Short answer:
Multiple hits using a device such as the “machine” produces a quick but manageable come-up or breakthrough transition. Taking too many hits too slowly may prevent a breakthrough or require a larger dose to achieve breakthrough.
A single rapid hit with a GVG (where a full dose is inhaled in a second or two) produces a breakthrough transition so rapid that often there really is no discernable come-up at all. The experience itself is often qualitatively different from a multiple inhalation experience. It is a different “level” of experience, and often very difficult to handle.
Long answer:
I divide my life with DMT into two phases: the pre-GVG phase and the GVG phase. Prior to getting the GVG, I tried a variety of methods, but ended up using a small bong with a copper mesh disc over the bowl – basically a water-cooled “machine”.
It was very easy to burn spice with that setup, so it had to be heated very gently. As a result, I almost always had to take multiple hits – usually two, sometimes three. On rare occasions when everything worked perfectly, I could get a full dose in a single hit.
As you know, the effects of DMT take hold quite rapidly. Since I use it alone, this was a bit of a problem for me. If the first hit was too big, I’d have trouble coordinating all of the various actions necessary (something you don’t even think of when sober, but very hard after a good hit of DMT!) and I also would lose all sense of depth, so it was hard to line up the bowl with the lighter.
As a result, I usually tried to make the first hit a smaller one, and get the remainder in the second hit. This sometimes worked, sometimes didn’t. When it did, the breakthrough transition was quite intense and usually very beautiful.
The GVG changed everything. I use a thin copper mesh disc in the GVG, and because of the way the GVG heats the chamber, most of the DMT vaporizes in a very short period of time – maybe a second or two. So as I’m inhaling, for the first five seconds or so, there’s very little vapor produced (the disc is getting up to vaporization temperature). Then the DMT all vaporizes at once. This is rather shocking – to inhale a full dose of dense vapor in a second or two is itself quite an experience.
Very often there is no breakthrough transition at all. Sometimes there’s a blackout period, and then I suddenly find myself in hyperspace. I always use sublingual harmalas in conjunction with vaporized DMT, and knowing that this slows things down a bit, I can’t imagine how fast it would be without harmalas. With sufficient dose (and not a very high dose), the nature of the breakthrough is very different. I would consider it to be a different “level” of breakthrough experience. And it is often a very difficult level.
