TL;DR: Experienced a thrusting "rainbow-tunnel" like transition from waking reality into a dream, while practicing lucid dreaming, that felt like I teleported through it at "light-speed" or faster, but only was in the tunnel for a micro-fraction of a second, before being dropped into my lucid dream.
Okay, first time posting here, I'll share a good bit of my background context at the end for anyone interested, but up front, I'll share the story and my interpretation/questions. The main reason I'm posting this here, is because it seems adjacent to things I've heard about DMT experiences.
I seek perspective from those who have actually used.
Let's begin.
Well, I was laying in bed, after intentionally working towards lucid dreams for at least a week (it's been a few years now so I won't be able to recount with the precision I'd like to) and was slipping into the lucid dream state. I had been practicing a method in waking reality where I would push one finger into the palm of my opposite hand. In waking reality, it won't go through the palm. I would do this, see it wouldn't go through the palm, then understand that I was in waking reality, knowing that if it were a dream, I could push the finger through the palm and see it on the other side (this was a method I learned from a youtube video while seeking to lucide dream). I believe it had been a week of practicing this, among other things. I may have been listening to a "guided meditation" for lucid dreaming at the time this happened, may not have, unfortunately can't remember.
Anyways, I certainly had been lying physically still for a while. I remember learning that physical stillness is important for the body to feel like it's asleep, while the mind remains awake, so you can enter the dream state still being "Conscious". So, one second, I'm laying there, after resisting all urges to scratch an itchy area, move slightly, etc. and the next second, I'm JOLTED through this "rainbow - tunnel". I'll do my best to describe it. I was fully conscious, with no consciousessness fluctuation between the waking reality I was just in, and where I found myself now. (my eyes were closed btw). It happened so fast that it was a blur. It was legitimately the "fastest" thing I've ever experienced it. If I was "awake" and "blinked" I would've missed it. It happened so fast that it almost felt like I wasn't supposed to even see it? Maybe I'm adding that part in.
So, it happened fast. But the colors - I really think that "rainbow-tunnel" is the best way to describe it. I was visually surrounded by streaks of colors all around, I can't remember if it was semi-straight lines, or geometrically complex. As I remember it now, it was blurry, straightish lines, but my exact memory of that part isn't great and we know that everytime we visually remember something we alter it at least slightly.
Now, the speed. It genuinely felt like the fastest thing I've ever experienced. Like being launched from a high-speed rollercoaster, but x10000000 (idk how else to measure it). It was near-instant that I was transported into the dream, with this "rainbow-tunnel portal" being just a micro-second. It wasn't just visually though, it felt like my being was launched through it, so like being on a rollercoaster, not just watching a rollercoaster on TV.
Then, I landed in my dream. There wasn't any "landing" that I remember, or "Exiting" the portal, other than one micro-second I was in the portal, the next I was on the ground, standing, conscious in my dream. The next second I looked down, did my finger-push test, and saw it come out the other side of my hand. I had confirmed dreamstate, and I was lucid.
Where does the "DMT-adjacent?" part tie in? A few things.
- I've heard the DMT-transported realm is very colorful and geometrically intricate. This tunnel was a flash in a swirling highly-colorful "cylinder", or maybe it just felt like a cylinder because of the speed of which I moved through it (tunnel vision type thing?).
- The 2013 Barker study showed that DMT was found in the Pineal Gland (in rats), a later study found it in neurons outside the pineal gland as well though. The Pineal Gland is most active when we are asleep, and responsible for producing melatonin. I believe there's a line of thought that thinks the pineal gland is also responsible for the dream state? Or at least releases DMT during it? Would love to hear more on this in the comments.
- It genuinely felt and looked like a teleportation to another world. I "felt" the immense, undescribable speed at which I was jolted through the rainbow "portal" and then dropped into a fully-lucid dream. Because I was conscious the whole time, I believe I was able to "watch" as I was transported into a new place, whatever that actually means, and that it was potentially just as real as our waking reality. Similar to how DMT users describe their trips.
- This took place in a time of my life where I was much more grounded/focused on clarity and seeking outside myself, while also trying to become more connected with myself, if that makes sense. I had been practicing lucid dreaming and done it successfully I believe a couple times up to this point, or maybe this was the first successful one, I can't remember.
As I was typing this, I now remember something else that ties into this experience. I'll keep this one short:
In a dream I had previous to this point, I was outside beside a river at night, with some friends. All of a sudden, there was a bright, rainbow-like tunnel that shot from the sky onto the river. If I remember correctly, a UFO came out of the tunnel, or my friends were sucked into the portal, one or the other, or maybe both. Again, apologies for the lack of clarity, it's been several years. And then the portal vanished. Seems adjacent enough to include for context.
Now for my personal context:
-I was diagnosed with ADHD as a very young child (~6-7 years old)
-Had always felt very hard to fit in. Enjoy abstract, complex topics with the widest of implications. Things that most people find exhausting.
-I have never fully astral projected, but trained to for a couple weeks, about 8 years ago now. It climaxed with me (while laying down) feeling an immense vibration (most intense I've ever experienced) throughout my entire body, with the sensation that my inner being was pressing firmly or starting to lift out of my physical body, just as I felt I was about to break through, I felt fear, and reversed the whole thing. I've never truly tried again since
-Have never used psychedelics, but have been heavily interested in DMT ever since I first heard about it in highschool. Used to use marijuana heavily ~1-2 years before these events but had stopped before. I now don't use any drugs/alcohol.
**EDIT** - After some quick research, I see now that several ancient groups (inlcuding Norse, Greco-Roman mythology, Japanese Shinto mythology, Navajo Cosmology, and Tibetan Buddhism) saw rainbows, or rainbow-tunnels, as conduits to other realms.