(A distant friend of mine wrote this to me in an e-mail today.)

I've only recently started sampling the spice, with only spotty success. I've had one experience that I would consider a breakthrough, although it was definitely on the weaker end of the spectrum. I simply haven't yet found a good way to vaporize the spice, until now. I used a small glass pipe, the kind you'd normally smoke weed out of. I decided to try dropping the spice right through the bowl into the bottom of the pipe, and lighting from underneath. The first two times, I didn't get much out of it, some visuals here and there, but nothing special. I gave it a third try, using the same amount of spice that I had before, but I held the pipe at a better angle and altered my technique a bit - here's the mistake that I made: I wasn't expecting it to work. I thought I'd just get some weak visuals like I did before. This was a mistake because I wasn't expecting to be launched into hyperspace like I was. I know from reading these forums that the best way to experience hyperspace is to relax and let it take you where it will, but because I wasn't expecting this intense of a trip, I resisted it a bit.

I can't quite put what I experienced into words. The entire trip was eyes open because I didn't relax and let it take me. Various parts of the room would 'copy themselves' and just repeat wherever I looked. This type of image definitely came to mind during the trip - http://www.theintellectu...11/escher-relativity.jpg - but instead of stairways and doors, it was the objects in my room - all arranged on various surfaces that simply repeated themselves wherever I looked, all combined with a spinning motion in my head. It felt like I was locked in some sort of psychedelic prison. And I definitely communicated with something during the trip - or rather, it communicated with me. It was a female voice, and it distinctly said, "You've been here before, and you will be here again. You've been here all along". And indeed, it felt like I had been there before - a very deja vu feeling.

This trip didn't freak me out enough to make me not want to try the spice again, but it did give me a very stern warning - one that I'd like to share with other beginners. Do not underestimate and do not resist. Think positive, and let the spice take you away to another world. When I feel the time is right, I will enter hyperspace again, and this time I'll do it right.

(That's the end of the e-mail.)

That's the message. Deja vu! Terence McKenna says in one of his famous talks "And then they say "deja vu...deja vu!" which makes no sense at all if you try to analyze it". IMHO it makes PERFECT sense! IT got to do with the nature of the experience. It seems that we are somehow rooted in this other place or have at least visited it uncountable times and just forgot about it.

As to your friends vaporizing technique: He should give the machine bong a try. He has to buy Brillo, burn of the coating, put it in the bowl of the bong, melt spice into the mesh and then gently heat it till it vaporizes.