Sorry to be absent for so long. I'm working on another long reply for
@kaleida, but it's not quite ready yet.
I still haven't tripped since I took 2C-B with my wife over 3 weeks ago. We had a lot of work to do together to integrate that trip, which involved many hours of intense interaction over the next week or so. We were exhausted by the end of it, but our relationship seems to have been rebooted. A great many built-up tensions and resentments have been untangled, and we feel much more comfortable with each other again.
Anyway, despite having gone past 3 weeks without a trip and the fact that most post-trip after-effects seem to have faded, my health has continued to gradually improve. A key way that I assess the state of my chronic disease is to observe how my body responds to various forms of stress. These stresses include physical activity, exposure to allergens, exposure to sunlight, exposure to temperature extremes, consumption of various irritant foods, food quantity (any more than I'm used to), sleep loss or inconsistency, emotional stress, etc. Any of these things, if strong enough, can trigger a whole basket of inflammatory symptoms. Multiple simultaneous triggers can make things much worse. So when I assess my health, I'm not just assessing how I feel from day-to-day but how I feel relative to the stress I've been under. This is key. All of the aforementioned things still trigger me, but it usually takes more extreme circumstances to do so. Furthermore, I assess how quickly I "bounce back", and I am noting that even when I am triggered, I'm bouncing back much faster. For example, if I get exposed to more sun than I'm used to, then I reliably get a red bumpy rash (regardless of whether I got sun burnt) in the area, usually in the exposed area but sometimes also in random unexposed parts of the body. At the same time, I tend to get other symptoms I call "sun sickness". I get a heavy brain fog and sleepiness but can paradoxically have insomnia. With Long COVID I got new intermittent symptoms that could also be triggered or accentuated by sun exposure.
So earlier this week I did a bunch of yard work and got more sun than I'm used to. So I got a lot of sun, performed a lot of physical activity, and exposed myself to potential allergens (leaf dust). This was also the day after the time change, and I'd been eating a lot over the weekend. In the bad Long COVID days, that would have probably left me feeling like shit and put me on the couch for a few days with probably a week needed to feel fully recovered. Now? I got the anticipated skin rash and some transient hints of brain fog / fatigue but hardly anything there. Two days later, the rash is no longer itchy or inflamed and is rapidly fading, and I felt great all day---full of energy and upbeat mood, even after the heavier exercise I did (again). So not only was my reaction to the stress mild but I mostly "bounced back" within like 24 hours.
Something that might be helping me a lot is my recent experiments with tetrahydroharmine. I have taken it three times, at 25 mg, 50 mg, and then 100 mg in succession and 3 days apart. The primary effects at 25 mg and 50 mg felt pretty similar---mostly a mood lift but also some color and music enhancement. At 100 mg, these effects were more pronounced and there was also visual "weirdness" that was hard to pin down. Like I often looked at text on a screen or a sign at a distance, and I could somehow read it effortlessly even though it looked like a blurry jumble. It feels like it facilitates intense concentration and/or day dreaming. Under its influence, it seems easier to shut out distractions and focus very deeply on the subject at hand. I think many people would appreciate this quality. Even at 100 mg though, it's still quite subtle. The other thing is that it lasts so long and has such distinct after-effects that I can't really specify a duration for it. The primary effects begin to fade after 8 hours or so, but effect of different kinds continue for days afterwards. Curiously, I experienced stronger after-effects at 25 mg and milder after-effects at 100 mg. I strongly suspect this had to do with the dosing sequence and not the actual doses. If I'd started with 100 mg, I expect the after-effects would have been stronger than they were with 25 mg.
Let me try to explain. THH is said to be a "weak SSRI". On what basis this is claimed, I don't know. My guess is that it has to do with its affinity for the serotonin reuptake transporter (SRT) and nothing more. That's to say it may not even be an SSRI but may do other things via the SRT including possibly increasing genetic expression of SRT. This is rather opposite to what most pharmaceutical SSRIs do, and in fact, THH might be closer to an "anti-SSRI" than an SSRI. So I'm inclined to assume that the early after-effects are due to increasing density of SRT, which leads to a deficiency of serotonin in the synapse. After a little while (a few days?) though, the various serotonin receptors begin to become up-regulated in response to their under-stimulation, and the system moves toward a new steady state with more SRT present but also more 5HTR present too. This might help reduce tolerance to psychedelics, but I don't know. It may depend on the circumstances.
Anyway, my subjective experience of the after-effects of THH seem quite consistent with this kind of process. In the primary effect, there is perhaps some slight enhancement of serotonin activity, either via SRT blocking, very mild MAOI effect, and/or direct activation, but another effect is to increase SRT expresion, and this maybe starts to kick in after a few hours but may take a full day or two to completely manifest. Hence, the experience gradually shifts to one of decreased serotonin activity, but this shift may depend not just on the dose but on how much SRT was already expressed. If SRT expression was already highly enhanced from previous dosage, then the increase in SRT expression may be smaller and after-effects weaker. This is my best guess as to why my 100 mg trial seemed to have fewer after-effects than my 25 mg trial. I'm now at day 4 after the 100 mg, and I had an excellent day, so it may take me about 4 days for my serotonin sensitivity to recover from the increase in SRT. One reason this may help my health is that the increase in SRT and receptor sensitivity might move the system to a more robust and flexible state, one that is more capable of absorbing shocks so to speak. SRTs are essential for the body to actually store serotonin for any length of time. SRTs on platelets take serotonin from the blood into storage. More SRTs mean potentially more serotonin being stored for a time it's actually needed. Chronic pharmaceutical SSRI use may cause chronic depletion of serotonin stores, lead to a highly unstable and fragile state in which serotonin is necessarily either absent from the synapse or present in excess.
Anyway, I'm looking forward to further THH experiments. A handful of vocal proponents recommend taking it with certain psychedelics such as mescaline. Some anecdotal evidence also suggests is potentiates DMT, possibly by preventing SRTs from pulling DMT out of the synapse as though it were serotonin. It occurs naturally as a major constituent of ayahuasca vine together with the MAOI harmine. Harmine orally activates and potentiates DMT through its MAOI action. Harmine may also increase THH absorption. THH in turn has significant oneirogenic effects, which appear to manifest regardless of whether the subject is awake or not, and which are enhanced by DMT. So in a high quality ayahuasca brew, one has these three components in balance working together synergistically. Maybe harmaline factors in too, but most brews have very little harmaline.
I hope you all are having a good week.
How are you all doing?
