Hello all, first post here.

I have always wanted to do DMT but always get nervous. I had it once but it was seized by my mom. Should I worry about having a bad trip. I have experience with psychedelics including LSD, shrooms, 2Ci and 2CD. I am wanting to embark on my first trip soon and hope this will ease my nerves!

Thanks

Welcome Tryptex,

Its natural to be nervous about doing DMT as it can be pretty intense. I still get nervous sometimes. Do you have anybody that you trust that can sit there with you while you do it? If not don't worry. Take your time and get to know as much about it as you can before blasting off though.

Some people here (including me) would recommend trying changa first before doing DMT on its own. Changa can give you a great experience that is a lot more grounded. You can take your time and go deeper as you feel comfortable.

You should look into it. There is a lot of information about it right here on the nexus.

Looking forward to hearing about your first experience report.
Happy travels!

Nerves will most certainly interfere.

But you'll be fine

Nervousness and fear seem to be a practically consensual and appropriate response to smoking DMT, especially on the first occasion. I remember I was trying to hunt the stuff down for like 3 years (until I learned I could extract it myself ), asking everyone and their mothers if they knew anyone who had the remote chance of obtaining DMT. Well once I finally got my hands on some, I was like, "wait....am I really gonna do this?"

I know that occasionally on these forums you'll see an experience go awry, but in my experience of DMT, it's more forgiving, euphoric and positive-leaning than other psychedelics can be. I very rarely have a sour experience, but then again I've also established a pretty healthy relationship with it. I respect it, and conversely it feels like it respects me back.

The experience is always much shorter than expected, and even if something frightening or dysphoric does happen, it's only gonna be for a minute or two and then there's usually a sense of detachment from it whether it was the most blissful thing or most terrifying, like the kind of detachment from a dream or a nightmare (when you're in it, it can be very engaging, but afterwards it's kinda fleeting). It's a very important lesson to be learned that no matter how intense things are or how outlandish and surreal things may seem, everything will work it's way back to normal relatively quickly. You don't have to worry about putting yourself back together --- it just happens.

Two words of advice are to start low at 10-15mg dosage and slowly work your way up over time as you adjust to the lower level effects and ease your way into the higher effects. Also don't worry about attaining a "breakthrough" or being concerned with whether you've just had one or not. Something can be taken out of virtually most of the experiences if you're open and paying attention. Exercise caution, but I'd recommend taking the plunge. I've helped many with their first experiences, and there's been maybe like a 5% rate of unpleasant experiences. Take a couple of minutes to meditate before going into it, and just get ready to kick back and let it work it's magic and roll with the flow.

if you start at a low dose and just get a feel for it you will find that it is familiar territory and that apprehension is rarely warranted

then go for a larger dose, it should not be terrifying

i have provided dozens of people with their first DMT experiences and not one ever freaked out and most wondered what they had ever been worried about

however one of them passed out every single time he tried it and after seeing this happen half a dozen times he was not allowed to partake

the farthest i have gone just left me in a state of awe, I think I said "wow"

Thanks all, I guess I will just go for it. Has anyone ever had a bad experience?

I, just as I imagine anyone who has had more than a passing interest in spice, have had quite a few. I think difficult experiences come with the territory.

I think others will echo me in believing that bad experiences aren’t necessarily bad. Personally I find I learn a lot, and often make the biggest gains from the more tortuous journeys. If nothing else when I return from such experiences I come out with a better understanding of how strong I actually am.

Whatever happens, spice is a dice roller. It will happen at some point.

If you can get a few rough experiences out of the way after you ease your way in, it can help with training your mind that you can get through them no problem and then with that kind of fear extinguished I feel you're less prone to bad experiences in the future. The key is to just letting go. If things are rough, just ride it out. The intense part will only usually last for like 5 minutes at the most so if you just let the program run its course, even the darkest of experiences often flower into bliss and joy.

I'm not an expert as most of the people here but for some reason many times people who were new to the experience came to me asking to try DMT. You may believe this or not but I've noticed that even if you decide you're going to do it because you really want to but it's not the right time something always interferes, but there comes a moment in which DMT comes to you. I don't know if this makes sense to you but it's happened to me, to the people that tried with me and I've heard the same from many people along the way. Also wile I certainly agree that it's good to start with a low dosage I also think that you should be careful not to start too low: i found that smoking too little on the first time is confusing and specially if you are feeling nervous about the experience you might find your self being scared off by the mild uncomfortable body sensations of a very low dosage that you don't even notice in a fullon trip.
Don't worry all will be good, the first time you try it you will be in such awe that there won't be space in your soul for a bad trip.
Good luck and don't give up on it, it will change your life!

If you live with your mom you definately shouldn't smoke it

Tryptex, welcome to the nexus.

I agree with tele that you should not do these things in an environment where it is not wanted. Aside from it being disrespectful to the home owners i.e. your parents/mom or whoever and risky because you can get in trouble with them it is also uncomfortable on some level, because you can never be fully at ease with what you are doing, and this will very likely in some way affect your trip. IME set and setting are so very important and so my advice is to really make sure you get it right, especially if you are nervous about it.

As for starting low with the dosage, I think it's ok. I don't find low doses scary, though sometimes I find them unsatisfying. For starting out I always suggest medium doses. What a medium dose is will kind of depend on your smoking device and technique. But starting low even with a non-active dose can also be helpful if you just want to make sure it won't burn your lungs or hurt your body - to get that kind of fear out of the way.

anyway, good luck with all.

I personally find low doses to be exceptionally uncomfortable, if I vape less than I need (20mg minimum it seems in the GVG, maybe 30–35mg in a conventional pipe) I get extreme body load and no psychedelic effects. I say dive in and don’t worry about dosing small, dose for a medium or full experience. If you are not happy to take the rough with the smooth with spice I don’t think it is the path to take. It is inevitable that at some point you will have a difficult experience.

I think there is some glossing over of the realities of working with spice. Yes – you may have a blissful experience, you may experience love and oneness, but on the flip side you may experience pure unadulterated terror and pain the likes of which you can never imagine. There is some blessing in the fact that if you smoke spice the experience is generally over fairly quickly (although time in reality and time in hyperspace are often quite different).

I don’t want to add a downer to all this, but as I say this is some serious stuff and the complicated parts shouldn’t be brushed under the carpet. Yes, you may be able to get over your experience fairly quick, but also I have had journeys that have left me in a state of confusion and reassessment for days, and even a couple of weeks in one instance.

Yeah Tryptex its normal to be nervous about DMT. I still get jitters when I think about it. Changa is definitely the way to go though. I vaped 30mgs of pure DMT my first time and was not ready for the blast off or the subsequent dissolving of my reality. I feel that if I had tried changa first I would have felt more comfortable. But therse nothing quite like been dropped in the deep end and told to swim, right?

Like d*l*b said, there will be times where you are terrified during a journey, try remember that it will be over soon (although this is often hard to remember in hyperspace), and its all got to do with your set and setting and possibly unresolved emotions or past events. “All you can do is sit it out and breathe it out” (Mckenna)
I find that when I am gripped with fear in hyperspace that talking/singing helps calm me – it sounds completely garbled and more alien than I ever could have imagined. But for some reason it seems to help me. And the entities I've met really like it too.

I also find that my respect for a substance is directly proportional to the fear element, and LSD and DMT demand the most of my respect. That been said my scariest trips have often been the most important.

All the best on your journeys

PW

I too feel anxiety and fear to a certain extent when about to blast off. It’s natural and normal. It’s more of a body reaction than a mind reaction – the body doesn’t want its homeostatic equilibrium messed with, and it isn’t shy about letting the mind know.

I don’t practice meditation, but I often enter a meditative state of mind prior to launch. This helps quite a bit.

Here are my general observations and opinions regarding fear and DMT:

>> Fear can be a good thing and shouldn’t be avoided. Instead of avoiding the fear by smoking changa or low doses of DMT, why not face it? Annihilation can be scary. By repeatedly facing such fears, you may learn to face them with tranquility and surrender. This may even help you in your life outside DMT.

>> Taking low doses as a way of dealing with fear may be a good approach initially, but doing this too often could actually increase your fear of breakthrough doses. Eventually you have to take the dive into the unknown if that’s what you want to do. A low-dose experience may have some value, but it is no substitute for a deep breakthrough dose. And until you’ve had a deep breakthrough, you’ll never really know what all the fuss about DMT really is.

>> DMT doesn’t just transform your perceptions, it also transforms your feelings and ways of thinking. I always forget this myself. But you can enter an experience full of fear, and then, just a few moments later, while deep in the experience, you’ll wonder why you made such a fuss. Contemplating the DMT realm from the “sober” side of the fence may induce fear, but once you’re over the fence and actually in that realm, you’ll wonder why you made such a big deal of it.

Too right! It often takes me days to work up the courage or find the right situation to pick up my pipe and blast myself out of this reality.

i love low doses, but i also love changa and don't need to break through every time
high doses are just amazing though I do not take them unless i am in a rather comfortable setting

Wait till the urge overrides the fear from it.

Bad experience? never. Difficult experiences? sometimes. I can assure you that over the course of my 30 to 40 experiences I have never come off a dmt trip wishing I had not done it (sometimes i wish i had smoked more though). Dmt is a very mysterious molecule and still while loading my bowl, or even taking the toke my hands will be shaky and sweating because of how nervous i suddenly am. Every experience is different and I think this is what keeps me on the edge. What helps me take the plunge is that i know as soon as I take the hit any nervousness that was there will be blasted away and replaced with a truly incredible experience. Like others have already mentioned, even if you were not enjoying your experience (but you will ) It only last about 5 minutes so you don't have a lot of time to have a real mental breakdown or anything like that.

I think a degree of fear and a healthy dose of respect in a kind of balance is the way to go.

IME, making sure Ive nothing important to attend to , however mundane, is very important for allowing the self to meld into the experience.I also find that if I have the calling, spending a few hours doing something constructive and productive such as cutting the lawn or de-weeding the driveway often helps. The satisfaction of having done something which I probably would have postponed (again!) adds to the settled mindstate required for a venture.

And this allows me to just go for the 40ish mg dose via the GVG in one breath without lower dose preambles, and the results are such that I dont feel my approach needs amending.

If you are living with others that don't want it there I wouldn't do it. I live with the folks because of financial reasons and I refuse to do it again until I move it. The thought of being found is always there and disrupts the trip, I promise.

My last trip wasn't necessarilly a bad trip, uncomfortable though. I haven't touched it in a while because it was so in my face, but I know one day I will be better prepared and it will still be there for me.

DMT is independent of you. You are riding in the car (more like a rocket ship) with no steering wheel in my opinion. That's where a lot of the uncomfortable feelings come from aside from going a million miles an hour. Be prepared to be touched. I don't know if that bothers other people, but when entities investigate or touch me it is sometimes very uncomfortable because it is against my will. Sometimes not though. Just be prepared to fully experience it. Don't fight it and don't fear it. DMT has no intentions of hurting you so just let it take it's course, come back, open your eyes and be forever changed.