Maybe????

A hypothesis to consider when I put in my research proposal for the next grant application.

I've read on this forum, that some (although a very small minority) people consider the effects of DMT on their life to be negative. I suppose that the effects of cortisol released during DMT-trips are the same as with the release of cortisol during other stressfull events. We all know that sometimes people sucomb under too much stress, but we also know that sometimes stress feels realy, realy good and healthy (like taking a rollercoasterride).
So i suppose that when it's just too much, you could just get PTSS from DMT as much as with any other stresfull type of event (and shrinking nerve cells as a result of that, PTSS dumbs you down).

Indeed i couldn't just find any source stating it causes NGF levels to rise, but i did found in that strassman study, that growthhormone levels rise when you take DMT. I probably just rememered it wrong.
Still, it's not such a strange mistake i made. I wouldn't be surprised if it would be found that DMT does rise NGF levels.
The hypothesis made by jorkest totally makes sense. Especially when you consider that with many things we consider to be stressfull (at least to some level), it is known that NGF is ndeed being released.

DMT can be bad for you?
The thought of losing nerve cells is scary, foaf's quite attached to his nerve cells, particularly the ones on a certain organ.

Where would you place DMT on this diagram? (Please continue your discussion too though, don't let my question distract you)
http://en.wikipedia.org/...ssess_the_harm_of_drugs_(mean_physical_harm_and_mean_dependence).svg

shamans have taken dmt for thousands of years...its in you anyway! its not going to hurt you unless you abuse it

Seriously it is not harmful. This is the type of conclusions one reaches to when tries to integrate reductionistic data into a holistic system, like the human body. This is not science of any sort.

Vast anthropological experience shows no harmful effects at least from ayahuasca. smoking/IV:ing dmt is a different story however: the brain is confronted with a big amount in an instant rush and this is different from the oral route (aya). So, the best answer would be that "we do not know yet but as long as the people of this forum do not take breaks from their writing/reading to scoop the dripping saliva off their lips we can assume that it is not dangerous"

I would assume that the vast majority of the patrons in this forum are very intelligent individuals that have fairly busy lives. This argues against any neurotoxic effects of dmt. Its position in the chart is as shown below...

What? Please explain? I had post tramatic stress syndrome after a super intense mushroom experience.

I believe smoked DMT is safe... BUT it's not PROVEN to be 100% safe like Ayahuasca and Peyote is.

well..here is a good test

smoke the stuff..if it feels good...natural..and wonderful...nonaddicting..safe enough

I love how you took the time to actually draw DMT onto the chart, especially how it got its own psychedelic ker-pow symbol, thank you!

I don't mean to scare everybody. It's just that if you read the tripreports on this forum, occasionally you will find there are people who believe DMT has not done them any good.
If someone believes that DMT has made his life less enjoyable in some way, while so many others claim that theire lives have imroved then at least you have to draw the conclusion that it's very dependant on your situation, whether DMT is a good thing or a bad thing, instead of it just being a good thing (or a bad thing).
Ofcourse this has to do with the nature of the experience someone has had with it.
So then it is a question whether this causes a biochemical imbalance or whether it's just an emotional imbalance caused by the DMT experience.
But the very DMT experience itself IS a biochemical thing.
So this question: "is it biochemical or emotional?" is way too complex to solve and at the same time a weird nonsense question.
Ofcourse it is both.
It makes no sense saying it is only one or the other.
When you look at PTSS, then ofcourse there is more to it then just cortisollevels, but the cortisol is clearly a factor in it (the shrinking of braincells is reversable BTW).
Whether cortisol levels are directly influenced by DMT or whether it is the EXPERIENCE caused by DMT that makes cortisollevels rise, is something that can be debated but the point is that it is evident that what aplies to stress in any other situation, aplies to DMT as well.
How stressfull the event is, is key to how dangerous it is to you.
Some people get a nervous breakdown from watching the 6 o'clock news and other people join the navy, serve in afghanistan for 6 months and then go on with their lives as if nothing happened.

Are there any reports of health risks with smoking DMT? Because I've found nothing... Erowid doesn't even have a health section for it. About as bad as it gets according to Erowid is difficulty integrating experiences so lack of sleep. Spice has been around so long, surely it's potential health risks got studied back in the day, or at least theyd've followed up on how smokers were progressing over the past 40+ years?

Any other old-school drug and I'd be able to come up with health issues or at least anecdotes about people I've known who messed themselves up on something or other. But I've never met anyone who's ever smoked DMT apart from foaf, whose a beginner so I've got zilch to go on.

I don't think there are such reports.
The ayahuasca reports are ofcourse unreliable since there are numerous reasons why it wouldn't 1:1 apply to smoking DMT; it's not igested through the lungs but through the stomach, it's combined with substances of wich health benefits are well known (harmale alkaloïds), it's taken in a ritual setting and social context.
So there is no proof of the use of spice being healthy or unheathy at all.
It is reasonable to expect it's health effects to be very similar to those of other similarly psycho-active tryptamines; 5-MeO-DMT, bufotenin, psilocynin, psilocin, the most related ones and LSD to a lesser extent.
Unfortunately or rather, fortunately, of these other substances there is little known about health-effects as well.
The only things known are things happening DURING the use of spice and other tryptamines (like already mentioned in this thread; bloodpressure, cortisol-levels, etc). Long term effects, positive nor negative, have never been established.
On this forum, cases are mentioned of people becoming psychotic.
I guess the risks of that are equal to those of LSD or mescaline.
Mind altering substances from cannabis, to opiates, to cocaine and amphetamine's, all carry this risk.
Anyway, difficulty integrating the experience is something that can be a small as well as a major problem. On the thread 'ever been stuck in a loop' on the experience-section of this site, somebody mentions such a problem.
It's those kind of stories that got me to write a few comments here with wich i really meant to say;'for most people on this site, spice seems to be a very positive thing, but we should be aware that this not nessecarilly is the same for everybody, all the time'.

See, this is what concerns me. When foaf tells his friends about DMT they often want to try it... but foaf won't give them any, because he doesn't want to be responsible for anything like that happening to them.

These cases you mention, were they psychotic while on it, or was this psychosis in everyday life? There's an important difference between the two.

I'd be really interested to hear of other reports of negative effects. Foaf will start ingesting extracted DMT orally with an MAOA instead of smoking if he can't validate its safety. He doesn't want to gamble with his health. He has actually already had a period of 3 days after smoking when he was only sleeping 5-6 hours a night and wasn't tired, feeling energised and inspired the whole time. It was pleasant, but a noticeable physical after-effect that makes him think that stuff was going on in his body even though he wasn't on it at the time. In general DMT's had a very positive effect on his life though, that's for sure.

SWIM has taken an MAOI orally and smoked DMT. It was about 2X intense, and lasted about 15 mins instead of 8. Other than that, a day later he's still going strong. At least for SWIM, he prefers the MAOI route because he can use less DMT for the same effects.