Re: DNA Consciousness
It's a pretty good chance Narby is tripping in the third video. Not on DMT (Ayahuasca) though, which is primarily where his research is. My guess would be a light dose of LSD.
I haven't seen altered states, but I'll have to check it out. The best film portrayal of psychedelic experience in film that I've come across is Linklater's Waking Life. Things don't really look like that on acid, but the thought process that a good acid trip brings is pretty well represented in the dialogue.
In Narby's first book on the subject, The Cosmic Serpet, he draws some lines between common images reported by Ayahuasca users and depicted in Ayahuasca influenced art. Interestingly enough, he makes the case that a lot of the images are comparable to DNA. He also draws largely from a tribal population that has little education in modern biological science. For a good example of Ayahuasca influenced artwork, check out Pablo Amaringo's
Home Page. Compare some of the images there with the protein structure chart at
The Biotechnology Project: Chapter 2: Protein Structure.
My own experience with the ritualized/shamanic use of psychoactives has been primarily with Psilocin (Psilocybe Cubensis or "magic" musrooms) and Salvinorin-A (Salvia Divinorum.) With Salvinorin-A, I have been fortunate enough to act as a guide for many who were seeking out the experience for the first time, and I have noticed a recurrence of common imagery in seekers with very different expectations of experience, the most frequent image being the perception of a doorway or tunnel. The tunnel usually arouses a sense of fear and foreboding, and no one ever feels like jumping right inside. Overcoming that fear and passing through the tunnel is the first step to a truly enlightening experience, but it takes time and work to be ready for such a leap.
I don't have any personal experience with DMT, so I'm not the best source for information on that particular trip. If you're looking for individual experience reports of that and other psychoactives, check the
Erowid Psychoactive Vaults. You'll find several experience reports, though mostly casual/recreational use, for most any psychoactive you might be wondering about.
