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254 © THE SESSIONS While earth-shattering high-dose DMT sessions could turn and stay dark and menacing, some volunteers did a remarkable job of turning them around. For example, Andrea was terrified when the spirit molecule pulled her toward a near-death experience. However, she used her initial fear as a catalyst for some important personal work. Andrea was thirty-three years old and lived north of Santa Fe with her husband and two children. They were software developers and were quite familiar with mind-altering drugs. She had taken psychedelics over one hundred times and had used a lot of cocaine and methamphetamine sev- eral years previously. As a child Andrea began experiencing what we call "sleep paralysis" and "hypnagogic hallucinations." Upon drifting asleep, she would be unable to move and would see brief, frightening visual scenes. Her mother, a strict Catholic, told her it was Satan coming to torture her and that she should pray to Jesus for protection. These frightening experiences contin- ued even now, although rarely. This inability to comfortably drop into the sleep state worried her when she thought of taking DMT at the Research Center. Perhaps she wouldn't be able to completely relax into the rush of effects. She thought she might have a near-death experience on DMT and wondered about her ability to give up awareness of her body. Despite her concerns, Andrea enjoyed her low dose. She summed up her feelings with her first words: That was fun! The next day she began by saying, "I woke up this morning with a mo- mentary fear. Then I thought that since things had been so easy yesterday, things would be fine this morning." For some reason I placed the "emergency kit"—Valium for panic and nitroglycerin pills for severe high blood pressure—on the blood pressure machine. I couldn't remember when I had ever done that before a high- dose session. Andrea coughed before I had half-finished the DMT injection. She sighed deeply a time or two while the flush was going in.