I had a really disappointing bummer of an experience last night turning my roommate on to DMT.

He’d expressed interest in trying it since I did my first extraction and had my first experiences a couple of months ago. I told him we could do it any time. Last night he was like can we do it tonight? I had some doubt because he’d had a couple of drinks in my presence (I don’t drink) but I brushed it off. He’s kind of an alcoholic but he didn’t appear to be wasted or anything so I figured he’d be ok.

And he was ok. I did a little cleansing ritual in my living room with a sage smudge and a gong. I gave him a pre-game coaching on getting the route of administration right. He asked if he could keep the music on low and I said sure. I set him up with 30 mg in my oil burner and told him I’d see him when he got back in a few minutes. I helped him get 4 hits in and he spent the next five minutes staring into my cat’s eyes and giggling. Once he blurted out, “Weird!” When he was more lucid, he described it as our living room was a glowing, beautiful, and almost Japanese scene with my cat as the central focus. He said it reminded him of his first time taking mushrooms when, not knowing what he was doing, he ate a quarter ounce. Before long he was up and around, using his phone and talking freely.

I was gonna pass on tripping myself because I was a little high on cannabis and I was hungry but watching my roommate tempted me. I asked him if he would sit me for a trip and he was like yeah do it. I said “I’m gonna turn off the music because I find it distracting,” and did so. I loaded up my own 30 mg and expressed some nervousness about going for it on weed because I’d never combined DMT with anything before. Anyway, I told him I just needed him to sit and maybe take the pipe from my hands when I finished my hits.

I got three hits in and put the pipe down. The liftoff started and I closed my eyes for a second to try to get my bearings. Almost immediately my roommate got up and started walking around the room. “What the f**k is this,” I heard him say. I open my eyes and he is in the middle of our living room standing in a cat litter box i’m selling on Craigslist. He crouched in it and made a pooping sound until he fell over. I said out loud, “You realize I am conscious right?” I didn’t have the physical ability to engage further. I laid my head down and closed my eyes. My roommate kept picking objects in the room up and loudly putting them down on the table and it was really distracting and I started feeling totally disrespected. Then he got up and loudly started playing with my cat. At a certain point I whispered, “Will you please stop doing that?” He did.

I laid there sighing with my eyes closed as a muted version of other DMT visions I’ve had in the past flowed by. There was a jester swimming in the swirling, fluid geometry and waving like he was passing me in a hallway. The color grey hung over the whole trip like a cloud. I was really upset with my roommate for not respecting my experience the way I respected his and I was trying to put my thoughts together to tell him this without getting too outwardly upset.

I started speaking before I was fully down and, once I did, there was no holding back how upset I was. I was like “Why would you mess with me and start acting like a clown like immediately after I put the pipe down? Everything I’ve done since we got started here has been with a seriousness and respect for what you know is a very powerful experience. I did everything I could to make your experience safe and calm and you did the opposite of that for me. You know this isn’t a party drug and soon as I got it in me you started acting like my drunk uncle on Easter. I expected you, as my friend, to respect my experience and you totally disrespected it.” He tried to get indignant and act like I was off base and that made me really angry. I pretty much yelled at him for being selfish and ignorant for 5 minutes and he eventually apologized, mostly to get me off his back. I said, “I accept your apology but that was a real bummer, man.” I laid my head down and was sighing and he got up and tapped me on the knee saying, “Sorry, buddy,” and walked off to the bathroom. I got up and just went in my room. I felt like I’d been kicked in the head.

I’ve taken LSD and mushrooms many times but this was only my 16th time smoking DMT. I learned some hard lessons. One is that alcohol and DMT don’t ever belong in the same room as each other. Another is that I will never share DMT with people that aren’t part of a psychedelic community again. Another is that I need to more carefully evaluate my setting and companions for safety factors and not throw caution to the wind when I have doubts. As much as I think my roommate acted like a selfish jerk, he has no experience in being a trip sitter and I should have more clearly explained what I needed from him in that moment. Either that or I should have waited until he went to bed and did it alone.

Anyway, this is kind of a long ramble but 12 hours later I’m still pretty bummed about it and I figure people here would understand. Thanks.

Ah man what a bummer you had to go through that, but the vision did sound pretty cool and clear and you get to keep those forever People just dont get what we do and how its done man...dmt isn't for them at all, as even the social aspect of dmt takes a certain level of maturity, not to mention intense trips.

it seems to me like you were crying over spilt milk, considering its "only" your 16th experience.... some people have bad experiences on their 1st trip, and that ends up being the only chance they get to experience dmt for some people.

Hopefully you guys have made up since then but it seems u learned the lesson of making sure the sitters as prepared as you are for this experience.
If i was you id just give my roommate a rundown of what i DONT want them doing, aka moving, making noise or talking to me. having him as a trip sitter is so beneficial because you can do it any time since yall live together.

Indeed, this is the core lesson

This really is the core lesson.

I was still feeling super emotional when I made this post and still hadn’t fully processed the experience. A big part of me was still feeling like I’d been transgressed upon when I’d actually been the one who made the mistake and made it a bummer for both of us.

With further reflection, my post should have been titled “Sharing Incorrectly.” I made a sincere apology to my roommate and we’re totally fine. We’re friends and we’ve lived together for a few years with very little incident. I still regret my emotional outburst at him. Time will tell if we use psychedelics together again as he doesn’t regularly use them.

Live and learn.

Honestly, from reading your story, my take-away is that you would really benefit (as most of us would) from studying Marshall Rosenthal's book Non-Violent Communication. I effing love being in recovery and being able to say schtuff like that.

You feel hurt and upset because this individual did not meet a need you had withinyour experience. However, nowhere in your story did you say that you communicated those needs to him. You had an expectation of his behavior based upon your personal values and he did not meet it. In my meeting rooms, we often call expectations "pre-resentments",because, well, what else are they, especially when they are not communicated effectively or even at all.

NVC, as laid out in the book, is a 4 step technique that is probably the hardest thing I've ever attempted to master. It requires knowing who you are, what your needs are, being able to express your feelings, and on top of it all, being empathic in communicating those needs.

The first stepis making an observation, that you then communicate. You attempted this but missed the mark by telling him all the things he 'should have' known, and 'should have' done,in the process only succeeding in belittling and disrespecting him in hisperception. All you did there was give him fuel to debate your observation and you never get to the other part of the process, because your request devolved into a shouting match.

It's like telling your kid you're upset because he "never brushes his teeth". The kid will then answer with "nuh'uh i brushed twice last month!" and your off to the boxing ring with a six year old. If instead you tell him that he only brushed twice last month-that you know of- and you faeel worried because you don't want a kid with rotted teeth who is going to shoot everyone in his 9th grade class because he can't get a date and you need some freedom and autonomy from unnecessary stress in your life so that can spendmore time and energy effectively taking care of him and would he please be kind enough to brush every day...it works better. The hard part is that feeling stuff-for me, at las least, because that's when you gotta be vulnerable.

It's tough telling someone what you need from them, and sometimes thinking about and verbalizing it can show you how seemingly ridiculous those needs are. Unconditional, non-reactive love from a partner is a tough desire to communicate if that's what you truly want, and it's absenceis the cause of relational stress. But thinking about theseneeds makes it easier to departur separate themfrom pretty ego driven desire.

As a crab, i like to walk sideways and hide under a shell, standing up and exposing my soft underbelly is hard. Because you're going to do it, and someone is going to say "tough titty" and it hurts.

As far as you being so hurt over his actions,to you it's like he pissed in the holy water, but the fact is, your values are simply not his values and you did not respect that. And they are merely that, your values, they are neither right nor wrong in an ethical sense. Perhaps he was acting out on you because he felt you were acting cartoonish with the sage and a gong, and what you see as this high-minded respectful demeanor he sees as something else, maybe even simply pretentious. I've had terrible experiences involving blown sage smoke, a didgeridoo, DMT and a wannabe shaman, sooo...

There was zero empathyfrom you in this interaction, as described by you. You missed completely anything about the needs he had-and that's all we are ever trying to do in ANY interpersonal interaction, just tryin to meet our needs.

Perhaps he was playing a trickster role you desperately needed but still missed the value of due to your emotional reaction. Don't kill the messenger.

That's my two cents, for what that's worth to you. Again, NVC is incredibly hard to master and it's frustrating to learn, because you have to use it and fail to know how to work it correctly, and you have to fail at getting your needs met by others, AND you have to take the hard look at what your needs really are.

What were your needs in that situation? Besides a good trip sitter?

I did acknowledge in my last comment that the core problem in the situation I posted about was my failure to clearly communicate my values and needs in the situation and not anything my roommate did.

The tone of much of your comment comes across as relishing in driving the finer points of my shortcomings home to me, which from my end doesn’t feel much like non-violent communication. It feels like finger pointing. Indeed, empathy can be challenging.

I do appreciate the book recommendation, though, and I think I could benefit from reading it. I’ll check it out. Thanks.

best count yo chickens that it wasnt actually a real problematic trip for either of yall, many of us learned the hard way with it like that.

Totally. Could have been much worse.

Even with my limited experience, I’ve received a number of difficult lessons from DMT. I’m not ungrateful for them.

Well I'm sorry if i was heavy handedand said some things you don't like, i do apologize for hurting your feelings. However i do stand by what i said and only did so to say there could have been a better way. I understand nobody wants to be criticized, constructive or not, so i do apologise for shoulding on you.

Marshall Rosenthal is so cool! However I have found his approach to be lacking in some aspects. Then I discovered J Krishnamurti--that made more sense to me, was more hollistic. J Krishnamurti for example would never use the words Non violent, as non violent is Non-fact as J would say...because the fact is we are violent. This coincides with what Rosenthal says, basically that we comunicate violently in society, but the approach is different. Krishnamurti's ideas, like that submission to authority is violence, etc., to me solves the issues Rosenthal raises.

Thanks for sharing the experience.

Ill think of this if I ever decide to participate with people that do not know what to expect when being a tripsitter. Sorry to hear your unpleasent experience!

Much love
//NL

It’s all good. My sensitivity to perceived hostility is as high as my capacity for dishing it out. I’m working on it.