DMT

DOSE:

2 hits vaporized DMT

BODY WEIGHT: 150 lb

My exposure to DMT came last year when I returned to visit the city where I went to college and stayed with some friends. Among them is J, who was there for my first few experiences with LSD and who is one of a small group of people who I trust completely as a guide and fellow traveler with regards to all things psychedelic.

I was sitting on his couch doing some work one night when he wandered in and announced in his typical jovial way, �guess what I got?�. The glint in his eye told me before he did that it must have been one of a handful of chemicals � in fact, it was DMT. I didn�t know too much about it at that point beyond the basics: it�s physiologically quite safe, but puts you into a �hyperspace�-like state for about 15 minutes, during which users report shooting through eternal tunnels and meeting strange entities. J had already done DMT a few times and told me in no uncertain terms that I was in for a ride; we picked out a launch window for later that week.

The night before I was due to try DMT, I was sandwiched around the table at a social gathering with J and some friends. He was discussing in low tones the construction of �the machine�, the rig built out of an old beer bottle, a straw, some rubber cement, and some steel wool that was supposed to be an efficient way of consuming DMT. Another friend asked to see the machine, so we retired upstairs and J produced it. Out of curiosity I picked it up and inhaled through the straw, and immediately tasted mothballs and felt waves of profoundly peaceful thoughts wash over me. �I think�, I said, �there might still be some DMT left over in this thing�. I was mostly sober and buzzing more from the company of good friends than the two beers I�d had earlier in the evening, so J suggested that I try smoking what was left in there to get a taste of the DMT headspace in anticipation of tomorrow�s trip. We imagined that there might have been a few milligrams of the stuff left over from previous journeys; in retrospect, that might have been an underestimate.

Still laughing a bit at the silliness of the dry run we were about to attempt, I took the plastic straw poking out of the machine into my mouth, as J ignited his lighter and waved it beneath the ball of steel wool, supposedly laced with the stuff, at the other end. �Inhale�, he said, and I did, feeling the pungent mothball taste now sticky and amplified as I choked down the smoke. I counted to ten, I guess, making a halfhearted attempt to hold it in even as I bucked and coughed. �Again�, and I inhaled once more. By now, it was already clear that something was deeply wrong. I could feel my body tingling with a brand new energy � heretofore undiscovered, but now familiar. The faintest background sounds � the whirring of a CPU fan, the faint chatter of guests downstairs, were amplified and reverberant. I felt my brain sift these sounds one by one from a river of noise, a power we all wield but rarely think about. I felt my brain sift these sounds one by one from a river of noise, a power we all wield but rarely think about.