I think that any external stimuli diminishes the experience. I always try to keep up the period of ego loss as long as possible and coming back as slow as possible. Any stimulus accelerates my comeback by reminding me that I have a body and where I actually am. Starting to freeze for me is as unpleasant as disturbance by sound.
I tend to easily freeze while tripping also. I always wear my favorite hoodie...

I have found that meditating beforehand actually increases the amount of fear and anticipation I feel, as no matter how much I am successful at blocking thoughts from my mind, my body anticipates the challenge that may be coming.

Every time shortly after I come down from DMT, I notice that the fear has totally evaporated and I often find it humorous that I was so afraid just 15 minutes before. This has led to me re-dosing in the same evening as there is no fear barrier left. I have also read some accounts here on the Nexus about being able to dive deeper into the experience after getting the jitters out with an initial journey followed by one (or two!) with a larger dose.

I have also found that jumping right into it without planning days in advance mitigates some of the fear. Saying randomly when the feeling strikes, "I am doing this, right here right now" for me cuts down on the anticipation I feel. It was like with asking girls out in middle/high school: I would always be far too nervous if I planned it hours or days in advance, so the "ripping the bandaid off" method came in handy a few times. Good luck!

I'm reading a very interesting book, "Return to the Brain of Eden". It suggests (among other things) that the decrease in brain mass seen in our recent history has been driven by a poor diet. The disfunction caused all kinds of issues, including the left side of the brain becoming dominant. This side of the brain uses fear and cold logic to keep the right side of the brain (where creativity and other human goodies are) in check.

Perhaps many human issues arise from this loss of brain function and unity. Fear of psychedelics could be one. The left brain does not want to give up control and, like a skilled politician, may be using fear to try to keep control.

Psychedelics may unleash the power of the right side of the brain. The book claims that people with right brain lobotomies became immune to LSD, while people with left brain lobotomies could still have a psychedelic experience.

lobotomies are a horrific misstep in human endeavor, a travesty, and should be banned everywhere except for special cases like severe epilepsy.

I dealt with my unpleasant ayahuasca experience via the power of my own imaginitive faculties. in the spirit of shamanic ritual and prayer I invented for myself a score of music, in the midst of my white-out, to lull my nerves and to catalyze some semblence of sentience throughout the episode.

In the same sense that natives would sing in ritual dances or even into the face of their own death. Only completely internal / cerebralized. — I only draw this parallel to native americans because I have always identified to some extent with that fraction of my heritage and therefore conclude within justifiable reason that that is how this coping mechanism transpired on its own accord, while i was in the midst of the involuntary submersion that precludes a breaking-through.

DMT and fear have always gone hand and hand for me. I don't think I'll ever get used to that takeoff but it's worth it once you get there. Focused breathing and little mantras seem to help. I wrote a report here about similar things:

Fear and Respect

It is also interesting to note how, in my personal experience, persistent fascination can lead to being overconfident and/or overuse, which sometimes leads to slaps, which is then often corrected by the molecule's self-regulating nature:



I haven't smoked in some time. I guess I am waiting for the right moment to come around again. It isn't going anywhere.

Indeed