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Gracie's Visible Language Contact Experience
By Gracie and Zarkov
We each had taken 150 mg of pure MDA. The differences from MDM are striking: MDA is more hallucinogenic with noticeable closed eye imagery, is a much greater aesthetic enhancer, especially of people and of music; is more euphoric; more "drug-like", a heavier and more obviously body-involved trip. Tactile sensation is more powerful, erotic and noticeable on MDA. Physical effects are more up-front: gastric upset, pupil dilation, water retention, limbic arousal. On the whole, we find MDA a more enjoyable and interesting trip; longer lasting and more sexual/sensual. Our favorite characteristic is that one retains an interesting psychedelic ideation on MDA, rather then the feeling-oriented, but rather idealess thinking of MDM.That evening we were very taken with the musical enhancement—we are both avid listeners—and had found MDM to actually interfere with our enjoyment of music. MDA goes especially well with second-rate classical music: the lushness and color of Strauss, Lizst, Rimsky-Korsakov, Smetana and other ethnic and minor romantic composers are very compatible with the sensual fantasy aspects of MDA. We were playing Smetana, 'The Moldau', a tone poem about the major river in Czechoslovakia.
During the past several weeks, I had had several episodes of allergic reaction which were unusual for me. Possible causes included the spring weather and flowers, gardening, adjustment to the West Coast, and six months of regular DMT use. While the music was playing, I noticed increased allergic symptoms. This is unusual on MDA, which as Andrew Weil points out, is one of the most powerful allergy suppressors around, and so it has always affected me in the past.
Along with the allergic response, I began to note the familiar "Goddess-possession" phenomenon which we had first encountered on MDA-LSD trips, and which led us to our first profound trips and contact experiences. This time it was subtle, perhaps because no LSD was involved. At the same time, a series of flashes, "false memories" or "past life" reminiscences occurred, having to do with rivers and my riverine ancestry, triggered by the content of the music.
This is a characteristic of MDA experience which we had not encountered on MDM, where memories are more personal and less archetypal/symbolic. With MDA memories one can become caught up in an associative web of ancestral material.
During this whole period, I had continuing allergic symptoms. Zarkov felt fine and was having a great time. This dichotomy is even more noticeable since Zarkov is usually the one with allergy problems. I showered off and washed my face but I still felt uncomfortable and uneasy. We have noted on several occasions that allergic reactions had preceded profound contact trips.
About hour 4, I decided to try smoking some DMT. My blood pressure and pulse were only slightly elevated, but I still felt restless and uneasy. The week before I had reset an MDM trip with DMT. The DMT seemed to have had a calming and healing effect.
I smoked about 40 mg in 4-5 tokes.
As it came on, I asked the DMT entities for help and guidance.
I kept my eyes open until the visual changes became overwhelming. The whole room was being transformed into the characteristic DMT "crysthanthemum" pattern. I closed my eyes and fell back into the trance.
The first thing I saw was the "visible language"! The words, the shapes, the "music" (the "music" refers to the DMT auditory effects, not music in this reality and the stereo was off during this part of the trip) and the voices all carried the same message: "Strong, safe, strong, safe; help, ok, ok, help; safe, safe, alright"! The "elves" appeared. They sang/I saw/read/felt/heard. They are "made out" of the visible language. The message is conveyed by the medium itself in several simultaneous sensory modalities. Vision, heard speech, read language, music, song, images and pictures all happen at once, so that the meaning is multi-dimensional.
For example, if one were to "see" a cat in this state it would be communicated in many ways at once: one would see a picture or cartoon of a cat, made out of writhing, colorful strips or segments which are words—"cat, cat, cat, pussy, kitty, pussy, meow, tail, ears, cat, cat, kitty ..." and the picture would be accompanied by a musical description of the cat (like "Peter and the Wolf," only more descriptive and precise) and by voices singing "cat, cat, kitty, kitty, meow, puss, kittycat ..." which would match the text.
This time I saw the "elves" as multidimensional creatures formed by strands of visible language; they were more creaturely than I had ever seen them before. The message was changing from the initial "ok, ok, safe, safe . . ."
The word changing suggests that this was a time-linear process. I don't think this is the case. I believe that during the trance the whole message and its variations were there at once, from the start. There is a different meaning to time in the DMT state and the notion of linear temporal order that we usualiy believe is not valid or useful. All the information is always immediately there and the idea of linearity comes from our linear habits of attention and the fact that we do not yet know how to see/hear/perceive several messages simultaneously and consciously, so we string them out for perceptual convenience.
The elves were dancing in and out of the multidimensional visible language matrix, "waving" their "arms" and "limbs/hands/fingers?" and "smiling" or "laughing," although I saw no faces as such. The elves were "telling" me (or I was understanding them to say) that I had seen them before, in early childhood. Memories were flooding back of seeing the elves: they looked just like they do now: evershifting, folding, multidimensional, multicolored (what colors!), always laughing, weaving/waving, showing me things, showing me the visible language they are created/creatures of, teaching me to speak and read. (Are they are linguistic programs made manifest and personified? This throws an entirely new light on Terence McKenna's remark at Esalen about language being the "most alien artifact" we have!)
Following is a paraphrase of the message content—all conveyed in the multimedia way described earlier (to emphasize, the entire message was conveyed via "visible language!")
They "read-protect" their contact with children. "No-no, bye-bye, uh-uh, don"t tell," is the phrase they used to keep me from remembering or telling the grown-ups. They come to you when you are a child. My younger brother and I saw them when we were very young. They lived under the bed, they played with us, but they only came out when our parents weren't around. They showed us things, they showed us meaning and language. My brother say them more clearly (perhaps because he was younger) then I did. They taught us words—I read earlier than normal because of their help.
When I was frightened or anxious, I would crawl under the bed to where it was safe, because the "elves" were there. "Bye-bye, uh-uh, don't tell, we'll be back," they used to sing.
"I've been seeing it all along," I thought, "the chysthanthemum pattern is the elves is the visible language is the message." (however, true visions on DMT, like those on mushrooms, are different from these patterns, they are real, like seeing with "normal" vision; more like a movie or a very vivid dream than like the pattern/cartoon/visible language.)
The personal reality of these creatures seems indisputable during the contact, but that interpretation runs into my normal skepticism when I am out of contact. Is the notion that these are beings merely the obvious interpretation of these phenomena by the human mind? Or is something else going on that we can only understand by interpreting it as an encounter with an alien being?
The visible language and the multidimensional nature of the forms seems so clear, but the relationship of these phenomena to me as an individual and to the human race in a species-history sense is less clear. I am always afraid of repeating the errors of misplaced concreteness (thinking the "creatures" are "real") and the dogmatic fallacy (thinking that I know what I saw). The most honest answer is that I don't know what I saw (do we ever?), but that the description above is my attempt to communicate some of what I thought I saw.
The encounter felt profound, exhilarating, and filled with warmth, excitement and protection. I was not afraid, but was comforted by the experience.
And, after the encounter had ended, I found my allergic symptoms had disappeared. I was no longer agitated, but felt calm.
The visible language phenomenon was most interesting—I felt curious, excited, and peculiarly self-confident while experiencing it—a childlike delight and a consuming desire to see and know more. I only saw part of what was going on, and I only remember part of what I saw, and I can communicate only a little of what I remember.
When, dear reader, you have similar experiences, try to see/perceive as much as you can, remember as much as you are able (take notes or talk into a recorder) and attempt to write down your trip. It is hard to do, the results are always less than you hope, but we must all try to express these things if we are ever to build a descriptive consensus or even a start at understanding!
Copyright March 1985 by Gracie and Zarkov Productions. We believe that in a truly free society the price of packaged information would be driven down to the cost of reproduction and transmission. We, therefore, give blanket permission and encourage photocopy, quotation, reprint or entry into a database of all or part of our articles provided that the copier or quoter does not take credit for our statements.
Stay High and Stay Free,
Gracie and Zarkov
