It started with a fight, a big, ugly one. L and my relationship was already over, but we were still living in the same house and the strain was showing. One night, it just boiled over. I freaked, got in her face and went off, letting out all the nastiness I had bottled up. It wasn't nice, it wasn't right, but it boiled out of me in a searing blast of anger. We had been talking about a possible reconciliation and I wonder now if what I did wasn't a subliminal urge to put the last nail in the coffin and make sure that didn't happen… I don't know. I just know I was in a lot of pain.

Afterwards I went downstairs to talk to M, my other roommate. He is one of my most trusted friends and he listened for quite some time while I poured my heart out. I was a cauldron of conflicting emotions, sadness and regret and despair and anger and relief, fear and love and loss, disgust and a sense of freedom. I had been considering smoking some 5-MeO-DMT to reach clarity before we had fought, and now it seemed like an even better idea.

I loaded and smoked a large hit. Hot plastic filled my lungs and the world proceeded to vibrate itself apart as I sunk into the cosmic mesh of the universe. I was out in a second, outside the room, outside my body, outside the normal boundaries of consciousness and into something bigger, brighter and infinitely more intense. I stayed there for a short eternity before reintegrating on the floor of our trip room, chuckling and smiling and relieved of my negativity and conflict. I was laughing at my predicament as my body reformed around me. I'd just spoken to god and god had told me everything was fine. And I believed him/her/it.

I smoked some pot and went upstairs to listen to some music. It sounded good, I felt good and it didn't even bother me the few times L stuck her head out of her room to say something to me. I felt almost like I was on ecstasy, a beautiful afterglow.

The next night I was feeling down again and felt a deep desire to reconnect with the peaceful state of bliss that smoking the 5-MeO-DMT had brought to me. I loaded and smoked a good sized hit and was again propelled into a brief union with the godhead, thrust into the swirling engine of creation to view, for a second, the raw energy of being. I returned all too soon, feeling superb, but realizing that things were still fucked up. I decided then that I was going to try an experiment. For the next five nights I was going to smoke 5-MeO-DMT in an effort to utilize its pristine state of clarity and peace as well as its occasional tendency to facilitate insight in an attempt to help reconcile myself to my new reality.

The third night was a more lucid, less cosmic experience. I was suddenly aware of how badly I had acted during the last few days of our pseudo relationship (after we had officially broken up, before we had stopped playing with the idea of reconciling), especially the night of our last blow out fight. I felt anger and disgust at myself. I also felt some small regret at what could have been, but it was tempered by relief at the whole thing finally being over and the firm conviction that what had happened was all for the best. As I emerged more fully from the medium intensity experience I thought about apologizing again to L (I had already done so several times) for freaking out on her, but realized I had already said everything I had to say. All that was left was for me to act like I really was sorry, give her space and let things resolve themselves. I had the powerful feeling that what happened was entirely up to me, that I could let this experience teach me things and grow or destroy me. I made a conscious choice to use the experience to try and resolve my issues with women and grow into a healthier person.

Night four was a deeper experience again. I smoked a good hit and had one of my most intense 5-MeO-DMT trips ever. I felt like I melted down between the weave of the fabric of being while the universe inserted itself into my soul. It was incredibly intense and lasted seemingly forever. Even after I returned to my body I was firmly in the grip of the 5-MeO-DMT. It just lasted and lasted, leaving me with a remarkable feeling of rightness and peace. I wrapped myself in a piece of fake fur I had been using as a blanket and rolled around on the floor. I was joyous, I felt like everything was OK. My ragged, hurt feelings were smoothing out and I felt like I was finally beginning to see the light at the end of the tunnel.

Afterward I meditated. I was still not 100% down from my experience and the MeO state carried over into my meditation. It made me strangely aware of my body and dilated time to some degree. It also seemed to help me get into a deeper meditative state. The meditation session went extremely well, one of my better sessions.

On the fifth night I decided to listen to some music during the experience. I put on the second disk of the Danny Tenaglia Global Underground: Athens mix and smoked my hit. The music sort of grounded the MeO, the MeO stripped the music like it was peeling an onion. It was pretty damn neat. I smoked several times throughout the disk. After the third or fourth hit I got up and danced a bit.

I went into this trip looking for acceptance of the situation and I got it. I had multiple realizations throughout the course of the experience. I knew that L and I had been good, but realized it was also good that we were now over. I didn't have any hard feelings and I felt good about the future.

The sixth night I decided to try listening to the Orb album UFOrb while I tripped. I smoked numerous hits over the course of the album (approximately one every ten minutes), ranging from barely above threshold to OH MY GOD! The music was superb, a bit slow but its complex beauty and strangeness sucked me in and supercharged my warped mind. The last hit was the biggest. As I smoked it I heard L pull up in the driveway. I set down the pipe and launched into the deepest realms of being as she was walking in the door.

I heard a voice, from far away. "Are you OK?" Somehow I manage to give an affirmative. "Did you smoke some DMT?" the voice asks. I manage to send an affirmative message back to Earth again, which I know exists somewhere far from me, in another lifetime I can't quite recall. "Did you smoke a lot of DMT?" the voice asks. I find this funny and laughingly agree. I felt OK. Better than OK. I was bubbling with joy. It's OK, it's OK, everything is right, everything is as it should be. I remember feeling the same way on a K trip some time ago. When I returned to my body and full awareness of the room I was in an extremely friendly, rolling type of mood. I felt a lot like I had taken MDMA. I was happy to be alive and embodied and everything seemed OK. I hung out with L for an hour or so until she left again, then went to bed, still in a superb mood.

On the last day of my experiment I went to hang out with a good friend of mine, T. He was having a small get together at his house for some close friends. I suggested that some of them might like to try 5-MeO-DMT and T thought it might be a good idea. I got everyone's attention and spoke for a bit about 5-MeO-DMT, what it was, what it did and how I had been using it for the past week in an attempt to come to terms with my feelings about my breakup. I offered everyone the opportunity to try it if they wished then loaded and smoked a smallish to medium sized hit. I had some trouble getting it all, since I was using a different pipe and a slightly different method than usual. I did manage to cross the threshold, but not by much. I felt wavy, melty and liquid. My consciousness flowed around my surroundings. Music, snatches of poetry being read and laughter grounded me and brought me out of my light trance. I opened my eyes and looked at T, who was watching me. He asked how much I had gotten and I answered "Barely enough". It was nice, but unsatisfying.

I then watched and assisted as each other person there took the sacrament in turn. Most of them had never done it before. All had powerful experiences, mostly positive. As we took turns we began working out ways to act as support for one another on our journey out and the return. After nearly two hours everyone else had smoked, one guy twice. I decided to smoke again and close the circle.

T loaded me a big hit. I eyeballed it suspiciously, but he had chosen well for everyone else so I put myself in his hands and smoked it. It was a BIG hit. I held it in and closed my eyes…

The humming, resonant buzz of my friends toning Aum lifted me to the sky as the veil rent, letting the energy of god's own love pour into and through me. Blackness gave way to streams of light that exploded, taking me with them. The MeO took me, pulling reality around itself like a cloak. I was aware of something revelatory, another piece of the puzzle falling into place with an almost audible click. Again I felt good about what had happened, seeing it in a positive light. The universe felt right as I returned to it. It welcomed me back with a gentle and joyous reminder "There is work to be done yet, friend…"

According to T I had been gone for nearly twenty minutes. I am almost 100% sure it was my largest 5-MeO-DMT dose ever. I felt warm, relaxed and energetic after reentry. Later in the evening I became a bit melancholy, the sadness of missing something beautiful even when you know it is for the best.

I feel that this seven day experiment was extremely positive. I believe it allowed me to come to terms with then end of an important relationship in a much shorter period of time than it usually takes me. I still have pangs of regret now and again, but I have never felt the crippling despair that I felt the first few days and that has always marked the end of other major relationships in my past. I don't believe the MeO "cured" me, I just think it facilitated insight and acceptance of what happened. Although there is a part of me that still misses L and always will, I know in my heart that our relationship is over and I am moving past it. My week of 5-MeO-DMT trips helped me ease past the hardest parts of it, the first week when I knew for real it was over. I am eternally grateful.