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192. * THE SESSIONS can't. I thought I was developing tolerance, but then, Bang! There were these three guys or three things. He looked awkward talking about his experience. I empathized with his perplexity, saying, "It does sound odd." It sure does. I wasn't sure as I was lifting my eyeshades ifI wanted to talk to you about it. Chris's third dose was relatively uneventful. He stayed aware of his body, his heart beating in his chest, his stomach growling from hunger. His fourth dose built upon the themes of the previous three and con- cluded with many features of a mystical experience: They were trying to show me as much as possible. They were communi- cating in words. They were like clowns orjokers orjesters or imps. There were just so many of them doing theirfunny little thing. I settled into it. I was incredibly still and Ifelt like I was in an incredibly peaceful place. Then there was a message telling me that [had been given a gift, that this space was mine and I could go there anytime. I shouldfeel blessed to have form, to live. It went onforever. There were blue hands, fluttering things, then thousands of things flew out of these blue hands. I thought "What a show!" It was really healing. It was part ofme, not separate. It was a reassurance that this wouldn't go away, that it was mine, that a connection had been made. The whole thing was really crucial to my spiritual development. It's what I tried to do with LSD, a sort ofself-initiation. With LSD, it worked in some ways and didn't in others. Stranger yet are stories of procedures, more or less intrusive, performed by the life-forms of these nonmaterial worlds upon our volunteers during their DMT intoxication. Jim, a thirty-seven-year-old schoolteacher, was a volunteer who didn't like to talk much about his experiences. During his tolerance study, we talked about going further through the bright colors, which he admitted were distracting him. He felt there might be "beings" behind the colors, and I encouraged him to see if there were. After emerging from his last dose, he said almost offhandedly, and with little emotion,