I have a little bit of anecdotal experience to report. It may mean something or nothing, I can't say.

I am one of those people who has trouble breaking through. I have tried many things, MAOIs and 5-htp and stuff, with sporadic success. Recently I began taking baking soda for unrelated reasons. And the effect is pronounced. I'm not sure if it's a pH thing or what, but it seems to work for me. Go figure.

LSD + Ayahuasca + breakthrough dose of N,N-

Interesting. PH does play a large role in many bodily functions... though I am not sure how it would affect spice journeys. Maybe if you were very acidic, freebase DMT was converting to an acid salt in vitro. Probably not, though.

Are you talking about vaping spice, or consuming it orally? Or some other ROA?

It might help to figure this out if we knew exactly what you are talking about.

To extend these questions, could you explain what you mean by taking baking soda?

Well okay, but if possible I'd rather avoid getting into a whole thing about whether it's dumb or not ... especially as concerns ourselves, we all must make our own decisions with respect to what we feel is or is not appropriate for us therapeutically.

I have been having growing concerns (or simply fears. that would be better.) about aspects of my health because of a number of things I probably don't need to run down individually. Having read articles from several disparate sources regarding the potential role that baking soda plays in fighting disease, and having known for a long time that my dietary choices unfortunately tip the balance squarely in an acidic direction, I decided last week to make a batch of maple syrup/ baking soda. Whatever one's opinion on alternative therapies are, all the same between the meat, coffee, Zinfandel and Gorgonzola in my life, it's fair to say that the baking soda (aluminum free) probably won't hurt.

So anyway, because my physical reaction to elfspice varies in a pretty big way that sometimes strikes me as completely arbitrary but really isn't, I am maybe a little over-interested in the minutiae of what things seem to be factors.

So what I'm trying to say is that on the face of it, it appears to have made a big difference for me.

This is very interesting, Well i suppose if you really wanted to put it to the test, i am sure someone here on the nexus would be willing to try out your baking soda method, to see if any noticeable differences are there.

I was browsing to find some inspiration regarding my recent frustrating experience with changa, hopefully due to poor MHRB, and reading this thread I found this:

I can say this at least: twice now, I have smoked some spice and nothing happened. So I took the baking soda/ maple syrup, waited a little bit and smoked again. Zut alors!

Vodsel: That is very interesting as well. I think a lot about the 5% of people who feel nothing from elfspice, and what the cause might be. Biochemistry is a deep, deep topic that gets over my head very quickly because it is so complex -- but I can easily picture a "for want of a nail" kind of cascade effect resulting from an off-balance pH.