I've come to think, that this is not a valid equation.

Agreed.

ragabr just posted something similar to this!

Conservation is the number one rule of smoking.....

High Dose (of pure product) + Proper Administration = Breakthrough Every Time.

Do you really imagine that resistance, preconception, diet, sleep, or any personal baggage whatsoever could prevent one from going deep after a high IV'd dose? I've not gone there personally (though I can't say I'm not interested), but there weren't any misfires that I can recall reported in The Spirit Molecule.

Vaporization is just a very idiosyncratic (and inefficient) method of administration. That's why it's so hit or miss.

Really? I didn't know that.

Just load a huge bowl and smoke it 'til you're gone.

Then leave the remnants for later.



(Clear it!!!)

I feel really confused by this issue. It does seem to me that a lot of the newer Nexus members report extremely high doses without breakthroughs. In SWIM's recent reports, I cannot verify actual dosages; she worked with changa that seems to vary a lot in its concentrations. In the report Acolyte kindly mentioned, she seemed to get a much larger blast of spice than usual, with the most intense non-breakthrough effects she has ever had smoking the spice.

I feel like Art and House share good points though. Since SWIM has switched to changa, she stops smoking when she feels like it's indicated; she no longer feels compelled to breakthrough to avoid anxiety.

Well, perhaps new members don't have their smoking technique down. My friend had to learn how to correctly smoke alkaloids and couldn't break through with 80 mg to save his life. Fast forward to better smoking equipment and technique, and he can break through on 40 mg. (Though 50-55 does work better.)

But it's definitely true that the perceived intensity of a trip depends on other factors in addition to dosage, even assuming the entire dose is administered properly. These factors might include weight, cross-tolerance to other compounds, potentiation or attenuation of DMT effects by other compounds, being well rested versus being sleep deprived, etc.

Agreed regarding smoking technique.

SWIM's experience suggests to her that intensity of the spice and breakthrough do not have a necessary relationship. Most of her recent breakthroughs have had a fairly low intensity level; since adopting changa, she likes to take as little as needed to fully enter hyperspace, and just redose until the lesson has ended. This allows her to bring much more back and process it all more easily.

So why not have intense non breakthrough experiences? In my pendulum report, I smoked so much spice, left my body but didn't breakthrough. I stopped communicating with the beeings a while ago and before the communication stoopped, they told me, that I'm only allowed to see a portion of what is available. I need to learn my lesson first. The bruning head syndrome i experienced could be a sign ...they might want to tell me that i shouldn't try to push so hard but focus more on the experience itself.

This is what I'm gonna do...low to mid dose with changa, trying to really adjust my mind to it....and thats over a longer period of time. It'll take a lot of spice, but I don't care anymore.

I'll read the carrier retraction thread, thanks!

That's basically been my method so far. Granted I'm just starting my relationship with spice but I feel thats why it's better to "small time" it.

I feel like I'm building a relationship in many respects. I'm getting to know the experience from bottom to top and trying to build up the trust level...if that's really possible. I'm already seeing it to be a very erratic experience. When I think I'm going to have a mild somewhat grounded experience....I'm suddenly somewhere else. Then I load up a larger dosage thinking I'll surely return to a similar state and I never leave the room I'm in.

There is some inconsistency to note regarding my apparatus and such considering I'm so far experimenting with straight-on base Xtals. This has led me to order a bit of Caapi leaf and plant some Passionflower.

Regardless of this my largest *known* administration has been only in the 20-25mg range (not sure how much was left over from wife's 15mg that found the ground glass portion of my "machine" ). That dose was a very grounded albeit very pleasurable "calibration session" with the Grays. So far I've only encountered the Grays, but they seem very interested in me and are there every time.

At the same time I've left by body (not sure it's classified as breakthrough as it was only the "waiting room" and I couldn't move) with as little as 15mg (*known*)

I don't see any reason to rush the dosages....I'm sure the vast majority are drawn by the desire for the breakthrough experience but I feel there is a *GREAT* deal to learn from the experience on the way there. I know that I personally was absolutely amazed by my first time grounded experience.
Would it hold the same magick and wonder if I had already broken through several times?
I doubt it. (IMO)
Enjoy every moment of magick it gifts you with.

Yeah, don't rush it man. I went from a 25g to 45 or so, then went for a 'heroic' amount the 3rd time and I 'wanted my mommy' afterwards. You have a good approach.

I think there is a lot of confusion concerning this topic because everyone uses different methods/materials for smoking/vaporizing spice and also different grades of crystal.

when i see people report about high doses with no breakthrough i would guess they are probably not vaporizing correctly and dont quite have there technique down.

SWIM will drink to that.

If the phenomenon came down to just not breaking through, I might agree with you. It appears though that many of us have experiences where much lower doses than general break us through.

Also, for SWIM, the effect has appeared most prominent with changa, and journeys have stopped immediately under the control of hyperspace.

In a related thread, Espiridion expressed similar findings regarding sublingual journeys.

I think that the Nexus has hit on a rich vein for exploration here, that purity and smoking technique do not adequately explain.

I have found that it is difficult to predict a breakthrough or not too. Sometimes one hit of changa will send me into the deepest reaches of hyperspace and then I can smoke three large lungfuls and just scratch the surface. It's frustrating. I wish there could be some consistency and I wish that a tolerance didn't build during a session.

SWIM definitely feels you, joebono. Sometimes she wants to just chill after the first pull, relaxing into it before going further. Each time trying that though, never gets very far. Once she gets another batch of changa, she'll try the low go first, wait 5 minutes and try again. House claims no tolerance, but it sure feels like it within a minute or two.

For me there is definitely a tolerance, the same as freebase DMT. I use caapi leaf infused with both DMT and harmala extracted alkaloids and the experience may last a few minutes longer but the tolerance is not changed. Sometimes even if I want to break through I am scared to take the second or third hit for fear of overshooting because one hit can sometimes send me too far.

I confess: with changa, I have never weighed or measured. Not once. My scale is not reliable. I also stopped measuring my Ayahuasca a long time ago...

It shifts the experience from the mind (numbers, counting, questions, expectations), to open surrender and trust in the body and medicine. Knowing that literally the medicine is the guide....

Other questions also plague my mind: with my relatively free-form and less precise methods, can I ever really know exactly how much spice is on the herbs? What if I can't smoke an entire bowl with exactly said number of mgs? What if I have to stop and reload? The best solution is to just pack a giant bowl with 2-3x more than I could possibly smoke in one sitting.

I'm a huge wuss, and can't take massive inhales of any herb until brown smoke fills my lungs. Hellllll no! (I salute everyone else who can do it. I also have to drink my Aya in a smoothie...) So, I smoke very calmly, slowly, from the stomach. It probably takes me three times as long to smoke compared to most people, but I never ever cough or suffer other unpleasantries.

But there are definitely days where I smoke twice as much than others. There are usually indicators of breakthrough: color shift, fractals in the smoke, shrinking down to hobbit size. When I smoke slowly, I experience these symptoms reliably, and know exactly when enough is enough.

In the beginning, before I could get over initial fear and before I could learn to trust in the experience of smoking, I would either fail to breakthrough, breakthrough and then black out, or get caught endlessly in loops of geometry.

The line between sub-breakthrough--breakthrough--and blackout to definitely be as fine as variable, and this is just my personal technique that I have found works for me 100% of the time. I've also spent several years drinking Ayahuasca regularly, and this is not an endorsement of reckless behavior: just using patience, care, and mindfulness, slowly, in the gradients of experience, to find a place that works best for you. If I need 20mgs today and 50mgs tomorrow, the experience will be the same if I judge by the experience in my body, with the added bonus, my focus is completely on the experience...

If any of that made sense.

You're a super-hero Ms Minxx! It took SWIM a lot of experimenting to find her sweetspot with the freebase, after going way too far several times. Making changa, she just weighed out the same amount. Her second time with the changa, she took a whole cone in one breath and ended up shuddering in the fetal position for about 45 minutes after the journey ended. So she takes it slowly, now. SWIM says she will try out your method as soon as a new batch of changa grows in her magic jar.