Smoked DMT: short, overwhelming, glad someone was there

Setting & intention — A quiet room at a friend's place with the friend present and sober. I'd read enough to know the experience would be short but total, and I wanted a person in the room more than I wanted privacy.

Preparation — Weighed the dose in advance rather than eyeballing it, sat back on a couch with nothing in my hands after the final inhalation, and agreed my friend would take the pipe from me.

Timeline — Effects began before I'd finished exhaling. For what was apparently about ten minutes there was no room, no couch, and no real memory of having taken anything — fast geometric movement and a feeling of being somewhere rather than seeing something. There was one moment of pure alarm early on; it passed because there was nothing to do about it. I returned in stages, and knowing my friend was there made the return feel like arriving rather than crashing.

Afterward — Shaky for half an hour, then completely lucid. I spent a few days writing about it before deciding what I thought.

What I'd note — The intensity arrives faster than it can be processed — more happens in ten minutes than ten minutes can hold. Handing the pipe off and having a sober person present weren't optional extras — losing track of a hot pipe mid-experience is a real physical risk, and I did lose track of it completely.