DMT The Spirit Molecule - Rick Strassman-pages

Page 253 of 369

Page 253 of 369
DMT The Spirit Molecule - Rick Strassman-pages

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I may do." 242 * THE SESSIONS to expect at all—but I'm not afraid of new experiences or myself or what Sean's non-blind low dose of DMT went well, but the high dose the next day was an aberration. The IV line had worked itself loose, and I inad- vertently injected the drug under his skin rather than into his vein. We suspected this but were not certain until he was well into the full double- blind dose-response study. He got much higher on several of these doses than on what we thought was his first "large" dose. The effects of this initial non-blind 0.4 mg/kg dose were quite slow to develop and not much more than those from his low dose the day before. The injection did feel odd as I gave it, but it did not fully dawn on me that it missed his vein. I didn't think to repeat it. Maybe he was one of the people I anticipated might have little reaction to the drug. During one of the double-blind study days, Sean received what turned out to be 0.2 mg/kg. Because of his reaction to this unknown dose, I started thinking that indeed there must have been a problem with that first high dose. He thought so, too. I'll bet this is the high dose, and that I didn't get the high dose last time. I've never been so high. The grain in the doorjust opened up! Sean participated early enough in the studies that we hadn't begun using the eyeshades regularly, and at first he liked keeping his eyes open. This gave me the opportunity to help him think more deeply about the DMT visuals, and their sometimes distracting nature. "I wonder if you could focus on that space within the grains of the wood, rather than the grain itself. You might go further once you're more familiar with what happens on DMT. The visions and display are not all that's there." / was just at the edge oflosing it. I had no sense ofwhat you two were doing, just that you were around. I was glad I knew you both; Iwould have been self-conscious ifyou were strangers. His comments about being comfortable with us also speak to the cru- cial, but rarely discussed, variable of the relationship existing among those who give and take psychedelic drugs. Comfort with the sitters allows for letting go; anxiety or mistrust creates the opposite.