As I explore my own experience with this phenomenon over the past few years, rediscovering old confidence long lost, and find my new limits with these entheogens, I have definitely learned a lot.

It's a blessing and a curse, being wonderful to be able to go so far on so little, yet needing to tread lightly because it's also not hard to bite off more than one can chew. It's unnerving.

A few personal examples are the fact that I've had very deep, intense and altering experiences from less than 15mg of DMT, and even a recent .5g mushroom journey that felt more like 2g.

After having heard from a few others about having similar experiences it's made me curious about more.

So if you have experience with this, please share what it has been like for you. Is it something that you like? What's the degree of increase of sensitivity? How has this changed your relationship with entheogens? Etc.

Thank you

One love

I seem to get more and more sensible as time goes on.

My theory is that this comes, at least partially, from personal growth, as we remove the need to numb ourselves away from the pain and allow ourselves to feel whats trully there.
I feel like this is a natural process, a sort of adjusting your eyes to the darkness to better see the light.

It can certantly become a bit of a double edge sword in terms of psychedelic experiences and requieres a bit of retuning of expectations/limits.

I dunno, I seem to have gotten less sensitive to harmalas lately, but maybe the new batch is simply weaker

My forays with actual, dyed-in-the-wool serotonergics are so infrequent these days it's hard to know. I think over the years since my earliest trips - which will have happened before quite a few of you were even born - my sensitivity may have increased except it's very hard to say because nobody ever actually weighed out their liberty cap doses back then

Well I'd certainly hope so, jk



I like this analogy.



Hm, that's interesting. The right dose is always the right dose for me. 4g of tea always feels the same, whether I go periods of time in between cups or if it's daily.





Not surprising. I've definitely become less of the risk taker that I used to be so tend to weight almost everything. And my increased sensitivity has extended to other things as well so I just tend to err on the side of caution. Every now and then I will just eat some mushrooms and not be sure of quite how much it was, but that's been a bit more rare as of late and when it does happen it's usually a pretty small amount.

One love

Yes, I mentioned it here on the forum recently.

I have always been a little more sensitive to mind altering substances than others, but I feel that I need to dose lower and lower to achieve the same effects these days. However I currently do experiment with external technics (meditation, strobe light, lighting frankincense,...) to enhance the experience of moderate doses, so that could have an influence too.

Not long ago I read a study about how the frequent use of Ayahuasca causes physical changes to the brain, which in turn causes the user to experience a higher sense of spirituality even while not being under the influence.
This got me thinking. I do enjoy moderate doses of psychedelics regularly, about once a week for many years now. Even though I haven't tried Ayahuasca, my logic tells me that this should apply to other entheogens as well.
Is it possible that my brain has adapted somehow, allowing me to have some kind of "baseline" psychedelic experience even without the help of a substance?

I've found that there is quite a bit of variability in terms of how hard cactus tea hits. Different batches of tea made from material from the same cactus clone often vary in intensity of effects. I've been trying to make sense of that variability.

It seems to me that with Trichocereus cactus it matters what season of the year the plant material is harvested. During the time of year when the plant is growing the fastest (in my climate this is spring, through the summer, into early fall) cuttings that are harvested and brewed into tea just aren't as strong as cuttings taken during the winter when growth has stopped. When the plant is actively putting on lots of new growth the cuttings don't seem as potent.

But when the cuttings are aged in darkness the potency of the cuttings increase. Now I am starting to routinely age cuttings in darkness for a few months. When the living plant material isn't able to grow there seems to be an increase in potency. A few months in the dark really seems to help. It is a good strategy for making the most of the plant material that one has. It leads to less disappointment with cactus material being weaker than expected. And with more consistent results it becomes easier to identify which clones are consistently strongest.

I would think absolutely.
After all your “set” doesn’t just go away- it all depends on your personality and predispositions.

When I look at myself, at my views, thought processes and values ect. I align a lot of it with the type of mindset and disposition of the “symptoms” of psychedelic usage- oneness with the universe, connection to all life, inner introspection ect ect.
But I’ve never had a full psychedelic experience yet (working on it haha, had some Trichocereus experiences recently but not enough to really trip, though very valuable to me in their own right).

(Many of my personal epiphanies have been aided by small dose cannabis. It’s really helped open up my empathic faculties. )

Once you feel these kinds of things I think it’s impossible to go back you know?

15mg in the GVG is my standard dose these days. Very deep. I sometimes have full on, life altering breakthroughs on 15mg. Anything over 20 is too much. I've always been sensitive. My first dose was 60mg smoked (sandwich) which was heavy duty. In the GVG I never needed more than 35, but over the years it dropped and dropped. I credit working in the shallow end while on harmalas and vaping 5mg at a time for a couple of hours.
Speaking of reverse tolerance, I had a conversation with someone on the internet about their unfortunate reverse tolerance. The guy reported not even being able to one the bag and smell the salvia without feeling really high and nearly breaking through. I believe it. At one point a couple of years ago I got to the point where breaking through on plain leaf was very easy.

I do feel that other practices can sort of "prime" us to better access the depths of some of these experiences. Many times when I choose a journey either after meditation or after hot yoga, I am clearly more receptive, not just consciously, but it seems almost as if it is also the case in a neurological sense.

During my first several experiences, my friends would blow tobacco smoke in my face while I was in the throes of the experience and I feel this is also a tool that can help deepen these experiences. So I tend to have something burning before I go under. Not always, but most times.

And I don't see much reason why such an effect would be relegated to to aya alone, and in my experience, it's something that has happened with mushrooms as well. So I am inclined to agree with you.

Even my meditations can have some visual and psychedelic components even when I have not taken anything.

Some of this reminds me of aspects of a conversation about tinnitus that I had with a friend today. Apparently, one facet, is that the more one is perturbed by it, the more it can intensify. As if part of the survival part of the brain notices the anxiety that it causes as if it's about survival and brings it more into the mind as a way of making the more prevalent so that one is more likely to survive that which is causing the anxiety, in this case the tinnitus. I mention this because what if the brain notices the survival benefit to getting into these experiences and so then allows easier entry. Just an idea.



First, thank you for giving me some ideas for some habits to start with my cacti cuttings. What do you think causes the increase in potency in cuttings aged in darkness?

What theories do you have about the increase in potency from the same cacti tea? Do you think it could simply be a matter of set and setting affecting the experience, or do you think there may another explanation, such as increase in potency over time in the cold after the tea has been made and put in the fridge (which is also dark when the door is closed)?



I encourage you to check out Medicinal Mindfulness out of Boulder Colorado. They have a psychedelic cannabis program with full-blown psychedelic experiences with cannabis alone.

And yes, very much a one way road with many bells you can't unring



To be candid, because of depressive thinking and being notoriously hard on myself, I was actually very down about this for a long period of time, partly because it was confusing and I hadn't thought that it was something that could happen, so didn't consider it until much later. My first experiences with DMT were all over 100mg. And I used to eat a lot of mushrooms every time I'd eat them. I simply misinterpreted what was going on.

Thank you all for chiming in

And happy holidays

One love

I've definitely experienced this.

I first noticed it on ordinary cube shrooms. I returned after a long break, with intensely detailed visuals with uncubelike texture with longer duration. Continued after returning to pan cyan shrooms, where 1g used to by fairly mild, now became quite intense if I'm allowed to focus inward (not distracted externally)

I guess the big change for me were my spiritual practices, such as mantras and meditation.

DMT its always harder to measure. The 15-20mg range has always felt very variable in detail, but there's always the question of how much I really inhaled. Sure I measured 20mg, but how much could I say was left in the bowl?

I often make tea in batches of 2 or 3 servings at a time. The individual servings last a long time in the freezer. I drink the tea every few months. I've found that those individual servings are consistent with each other in terms of strength, as long as I stir the tea well before dividing it.

The variation comes when I harvest again from the same plant at a later date. The general trend is that as the cacti grow older and larger they become more potent. But the caveat is that when the plants are in an active growth phase, pushing out a lot of new growth, then the cuttings are less potent, regardless of what section of the plant I harvest from.

What I am seeing is that during an active growth phase the overall mescaline content of the whole plant seems to drop. But in the winter when the plant is not growing at all (winter dormancy) the overall mescaline content increases. Storing cuttings in darkness similarly boosts the mescaline content. The strongest cuttings in my experience are cuttings harvested in the winter, and then stored for additional time in darkness.

I think that while the plant is putting lots of energy into growing, it drastically reduces production of mescaline, and possibly even transfers some of the existing mescaline from older sections of the plant into the newer growth. When the plant is dormant, and especially when it is kept in darkness, that is when mescaline production is the greatest, since no energy is being put into new growth. Therefore stored energy can be directed to the production of defensive alkaloids instead.

These have been my observations.

Thank you for the recommendation, I will look into them. I’m in NY so I doubt I will ever get out that way, but I could absolutely learn from their approach.
At the moment I’m on a self imposed hiatus from cannabis. I feel that for the time being at least, that I’ve learned as much as I can from it as a teacher and am pursuing deeper healing paths such as cacti and mushrooms.




What’s up friend? Nice to see a familiar face around here.


-I can attest to Fox’s cacti knowledge.
I’ve learned so much invaluable information from Gray Fox over on a different board, absolutely pivotal in learning how to cultivate Trichocereus medicine for myself.

I can't help but recollect the first several times I did psilohuasca... spending plenty of time trying to get my bearings while in child's pose (Virasana) This all happened when I first started noticing this phenomenon.

What's your method of smoalking DMT?



That makes a whole lot of sense to me. Thank you for that (as well as all the other noodles of knowledge you've provided me with and that I've nagged you for )



Due to the pandemic, they formulated a great deal on their online platform. Possible you may be able to do something from where you are.



I completely agree. Have to hand it to Worlfnippletip and DF0 for how much I've learned from them about cacti as well

One love

I have definately become more sensitive to psychedelics.

I think mostly because i don't use psychedelics as excessively as i did when i was younger, so my tolerance is a lot lower now. I also don't use cannabis as much anymore as i used to, and i suspect there might be some kind of cross-tolerance between cannabis and the classic hallucinogens.

Another thing is that i usually don't use psychedelics in a social setting anymore, and my trips have therefore become much more introspective.

I wonder if doing psychedelics alone makes them seem more potent vs partaking with others around? I'm guessing most psychonauts that started with mushrooms, LSD, etc were with the company of whoever introduced the substance, especially pre dmt-nexus.me and shroomery.org days when there wasn't experience reports etc at their computer to pore over that might give them comfort and confidence to try their first psychedelic substance by themselves.

What I'm getting at is, these days I mostly partake alone, with little distraction to keep me from delving deep down the rabbit hole, nothing on this side grounding me as there is when I'm with others, where I find more of a responsibility to the people around me. There's only so much power one has to resist the effects, but I think the solitude vs with company is enough to play a role in perception of how sensitive I'm feeling to psychedelics (other than cannabis - I've always been a lightweight and efficiently get more stoned for a given amount than anyone around me).

20 years ago I think I got most effects out of group taking equal amount of mushrooms, where as today I feel more on par with the group - although different people.

DMT is relatively new for me, I'm grateful that I'm efficient with it as well, but I think my sensitivity has been fairly consistent.

This unlocked a memory I had forgotten about. About 10 years ago there was a woman in town who offered Kundalini yoga classes early in the morning. When I planned on tripping I would start the day by going to her class. Really helped set the tone of the whole trip. I need to recreate this ritual somehow...

Interesting to read about others’ experience with increased sensitivity as I didn’t know it was a “thing.”

I can’t speak to DMT as it’s been a few years for me, but my sensitivity to mind altering substances has certainly increased. Earlier this year I had my first “difficult” psilocybin trip in 15 years. I took what may have been considered a moderate-high dose for most but “normal” for me. That experience… humbled me. I learned a lot, but it was the first trip that I had use an emergency Xanax to end.

These days all I need to do if I want to explore my mind is take a decent cannabis edible. I really love the contemplative and euphoric effects of edibles lately.

Whoa. That's saying something. I've been there. I always have 10mg of valium next to the bed, just in case. I've jokingly called it my escape hatch. My last mushroom trip was the first time for me. It was so bad, and the valium barely touched it. I had spiraled into self loathing. So, I just got more calm about despising myself
Other difficult trips were manageable. This one was profoundly bad. No visuals no nothin', just pure, completely overpowering emotions.
Now I'm going to stop putting the valium by mer bed. It used to feel like a sort of ritualistic joke, now I'm worried that seeing it will precipitate a bad experience. Specifically with mushrooms.

There's alot of anecdotal evidence that 5-MeO-DMT use makes you way more sensitive to psychedelics and even making them have a 5-MeO-DMT theme. For me DMT in low doses has strong ego dissolution while having no visuals. Similar to 5-MeO-DMT

Interesting. Yes, I've always had my ritualistic emergency Xanax by the bed too...haven't tripped since that experience but I will certainly be keeping that ritual. Not sure what would've happened without it.

My visuals were so strong and overwhelming; I couldn't get away from them. I would close my eyes and they would appear. Open my eyes and they would appear. There was a sense that "they" wanted something from me...all at once. As if a spotlight was on me. Perhaps the mushrooms were holding a mirror up, showing me what my anxiety looks like. Perhaps, I just took too much.

After taking the Xanax the visuals were still there but it was as if they were in slow motion. Kinda cool to witness. Eventually my partner got my text and came over, that helped ground me as well.