Hiho, with all the talk of how NaOH isn't as available as it used to be and whether or not one may use potash lye (KOH) in the extraction forum lately, it occured to me that people used to make their own lye for soapmaking from wood ashes. There is no shortage of information on the net on how to do this, because lots of people make soap or paper as a hobby. Seems pretty simple! Check out this for example (nice pictures): http://www.stevesartstuff.co.uk/making_lye.htm or google "lye wood ash" for a zillion hits. What struck me as most interesting is that this might be a much more Gaia-Connected way of producing your DMT (well, we still need a natural nonpolar solvent then, but still...) Any of you experimental-tekies care to try out one of your teks using homemade wood ash lye for us? 
-z
-z