Page Content (OCR)
IF SO, SO WHAT? + 269 We read about Willow's near-death experiences in chapter 15. After a low dose of DMT one day, she reflected upon her life since involving herself in the study: "DMT's teaching me about transition, change, and death. When my husband's father died recently, it was clear to me that much has hap- pened with my views about death. I knew he had transitioned rather than disappeared. "DMT is about death and dying. I had a near-death experience on it. It's not a blank death, it's full. I liked it really. I no longer fear death. Not that I need to wait to die to be unafraid and know what dying is like. Rather, I'm more accepting and serene about living." Tyrone was the dose-response volunteer who found himself in the "or- ganic apartment of the future." During a placebo day, we had a chance to look back upon his participation. "Maybe I get drunk less," he admitted. "I still have one to two beers at night to get a little buzz, but drinking five at a time, on a Saturday or Friday night, I'm doing that less. Things are more or less as usual. My girlfriend wants to get married. I've never been married. It's a big deci- sion. I'm thinking more of settling down permanently. Maybe it's a function of the study, maybe it's a function of where I am now with my life. It may have helped a little, but not really." At follow-up two years later, he remarked, "There were some insight- ful thoughts at the time, but I didn't necessarily follow through on them. They were pleasurable to think about, though. However, I haven't really thought about it much since the first three or four months. "I think overall I'm getting healthier, but I don't see this as related to DMT. I went through a big move and career change after the study, al- though this was in the works all along. There haven't really been any changes I can attribute to the DMT experiences themselves." Stan, about whose therapeutic experience we read in chapter 11, described some possible effects of his DMT exposure on his subsequent sensitivity