As was true for many of the other people here, I smoked spice much more during my honeymoon phase and always approached the experiences with the intention of a achieving a breakthrough. It seemed like the right thing to do at the time, and I still feel it was.

However, lately I have been able to accomplish more healing and facilitate more personal growth by taking small tokes out of my GVG and doing yoga or breathing exercises. I cut a Volcano pad to fit my GVG, and it seems that pad always has WAY more residual spice left in it than I thought.

As a result, my technique is to put about 12-15 mgs of spice in the GVG and just take small tokes whenever it feels right to obtain the level I am looking for. Harmalas make it amazing, but I don't find them to be a necessity.

This technique has completely changed the way I approach the spice experience. I no longer choose whether or not to breakthrough, I just flow with the energy that comes from the initial small inhalations. If the spirits feel like telling me to add 35 mgs, I do typically comply

In short for me: Breakthroughs saved my life, but low doses help me maintain my spirit, and reiterate the lessons I have already learned but am failing to apply.

Peace and Happy Journeys

Some awesome, well reasoned answers here! Its turning out very intresting, so thanks all! Hopefully no one objects too much to the word 'abuse', I do think break through experiences are special, which may be why I still like to keep them infrequent, although I always prepare my self for a full on breakthrough before each session, jusr in case. I have had some profound sub break throuh experiences which have left me content to stay away from Spice for a couple of weeks, and breakthroughs which have just left me a bit miffed, and wanting more, so it does work both ways for me anyway.

I am writing this off my phone btw, no real tinterwebz until Monday, grrr. So if my spelling etc is poor, please forgive me!

Recently what I have been doing is having consecutive doses, starting off on maybe 20mg, then 30, then 35-40 over the space of a few hours, the smaller doses make the final high dose much easier to handle than just a high dose straight off the bat, as even after an hour I find I am still in a calm, contemplative state, which is highly conducive to blasting off again. Doing this and starting off on a high dose can lead to nerves before the second dose, where as working my way up completely nullifies that element, so far. Personally I think DMT goes beyond recreational, and would never do it in a social setting, unless the intention was to delve into hyperspace.

It's due to tolerance(I guess it lasts at least 2-3 hours or even more), why the higher doses seems "easier" after first lower dose. Sometimes with even minimal effects:

Just yesterday I smoked 20mg and after about one hour I smoked 35mg and it was two-three times weaker than the 20mg, even when method was proper.

I prefer blasting off properly at the first time if I want to reach the full effects of the dose.
Smoking first higher dose definately gives a different, much stronger experience, than smoking it after a lower dose.

According to the current literature, DMT creates no measurable tolerance to itself. This was demonstrated in Rick Strassman's dose/response study, where subjects were given .4mg/kg IV DMT every 30minutes and encountered no diminished effects.

In my own personal experience, I've tried "breaking all the rules" as far as tolerance goes and as stated by others. I've tried smoking as soon as I come down, I've tried smoking at the peak of the trip, I've tried smoking at practically any given time close in proximity to having already smoked and I find no real tolerance issues. However, after a long day of smoking where I've smoked a bunch during the day, then I start to feel a little tolerance kicking in, but I think what's going on is that the more and more you smoke, the less and less your lungs are gonna wanna cooperate with you, and the less DMT will be absorbed through the lungs. It should be noted that this factor could not have come into play with Strassman's tolerance studies because of the IV route. Also if you start noticing tolerance issues, there may be something going on at the vaporization level that you may be unaware of at the time such as your torch lighter losing heat and strength from running out of butane, or with more and more DMT condensing along the neck of the GVG, as DMT likes to stick to itself, the more that's there the more it will stick to the pipe and not make it to your lungs. Also make sure your ceramic filter isn't collecting soot (which of course if you're doing it right, shouldn't be happening, but something else to check). These are all things that can simulate tolerance, but they're really just issues with using a GVG.

I agree emphatically.

I am pretty sure there are no issues with the use of GVG. However, if I smoke DMT right away from the first dose, even with increased DMT amount, it often does not work as strongly as the first dose. I don't know why is this, but it's kind of like the spice is saying "you've had enough for now". This is just my experience

I think DMT condensation plays a big role. It seems that DMT vapor has a strong affinity for liquid DMT condensed on surfaces. With each use, especially if the condensed DMT is still in liquid form (not dry and crystallized), more and more of the vapor condenses, resulting in less and less getting into your body.

But it doesn't really matter if it's dry and crystallized, as it anyway melts when one applies heat to the GVG?

I'm just thinking, how big the loss could actually be? If one dissolves the condensation in acetone after about 10 inhalations, there isn't such big amount left to recover, so it would play a big role, maybe like around 1-3mg loss in one inhalation/dose?

So let's say if one inhales 35mg after 20 minutes of the initial 25mg dose, isn't the loss only something like 3-5mg at maximum, so there would still be good 30mg to inhale?

On first use, much of the vapor passes through before the condensation liquefies.

It’s all just speculation, but it does seem that more and more DMT is lost with each successive use. This applies to a mini bong I used to use – the stem would be dripping with liquid DMT after 3 or more uses. It seemed as if sometimes most of a dose was condensing, but who knows… (Since getting the GVG, I don’t think I’ve ever had more than 2 journeys in a session, so condensation hasn't been an issue.)

I also just wanted to note in regards to the whole DMT "abuse" issue:

Anything that you derive pleasure from can be addicting. Gambling can be extremely highly addicting and yet you're not putting addictive chemicals in your system (ok maybe alcohol lol). Watching television, using the computer, playing video games can all be addicting to the extent that they can create big interferences in your life, and yet there's no addictive chemical involved (except maybe endogenous dopamine and the like). In any case I definitely have periods of more heavy use of DMT and they're usually following extremely powerful experiences where I get carried away thinking I could make everything last like that forever. Unfortunately if I start using it day after day, usually by the end of the week I start to notice the experiences become disappointing to the extent that I would rather take some time off from partaking so that when I do jump in again, I can get the explosive magic I've become accustomed to.