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luck." Okay. PAIN AND FEAR «+ 251 "Let's call it a day, and chalk it up to experience. No need to press our The kitchen brought her an awful lunch. Mystery-meat tacos. A fit- ting end to a difficult session. I called Ida that night. She felt fine, but confirmed her desire never to take DMT again. For some volunteers, their high-dose experiences were powerfully unset- tling, and several research subjects dropped out after these sessions. Ken was one of these. Twenty-three years old, Ken had been in Albuquerque only a few months before embarking on our research project. Sporting long, permed hair and a flashy motorcycle, he was one of our more flamboyant volun- teers. He moved to New Mexico to obtain training at one of the alternative health colleges, having dropped out of another university because of "feel- ing like a sheep." He had taken MDMA quite often and admitted to having problems limiting his use. He enjoyed the "fun, celebration, love, bonding, depth, and spirituality" it provided. Curiously, he neglected to answer the drug- use questionnaire on the typical psychedelic drugs. I didn't notice that until after he had dropped out of the studies. If I had, it may have alerted me to some misgivings about his experiences on these more powerful drugs. There was something just a little unsettling about Ken. He seemed ever so slightly "too cool" and "New Age," and Laura and I both won- dered about his shadow side. Where were his edges, his anger, and his boundaries? What really made him tick? He seemed to be flitting through life rather than really taking it in. In retrospect, naturally, this seems to have been the basis for his subsequent difficulties, but there was little way we could have truly predicted his negative response to DMT. Ken's low 0.05 mg/kg DMT dose went without difficulty. It's a little calming and energizing, like MDMA. There were afew colors. It was pleasant. I wonder how the big dose will be tomorrow. I wasn't sure how he'd hold up the next day, either. In my mind, MDMA