Is it really true that dmt has no effect on 5% of people?

[BringsUsTogether]

on page 358 of The Spirit Molecule:

"Terrence McKenna introduced hundreds of people to DMT, and during a visit on his botanical preserve in Hawaii several years ago, we talked about this. He estimated that perhaps 5 percent of people to whom he had given DMT showed nearly no effect. Terrence's 5 percent estimate is exactly what we saw in our own research:three out of sixty volunteers."

 

[endlessness]

Ive never seen it happen and while I can understand it is possible, I somehow doubt it... I wonder what dosage and method of administration, how many times these people tried and had no effects, if there were really no effects or low effects, etc..

We have seen plenty of times the 'denied breakthrough' phenomenon, Ive experienced it myself, but you still feel 'something' , and usually if you wait some days or months, do other things in life, work on integration of previous experiences, the effects come back. But for someone to consistently never have ANY effects, I find that hard to believe.. If they are humans they must have 5-HT 2a receptors too, right? I mean, maybe they have some weird genetics that means a lot more of some CYP or MAO enzymes that diminishes effects but , zero, at any dosage?? How is that physically possible?

 

[BringsUsTogether]

yes, endlessness, I agree that it seems impossible;it's interesting since 3 out of the 60 volunteers in Strassman's study experienced no effect, yet I think all of them were given it IV...

 

[null24]

I wonder if those individuals comprising the 5o/o were taking a prescription medication like an SSRI that inhibits the effect of tryptamines. Idk, I'm pretty sure the average percentage of a given population (in the states anyway ) taking them is higher than that though.

Also, while at the time McKenna gave his DMT to folks it was relatively unknown, it was known to be a tryptamine and those interactions may have been known. Then again, idk when this went on, SSRIs are relatively new on the market, within the last 25 years or so, IIRC.

So, i really don't know anything here now, do i? Oh well, there's a couple cents for ya. Yer welcome. :?:

 

[1ce]

I think endlessness brings up a solid point about the denied breakthrough. I say we run a control group of 100 individuals. Injecting them with 400mg intravenously.

See if that 5% still holds true..

 

[soulfood]

I've dosed around 10 people with DMT and 1 of them didn't get any effects. I checked the device afterwards and the dose was indeed fully vaped.

I dosed him orally and he seemed to only experience effects from the harmaloids and not the DMT.

 

[1ce]

I always liked the concept of using a volcano and just having someone hit a bag as hard as they can.

My steamroller has a rather tall cone that forces you to hold the lighter at a certain height. Yet my friend still manages to burn it always. =.=

 

[arcologist]

It could also be that different people have different densities of 5-HT2a receptors (or maybe even none?), leading to vastly different tolerances.

 

[BringsUsTogether]

It could also be that different people have different densities of 5-HT2a receptors (or maybe even none?), leading to vastly different tolerances.

I don't think so. All of Strassman's volunteers had previously used psychedelics. If they had no 5HT2A receptors then they wouldn't have any interest in participating at because all of their previous psychedelic experiences would have done nothing...

 

[BringsUsTogether]

I've dosed around 10 people with DMT and 1 of them didn't get any effects. I checked the device afterwards and the dose was indeed fully vaped.

I dosed him orally and he seemed to only experience effects from the harmaloids and not the DMT.

That's very interesting. Was there anything else that was different about this individual?

 

[endlessness]

I've dosed around 10 people with DMT and 1 of them didn't get any effects. I checked the device afterwards and the dose was indeed fully vaped.

I dosed him orally and he seemed to only experience effects from the harmaloids and not the DMT.

Did he ever take any other psychedelics?

Did he attempt to smoke again?

Is it possible he was taking some medication and didnt tell you?

 

[acapuchinu]

I've dosed around 10 people with DMT and 1 of them didn't get any effects. I checked the device afterwards and the dose was indeed fully vaped.

I dosed him orally and he seemed to only experience effects from the harmaloids and not the DMT.

I have a friend who had the same exact experiences. I also drank the tea and smoked with him from the same batches.

 

[null24]

I was listening to an old TM interview with art bell last night (there was no date on the download, but think it was from 1997) and he mentioned just this. Ha, synchronicity! Anyway, someone called in and spoke about how he never has remembered a dream and how his dr. had told him a tiny percentage of people don't. With the hypothesis that DMT is the causal factor of dreams, perhaps the two are related.
once again, idk.

 

[BringsUsTogether]

I was listening to an old TM interview with art bell last night (there was no date on the download, but think it was from 1997) and he mentioned just this. Ha, synchronicity! Anyway, someone called in and spoke about how he never has remembered a dream and how his dr. had told him a tiny percentage of people don't. With the hypothesis that DMT is the causal factor of dreams, perhaps the two are related.
once again, idk.

Yes, it was the 1997 one, here is the transcript for all interested:

https://digitalseance.files.wordpress.com/2006/08/tm1.pdf

The dialogue of interest begins at the bottom of page 17, when "caller" speaks, and continues on to page 18.

Caller: Terence, fascinating, sir... I have two quick questions. The first one, for most of my life,
I've heard people say that everyone has dreams. I never, ever remember, never recall the dreams.
And about eight years ago there was a scientific report that stated that there approximately 5%
of the population that do not have dreams. When I got to sleep, it's like a rock. I wanted to
mention that, and then I'll give you my second question and listen to you on the air. The last
question, Mr. Bell had a guest, Ed Dames, remote viewer. He mentioned that in his remote
viewing, that he could not see beyond, was it 2012, Mr. Bell? And Christians refer to the rapture.
I was just wondering what your take would be on all of this?

AB:* Alright, both good questions. Let's tackle the easiest one first. Dreams. I'm not aware of a
study that suggests that 5% of the population doesn't dream. Most of the people I've talked to
suggest that everybody dreams. Maybe 5% don't remember them. And we were talking about
dreams earlier with respect to DMT... could there be people in your opinion Terence, who do not
dream at all, and therefore have no DMT spikes at all?

TM:* Well, it's interesting I would have thought, as you suggested, that everybody dreams.
ome people don't remember it, but it is true that I would guess one in twenty don't respond to
DMT. This is very puzzling... they simply do not respond to it. And of course, this has never
been studied because it's an underground drug, but there may well be. And it may be that dreaming is something that's recently arriving in human evolution and not something we can just take for granted.

This is some fascinating stuff here; maybe dreams and dmt are somehow connected even though it sounds too cliche to be true...

 

[sidrakhan70]

swim dreams fine but DMT has no effects. only a weird feeling in the body. a bit like numbing feeling thats all so disappointed. wondering if it will ever change and swim will finally get to experience the effects or should swim just stop thinking about it altogether?

 

[Leithen]

This is quite an interesting topic indeed! I thought I would share my personal experience and why I believe this to be true.

I was at a Rainbow Gathering a while back and someone was nice enough to bring a big jar of spice. Dozens of people wanted to try it and I happened to be the only one with a device for smoking it. So, over the course of the next week I was fortunate enough to watch 50 to 60 people travel to hyperspace and many of them for their first time. :d

Oddly enough 3 or four people said it had no effect on them. Some of them tried several time with at least a 24hr break in between attempts. One guy said he did not want to try again because he knew it did not effect him since he had tried it a few times before. :?

Now, the guy with all the spiceclaimed that these people already had higher levels of DMT in their brain and that is why the drug did not effect them. I am sure he has no evidence to back this up and I don't really believe him. That being said I have heard countless other stories of people not being able to break through.

Whether these people are immune, are not allowed in hyperspace or something else, I have no idea.I do, however, know that some people do not have react to DMT like the rest of us.

 

[strtman]

If there is a human being to which DMT does not have any effect, I feel sorry for that person.

But there are in this world people that do have extremely rare defects, like progeria or hypertrichosis. So I would not be surprised if there is a genetic code that ‘protects’ a brain against DMT.