I ended up breaking the diphenhydramine tablet into chunks and taking one, which probably constituted about 40% of the pill, or 10mg -- a rough estimate, especially considering that there's no guarantee the diphenhydramine was evenly distributed throughout the tablet; but as they say, "close enough for government work."
I went out for a walk and about half an hour after taking the tablet I began fluctuating between an eerie sort of complacency (reminiscent of the aftermath of ecstasy, and of my brief stint on the SSRI escitalopram) and outright panic. It was about forty-five degrees Fahrenheit but I was hot almost to the point of sweating -- I unbuttoned my coat and lifted my shirt up to expose my skin to the night air, but I felt absolutely no coldness. My heartrate was hovering probably right around 100 and was a bit irregular, but keep in mind I had consumed a bar of dark chocolate five hours prior.
Upon arriving back home, I lay in bed and drifted off after a little while, but awoke after about an hour of drowsing. I had that distinctive feeling in my body -- there's really none other like it -- of too much serotonin being present. My temperature was normal by then, so I didn't get too worried, but each time I would get up from bed, I would experience an extreme sort of "gray-out," all of my sensory input fading out for a second or two before returning with a feeling of blood rushing into my head. I used to experience this feeling fairly frequently when I was younger and I would get up suddenly, but not as overwhelming as this.
Some water helped to dispel my accompanying headache. I felt that sort of lazy restlessness which is the hallmark of taking an SSRI, apathetic and somewhat nauseated but also not quite able to drift off to sleep. Mentally I felt entirely complacent at this point, but the physical feelings in my body were identical to how I used to feel the day after a hefty dose of DXM; a certain giddy-restless flutter in my chest being the easiest component of this feeling to describe. I don't know how to put it into words, but I suspect a lot of people reading this will understand what I'm referring to.
When I would drift off for an hour or two at a time, my dreams were vivid and confusing, and they precluded me from feeling as though I was getting restful sleep. I ended up netting about six hours, at the price of spending twelve hours in bed.
The left side of my chest has ached on and off since I first ingested the caapi (gone now, even though I'm caffeinated). I've been able to
feel circulatory irregularities as well since ingesting the caapi, particularly in my arms and feet, which have also diminished by now. The benadryl worsened these symptoms, but not enough that I feared for my safety.
I've learned my lesson -- I'm fasting a full day before taking the caapi again and restricting my diet afterward afterward, and I'm
strictly avoiding contraindicated drugs, even in small doses.
As to the OP's question - guess it depends on the half-life of harmaline, tetrahydroharmine, etc.... which im not sure of. Anyone know? I've heard 24 hours as a guideline before but I'm not sure.
Does it only come down to the half-life? Doesn't the preponderance of neurotransmitters linger in the brain for a bit longer than the half-life of the drug? It seems to me that oxidation of all those accumulated monoamines would take some time to bring them back down to their normal levels. After all, Prozac's half-life in the body is seven days, but people are warned not to consume SSRI's and MAOI's within a two-week window of one another. I'm not a chemist so please correct me; my citation for this theorizing is the
Journal of Pulled out of My Ass.
