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the most moving tales from DMT volunteers in the following chapters derive from this study.” 138 * SET, SETTING, AND DMT The other option was a continuous intravenous infusion, a "drip" of DMT into volunteers' veins. However, I liked the idea of people "coming down" after each injection so we could hear what had happened. With a continuous drip, communication would be problematic. After two months of trial and error, I determined that the best regime was four injections of 0.3 mg/kg DMT given at 30-minute intervals. This dose, while highly psychedelic, was just below our highest, 0.4 mg/kg. One man, Cal, was able to manage four 0.4 mg/kg injections at half-hour intervals. However, his wife, Linda, was completely spent after three doses and re- fused the fourth and final one during this preliminary work. Remembering the harrowing nature of giving too much DMT to Philip and Nils, I backed off without argument and settled for one notch less. Better safe than sorry. We enrolled thirteen volunteers in the tolerance study, many of whom had already participated in the dose-response project. New research sub- jects went through the same screening and received their non-blind low and high doses. While the tolerance experiment was double-blind and saline-placebo- controlled, the "blind" became apparent within a few seconds of the first injection. It was either a big dose of DMT or saline. And, if it was DMT, there would be three more big trips before the morning was over. We drew blood samples similar to those for the dose-response project and gave a shortened version of the rating scale that took only about five minutes to fill out. The timing was split-second but worked perfectly. Vol- unteers began talking at about 10 to 15 minutes, and then filled out the rating scale. We'd have a chance to process their trip and get ready for the next one over the ensuing 5 to 10 minutes. If it were four injections of saltwater, we spent the morning in more casual conversation. This study showed that there was no tolerance to the psychological effects of repeated DMT injections. The experience was as intensely psy- chedelic the fourth time as it was the first. Because of this, and as I had hoped, subjects were much more able to process and do something with the repeated high dose than with a single isolated experience. Many of