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First 5 Trials
5-MeO-DMT
by Zam
Citation:   Zam. "First 5 Trials: An Experience with 5-MeO-DMT (exp8876)". Erowid.org. Aug 18, 2001. erowid.org/exp/8876

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DOSE:
  smoked 5-MeO-DMT (powder / crystals)
BODY WEIGHT: 205 lb
I purchased 5MeODMT about 3 years ago, several years after hearing about it. I tend to go very slow with trying novel compounds, because I like to get to know each one for a while, get to understand the variation in experience, get a sense of how to take doses for different effects levels, contexts, etc. So I hadn't been any hury to try it.

Part of my reason for trying 5MeODMT now is because cannabis is no longer that useful for me as a short acting euphoriant. I first smoked cannabis over 13 years ago and I smoked regularly through college and for a couple years after. As I headed into my late 20's, my experience of cannabis's effects changed and it became less fun with much more body load (such as heart racing, inability to sleep for hours after last smoke, etc). My primary use of cannabis is now to try to soften ego boundaries and self critique to facilitate sex (as with many people, the constant internal dialog gets in the way of being able to relax and enjoy being with my partner). My lifetime insomnia makes anything that inhibits sleep for hours afterward not terribly desirable, so cannabis has become a less-than-perfect relaxant.


One reason I choose to work with 5MeO-DMT instead of N,N-DMT is that my lungs just can't take a lot of smoke. I've had very mild asthma since I was about 10 years old and when I smoke(d) cannabis, I take very small hits. Getting a large hit can send me into an hour of wheezing. I learned over the years that I actually enjoyed smoking out of a pipe better than using a bong because I can pull the smoke into my mouth, roll it around, and blow it out (sometimes through my nose), avoiding the lungs altogether. While this method of smoking is much less efficient than using the lungs to extract the cannabinoids, it does work. To achieve the same high, I have to use perhaps ~3 times the amount of material, but I get no wheezing. Since I smoke only kind bud (its readily available and reasonbly priced), many times its just too damned strong to smoke a lungful of the stuff anyway. A couple of mouth-hits from a pipe of high potency bud and I'm quite high.

N,N-DMT's dosage is much much higher than 5MeO-DMT and the first time I tried NN, my primary experience of it was how horrifyingly bad the smoke was. As I sucked down the hit, my lungs just closed up, I pulled the second hit through my mostly-closed larynx and then spent the peak barely able to breathe. I got some effects, some nice mushroomy visuals and a sense of launching, but it was clear I was going to have a lot of difficulty getting enough of that acrid shit into my lungs for a full experience.


So, this summer I decided to start to work with 5MeODMT, both as something I'd been planning to do for a while and as an attempt to find something short acting that could possibly get me out of 'work day mind' and put me in a more relaxed state.

I've tried it about 5 times in the last 2 months, all at very low doses. For each trial I've used a straight glass cannabis carberuated ('steamroller') pipe similar to the one on the right. pipe image

First Time: June 18, 2001. I was having a good day and it was about an hour before bedtime, late at night. I sprinkled a tiny amount of the white fluffy powder into the bowl. I put back everything but a single 'large' speck of the material. There's no way my scale (acculab v1mg) could weigh down this low, so it was pointless to try. I figured it was less than a milligram, perhaps as much as 1 mg at the outside (its very hard to tell with crystals how dense it is without a lot of work). I heated up the pipe with a lighter and it melted immediately upon the flame hitting the glass, but didn't smoke. I drew on the pipe slowly and as the pipe heated up and I could feel the warmth on my lips, I started to taste the acrid tryptamine smoke. I gagged slightly as it hit my throat, so I stopped for a moment, moved the flame away, and relaxed for a few seconds and tried to relax my throat and mentally prepare. After 4 or 5 seconds, I put the flame back on and drew on the pipe again and felt the smoke going into me. I set the pipe down as I felt the effects approaching and was surprised by the intensity.

The effects were still quite manageable, but I felt myself floating, a sort of light headedness and a feeling of non-physical motion (unlike salvia where sometimes people experience a physical push). Of course the sensation is difficult to describe, but it was a little like the sensation of going up in an elevator, except leaving my body behind. A distinct change in perception as the outside world felt like it became smaller and my thoughts turned internal, wondering how strong this was going to be, whether I had taken too much, etc. I felt like I was suddenly thrust into the middle of a tripping headspace, where I felt very -different- but wasn't exactly sure how. Speaking was difficult (my partner asked me how I was), talking felt like it disrupted the effects to engage my body/mind in that way. I was able to say 'hmmm' and 'im ok' and 'its stronger than expected' but it was clear the effects were quickly dissipating.

After probably 3-4 minutes of peak time, the effects slowly faded until about at t+10minutes I was 'down', with a lingering sense of alteration that lasted another 15 minutes. I tasted the dirty-sock tryptamine flavor in my mouth until I went to bed.



The next few times were all at similar, but slightly larger amounts of material in the pipe. Setting the intake dosage seems to be very tricky. It melts long before it vaporizes and like the other crystal tryptamines I've tried (MIPT, DET, NN-DMT), the liquid material flees the heat and runs up the sides of the pipe and recrystalizes there. So there's always sort of an indeterminate amount of material in the pipe. At the dosages I'm describing, any amount of material can change the therapeutic level. Its somewhat disconcerting to be working with a material that is this potent.

Several friends have 'blown their heads off' with this stuff and one had a powerful 5MeoDMT experience trigger panic attacks and night terror for 6 months after she tried it (written up in the Entheogen Review). There are lots of reports of people going way too high with this stuff and leaving themselves feeling shaken and 'damaged'.

In the last 2 months, I've tried it 4 more times and continued to find it manageable at the doses I'm working with. The largest dose I've tried is 1.5-2.5mg, which was pretty 'strong' still without going into any serious dissociated space. Again, the problem is getting all of the material that I put in the pipe. When I go to hit it the next time, how much is left over?

For my latest experience, I smoked from the pipe 3 times over the course of an hour, trying to work up to a cannabis-level effect in order to try to get in the mood for sex. I had drunk about 6 beers over the course of 6 hours before starting and had a mildly 'fuzzy' head, although I didn't have much alcohol buzz. I started with something about 1mg and didnt get much, so I added another mg and smoked more. About 20 minutes later, I added another 1.5mg or so and smoked it and then clearly started getting something. My earlier hits were more tentative, trying to keep from launching into some other headspace, but the last one I could feel the tryptamine go into my lungs and I knew I'd perhaps just gotten some of the previous 2 mg as well.. Its very hard to say. The effects were strong enough to have that mildly worrisome feeling as they ramped up: 'was I going to totally overshoot and end up huddled in a corner instead of able to kiss and cuddle with my partner?'

I relaxed into it and quickly the anxiety faded and I felt fine. The effects weren't exactly 'relaxing', but they were 'involving' so that my critical mind faded so that I was more able to focus on kissing and touching. I found it worked quite well in this instance and I felt sexy and enjoyed myself. By 15 minutes after smoking the effects receded, but I didn't feel much push to smoke any more. I did experience a couple minutes where I had some mild muscle tremors and felt cold, but they were less than I've had with cannabis many times. About 45 minutes after smoking, I was able to drift peacefully off to sleep.

When I woke up the next morning, after a good night's sleep, I could taste the tryptamine in my mouth and mucus. Yumm. A glass of water and everything seemed cleared up. A very mild hangover (slighly unfocused feeling) was likely the result of the beer.


Thoughts:

Sitter: I think that this substance warrants a sitter. Its very easy to overshoot intended dosages and effects can be, from watching others and my own micro-tastes of it, completely overwhelming and dissociating.

Dosage: Regulating dosage is problematic with this material. Using the pure chemical seems like it requires some specialized tools that I don't have in order to be able to see the amount of smoke clearly. A long glass tube with a bowl/curve on the end might be useful here. The other way its used is putting a measured amount on leaves which are completely combusted as part of the smoking. Only the leaves are burned and the pipe isn't heated at all, so the only material that gets hot enough to vaporize is the stuff on the leaves and none of the residue in the pipe can get hot enough to turn into smoke. This might be a better way to set the dosage reliably.

Smoke/Lungs: At the levels I've tried so far, the smoke is quite comfortable on my sensitive lungs. There's an acrid taste and its a little harsh for what it is, but its much easier on me than a lungful of cannabis smoke for the same level of effect. I've never tried some of the powerful cannabis extracts, but those seem like they'd be similar (and probably better tasting) in how hard they are on the lungs. I get a small increase in mucus production after smoking 5MeODMT that seems like a normal clearing process for the residue in the throat/lungs.

Effects: I think its too early in my experiments to say too much about the effects. So far, they seem interesting and altering, but without a lot that I can put my finger on clearly. The effects reminded me of nitrous as the closest thing I've tried. There were some distinct elements of the experience which felt like I was 'tripping' in some generic way for a few minutes, but nothing I can really put words to usefully. On two occasions I focused on music during the experience and during one of them I found myself more interested in 'sinking in' to the music and on the other I found myself unable to get into the music, it felt 'flat'... *shrug*.

Exp Year: 2001ExpID: 8876
Gender: Male 
Age at time of experience: Not Given
Published: Aug 18, 2001Views: 54,957
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5-MeO-DMT (58) : Guides / Sitters (39), Sex Discussion (14), Health Benefits (32), Health Problems (27), Retrospective / Summary (11), First Times (2), General (1), Small Group (2-9) (17)

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