I can hold my breathe decently long and I try to do so when inhaling something slow acting like NO2. During my first experience I took one hit but must have held it for about a minute before exhaling. I got the feeling that this was a little unnecessary pretty quickly.

How quickly does the vapor/smoke absorb and how long do you recommend holding a hit?

I count down from ten by counting 1 for every two heart beats, though often I don't even get to start counting. That's how you know you got a good 'n!

It's good practice to leave some lung space so if you need air, you can take a little sniff without having to breathe the goods out.

The way I see it is, if you breathe out clouds, you're inhaling too much and wasting the good stuff.

I usually keep the vapor for 20 seconds, that's more than enough.

I've learned from several sources that length of inhalation when smoking pot is of absolutely no importance: holding your breath for a "harder" hit is a myth. Could it be the same for other substances?

If you don't hold DMT in long enough for it to cool on your lungs it comes back out again. You can see it.

Also I find with anything that is smoked, holding it in longer will increase the efficency, even with cannabis. It's called condensation.

I hold my hit in for about 20-30sec after the rip. I dont see any vapor beeing blown out when i exhale.



^^this is good advise

care to name any source? not that I've read many scientific researches regarding thc absorption in the lungs, but pure logic would say that not absolutely all THC is immediately absorbed and therefore holding it in for longer will increase amounts absorbed...

This is something I have read before, but BBC's series "How Drugs Work" is a recent source, if you will accept that.

THC is apparently readily absorbed compared to the other constituents of the smoke.
Not 100% will be absorbed in the first few seconds, but holding it in longer does drastically increase the amount of tar retained.

Vaporizing seems the best solution.

Thats a brilliant idea! Leave some room and after taking the toke breath in some fresh air. That fresh air is cool and will likely hasten the codensation of the spice in your lungs, so it takes less time before you can breath out again and take another toke.


Kind regards,

The Traveler

As far as spice goes, I just inhale as deeply as possible and hold until I can't anymore, then I repeat it if I need more. One thing I've found is, if you need to release a tiny little exhale towards the end of your initial inhale, you can inhale again and increase your total intake for that hit without losing anything noticeable. It's kind of like a quick breathing technique that I modified from my serious trumpet playing days (for anyone who played brass or wind instruments).


But this is a fairly different statement than the initial


I would be willing to believe you get the majority of the cannabinoids in the first few seconds, and the tar intake makes sense as well...but to say "the length of inhalation is of absolutely no importance" is a drastically different statement which I find incredibly hard to believe.

I always try to get a full dose in a single breath, so I’m often not aware how long I hold my breath. I try to exhale and get a few breaths of fresh air before “departing”, but it doesn’t always work out that way. Often I don’t even remember exhaling at all.

Regarding holding time and its relation to amount of actives absorbed, I agree with those who say that longer is better (up to a point) when holding DMT vapor. If pure DMT vapor is held long enough, only air is exhaled.

Also, many experienced salvia extract users use holding time as a way to control the strength of the experience – they take the same size dose every time, but vary holding time to vary depth/strength.

This is how I've naturally adapted to smoking salvia. Sometimes if I'm holding it in, and I can tell it's gonna be a bumpy flight, I'll exhale even though I'll know I could hold it in for another 10 seconds or so.

Yep makes sense, but as snozz said its quite different than Laban's quote..

So if we plot a graph with time (of breath holding) in one axis and thc absorption in another, it could be a somehow sharp curve, and if we overlay with the graph of tar absorption we would probably find there is an ideal point somewhere, possibly more towards the beginning, where there would be maximum THC absorption vs not much tar.

In any case I fully agree vaporization is ideal, i've been into vaporization for a few years now and I feel its really the best way to go forward, both for dmt as well as weed/hash. Though a joint shared between friends can have its pluses too, but for regular thc use (and dmt use in general) I would say vaporization all the way

That being said, regarding DMT, one cannot compare it with smoking weed and thc vs tar absorption. If you are vaporizing just dmt, then if you release any vapour, this is dmt being lost. So I think one should always try to hold in as much as possible and idealy breathe out and not see anything coming out.


Lastly, unrelated to the previous words but in relation to what soulfood said, yes definitely to leave a little space in the lungs for air after breathing in the dmt vapor is highly recommended! its also the way I've been doing and it helps with preventing any coughing or early release of the vapor

Very true.
Just based on personal experience, I have always assumed DMT works completely different.

One quickly experiences the benefits of holding DMT smoke/vapor for longer periods.
Holding cannabis smoke in for longer always just feels more toxic.

Weed and DMT are completely different.
First of all, if you smoking any "PURE" compound, like extracted spice, all the smoke is your compound, so whatever leaves your lungs is wasted product. There is a limit to how much can cross your lung/blood barrier at a time, so the longer you hold your breath the more will be absorbed. What helps is to take quick inhales while holding your breath, you push down the compound to be absorbed more. The reason for this is that there is lots of "residual space" in your lungs: meaning areas where gases are not absorbed, so for maximum efficiency, you keep inhaling after taking your hit, so the oxygen coming in stirs up the gases even more and pushes everything down into the absorbtion zones for maximum absorption into the blood stream. An example of the biggest residual area is your trachea and the first few branches of the bronchi - huge volume of gases can be contained in these areas. If you just inhale your hit, and hold it there, quite a lot of it will just be sitting in those areas not being absorbed, and it will come out when you exhale. The extra inhale (of air) after you've taken your hit makes a bit of a difference.

The different with weed is that generally your smoke mainly consists of lots of useless plant material, stuff you DONT want to be inhaling. THC is quite readily absorbed, but holding it in for even a few seconds longer than usual will be MUCH more effective. This is even more true for when using a vaporizer. I always hold in my hits for 10-20 seconds with a vaporizer, and it's no myth...it DOES work much better, that's just the basic chemistry/physiology behind it.

How long do you need to hold it in? Depends on how efficient your lungs/blood flow are. I know some people who don't need to hold it in for long, and on the exhale they have barely any noticeable smoke exiting, whereas in my experience I can hold it in for 10-20 seconds and still see some small amount of smoke.

Again, the rule of thumb, especially with pure compounds...if you see smoke coming out on the exhale, that means you should have held your breath for a bit longer, since that's all dmt that wasn't absorbed. And if you hold your breath too long with weed, that means you're taking in all the plant materials, tar, harmful carcinogens that you shouldn't be. I switched to vaping a long time ago, I really don't enjoy joints as much, or bongs. Feels so nasty on the throat. Never been a fan of "smoking" anything.

With weed, holding your breathe any longer than 5 seconds is pointless, unless you have a vape like vampir said or you want the headrush from 02 deprivation (I have a friend who likes to do this with cigarettes. serious 20 second drags it kills me to watch) 20 seconds sounds reasonable for spice. I had the same experience with salvia, 45 second hold and i was in hyperspace every time.

Thanks alot I made sure not to waste ANYTHING my first try and held my breathe for like a minute

so i admit, i havent read every reply, so forgive me if im being repetitious...with the breath holding for pot specificly ive noticed some increase in strength of hit when held longer, though ive noticed a HUGE difference from how slowly one exhales...in terms of spice i hold as long as possible .sometimes it seems like an inhuman, imposible amuount of time but i dont count so who knows.. (havent done any testing for the slow exhalation theory for spice)..i also prescribe to mix air with ones hit it will make your lungs happier and able to hold it longer thus increase absorbtion, i dont know about the science of lung absorption but have only experience to draw from...if one absolutly wants to blast off on a single hit you should get a bunch of smoke in a chamber (like a BIG bong or such)

SWIM generally needs to hold it a lot longer than 10-20 seconds... after a count to 60 she exhales & often still sees vapor. (She's still trying to figure out why this is the case; it would be nice to only have to hold it for 20). And SWIM can tell by the rising pressure/tone that more is being absorbed for the duration. So yes, I think a clear exhale is a better way of judging than a flat aim for 10-20 seconds.

if I do it right, I never remember exhaling...

I hold my hit in till reality vibrates and rips away in front of me. I don't remember exhaling a lot of times. It hits like a freight truck going about mach 5 if you get enough in on one hit!!!