reality? Alternatively – and hopefully – we might be able to employ these nuanced and paradigm-shifting states to (finally) obliterate the false dichotomy between mental health and mental illness. Then, we can broaden our models of the spectrum of mental states to better reflect the multifaceted dimensions of consciousness.
1. Davis AK, Clifton JM, Weaver EG, et al. Survey of entity encounter experiences occasioned by inhaled N,N-dimethyltryptamine: Phenomenology, interpretation, and enduring effects. J Psychopharmacol 2020; 34: 1008–1020.
2. Cott C, Rock A. Phenomenology of N,N-Dimethyltrypatmine use: a thematic analysis. J Sci Explor 2008; 22: 359–370.
3. Strassman R. DMT: The Spirit Molecule: A Doctor’s Revolutionary Research into the Biology of Near-Death and Mystical Experiences. Rochester, Vermont: Park Street Press, 2001.
4. Luke D. Discarnate entities and dimethyltryptamine (DMT): Psychopharmacology, phenomenology and ontology. J Soc Psych Res; 75, no. 90.
5. Timmermann C. Subjective Experiences and Sensed Presence Phenomenon in Human Research with DMT. In: DMT Entity Encounters. Rochester, Vermont: Park Street Press, 2021, pp. 88–117.
6. Heuser J. Ayahuasca entity visitations: A thematic analysis of internet-reported encounters, PhD Dissertation. California Institute of Integral Studies, 2006.
7. Letcher A. Psychedelia britannia: Druids on drugs. In: White ED, Woolley J (eds) Cutting the mistletoe.
8. Tramacchi D. Vapours and visions: Religious dimensions of DMT use, PhD Dissertation. University of Queensland, 2006.
9. Lutkajtis A. Entity encounters and the therapeutic effect of the psychedelic mystical experience. J Psychedelic Stud 2021; 4: 171–178.
10. Turner DM. Exploring hyperspace. Entheogen Rev J Unauthorized Res Vision Plants Drugs 1995; 4: 4–6.
11. McKenna T. The Archaic Revival: Speculations on Psychedelic Mushrooms, the Amazon, Virtual Reality, UFOs, Evolution, Shamanism, the Rebirth of the Goddess, and the End of History. San Francisco: Harper, 1991.