Contraindications for herbal sleep tablets and psilocybin mushrooms

[Flickering]

Hey guys, I've recently started taking herbal sleeping tablets. Not my style to fight insomnia or depression with pills, but I've found these to be unintrusive - they don't force a happy mood on me, and they don't just knock me out. So I've decided to keep taking them. They're called Swisse Ultiboost.

Next weekend, I plan to take 3.5 grams of psilocybin mushrooms, blindfold myself, put on noise-cancelling headphones (with music for the first 2 hours, silence after that) and go deep into my psyche in search of the core of my soul. If anyone recognises these ingredients, can you please tell me if I should discontinue taking the pills several days before this trip?

Magnesium (6.4mg/pill)
Hops (200mg/pill)
China root (50mg/pill)
Anemarrhena (50mg/pill)
Valerian (1.3g/pill)
Licorice (50mg/pill)

I have actually found these pills, on their own, have a very mild hallucinogenic quality. I attribute this to the valerian, which I think is a dream herb. They expand my mind just a little tiny bit... it may be because of my prior experience with psychedelics, making me more readily able to access those states of consciousness than most people, or simply able to notice it more. For that reason, I would like to take two of these pills, which is the maximum recommended dose, immediately before eating the mushrooms, to induce a dreamlike state and help me travel through the corridors of my mind.

Bonus points if you can answer the same question for LSD, mescaline and DMT. In the case of LSD, I ask because I can never sleep after taking that stuff, unless I take alcohol or Valium, and I really prefer not to use those substances.

Thanks for your help and time.

 

[sekio]

Most of those have no or very mild effects, I doubt they will interact negatively with anything at all.

No clue what the "dosages" are referring to - major standardized component, total dried herb, alcohol extract?

6mg of magnesium will do nothing. You get 10x more than that in a daily diet.
200mg of hops will do very little, hops are indeed sedative but you'd need several grams brewed, or significant amounts of essential oil (>1g). The smell of hops may actually be more psychoactive than consuming hops... try that.
China root @ 50mg = TCM that does very little.
Same wuith your chinese asparagus derivative. 50mg of random flavonoids is similar to a cup of tea. They're just water soluble antioxidants.
1.3g valerian will be a mild sedative.
50mg licorice probably won't do anything, but there is evidence you don't want to eat too much as it can cause testosterone imbalances and hypotension.

The valerian is probably the main active ingredient you should worry about, and even then it won't do much but smooth out a mushroom trip ever so slightly.

 

[Flickering]

Fantastic. Thanks for the quick response, sekio. I'll take two pills and if they do nothing, that's fine, I'm sure the mushrooms will be enough.

The pills may indeed be placebos, however, I noticed a distinct improvement to my mood even when I'd only been told they were for insomnia. When I looked it up, I found several of the ingredients are supposed to relieve anxiety and depression. Well, I don't really mind if it's all in my head - it's working.

 

[Limpet_Chicken]

Liquorice root also buggers around with corticosteroid synthesis. IIRC there have been cases where people with Addison's disease had a huge craving for liquorice, and consumed enough that it actually masked the symptoms until the shit hit the fan.

50mg is a tiny amount though, and not nearly enough to do that sort of thing. Sekio, could you perhaps point me at any research data on the effect of liquorice on test levels? I'm on long term opioids, which are known to suppress androgen release/production thanks to a fucked up hip, knee, big toe and neuropathic pain all over the whorebegotten place.

And lol, now you mention it, you started me off craving it. I love liquorice, both candies, dried root to chew on, and to make tea out of

As for valerian, its actually interesting stuff at higher doses. I've found that it does indeed relieve anxiety and promote sleep. There appears to be a profound tachyphylaxis though, which is odd considering the relatively low potency on a weight basis. Interestingly, I have noted that taking it before sleep as an extract produces a very vivid dream state, akin to lucid dreaming. Very enjoyable, although at times it has proved difficult to tell weather I was asleep or awake.

This is where that tachyphylaxis effect kicks in, within a few days at the absolute most.

Bloody stinky stuff though, valerian extract smells like a sewer rat pissed inside a sweaty, thoroughly dirty used sock, crawled inside and died.

 

[Flickering]

Well that pretty much sums up how these tablets taste.

I took two last night and let's just say I definitely won't be doing that before the mushroom trip. One will be fine.

Yes, valerian is a dream herb, like calea zacatechichi and mugwort. I find those substances have a distinct effect on my dreams. With calea, it's VERY strange, almost like you're on a tiny hit of salvia and cannabis at the same time, and it lasts eight hours or so. (I once drank two cups of calea tea and smoked eight joints of it, and I swear to this day I was on a +1 until the following morning.) Funnily enough, the only substance I've ever experienced a lucid dream from was damiana, which is an aphrodisiac.

 

[Limpet_Chicken]

How do you use mugwort? I've heard tell of sticking it inside one's pillow, but direct intake seems intuitively like it would allow more of the active compounds within to be absorbed. What have you tried? smoking it? oral administration?

Its fairly common locally, so I think I will pick some, and buy some valerian extract capsules/pills.
It really does taste of a diseased dog's arse-nugget-covered chocolate starfish (no, not that I have experience tasting that of course ) and try the two in combination. I've had good results from valerian before, less experience by far with mugwort, I haven't really had the time to experiment. Never tried calea at all before. Does it work well with the other oneirogens such as mugwort, valerian etc?

 

[Flickering]

I tried sticking it under my pillow, fully believing it wouldn't work, and to my amazement, it didn't work. I find it best to just brew in a tea. I once took a very large amount and had some utterly incoherent dreams for about three hours (it was like the dream equivalent of a bad trip), then woke up feeling fully refreshed. I've only smoked it a few times, and it put me in a bad mood.

I haven't tried mixing calea with anything. Be warned, if you think valerian tastes bad, well... prepare yourself. Hopefully you've taken DXM or cactus before. Those are the only two things in the world I would say taste worse. Drinking two cups and smoking eight bowls of it was, frankly, legendary.

 

[Limpet_Chicken]

I shall try that, brewing into a tea then. Never heard of that being done before.

And no, I've never tried peyote/Trichocereus spp., I've never successfully done DXM..it just doesn't work well on me at all. Although I have drank DXM cough syrup before. Doesn't really taste that bad to me.

Poppy tea...now THAT is disgusting. I have to stick my gas mask on to brew it, as even the smell knocks me sick to my stomach. With fresh pods that is, it is MUCH less disagreeable when dried ones are used.

Valerian isn't really bad at all, if its in capsule/tablet form. I can't imagine brewing a tea out of it, that would be truly awful. In capsules etc. it just stinks.

If I ever do cactus (and I plan to), I would have to do an extraction, as I can't eat veg at all, for sensory reasons.

 

[~NaStYNaI~]

what about melatonin?will it be ok to mix with phens like DOC?!

 

[Solipsis]

Melatonin does subtle things to your circadian rhythm, I don't think there are drug contraindications. I'd be surprised if someone could name one here, well maybe MAO-A inhibitors are not such an ideal thing to combine since melatonin is still a tryptamine. Not sure.