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WHAT DMT Is + 43 DMT is most abundant in plants of Latin America. There, humans have known of its amazing properties for some tens of thousands of years. How- ever, it is only in the last 150 years that we have gained some inkling of the antiquity of DMT's relationship with our species. Beginning in the mid-1800s, explorers of the Amazon, particularly Richard Spruce from England and Alexander von Humboldt from Ger- many, described the effects of exotic mind-altering snuffs and brews prepared from plants by indigenous tribes. In the twentieth century, the American botanist Richard Schultes continued this dangerous yet excit- ing line of fieldwork. Especially striking were the effects of, and the manner of administering, the psychoactive snuffs. Latin American indigenous tribes continue to use these snuffs and have given them many names, including yopo, epena, andjurema. They take huge doses, sometimes an ounce or more. One dramatic technique is for one's snuffing partner to blow the powdery mixtures with considerable force through a tube or pipe into the other's nose. The energy of the blast may be sufficient to drop the recipient to the ground. Spruce and von Humboldt reported that natives were immediately incapacitated by these psychedelic snuffs. Neither, however, went so far as to see for themselves what they were like. It was enough to watch the intoxicated Indians, twitching, vomiting, and babbling incoherently. These early explorers heard tales of fantastic visions, "out-of-body travel," pre- dictions of the future, location of lost objects, and contact with dead ancestors or other disembodied entities. Another plant mixture, this one consumed as a beverage, seemed to produce similar effects at a slower pace. This brew also went by several names, including ayahuasca and yagé. This drink inspired much rock art and paintings drawn on the walls of native shelters—what would be called "psychedelic" art today. Spruce and von Humboldt brought samples of these New World psy- chedelic plants back home to Europe. There the plants lay undisturbed for decades, as neither the interest nor the technology existed for further analysis of their chemical makeup or effects.