Am I Dying? Am I Dead?
DMT
Citation:   Hypersphere. "Am I Dying? Am I Dead?: An Experience with DMT (exp83784)". Erowid.org. May 10, 2019. erowid.org/exp/83784

 
DOSE:
  smoked DMT (powder / crystals)
BODY WEIGHT: 125 lb
Date: February 2008
Substance: A yellowish N,N-Dimethyltryptamine freebase presumed to be extracted from Mimosa hostilis root bark.
Dose: 50 milligrams or more

Set and Setting: I was excited to be sharing some of the last of my DMT with a close friend. I had done several experiments recently smoking DMT, most of them low-doses and only getting the breakthrough a couple times. Tonight, I felt ready to dive deep. I was comfortably seated on my friend’s bed with my back against the wall, a familiar environment. Music: Shpongle – Once Upon a Sea of Blissful Awareness followed by Around the World in a Tea Daze.

Background: I am male, at the time of this experience 23 years old and weighing around 125 pounds. I use marijuana and yerba mate on a daily basis, but take no prescription or over-the-counter medications. I consider myself experienced with a variety of psychedelic substances. I had previous breakthrough experiences using DMT, 5-MeO-DMT and Salvia divinorum, so I was no stranger to visionary substances that come on fast and furious. Other psychedelics I am familiar with include mushrooms, hawaiian baby woodrose, ayahuasca-type brews, LSD, 2C-I, 2C-E, Trichocereus cacti, MDMA and methylone.

Some words of wisdom from a harm reduction website:
“Many people find the most effective method for smoking DMT is to use a glass pipe and inhale deeply. Often, the DMT melts and some of it remains behind in the pipe. This can be a problem if you load a full dose at a later date and unknowingly have an additional 20 mg left in the pipe.”

Well, that’s exactly what happened to me…

The experience: I had just supervised my friend’s first breakthrough dose of DMT. He’d gotten in three breaths before passing off the pipe to me and going under. I had already put ~40-50 milligrams in the pipe for him, and now loaded it with the same amount for myself. Generous doses, I was tired of doing half-measures and failed breakthrough attempts with this substance.

After a few minutes he opened his eyes, looked at me, laughed, then shut them again. A couple minutes later, seeing that he was dropping out of the trance, it was time for me to blast off.

The pipe was a “glass dick” style one and it was the first time I’d used it. It worked very, very well. I took a thick full lung of pluming white DMT smoke. Knowing I’d gotten a massive hit, there was a space of a second or two where I had time to wonder “Should I try to take another toke? Will I need to take another?”

Next second I knew taking another hit was out of the question, as the effects hit me like a freight train. Salvia has been described as like a butterfly being hit by a freight train. Well, DMT can be like that too. Incredible speed and intensity of onset. Simultaneously being the butterfly, splattered across the windshield, and the windshield hitting the butterfly.

“This is too much… this is too much!” I am screaming silently in my mind.

“Load Universe into Cannon. Aim at Brain. Fire.”? More like, everything is folding inside out and I am being sucked backwards through my asshole into the universe. A foreign universe, flying high above lofty peaks with sharp, crystalline edges. Vaguely citrine coloured peaks.
everything is folding inside out and I am being sucked backwards through my asshole into the universe. A foreign universe, flying high above lofty peaks with sharp, crystalline edges. Vaguely citrine coloured peaks.


I think I must be dying, or dead. Did I just take a fatal overdose? I know at some level that I can’t overdose on DMT, but the experience is so real, so shocking that I question that knowledge. Am I dying? Am I dead? It seems the only possible explanation for what I am experiencing. Too much, too much, the psychedelic annihilation writhes and howls all around me. Like being on the bald-ass prairie in the midst of a white-out blizzard, a maelstrom surrounds me. I am scared to the point of terror.

Eventually, I regain awareness of my breathing, which is laboured and panicky. I try to concentrate on breathing deeply and staying calm. This is all I have to hold onto, just my breath. I keep loosing the calm breathing. Am I dead? Am I dying?

The music. Shpongle. I can hear the music again. I must have opened my eyes at this point, because I can see the computer screen, psychedelically brilliant. Everything is fractalizing and refractalizing, pulsing with light. I can read the word “Shpongle” on the screen, but everything else is a soft, fuzzy edged blur.

I remembered that there was something called time. I couldn’t quite fathom what it was yet, but was reassured that the music continued playing. Because the music was playing, I knew that time must be passing. I began to think that maybe I wasn’t dead after all, that I might survive this experience.

Breathe. Just breathe. Ride it out. This too will pass. The intensity is beginning to drop a bit. Then quite suddenly it fades away and I snap back into my body. I am back! Glad to be here, safe and sound. Glad my elastic fantastic mind snapped back once again.

Time elapsed: 7-8 minutes.

After thoughts: This was the most intense psychedelic trip I’ve ever had. I can’t really put the peak into words but it was all too much. I might have handled it a little better were it not for the shear rapidity of onset, which gave me no time to adjust to the effects. It was indeed, like getting struck by lightning.

I also found that when coming out of the afterglow a sort of amnesic cloud tried to descend over the experience. I had to think carefully to remember what exactly I had experienced, and wrote down my immediate impressions to try and fix the experience in my memory. I think if I hadn’t done this, that I would have blocked out and forgotten much of the experience. When going so far out, there is a tendency for the mind to try to block out and forget the experience, because it was so shocking and radically different from normal experience. I had to work hard to bring back recollection of this trip.

I definitely hit a new level tonight, and that is something I want to remember. I don’t need to go back to that level again though. Not for sometime. This experience didn’t make me fear DMT, but it definitely gave me a healthier respect for its power. This trip sent me so far out, that I was in another reality entirely. As I slowly started coming back to this reality, the first thing I became aware of was my breathing. Everything I have ever learned from meditation served me well here. All there was at that point in time was my breathing, it was my only anchor-point to reality. Slowly my other senses came back to me and I could here the music, open my eyes and see again. Awareness of my body returned last, and when I came out of the trance there was a feeling of snapping back into my body.

I did not approach DMT with enough respect and caution for its power in this experience. If I could go back in time and do this trip again, I would change a couple things. My major mistake was loading a strong dose for myself right after loading a strong dose for my friend. I should have expected that he had probably not vaporized the whole amount, leaving a fare bit of residue in the pipe. I should have checked the pipe for residue and loaded a smaller amount for myself.

Also, I was using equipment I was unfamiliar with, and since the pipe was pre-warmed, when I hit it all the DMT vaporized instantly, giving me the biggest toke of DMT I have ever taken. Usually it takes two or three full breaths for me to breakthrough, but this experience proves that with proper equipment and technique, even one full breath can be too much.

Finally, I made a tactical error blasting off into DMT space before my friend had fully come down. Although I thought he was dropping out of the trance state, he was actually still pretty deep in it and thus not a sober sitter. He said that he could hear my troubled breathing and knew I was having a difficult experience, but was unable to do anything about it because he was still in the trance state himself. Always make sure your sitter is truly sober and ready to look after you, before going into DMT space!

When I told my friend of my trip, he said it sounded like a trip he had on mushrooms once. “And how many mushrooms did it take to get there?” I ask.

“About fifteen grams.”

“Oh. That’s a lot.”

Thanks for reading!

Exp Year: 2008ExpID: 83784
Gender: Male 
Age at time of experience: 23
Published: May 10, 2019Views: 1,234
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DMT (18) : Small Group (2-9) (17), Guides / Sitters (39), Music Discussion (22), General (1)

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