✦Appearance
Entities visibly composed of other entities or minds: a figure whose body resolves into a crowd, several beings sharing one voice and intent, or a formation (the Nexus 'Triad' — 'a triad of beings, who I think was some sort of collective intelligence... three smallish floating sprites') that behaves as a single organism. Related presentations: beings made of many faces, and swarms that address the experiencer in the first person singular.
✦Behavior
Unified multiplicity: the components move, speak, and attend in perfect coordination; parts may detach to interact and then rejoin. Some composites form during the encounter — separate beings merging in front of the experiencer, occasionally inviting the experiencer into the merge (overlapping with ego-dissolution and unity experiences at peak).
✦Communication
Chorus-in-unison telepathy: one message with many simultaneous carriers, or a conversation in which every component answers at once. Experiencers describe it as unmistakably plural and unmistakably one.
✦Emotional tone
Uncanny-to-sublime: the violation of one-mind-one-body is disturbing to some, ecstatic to others, especially when invited to join.
✦Message or purpose
Demonstration of collective mind — individuality as optional structure; invitations to merge are often read as previews of the peak unity state.
✦What the sources say
'The Triad': 'a triad of beings, who I think was some sort of collective intelligence... three smallish floating sprites... emitted a symphony of humming, cooing, hypnotic noises'; 'Tapestries': 'mostly incomprehensible beings of peculiar dimensional properties'.
'Omnipresence' coded in 14% of encounters — being(s) experienced as pervading the space rather than localized, adjacent to the many-as-one presentation.
Shanon's ayahuasca corpus includes multiplicities of beings acting with single coordinated intent as a recurring visionary structure.
Erowid reports describe swarm-minds, merging beings, and single voices issuing from crowds.
Questions
What are Composite & collective beings — the many-as-one in the DMT experience?
Entities visibly composed of other entities or minds: a figure whose body resolves into a crowd, several beings sharing one voice and intent, or a formation (the Nexus 'Triad' — 'a triad of beings, who I think was some sort of collective intelligence... three smallish floating sprites') that behaves as a single organism. Related presentations: beings made of many faces, and swarms that address the This describes what people report — the Atlas documents the phenomenology, not a metaphysical claim.
How often are Composite & collective beings — the many-as-one reported?
No survey category; attested in Nexus contributor taxonomy (the Triad; also 'Tapestries' — beings of incomprehensible dimensional plurality), consistent with Michael et al.'s omnipresence coding (14%), and recurrent in community reports of swarm-minds and merged beings. Community-recurrent, uncounted.
When in the experience are Composite & collective beings — the many-as-one encountered?
Most reports place them around phase 8 — The Download / Lesson — of the commonly-reported journey arc.