Excerpts from this article, where Terrence Mckenna describes the “Self-Transforming Machine Elves”, or “Jeweled, Self-Dribbling Basketballs” – nonhuman entities many people claim to have encountered during a DMT experience. The whole article is worth reading, but I’ve edited it down here to remove most of Terrence’s trademark rambling (and delightful) style of talking to keep it to just a description of the entities. Mainly because I was reminded of the somewhat-famous ending quote and I wanted it on my blog:

DMT does not provide an experience that you analyze. Nothing so tidy goes on. The syntactical machinery of description undergoes some sort of hyper-dimensional inflation instantly, and then, you know, you cannot tell yourself what it is that you understand. In other words, what DMT does can’t be downloaded into as low-dimensional a language as English.

The place, or space, you’ve burst into—called “the dome” by some—seems to be underground, and is softly, indirectly lit. The walls are crawling with geometric hallucinations, very brightly colored, very iridescent with deep sheens and very high, reflective surfaces—everything is machine-like and polished and throbbing with energy.

But that is not what immediately arrests my attention. What arrests my attention is the fact that this space is inhabited—that the immediate impression as you break into it is there’s a cheer. [...] You break into this space and are immediately swarmed by squeaking, self-transforming elf-machines…made of light and grammar and sound that come chirping and squealing and tumbling toward you. And they say, “Hooray! Welcome! You’re here!” And in my case, “You send so many and you come so rarely!”

The elves, or “jeweled self-dribbling basketballs,” come running forward. They’re “singing, chanting, speaking in some kind of language that is very bizarre to hear, but what is far more important is that you can see it, which is completely confounding!” And also, something is “going on” that over the years McKenna has come to call luv—”not ‘light utility vehicle,’ but love that is not like Eros or not like sexual attraction,” something “almost like a physical thing,” “a glue that pours out into this space.”

Each “elf-machine creature” “elbows others aside, says, ‘Look at this, look at this, take this, choose me!’” They come toward you, and then—and you have to understand they don’t have arms, so we’re kind of downloading this into a lower dimension to even describe it, but—what they do is they offer things to you. You realize what you’re being shown—this “proliferation of elf gifts,” or “celestial toys,” which “seem somehow alive”—is “impossible.” This “state of incredible frenzy” continues for about three minutes, during which the elves are saying:

“Don’t give way to wonder. Do not abandon yourself to amazement. Pay attention. Pay attention. Look at what we’re doing. Look at what we’re doing, and then do it. Do it!”
Terrence Mckenna