Jalaxaposse
Rising Star
Hello all,
I am a new member to this community (this is my first post) but have been exploring the healing and revealing worlds of Aya, DMT and mushrooms for several years. I do not take these explorations lightly and have always combined my practice with meditation and reverence. I have read through many posts here but have never been compelled to post until now.
This post is about a hemorrhagic stroke that my mother suffered while smoking DMT. It is a long post and I hope that as many people as possible will read it in its entirety. I also hope that this post will be moved to the Health and Safety forum to further spread some of potential effects of smoking DMT and increased blood pressure. Lastly, I am submitting this post as a warning to others to take the necessary precautions that any powerful chemical warrants but also as a means to start a conversation about what happened, why it happened and how it happened.
On November 29th 2014 my mother, brother, girlfriend and I sat together to assist my mother in smoking DMT for the first time. She had never smoked it before but had done psychedelics, specifically mushrooms, acid, peyote and mescaline between the ages of 21-31. She was never a heavy user but she had experience. My mother is now 71 years old and her last “trip” was 40 years ago.
I was intending to smoke second and allow her to go first. Before we set up to smoke we spoke about DMT as a very intense experience both in the moment and afterward while processing all that was seen. My mother spoke about wanting to find a way to access deeper parts of her consciousness. I told her that this experience will be unlike any other hallucinogen she has ever tried and it will immediately remove her from this world. She assured me she was ready. We meditated for a few minutes before I turned on the flame. One thing I regret is not fully understanding how the DMT and the intensity of the experience could dramatically raise one’s blood pressure. And furthermore it had never occurred to us that my mother, a very healthy and active older women with normal, would be in physical danger. In all our research we have not been able to find anything similar to what she experienced.
The quality of the DMT was good, I and other friends had sampled it on other occasions without incidence. I knew she wouldn’t be able to smoke more than a couple hits so the dose was low. She took one small hit, then I asked her to take a second. She took a second small hit but it was obvious that she didn’t want a third. I put the pipe down and sat quietly, trying not to disturb her. She was calm at first, for perhaps the first minute, then started to make faces as if she was experiencing a difficult vision. Grimacing and holding her mouth tight. Her reactions became more intense around minute 3 or so. She hugged her arms around her chest as she continued to grimace. It seemed as though she was experiencing difficult visions. Around minute 4 or 5 she dry heaved a few times. At this point I got up and helped her. I held her left hand and told her I was there. She asked me to “help her out of the labyrinth”. I began to talk to her, telling her where she was, who she was, who I was. Telling her it was only a trip and then it will be all over soon. She did not look well but at the same time it seemed as though the DMT was beginning to wear off. As she begin to return to us, around minute 7 or 8 it was obvious that something was wrong. She dropped my hand from hers at some point and begin to speak without opening her eyes:
“I was with my mother, I was abandoned”
“My mother wasn’t there to take care of me”
“I was remembering when I was a baby”
“I was raised by my grandmother, I never had a mommy”
“I need a mommy too, I can’t always take care of everyone”
“I’m always the responsible one”
“The trip started off with beautiful colors but then I remembered I was on a trip, on a drug and I felt like I needed to get back but I couldn’t. I was scared I couldn’t get back”
By this time it had been well over 10 minutes, she wasn’t using the left side of her body, she sat slumped and she was holding her right hand to her right eye. She said, “I feel like there is a devil trying to get out of my head.” I asked her what she meant by that and she said she has a terrible headache and then asked for a damp cloth to hold against her eye.
At this point we brought my father into the room and began to ask her questions, not being sure exactly what had happened to her. It soon became obvious that she had no movement on her left side and also very little feeling on her left side. Her speech was becoming slurred and she couldn’t sit up right. After approximately 15-20 minutes we realized she most likely had a stroke and we had to call 911. The ambulance arrived 20 minutes after our call and she was brought to the hospital.
In the minutes, hours and days that follow we learned that my mother suffered a hemorrhagic stroke on the upper right side of her brain. This is what we know and what we don’t know:
Prior to the stroke she was a very healthy and active woman. She had normal blood pressure, averaging 120/80, she had high normal LDL cholesterol and high HDL cholesterol. She was active and fit, albeit 10-15 pounds heavier than she should be. Also, mentally and spiritually she was extremely stable, had no depression, dementia or Alzheimer’s nor was she taking any medications. She did not smoke but did have about 8-10 drinks per week. She did not have any other heart or health conditions that could have otherwise reacted with the DMT.
The specific type of stroke she had was a Subarachnoid Hemorrhagic stroke with some intracerebral bleeding. This means that a blood vessel, due to a hypertensive event (a sharp and extreme spike in blood pressure) allowed a large amount of blood to seep out, therefore causing a portion of her right upper lobe to be flooded with blood.
Here is the exact text from the doctor after her first CAT scan:
1. Predominantly extra-axial/subarachnoid hemorrhage over the right frontoparietal lobe although a component of parenchymal hemorrhage not excluded. There could be component of subdural blood along the falx and vertex as well.
2. Some effacement of the adjacent sulci with bowing of the falx to the left. Some parenchymal edema in the frontal lobe.
3. No midline shift at the septum lucidum or inferior mass effect.
(NOTE: 24 hours after this initial scan the pressure on her brain from the blood caused her to have significant swelling and midline shift. At this point she needed surgery to remove the blood and relieve the pressure or she would have died)
4. Other scattered areas of subarachnoid hemorrhage over both hemispheres.
5. Correlate for traumatic versus nontraumatic hemorrhage including underlying mass lesion, vascular
malformation or other etiology
After the initial scan, she was flown to a different hospital where they had a neurosurgery unit, she underwent two more CT scans with Angiography (where they inject a dye into her blood to see greater contrast in order to determine where the bleed originated). After her surgery and the removal of the clotted blood around her brain, she had two MRIs. These additional tests showed no new bleeding after the initial event but also showed no vascular abnormalities, tumors, Cerebral Amyloid Angiopathy (proteins built up in the vascular walls) or aneurysms. This is all to say that after many tests the neurologists have no definitive answer as to why her blood pressure spiked and, more importantly, why she bled into her brain. Fortunately what this means is that it is highly unlikely that she will have another stroke as long as she doesn’t not have another hypertensive event.
In many ways my mother was very lucky. First of all she is alive. Hemorrhagic strokes have a very high mortality rate, higher than many other types of strokes. Second, she had excellent care when we arrived at the second hospital. We immediately told the doctors exactly what had happened, there is absolutely no reason to lie in these situations, especially when someone’s life depends on how quickly and accurately the doctors can diagnose and treat her. Third, her Craniotomy (the opening of part of her skull to remove the blood and relieve the swelling on her brain) went extremely well. The doctors were able to replace the part of her skull they removed and she suffered no secondary complications. Lastly, she has an enormous amount of support from her family. We were there with her every moment during her recovery in the ICU and then in the hospital. We literally did not leave her bedside except to sleep. Sadly, many other patients in the hospital didn’t seem to have that same level of attention.
Now, a month after the event, my mother is recovering in a rehabilitation facility and thankfully doing well. She continues to be very lucky in that her stoke seems to have only affected her ability to use her motor functions on her left side. Nearly all her cognitive abilities are intact and she remains as sharp as ever. Nonetheless, it will take a lot of time and intense rehabilitation to help her brain slowly reconstruct the damaged pathways between the neurons that were inundated with blood.
Has anyone ever had an experience like this or heard of anyone suffering from a stroke after smoking DMT? My family and I would be eager to hear your thoughts. For those of you who have questions please don’t hesitate to ask. There are a lot of unanswered questions here and a lot still to learn. One major question that my mother has is whether the DMT alone raised her blood pressure to exceptionally high levels or whether it was a combination of the DMT and her anxiety during her trip. She expressed to me afterward (once she had recovered from the surgery) that she had extreme anxiety during the trip and felt as though she could not get out. She also felt nauseous during the trip but it is hard to tell if that is due to the anxiety or from the stroke itself (nausea is a typical symptom of someone having a stroke).
Substances like DMT, which do not have the same rigorous testing and documentation as other chemicals, carry a particularly important responsibility on the part of the user. We tried to be as responsible as possible, we knew of the intense psychological and physiological effects of DMT. Everyone in the room with my mother had previously smoked DMT as well as experienced other psychedelics. We spoke openly about our experiences. The context and setting were peaceful. We meditated. There was love in the room.
Love and peace.
I am a new member to this community (this is my first post) but have been exploring the healing and revealing worlds of Aya, DMT and mushrooms for several years. I do not take these explorations lightly and have always combined my practice with meditation and reverence. I have read through many posts here but have never been compelled to post until now.
This post is about a hemorrhagic stroke that my mother suffered while smoking DMT. It is a long post and I hope that as many people as possible will read it in its entirety. I also hope that this post will be moved to the Health and Safety forum to further spread some of potential effects of smoking DMT and increased blood pressure. Lastly, I am submitting this post as a warning to others to take the necessary precautions that any powerful chemical warrants but also as a means to start a conversation about what happened, why it happened and how it happened.
On November 29th 2014 my mother, brother, girlfriend and I sat together to assist my mother in smoking DMT for the first time. She had never smoked it before but had done psychedelics, specifically mushrooms, acid, peyote and mescaline between the ages of 21-31. She was never a heavy user but she had experience. My mother is now 71 years old and her last “trip” was 40 years ago.
I was intending to smoke second and allow her to go first. Before we set up to smoke we spoke about DMT as a very intense experience both in the moment and afterward while processing all that was seen. My mother spoke about wanting to find a way to access deeper parts of her consciousness. I told her that this experience will be unlike any other hallucinogen she has ever tried and it will immediately remove her from this world. She assured me she was ready. We meditated for a few minutes before I turned on the flame. One thing I regret is not fully understanding how the DMT and the intensity of the experience could dramatically raise one’s blood pressure. And furthermore it had never occurred to us that my mother, a very healthy and active older women with normal, would be in physical danger. In all our research we have not been able to find anything similar to what she experienced.
The quality of the DMT was good, I and other friends had sampled it on other occasions without incidence. I knew she wouldn’t be able to smoke more than a couple hits so the dose was low. She took one small hit, then I asked her to take a second. She took a second small hit but it was obvious that she didn’t want a third. I put the pipe down and sat quietly, trying not to disturb her. She was calm at first, for perhaps the first minute, then started to make faces as if she was experiencing a difficult vision. Grimacing and holding her mouth tight. Her reactions became more intense around minute 3 or so. She hugged her arms around her chest as she continued to grimace. It seemed as though she was experiencing difficult visions. Around minute 4 or 5 she dry heaved a few times. At this point I got up and helped her. I held her left hand and told her I was there. She asked me to “help her out of the labyrinth”. I began to talk to her, telling her where she was, who she was, who I was. Telling her it was only a trip and then it will be all over soon. She did not look well but at the same time it seemed as though the DMT was beginning to wear off. As she begin to return to us, around minute 7 or 8 it was obvious that something was wrong. She dropped my hand from hers at some point and begin to speak without opening her eyes:
“I was with my mother, I was abandoned”
“My mother wasn’t there to take care of me”
“I was remembering when I was a baby”
“I was raised by my grandmother, I never had a mommy”
“I need a mommy too, I can’t always take care of everyone”
“I’m always the responsible one”
“The trip started off with beautiful colors but then I remembered I was on a trip, on a drug and I felt like I needed to get back but I couldn’t. I was scared I couldn’t get back”
By this time it had been well over 10 minutes, she wasn’t using the left side of her body, she sat slumped and she was holding her right hand to her right eye. She said, “I feel like there is a devil trying to get out of my head.” I asked her what she meant by that and she said she has a terrible headache and then asked for a damp cloth to hold against her eye.
At this point we brought my father into the room and began to ask her questions, not being sure exactly what had happened to her. It soon became obvious that she had no movement on her left side and also very little feeling on her left side. Her speech was becoming slurred and she couldn’t sit up right. After approximately 15-20 minutes we realized she most likely had a stroke and we had to call 911. The ambulance arrived 20 minutes after our call and she was brought to the hospital.
In the minutes, hours and days that follow we learned that my mother suffered a hemorrhagic stroke on the upper right side of her brain. This is what we know and what we don’t know:
Prior to the stroke she was a very healthy and active woman. She had normal blood pressure, averaging 120/80, she had high normal LDL cholesterol and high HDL cholesterol. She was active and fit, albeit 10-15 pounds heavier than she should be. Also, mentally and spiritually she was extremely stable, had no depression, dementia or Alzheimer’s nor was she taking any medications. She did not smoke but did have about 8-10 drinks per week. She did not have any other heart or health conditions that could have otherwise reacted with the DMT.
The specific type of stroke she had was a Subarachnoid Hemorrhagic stroke with some intracerebral bleeding. This means that a blood vessel, due to a hypertensive event (a sharp and extreme spike in blood pressure) allowed a large amount of blood to seep out, therefore causing a portion of her right upper lobe to be flooded with blood.
Here is the exact text from the doctor after her first CAT scan:
1. Predominantly extra-axial/subarachnoid hemorrhage over the right frontoparietal lobe although a component of parenchymal hemorrhage not excluded. There could be component of subdural blood along the falx and vertex as well.
2. Some effacement of the adjacent sulci with bowing of the falx to the left. Some parenchymal edema in the frontal lobe.
3. No midline shift at the septum lucidum or inferior mass effect.
(NOTE: 24 hours after this initial scan the pressure on her brain from the blood caused her to have significant swelling and midline shift. At this point she needed surgery to remove the blood and relieve the pressure or she would have died)
4. Other scattered areas of subarachnoid hemorrhage over both hemispheres.
5. Correlate for traumatic versus nontraumatic hemorrhage including underlying mass lesion, vascular
malformation or other etiology
After the initial scan, she was flown to a different hospital where they had a neurosurgery unit, she underwent two more CT scans with Angiography (where they inject a dye into her blood to see greater contrast in order to determine where the bleed originated). After her surgery and the removal of the clotted blood around her brain, she had two MRIs. These additional tests showed no new bleeding after the initial event but also showed no vascular abnormalities, tumors, Cerebral Amyloid Angiopathy (proteins built up in the vascular walls) or aneurysms. This is all to say that after many tests the neurologists have no definitive answer as to why her blood pressure spiked and, more importantly, why she bled into her brain. Fortunately what this means is that it is highly unlikely that she will have another stroke as long as she doesn’t not have another hypertensive event.
In many ways my mother was very lucky. First of all she is alive. Hemorrhagic strokes have a very high mortality rate, higher than many other types of strokes. Second, she had excellent care when we arrived at the second hospital. We immediately told the doctors exactly what had happened, there is absolutely no reason to lie in these situations, especially when someone’s life depends on how quickly and accurately the doctors can diagnose and treat her. Third, her Craniotomy (the opening of part of her skull to remove the blood and relieve the swelling on her brain) went extremely well. The doctors were able to replace the part of her skull they removed and she suffered no secondary complications. Lastly, she has an enormous amount of support from her family. We were there with her every moment during her recovery in the ICU and then in the hospital. We literally did not leave her bedside except to sleep. Sadly, many other patients in the hospital didn’t seem to have that same level of attention.
Now, a month after the event, my mother is recovering in a rehabilitation facility and thankfully doing well. She continues to be very lucky in that her stoke seems to have only affected her ability to use her motor functions on her left side. Nearly all her cognitive abilities are intact and she remains as sharp as ever. Nonetheless, it will take a lot of time and intense rehabilitation to help her brain slowly reconstruct the damaged pathways between the neurons that were inundated with blood.
Has anyone ever had an experience like this or heard of anyone suffering from a stroke after smoking DMT? My family and I would be eager to hear your thoughts. For those of you who have questions please don’t hesitate to ask. There are a lot of unanswered questions here and a lot still to learn. One major question that my mother has is whether the DMT alone raised her blood pressure to exceptionally high levels or whether it was a combination of the DMT and her anxiety during her trip. She expressed to me afterward (once she had recovered from the surgery) that she had extreme anxiety during the trip and felt as though she could not get out. She also felt nauseous during the trip but it is hard to tell if that is due to the anxiety or from the stroke itself (nausea is a typical symptom of someone having a stroke).
Substances like DMT, which do not have the same rigorous testing and documentation as other chemicals, carry a particularly important responsibility on the part of the user. We tried to be as responsible as possible, we knew of the intense psychological and physiological effects of DMT. Everyone in the room with my mother had previously smoked DMT as well as experienced other psychedelics. We spoke openly about our experiences. The context and setting were peaceful. We meditated. There was love in the room.
Love and peace.
