I find with oral 5meomipt comes on fast, like 20-30minutes and im peaking. Peak's over in 2 hours though, after that it's hot a lóng tail.
Miscellaneous Body medicines
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There's freeze, and then there's freeze. Sometimes, I'm feeling a little numb, just not super in my emotions and sensations. That's something that I can work with, because I feel that it's still in the "window of tolerance" if you will. However, what I commonly experience is this flushing feeling that starts from my kidneys/adrenals - they get very activated and what it literally feels like is that they are pumping out a huge dose of some kind of numbing chemical. It's not an activating feeling like I'm feeling really anxious or preparing for fight/flight, it's quite the opposite. My body is really shutting down, and the best way I can describe it is it feels like a big dose of numbing agent is percolating throughout my entire body. My dantian, as they say in Chinese medicine, my gut, or the major energy center in my body, is getting put to sleep. In that state, I really don't want to move much at all, and my stomach feels like a lead brick. If I try to do exercise or physical activity, I feel like I'm fighting against the tension in my gut. I hate to be dark but my body is really saying that it's not safe to be alive. Unfortunately, I experience this quite commonly.
So, if I'm in that numbed out state and I take psychedelics, the part of me that has learned how to operate in the world is really not present to experience what's happening in my body during the experience. So some time later, when the numbing wears off, that part of my brain that makes decisions, the ego structure or default mode network, never was really present for the psychedelic experience and therefore remains unchanged, yet some part of it was, and so it's as if the default mode network is then sending conflicting signals. That's when I feel discombobulated. What specifically is happening on a biological level, I can't exactly say, but this is the best subjective description I can give for my experience. Also, in that numbed out state, the lobes of my brain underneath the skin of my forehead (I guess those are my frontal lobes) feel completely devoid of activity. When I'm less numbed out, I typically will feel a lot of pressure there, and it feels like those areas of the brain are trying to come online but they're stuck. I know that might sound weird, but it's the best way I can subjectively describe it.
And to answer your question, yes, I'm looking for a way to unfreeze my system so I can get back to processing things somatically.
Can you clarify more specifically what you mean by that? I've been interested in aya because of the common purge; I so often find myself needing to throw up when I have that tension in my gut. It really feels like that's what needs to happen to rewire that inbalance in my system. I wonder if aya would help with that, though I don't know if it would be effective at all if I had that numbing thing going on. I have an opportunity to partake in an ayahuasca ceremony this weekend, and I'm on the fence as to whether or not I should attend. Also, it seems from what I've read that aya is more of a visionary/spirit medicine, but of course everyone describes it differently. I just don't know if it would be helpful for my situation specifically.
Regarding the benefits/drawbacks to full ego-dissolution, here's my main thinking. The way I've experienced my ego, is that it's always in a state of "doing" in an attempt to bring me into a state of balance. But all that doing really the exact opposite of what needs to happen in order to reach a state of balance. I personally believe (and it's quite possible that this is simply a projection of what I've experienced within myself but not necessarily universally applicable to everyone else) is that discomfort and unrest, not to mention disease, is primarily caused by some form of energetic blockage, and that energy needs to move through and complete in order for someone to truly return to a grounded state of homeostasis. If the ego is online, it's likely getting in the way of that energetic process, and that is precisely why I believe that temporarily taking it away can be very useful, even if it is quite disruptive. It might take some significant integration to adapt to the new you that emerges after the experience, but that's ok if it happens in a healthy way.
Multiple people have recommended 2C-B to me. Is that similar to MDMA in the sense that it depletes serotonin reserves and therefore can't be used regularly? And does it have hangover effects? Not that it would prevent me from trying it, but I'm just curious. I think that will probably be next on my list of things to try.
Mjäll
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2C-B is somehow empathogenic in its effects profile but i've seen or felt or heard nothing to indicate it's a serotonin releaser. It works on serotonin receptors and may have some characteristic in the profile that pulls it in a more empathogenic direction compared to many others. Among other things it appears to have lower or different effect on 5HT2A compared to most psychedelics.
So do you not have to worry about taking it too frequently then (at least from the standpoint of concern over depletion of neurotransmitters, like with MDMA)?
Mjäll
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That seems to be the current consensus, yes.
Thank you for your detailed description. It's interesting that you mention the "fight/flight response" because I've always felt that it should be "fight/flight/freeze". I've also inadvertently had IV adrenaline (dentist hit a blood vessel), and it made me feel very weak. I got intense hot flushes alternating with chills. It was pretty damn miserable until it wore off after a few minutes.
So are you purposely experimenting with taking psychedelics while frozen to try to see if you can find a way to unfreeze yourself? And if so, have you had any success? Or does this consistently lead to discombobulation as you described above?
One thing I want to suggest is that while psychedelics may not help to unfreeze you, perhaps using them semi-regularly could help reduce the frequency, duration, and/or severity of the episodes. This has been the pattern with my chronic illness, which constantly fluctuates in severity. I can't take a psychedelic to interrupt a bad flare up, but in the days and weeks following a psychedelic trip, my symptoms tend to be reduced in frequency, duration, and severity.
Good question. You can certainly try it. As always, I'm reluctant to suggest going to any guides or gurus. Aya is strong enough that it's a good to have a sitter at least. I have experienced extreme time distortion, intense confusion, and total ego loss from ayahuasca. On one occasion, it felt like weeks had passed after tripping intensely for only 2 hours. During that part of the trip, I felt disembodied, like I was seeing myself from the 3rd person. At times, I felt like I was experiencing multiple time points simultaneously, and I had a very intense deja vu experience, like I'd collided with myself in another timeline.
I would say ayahuasca trips are a lot more dreamy than most psychedelics. The vine can induce intense dream-like visions on its own if the dose if high enough. These doses are more likely to involve purging too, so if you are specifically interested in the purge, you may want to try experimenting with banisteriopsis caapi alone or in a high ratio relative to DMT.
Yes, and ayahuasca preparations vary a lot and not just in the ratios of caapi to DMT. A high caapi experience can be totally different from a high DMT experience. Many brews contain other admixtures as well.
What makes you believe that your ego is what is inhibiting the process? The ego is a high-level psychological construction. It doesn't even exist without a whole lot of concepts which are themselves very high level. This is all cortical stuff, and I certainly doubt it's confined to any sort of default mode network.
On the other hand, when you experience onset of numbness, it's not like you just decided to yourself that processing all those "energies" is too frightening or too painful and should be avoided. Rather, it just kind of happens, correct? Like something else is deciding for you. It could be something in your brain stem or maybe your vagus nerve or the nerves in your gut.
It is possible that 2C-B may deplete serotonin reserves somewhat, but it is nowhere near as severe as MDMA. I know many people on this forum have used 2C-B very frequently for extended periods of time without any apparent problems; whereas almost everyone who uses MDMA multiple times per week encounters serious problems before too long.
That's the simple answer. The complicated answer is that there have been few studies of 2C-B in humans. This means that whatever risks there may be from using it frequently are largely unknown. One known risk that is of concern to many people is that high affinity at the 5-HT2B receptor. Overactiation of the 5-HT2B receptor is associated with cardiac valvulopathy. This has been cause to completely remove or severely restrict multiple pharmaceuticals over the years. This concern exists not just for 2C-B but for almost all psychedelics as almost all of them have high affinity at 5-HT2B.
To my knowledge, no research has been done to prove or disprove that 2C-B causes serotonin release. However, I speculate it and most other psychedelics enhance serotonin release to at least an extent by activation of the 5-HT2B receptor. The 5-HT2B receptor is thought to modulate serotonin release. MDMA has a high affinity for 5-HT2B also, and I've seen research indicating that MDMA does not release large amounts of serotonin if its access to 5-HT2B is blocked. Previously it was believed that MDMA was releasing serotonin by directly acting on the serotonin transporter. Direct action at the serotonin transporter may still matter but 5-HT2B activation appears to be an essential requirement.
With that said, I think we can agree that psychedelics don't exhaust serotonin reserves to anywhere near the extent that MDMA does. MDMA and its relatives appear to be uniquely bad in this regard. Perhaps the action of MDMA at the serotonin transporter is responsible for this, and 5-HT2B-based serotonin enhancement tends to not lead to exhaustion. This is just a guess. Qualitative differences in how the 5-HT2B receptor is activated may also explain the differences. My statement that 2C-B may be among the "most MDMA-like" is based on subjective impression together with data suggesting 2C-B activates 5-HT2B with very high serotonin-like effectiveness.
Mjäll
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@iom Good point, and good information. I didn't know that 5HT2B activation is now considered prerequisite for MDMA serotonin release. Do you think this has health implications for "flip" type situations?
5HT2B affinity is also a good reason to moderate intake of any psychedelics due to potential heart concerns. They are best treated as a once-in-a-while type thing, in a similar way as empathogens but less obviously and probably less severely.
My subjective impression is that it's clearly a psychedelic moreso than empathogen, but it certainly is special among them.
5HT2B affinity is also a good reason to moderate intake of any psychedelics due to potential heart concerns. They are best treated as a once-in-a-while type thing, in a similar way as empathogens but less obviously and probably less severely.
My subjective impression is that it's clearly a psychedelic moreso than empathogen, but it certainly is special among them.
That's a good question. Ideally, for most people, I would think that they would want to partake in a psychedelic experience when they were in a good place mentally/emotionally (i.e. set). However, I hate to say it but I'd be waiting till the cows come home if I were to sit around until I felt balanced emotionally. So I've learned to try and work with the medicine when I'm feeling less frozen overall. However, the PSIP protocol that I mentioned earlier precisely addresses the issue of clients that are stuck in the freeze response, and their approach is to process the freeze until it thaws into the fight/flight, and then process that energy out as a means of returning to a state of homeostasis. If you download and read the white paper they have posted on their website it's quite intriguing. I think for myself, it's important to connect with the parts of myself that are frozen, as long as those parts don't start feeding back into my system to shut down further. Feeling into frozen parts is useful; using the ice to freeze more water is not. It's a delicate balance.
The discombobulation usually comes when I'm not just a bit frozen, but when I really have that chemical/adrenaline/cortisol release happening. If I take psychedelics in that state, that's when I feel like there's no grounding to lead the experience and it's just like putting a rotor rooter in my brain and hoping for the best.
And yes, I haven't yet found something to reliably unfreeze me. But even if I'm somewhat frozen during the experience, sometimes the energetic push that the medicines apply to the system might come through at a later time when I'm feeling more balanced. So in that way, yes, they can still be useful even if I don't experience an immediate present-moment alleviation of discomfort.
Thank you for sharing that. I've always thought of Ayahuasca as something that's only made in the middle of the jungle. Of course objectively speaking, I know that it's obviously possible for anyone to make it if they know the process and have the appropriate raw materials. Have you experimented with making it yourself? I wasn't aware that different ratios between the DMT and the MAOI could produce drastically different effects, especially upping the dose on the MAOI and lowering the amount of DMT, or eliminating it altogether. I wouldn't have guessed that the MAOI alone could produce a powerful experience, since I thought it was only used in ayahuasca brews to allow one to consume it without the DMT being neutralized in the gut. And actually to clarify, I wasn't going to attend an Ayahuasca ceremony but it was actually a Jurema ceremony, though to my knowledge they're practically identical in terms of active ingredients.
This is an interesting topic. Before I go into detail, I want to clarify that what I'm about to write below is solely based on my personal experience of myself. While I do believe that the fundamental principles are probably the same for most human beings, I also admit that I have no way of knowing how other people operate internally because I can only experience myself, and I only have experienced myself, and no one else. With that being said, here are my thoughts on the matter.
The human ego is basically a navigational beacon. It is a high level construction that has multiple functions: it allows one to interpret and make sense of the world and learn (example: I see someone walk on an icy sidewalk and slip and fall and hurt themselves, so I learn that ice is slippery and therefore I should be more cautious when I'm walking on it), it serves as system for providing checks and balances on gut impulses (example: I'm at work and I'm angry at my boss; I have a gut impulse to smack him but my ego stifles that impulse in the moment so I don't lose my job), it filters information (example: confirmation bias), it helps us to process things more efficiently (i.e. the first time in my life that I walk up to a door, I have no idea what it is - I have to look at the whole thing and make sense of it and it might take me a while to figure out that I have to put my hand on the doorknob, turn it counterclockwise, and then simultaneously press against the door to open it in order to enter a building. But once I learn this, and I hone this skill of door-opening many times, I eventually am able to walk up to a building and locate a large rectangular piece of wood and know that all I have to do is to grab the handle, rotate it and press inward to enter the building. And at this point, having done it so many times, I can do this all without thought or conscious awareness. This process has become refined and automated which allows one to navigate the world more efficiently, but at the expense of the process becoming unconscious), and it creates an identity structure that complies with the massese (example: I grow up in a family with people who are depressed, so I adopt that same way of being in order to feel connected to my environment).
To provide some personal examples, a lot of the issues I've experienced have been related to lack of support when I was growing up, so I've learned to disconnect from my body when I experience fear. And yes, to answer your question, it happens automatically, it's like lighting a fuse on a firework - it's burning and there's nothing to stop it. MY gut clamps down, I feel severe tingling in the base of my skull, I lose touch with sensation, and I essentially feel like a biological process has completely taken over any form of rational ability to process information (and indeed, it has - it's not something over which I have any control). So one aspect of my ego construct is that reality is not a safe place to be, and that I need to be in a constant state of disconnecting from it. so while this disconnection is occurring at a biological level, it is also something that I've learned to do, and I've now become so efficient at it that it has become automatic. Lots of details, but I feel like that helps to clarify things. The point I'm trying to make is that these automatic biological processes are rooted in some form of learned behavior; my guess is that maladaptive patterns like this for most people likely developed early in childhood before one's faculties were fully online. It's the ego of a 6 month old child, but it's still the ego. My grown up ego is of course in complete disbelief at what is occurring, but that's because I've largely gotten disconnected from the somatic and visceral sensation that I am now able to process as an adult. It's no different from someone who has cancer because they felt they had to suppress their emotions as a child. They might live their lives with the ego-construct of the stoic macho man who's hard as a rock and never sheds a tear or flinches or cries, and likely they won't even realize that the construct they've made for themselves is not only false, but also born out of an adaptation, and not a true reflection of their core nature.
Also, I think most people associate the ego with mental constructs, but at a core level those mental constructs arise from embodied patterns of energy; the physical vehicle of the human body is what houses the ego, and the mind is more of an intangible reflection of those energy patterns.
Anyway, that's quite a bit of detail, but I hope that helps to answer your initial question as to why I think the ego can inhibit the process of energetic rebalancing.
emkee_reinvented
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"Mimosa tenuiflora is an entheogen used by the Jurema Cult (O Culto da Jurema) in northeastern Brazil. Dried Mexican Mimosa tenuiflora root bark has been shown to have a dimethyltryptamine (DMT) content of about 1-1.7%. The stem bark has about 0.03% DMT.
The parts of the tree are traditionally used in northeastern Brazil in a psychoactive decoction also called Jurema or Yurema. Analogously, the traditional Western Amazonian sacrament Ayahuasca is brewed from indigenous ayahuasca vines. However, to date no β-carbolines such as harmala alkaloids have been detected in Mimosa tenuiflora decoctions, yet the Jurema is used in combination with several plants.
This presents challenges to the pharmacological understanding of how DMT from the plant is rendered orally active as an entheogen, because the psychoactivity of ingested DMT requires the presence of a monoamine oxidase inhibitor (MAOI), such as a β-carboline. If an MAOI is neither present in the plant nor added to the mixture, the enzyme monoamine oxidase (MAO) will metabolize DMT in the human gut, preventing the active molecule from entering the blood and brain.
The plant is also used in clandestine manufacture of crystalline DMT. In this form, it is psychoactive by itself when vaporized and inhaled."
The isolation of the chemical compound yuremamine from Mimosa tenuiflora as reported in 2005 represents a new class of phytoindoles which may explain an apparent oral activity of DMT in Jurema."
So basickly they write using it requires no adding of other plants to activate DMT.
Only problem indentifying it, they might grow here, but saw em sold under a different name. Flowers of planted ones have pink/ purprle-ish flowers fragile looking. But is it the same?
They should be white. leaves supposedly can curl up. Never saw that happen. Maybe i am looking at a look a like tree.
To follow up here for anyone else who's interested, I've now tried mescaline 3 times, and 2C-B once.
The mescaline doses were with the sulphate molecule, which I've heard is about 15% less potent than the more common HCl version. I did doses of 300, 450, and then 225mg, all about a week apart from each other.
I'll try to leave out the way my conditioning affected the experience, and I'll try just to explain how I felt the medicine affected me. I found mescaline to be very clear mentally, and subtle yet still impactful. For me, it wasn't like LSD or psilocybin where things are spinning around and the experience is somewhat chaotic and I feel altered and it seems like the external world is different. I experienced a more intense tuning in to my own sensations and feelings, without them being skewed or distorted, just amplified. Another way I could describe it was being more connected to the reality of my felt sensations, and that took the focus more than thoughts or other things in my life. In the days following the experience, I noticed that the mescaline almost seemed to carve a track of smooth feeling in my nervous system, so if I got into the freeze mode, it would draw me back to the balanced place of feeling, and if I got in the flight/anxious mode, it would also draw me back into that balanced place of feeling. I found that to be particularly useful.
I've only done 2C-B once, but I also found it to be helpful. Unlike mescaline it did seem to have a little bit more flair to it, in the sense that I felt that the medicine itself sort of injected a degree of openness to what I was feeling (i.e. that is to say it slightly altered my experience, as opposed to simply being an amplifier like mescaline was). I could certainly feel my body more, and it also did seem to have a hint of the empathogenic qualities that MDMA offers. It felt like it had more color to it, like it made it a bit more playful.
I also tried small (~1-1.5mg) doses of 5MeO-DMT from a vape pen while I was on both mescaline and 2C-B, and both of these substances seemed to be helpful for providing some level of balance to my nervous system/psyche that served as a platform for taking the 5.
Nothing was able to bring me out of freeze in the moment, but particularly the mescaline did seem to have lasting neuroplastic benefits, simply based on the way my brain felt physically (more like peanut butter and less like a rigid headache-inducing collection of pebbles in my skull). And the way my brain feels seems to have a direct correlation to my bodily experience. If I have headaches, then I'm locked up in my body. And if my brain feels like peanut butter, then my body tends to also feel looser.
I'll have to comment back here again once I try 2C-B a couple more times. I like how 2C-B is shorter acting; that makes it easier to fit into a day, rather than starting 9AM and still experiencing the effects well into the evening. And mescaline is also quite a bit more expensive. But I think, at least from my initial assessment, mescaline feels a bit more real, like it's just amplifying exactly what's going on in my body and allowing me to access it, without distortion or fluff.
The mescaline doses were with the sulphate molecule, which I've heard is about 15% less potent than the more common HCl version. I did doses of 300, 450, and then 225mg, all about a week apart from each other.
I'll try to leave out the way my conditioning affected the experience, and I'll try just to explain how I felt the medicine affected me. I found mescaline to be very clear mentally, and subtle yet still impactful. For me, it wasn't like LSD or psilocybin where things are spinning around and the experience is somewhat chaotic and I feel altered and it seems like the external world is different. I experienced a more intense tuning in to my own sensations and feelings, without them being skewed or distorted, just amplified. Another way I could describe it was being more connected to the reality of my felt sensations, and that took the focus more than thoughts or other things in my life. In the days following the experience, I noticed that the mescaline almost seemed to carve a track of smooth feeling in my nervous system, so if I got into the freeze mode, it would draw me back to the balanced place of feeling, and if I got in the flight/anxious mode, it would also draw me back into that balanced place of feeling. I found that to be particularly useful.
I've only done 2C-B once, but I also found it to be helpful. Unlike mescaline it did seem to have a little bit more flair to it, in the sense that I felt that the medicine itself sort of injected a degree of openness to what I was feeling (i.e. that is to say it slightly altered my experience, as opposed to simply being an amplifier like mescaline was). I could certainly feel my body more, and it also did seem to have a hint of the empathogenic qualities that MDMA offers. It felt like it had more color to it, like it made it a bit more playful.
I also tried small (~1-1.5mg) doses of 5MeO-DMT from a vape pen while I was on both mescaline and 2C-B, and both of these substances seemed to be helpful for providing some level of balance to my nervous system/psyche that served as a platform for taking the 5.
Nothing was able to bring me out of freeze in the moment, but particularly the mescaline did seem to have lasting neuroplastic benefits, simply based on the way my brain felt physically (more like peanut butter and less like a rigid headache-inducing collection of pebbles in my skull). And the way my brain feels seems to have a direct correlation to my bodily experience. If I have headaches, then I'm locked up in my body. And if my brain feels like peanut butter, then my body tends to also feel looser.
I'll have to comment back here again once I try 2C-B a couple more times. I like how 2C-B is shorter acting; that makes it easier to fit into a day, rather than starting 9AM and still experiencing the effects well into the evening. And mescaline is also quite a bit more expensive. But I think, at least from my initial assessment, mescaline feels a bit more real, like it's just amplifying exactly what's going on in my body and allowing me to access it, without distortion or fluff.
Thanks for the update! I'm glad you are experiencing some benefit from mescaline and 2C-B and look forward to hearing more about your future trials. I actually just had some 2C-B myself today, and I like your description of it.
I think I mentioned 2C-E earlier, but that's another one to try if you can find it. I do think 2C-E is more challenging than mescaline or 2C-B. It is a very powerful amplifier and interacts a lot with cognition. It also doesn't have the kind of upbeat push that 2C-B has.
Good luck in your future trials.
I think I mentioned 2C-E earlier, but that's another one to try if you can find it. I do think 2C-E is more challenging than mescaline or 2C-B. It is a very powerful amplifier and interacts a lot with cognition. It also doesn't have the kind of upbeat push that 2C-B has.
Good luck in your future trials.