DOSE:

repeated

smoked

Changa

(plant material)

BODY WEIGHT:

70 kg

A Non-Romantic DMT Experience

I intend to provide an accurate report of the effects I experienced the first two times I consumed DMT. For background, I would like to comment I have previous experience with Psychoeelics, having taken LSD and Psylocybin ample times at different settings and doses. I expected this to have prepared me for the experience.

It didn't.

I acquired 500mg of a mixture which was referred to me as “changa”, containing allegedly a 50/50 mixture of DMT crystals (which were apparent and abundant) and a mixture of plants, some with MAOI and traces of psilocybe (I doubt the mushrooms are active by vaporization/combustion, so it seemed to me as filler).

What it actually contained, I do not know.

Set and setting: I arrived early from work, tired and irritable, and thought I'd lighten my mood by testing a small dose of this new changa, expecting perhaps to see some fractals or colorful patterns appear around me at small doses and little more. I admit, I had not prepared myself for this. I had read years ago about the safety of the substance and that had convinced me to try it, but I had read no reports.

Having no measurement device, I divided the substance in 5 equal portions by volume, rounding it to around 100mg each (I know eyeballing sucks, but bear with me), and proceeded to load half of one such portions into a small cannabis pipe. I sat down on a comfortable couch, and started smoking the mixture – trying at first to vapourize it without burning it, and giving up quickly and smoking it in the end.

I inhaled as much as I could, retained for a few seconds and released the smoke. By the time I had released it, the effects had begun to set in. I set the pipe down quickly and looked about me bewildered.

The smoke was not offensive while being inhaled, however soon after an awful and very strong aftertaste, literally reminding of the smell of shit, took over the back of my throat. As this happened, a great buzzing noise started growing from inside me, becoming louder and louder to the point that it frightened me. As I looked around, extremely bright red and green fractals started filling the floor and the walls around me.

The taste was killing me. I thought I had poisoned myself. My ability to generate words and to process the world around me was compromised. These were hallucinations far more intense and sudden than I had ever experienced with LSD or mushrooms. I scrambled some composure and ran into the kitchen, poured myself some water and drank it while dripping a bunch over myself.

The taste was gone, at least, but I was out of it, I ran to the bathroom – I had not eaten anything, but I instinctively tried vomiting. Nothing came out. I lay with my back against a wall in the bathroom floor and gathered my breath. I reminded myself this would pass soon. The effects started fading. A great feeling of physical well being accompanied them, which I attributed to the bad trip being over.

The entire experience, from inhalation to sobriety lasted approximately twenty minutes.

This first experience was terrible, and it almost made me swear off the stuff. However I decided that the main negative aspect for me had been the flavour of the substance consumed alone, figuring that if I could hide the taste with another smoke it would be far more palatable and therefore not lead to such a response.

So I waited until Sunday. When the morning came along, I felt anxious, remembering the previous experience, and chose not to do it. It wasn't until 6pm that I actually dared to try it. I lay down on a rug with a small pipe, loaded a full 100mg dose on top of a small amount of cannabis, and took a deep puff. As before, after exhalation a small aftertaste was felt, however much less, and being prepared for it I took a sip of water I had placed by me. I sit up and wait for the effects to kick in.

The first thing I notice is a great bodily relaxation, a feeling of comfort and well being. Soon the buzzing starts making itself more noticeable, and the visual effects start becoming more pronounced. First colorful patterns. Then full distortions of the images seen – shapes begins to morph, outlines get mixed with the ambient around them, and as I look up, the room where I was is not there anymore, but instead I find and infinite landscape of endlessly changing fractals.

It is beautiful, and I am delighted by the sight. I feel a sense of awe to the power of the mind – the incredible complexity the human brain can create for the mind to explore. I feel this revealing, as if this proves that even my own small brain can create such wonders, it must be far more capable than I normally believe.

As the visions fade, I start remembering long forgotten things, with a vividness I normally could not fathom. I find myself being able to navigate my old memories, and entertain myself with it for a bit.

Then it all starts fading after a few minutes. The most detailed parts of the experience give way quickly, but they leave me with a sense of well being and wonder, and a sudden massive respect and wonder for this substance and the effects it produces and how it produces them. I wonder if the alleged MAOI presence in the mixture actually makes the effects different than what I would have with pure DMT (which is what I believe I am experiencing), but having no baseline to compare I'm unable to tell.

The words “hard to integrate” pop into my mind, and indeed it is. The experience is intense, and short, and wild. It seemingly full of meaning, but it fades before I am quite able to grasp it.

I debated myself if I should leave it there, and save the rest that I had for later experiences. But I chose not to. I chose to consume the remaining 350mg of changa that night.

For this, I decided to use a bong. I packed it as the pipe, with a small amount of cannabis as a bed and the changa on top. I had concerns from what I had read about the quick onset and the chance of dropping the bong, but the effects have always come several seconds after I exhale, which gives me enough time to place everything around me safely.

So I loaded another roughly 100 mg of changa and proceeded to rip it. The effects of the first hit had not fully receded at this point, and the effects reinforced one another, which propelled me into another full blown hallucinatory state. Beyond the wonderful colors and shapes and feelings of hyperreality, there was one notable experience. At some point I felt myself transported into a room, which materialized around me. As I looked around this room I recognized around me humanoid figures – solid red outlines of people – they welcomed me, and expressed how overjoyed they were with my return, even though I distinctly remember knowing that this was somewhere I had never been before. It felt familiar, welcoming, warm. It soon faded along with the rest of the effects, but it left me wondering about what could cause such an experience.

Overjoyed as I was, I redosed soon after and had a few more wonderful flights through the mind, however I didn't find any presences the following times. Once I had smoked the last, and the effects had passed, I felt relaxed and happy. It was an uncommon wellbeing.

The entire experience must have lasted two hours.

My experiences led me to ask myself what the direct effect of the substance on the mind is. The clarity and intensity of the visions have led me to believe it activates a process similar to the one by which dreams are experienced. The buzzing sound could be directly related to the flooding of synaptic channels with serotonin, or DMT working as an analog. The experience of presences reported by various users makes me think it activates very primitive parts of the brain related to the recognition of the family during infancy, and it seems to help make memory more vivid.

My subjective feeling was that the effect was notably different from the one of LSD or psilocybin, however I find it of note that some previous researchers (Shulgin, Hubbard) don't seem to feel this difference. What is true, is that this substance produced far more intense experiences than the others.

Exp Year: 2016	ExpID: 109346
Gender: Male
Age at time of experience: 25
Published: Oct 12, 2016	Views: 3,451
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Changa (816) : Alone (16), Entities / Beings (37), Combinations (3), First Times (2)