Dimethyltryptamine

Let's begin with the title: TIHKAL stands for "Tryptamines I Have Known And Loved," and is the continuation of the Shulgins' earlier book, PIHKAL, "Phenethylamines I Have Known And Loved." Both books occupy that most special "short shelf " reserved for books that any serious student of the subject must have.

In tryptamines, the carbon-carbon-nitrogen chain is attached to an indole group instead of a phenyl group. Common molecules built on the tryptamine backbone include serotonin, LSD, psilocybin, and dimethyltryptamine (DMT).

TIHKAL is divided into two parts. The first half of the book is prose written in the voices of "Alice" and "Shura," characters bearing so much resemblance to the authors that the "fictionalization," a la Jack Kerouac, may not extend beyond changes in proper names. But where the first half of PIHKAL was a love story, most of the pieces in TIHKAL are stand-atone essays and memoirs. One section, called "Psychedelics and Personal Transformation," contains some of Ann Shulgin's reflections and experiences of the use of various tryptamines in therapy, along with a lovely chapter called "Places in the Mind that describes the lures and pitfalls of a number of common psychedelic spaces.

A section called "Tryptamina Botanica," in "Shura's" voice, contains chapters on DMT, hoasca/ayahuasca, and morning-glory seeds. The DMT chapter may be the most comprehensive on the subject, and concludes with a seductive pointer to a feasible biotech method for producing DMT.

The second half of the book is especially for chemists, containing recipes. dosages, laboratory notes, trip reports, and reflections on fifty-five of these extremely interesting substances. Some of these chemicals are already well known, such as LSD, psilocybin, and DMT, but many of the others are not, and some are new creations.

TIHKAL is a violation of genre: it mixes science and soul -- and thus both parts of the work are given a context. This is wholly appropriate.

"The Beth State. Shura's name for this rare place is the Beth state, but it could also be thought of as a long-lasting threshold. We have experienced it only with a drug called Aleph-7, and Shura often wonders if it is exclusively a property of that particular material. Or, to put it more accurately, perhaps Aleph-7 is the only drug that opens that particular door in the psyche. And then again, perhaps there are others we don't know about.

His notes include the following: "Slow start at one hour, quiet. Walking feels strange at three hours twenty minutes; a feeling of something impending, but there are no handles, no way to place the intoxication. At four and a half hours, transition to a more familiar altered state, quite pleasant. The previous hour or so not unpleasant, just without definition."

"5-MeO-pyr-T

Qualitative Comments: with 0.5 Mg, orally) "This stuff is an absolute poison. Within minutes I noticed what can only be called ear-ringing without any ear-ringing. Intense tinnitus with no sound, most uncomfortable. There were two waves of nausea, and vomiting of yellow, bilious stuff, with thick mucus for saliva. I can't think straight -- muddled. I can't get answers to questions because I simply cannot form the questions. Eyes closed to music gave no images, but the music sounded OK. Recovery was quite rapid, and I was together again in a few hours. Never again."

(with 4 mg, smoked) "This was free base. I remember the pipe and the inhalation and, with the pouring of a small glass of scotch, I settled down in front of the TV to watch a re-run of Star Trek. That was it. I came to some time later in the front room of a professional ally of mine, who had by chance discovered me walking down the street near his house. I do not recall, nor have I been able to regain, any memories of the time I was `out there.' I apparently experienced no physical discomfort from the drug. In fact I remember feeling very comfortable when I awoke. Clearly this compound is some weird-ass shit.

COPYRIGHT 1998 Point Foundation
COPYRIGHT 2000 Gale Group