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Central Sleep Apnea and DMT - Dangerous or Not?

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MyceliumSporeDrive

MyceliumSporeDrive

Rising Star
I have central sleep apnea. This is a condition in which, during sleep, the brain fails to signal the nervous system properly to breathe, and you simply cease breathing. Eventually, you gasp, waking up with a startle to get air and then fall back asleep-- often without being aware of this. It's the brain's way of keeping you alive, and tends to be very disruptive to the sleep cycle but necessary for survival. It's all very automatic for those who have it. This is different than obstructive sleep apnea which involves actual physical obstruction to the airway due to many things including weight.

My kind of sleep apnea means that when sleep removes awareness, the brain doesn't always tell me to breathe. Those brief moments of waking up are the difference between life and death-- breathing or not breathing.

So why am I bringing this up on a DMT forum? Because DMT may do the same thing as sleep-- remove my body-awareness--, and I don't want to die. (Other than the expected and wanted ego-loss experience.)

I'm planning an ego-loss kind of DMT-combo trip that will blast my consciousness past hyperspace, but one of my largest concerns is that while my consciousness is out there, my body may stop breathing for an extended period of time, or otherwise simply forget to breathe at all. I simply don't know how central sleep apnea and large amounts of DMT could interact.

The worst case scenario I can imagine is stopping breathing altogether while having an out-of-body experience, and not having the capacity to startle or wake out of it to breathe again.

This goes beyond the typical expected fear of ego-loss, as there may be an actual physical possibility that breathing could halt, and the substance could further hinder my body's ability to resuscitate itself through a startle or a brief waking mechanism.

If the body wakes itself repeatedly during the night to initiate breathing in central sleep apnea, but can't wake itself to re-engage breathing during the DMT trip, would breathing simply stop? Or would the waking/startling mechanism happen anyway?

Does anybody have experience with this, or know of reports of this happening to others? Are there stories/reports out there of people who suddenly stop breathing during their trip? (Maybe for no apparent reason, as not everybody has a diagnosis of sleep apnes?)

Thank you for any insight, experience reports, anecdotes, medical knowledge, or thoughts you might have. This is a real medical thing and I want to be safe.
 
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My sincere advice would be not to do DMT (or any other substance that can affect your level of consciousness) until the sleep apnoea is completely resolved. If you do decide to ignore this and go ahead at the very least make sure you have a sitter who is trained in airway management i.e able to maintain your airway and take control of your breathing. Otherwise you may not live or be too brain damaged to tell the tale. A paramedic or anaesthetist would be what you want not just any doctor or nurse or first-aider. Also make sure you have the necessary equipment readily available (easier said than done unless you you have access to hospital and paramedic supplies). Having all the skills and no equipment is just as risky as not having a skilled person around. Trust me. I know what I am talking about in this matter.
 
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Apologies for banging on about this. There is a video on the internet of a woman doing a 5-meo-DMT trip assisted by some (??) shamans by a riverside. During the trip, she stops breathing and the guys trip sitting her haven't a clue what to do. It is very fortunate that she got through it unscathed. She had far more of a near death experience than she probably realises.

The dangers might be rare but if they do happen, the effects are devastating. I would go so far as to say it would be better to die than to survive hypoxic brain injury. Don't do DMT. Try the meditation route to exploring your mind instead.
 
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antares said:
My sincere advice would be not to do DMT (or any other substance that can affect your level of consciousness) until the sleep apnoea is completely resolved. If you do decide to ignore this and go ahead at the very least make sure you have a sitter who is trained in airway management i.e able to maintain your airway and take control of your breathing. Otherwise you may not live or be too brain damaged to tell the tale. A paramedic or anaesthetist would be what you want not just any doctor or nurse or first-aider. Also make sure you have the necessary equipment readily available (easier said than done unless you you have access to hospital and paramedic supplies). Having all the skills and no equipment is just as risky as not having a skilled person around. Trust me. I know what I am talking about in this matter.
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While I'm disappointed to recognize this may true, as you say I may NOT be able to embark on a DMT trip safely due to the central sleep apnea. I've wondered if this would be a total non-issue, which drives me crazy because being right means I get to explore the universe, and being wrong means I might -- just possibly -- die. (High stakes. Maybe too high.)

I've wondered if having a CPAP machine nearby might be enough. (It might not!) I've wondered, like you suggested, if having a trained and talented trip-sitter would be enough. I have a trip-sitter friend who was on a paramedic crew, but I hear you suggesting more specialized expertise.

Access to a hospital and all its equipment would be ideal... What a horrible way to go into a trip, though... I wonder if there are simple things like emergency injections for worst case scenarios or substances I could take before the trip that would entirely mitigate the possibility of this happening . . .

In another thread, someone suggested combining LSD with the DMT trip for greater effect. LSD tends to be very stimulating to the brain and the nervous system... Maybe that would be enough to keep me breathing properly the entire time. I mean, nobody "sleeps" on LSD.

Thanks for the thoughts.
 
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antares said:
Apologies for banging on about this. There is a video on the internet of a woman doing a 5-meo-DMT trip assisted by some (??) shamans by a riverside. During the trip, she stops breathing and the guys trip sitting her haven't a clue what to do. It is very fortunate that she got through it unscathed. She had far more of a near death experience than she probably realises.

The dangers might be rare but if they do happen, the effects are devastating. I would go so far as to say it would be better to die than to survive hypoxic brain injury. Don't do DMT. Try the meditation route to exploring your mind instead.
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Do you have a link to that vid?

Yeah, nobody wants serious hypoxic brain injury..... It sounds like you have experience in this field. Qi Gong and meditation may be the best route, but if I end up trying the DMT breakthrough route anyway, I'll report back the result for sure. Unfortunately, as I see very few sleep apnea posts on here, those may be the rare few who can't report back.

I feel like the guy who can't join the air force or go to outer space because he has less than 20-20 vision or something stupid. It probably wouldn't kill me, but there's that lingering doubt.
 
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This is the video
and here is the report
https://www.reddit.com/r/Psychonaut/comments/3cozaz/my_5meodmt_experience_with_video

It is this bit I find incredulous:
''It is at this point in the video that the doctor turns me over on my back, and my human body has stopped breathing. My friend tells me my face had gone purple, and that he saw the doctor become concerned. They pour water into my throat to get me to breathe for survival.
In my Hell, the water they pour becomes another part of the madness and propels me into farther, more isolated levels of Hell. I am drowning, I am dying, I am dying everyone’s death, I am all the pain that ever has existed, and that’s a silly understatement. I know I am in very serious trouble. I begin to truly panic.''

They could quite easily have killed her in their attempt to manage what was almost certainly a respiratory arrest and hypoxia. She was very fortunate that her bodily functions kicked back in on their own when they did and quite literally saved her life.
 
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If you're going to do it anyway, do you have a CPAP or BIPAP? Are either of those useful during sleep to force oxygen into your lungs? I'm not a doctor, but you should be careful. If you're going to do it anyway, maybe using a positive airway pressure device would be better than nothing. And maybe you should have a sitter just in case? Be careful.
 
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Ovidroid said:
If you're going to do it anyway, do you have a CPAP or BIPAP? Are either of those useful during sleep to force oxygen into your lungs? I'm not a doctor, but you should be careful. If you're going to do it anyway, maybe using a positive airway pressure device would be better than nothing. And maybe you should have a sitter just in case? Be careful.
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Yup, I have a CPAP machine to force some air down my throat if I need it, complete with the full mask. If I go ahead with a DMT blast-off, I'll have it at the ready if not strapped on my face already. Will it do any good? Not sure. I still haven't decided if this is worth the trial run / risk yet, especially given the heavy potential to have elements of a bad trip with all the uncertainty about breathing going into it.

That said, I long for this journey... it's like the molecule is calling out to me, and my desire to explore beyond the veil is too much to resist. My spirit needs to explore. My psyche needs answers and something to reflect on for a while. I need to find healing, and spiritual guidance to move forward.

So, yes, if I do this there will be a CPAP handy as well as a talented trip sitter. (Maybe 2 if I promise to return the favor.)

I'll be careful if I go through with it.
 
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antares said:
This is the video
and here is the report
https://www.reddit.com/r/Psychonaut/comments/3cozaz/my_5meodmt_experience_with_video

It is this bit I find incredulous:
''It is at this point in the video that the doctor turns me over on my back, and my human body has stopped breathing. My friend tells me my face had gone purple, and that he saw the doctor become concerned. They pour water into my throat to get me to breathe for survival.
In my Hell, the water they pour becomes another part of the madness and propels me into farther, more isolated levels of Hell. I am drowning, I am dying, I am dying everyone’s death, I am all the pain that ever has existed, and that’s a silly understatement. I know I am in very serious trouble. I begin to truly panic.''

They could quite easily have killed her in their attempt to manage what was almost certainly a respiratory arrest and hypoxia. She was very fortunate that her bodily functions kicked back in on their own when they did and quite literally saved her life.
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Wow - yeah, that video and experience report recount an extremely terrifying trip. She stopped breathing, turned purple, experienced the depths of hell, and came back with PTSD. ... and yet, she also experienced Nirvana. Part of me wonders if fright and terror are tools of the mind to awaken you, because this happens to me just prior to REM sleep when I may stop breathing.

This kind of trip report is why DMT scares the living crap out of me even as an experienced high-dose LSD user. (And as one who had an aborted, incomplete DMT trip several years back and has never desired to revisit the terror.)

Back to the vid - I'm not sure if those trip-sitters (shamans) were completely incompetent, or simply wise to not react by being overly physical with her, possibly compounding an already terrifying trip experience. And pouring water? Really? Set and setting looks crazy here.

Despite all this, I soooo want to face this DMT challenge down.
 
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One thing that is important to understand, the effects of 5-MeO-DMT and NN-DMT are VERY different. To the best of my knowledge there has never been a death attributed to the philological effects of NN-DMT in isolation, while there have been deaths related to the philological effects of 5-MeO-DMT. They should not be conflated for a number of very important reasons.
 
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nonononono said:
One thing that is important to understand, the effects of 5-MeO-DMT and NN-DMT are VERY different. To the best of my knowledge there has never been a death attributed to the philological effects of NN-DMT in isolation, while there have been deaths related to the philological effects of 5-MeO-DMT. They should not be conflated for a number of very important reasons.
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Good thought to differentiate the two.

I'm going with yellow-golden dream sand, freebase. I assume that's simply NN-DMT from Mimosa Hostilis root bark with a bunch of alkaloids left in it. Have those typically been pretty safe, and benign as well?
 
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nonononono said:
One thing that is important to understand, the effects of 5-MeO-DMT and NN-DMT are VERY different. To the best of my knowledge there has never been a death attributed to the philological effects of NN-DMT in isolation, while there have been deaths related to the philological effects of 5-MeO-DMT. They should not be conflated for a number of very important reasons.
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Very true. Just to clarify, I was trying to point out the dangers of having trip sitters who can't recognise a problem early enough and can't manage it appropriately when they do eventually recognise it. I am not suggesting in any way that N,N DMT would cause similar problems.

The original poster has a medical condition that puts him / her at a very high risk of developing respiratory issues whenever his / her level of consciousness is reduced (even during normal sleep). While I don't want to scare them, I want them to be fully aware of the risks involved. It is all too easy to be swept along by optimism when you really want something. There is nothing like seeing complications happen to someone else (albeit in somewhat different circumstances) to drive home the point about being prepared to deal with them if they arise.
 
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antares said:
Very true. Just to clarify, I was trying to point out the dangers of having trip sitters who can't recognise a problem early enough and can't manage it appropriately when they do eventually recognise it. I am not suggesting in any way that N,N DMT would cause similar problems.
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I am giving no advice here, only information. It is important to be specific, and reading your posts could easily confuse someone if they don't know the difference between the compounds you are talking about.
 
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