red22
Bluelighter
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James L. Kent, "Psychedelic Information Theory", Alpha Chapters, Chapter 12
Datura, Belladonna, Tropane Delirients, Dramamine, Benadryl, Antihistamines & The Classic Anticholinergics
Well, okay, you wanted weird territory, here it is. Of all the families of classic hallucinogens the anticholinergics are gateways to the world of the Bizarro shaman, the one who likes to bend reality as far as it can go, the one who might not come back the same way ever again. Of all the hallucinogenic substances known to humans these are possibly the oldest, most powerful, as most dangerous to use. Found naturally in the Solanaceae family of white trumpeting-flower plants (such as Datura, Belladonna, Deadly Nightshade, Brugmansia, Jimson Weed, etc.) the tropane delirients atropine and scopalamine have been used by witches, shamen, and physicians alike for as far as recorded history goes back. Unlike the classic psychedelics which typically lead to perceptual distortions and lucid dream-like states, high dose anticholinergic ingestion leads to frank or concrete hallucination, which is the waking sensation that something or someone is right in front of you when in reality there is nothing there at all, or of believing that you are in one place when in fact you are somewhere completely different. Yet with anticholinergic hallucinations there is no doubt that what the user is seeing is not real, the acceptance of the dream-like delusion is total. The user simply forgets all previous waking contexts and accepts the paradoxical un-reality as reality, and for the most part retains little or no memory of it once it has passed. This is generally called delirium, delusion, or dementia, but experientially it is just plain strange. In a very real sense the user in the anticholinergic trance is sleepwalking: both fully awake and functioning in the real world while at the same time dreaming as if the brain were in deep REM sleep. How is that possible?
Well, first it is useful to know that anticholinergics disrupt the activity of acetylcholine at the muscarinic receptors of the cholinergic system, hence the name anti-cholinergic (and yes, it is called the muscarinic receptor because muscimol, the active compound of fly agaric mushrooms, has a high affinity for this receptor type, but as an agonist). Knowing that anticholinergics disrupt acetylcholine activity, if we look at Hobson's AIM model to try to figure out how anticholinergics work there might be some confusion. If acetylcholine is supposed to mediate sleep and REM activity, how can a drug that blocks the action of acetylcholine produce such profound dream-like effects? Once again this is a question not of action, but of dosage.
But before we get into a full clinical examination, it should be noted that experimenting with even extremely small amounts of tropane alkaloids is unpleasant. Of all the drugs mentioned in this text nothing disrupts the body's internal systems more than the tropane delirients. Motor control and mucus production go down, respiration and heart rate goes up. Common side effects include dry irritated throats, itchy skin, headaches, pressure in the head, blurred vision, pupil dilation, agitation, high blood pressure, and more. If you ever take a large dose of an anticholinergic it becomes exceedingly obvious that acetylcholine is a very important neurotransmitter, important for far more than just mediating sleep and dreaming. It is the workhorse messenger of the parasympathetic nervous system, interacting with both involuntary heart muscles and voluntary skeletal muscles to relax muscle tone and slow heart rate; it is intricately connected to stimulation of the glossopharyngeal, facial, and vagus nerves; it triggers production of saliva and mucous essential for eating, swallowing, and digestion; it is essential to long term memory formation and recall; and if your body runs low on acetylcholine it can lead to Alzheimer's disease. And although anticholinergics have been in wide use for at least thousands of years, they are by no means "safe" to use at what would be considered psychedelic doses. They are extremely dangerous to say the least.
So now that we've gotten that out of the way, let's take a look at what happens under a heavy dose of these bad boys. Under heavy Datura intoxication you essentially become a sleepwalker. A bloodshot-eyed, dry mouth, stumbling, agitated, delusional zombie. When looking at Hobson's AIM model it is hard to tell where this state actually is. It sounds like there is high acetylcholine action because of the dreamlike intensity, but obviously the user should be in a low cholinergic state if their acetylcholine uptake was massively disrupted, right? Both experientially and behaviorally it seems obvious that functions of the prefrontal cortex (contextualization of self) and hippocampus (memory formation and recall) are totally disrupted, indicating low aminergic modulation. But let's not forget that these areas also have high concentrations of muscarinic receptors which are responsive to acetylcholine, and an interruption at those sights might be enough to knock these areas into extremely low functioning states. And while dream-like frank hallucinations would seem to indicate high cholinergic functioning, this is not necessarily the case. To me it seems that there can be one of a couple things going on here...
First of all, Hobson's AIM model could be a little off the mark on a critical axis, and high acetylcholine modulation is not actually a requirement for dream activation. It could be that acetylcholine acts as both a dream promoter when aminergic functioning in the prefrontal cortex and hippocampus is low (while sleeping, resting), while conversely acting as a dream inhibitor when aminergic functioning is high (while waking, active). If we were to view acetylcholine as having a dualistic gating function on memory (waking memory input) and dreaming (sleeping memory compression) located at the hippocampus and mediated by environmental factors — such as the activity of the pre-frontal cortex, the levels of seratonin and melatonin, rhythmic circadian stimulation from the hypothalamus, etc. — then the picture becomes a little clearer. With this model any significant disruption of acetylcholine would disrupt the waking/memory sleeping/dreaming dichotomy, and thus the thin chemical boundaries which normally prevent the dreaming mind from intruding on the waking mind vanish. This model is not as clean as the pure aminergic/cholinergic duality in Hobson's unified theory, but as many chemical messengers have multiple functions in different contexts, this model or some variation on it is not entirely out of the question.
The other possibility, of course, is what I would call the boomerang effect of extreme acetylcholine interruption. Since acetylcholine is such an important messenger it is reasonable to expect that any major disruption in acetylcholine uptake would of course lead to an increase of endogenous acetylcholine production. If uptake is critically blocked the body may in turn totally freak out and begin pumping acetylcholine like mad, flooding the brain and body with as much as it can produce. And then, once the anticholinergic agent begins to metabolize... Wham! Acetylcholine smashes into the system like a runaway truck and transports the user seamlessly and instantaneously into a fully interactive waking dream-space. The acetylcholine boomerang effect was perfected by the amateur consciousness explorer Zoe 7, and detailed in his graphic autobiographical work entitled Into the Void. Within the pages of Into the Void Zoe 7 found many different ways to induce this boomerang effect on himself, including depriving himself of REM sleep for days on end and then ingesting a massive amount of Benadryl, which contains the antihistamine diphenhydramine, which also acts as an anticholinergic at high doses. Zoe 7 also used various different drugs and light-and-sound emitting brain machines (pulse generators) to amplify his technique, and this extreme REM deprivation coupled with the extreme anticholinergic action created what he subjectively believes to be complete dimensional shifts to parallel universes. The immersive states Zoe 7 produced were so profound he has now written two books about his visitations to alternate dimensions, and speaks around the world about his experiences. I'll talk more about parallel dimensions and alternate universes later, but what we are seeing here in this boomerang effect is more likely a profound immersive state brought on by a flood of acetylcholine hitting a REM deprived brain and forcing it into dream psychosis.
One might wonder why, during an intense acetylcholine boomerang action, isn't the memory also enhanced? Why does dreaming come to the fore and memory diminish? In this case in may be helpful to think of the hippocampus as a VCR for memory recording and dream playback (which may be accurately described as a kind of memory compression). Generally if the hippocampus is involved in dream activity it cannot simultaneously be recording memories of the event. This is primarily because the pre-frontal cortex is offline in the dreaming state, and cannot prime memories for delivery to the hippocampus for storage. The exception to this rule is, of course, the lucid dream state where the personal awareness of the PFC comes back online within the dream, as in the last few moments of dreaming upon waking up, where memories of dreams become more intense. In these fleeting transitional states the hippocampus can be both producing dream activity and taking memory info from the PFC at the same time. Thus the circuit from memory to dream and back to memory is completed, and acetylcholine is needed for every step of this functioning. Typically in an anticholinergic dream state there is no memory of what is happening to you. Zoe 7 claims that his use of brain-stimulating machines helped balance the acetylcholine boomerang effect and allowed him to retain enough lucidity to have a clear memory of each breakthrough episode, but I cannot personally verify that his methods actually work. Again, your mileage may vary.
Some limited personal experimentation with Zoe 7's techniques (modified for us normal humans, of course) have definitely led me to some of the most profound lucid dreaming experiences I have ever had, but that is clearly what they were. I have been in enough lucid dreams to realize when I am in one, but these were some of the crispest and most impressively detailed dreams I have ever been in, and by far the longest lasting (which is what made it both cool and exasperating at the same time). I kept walking around and knocking on things, feeling things, testing to see if everything was solid, knowing I was in a dream and that none of it was real. I was exhausted and wanted to wake up so I could get some sleep (get that?) and was not be able to, and was not able to fully get my bearings at all. Recursive realities fooled me into thinking I had retuned a couple times, when in fact I was still out of it. It was a very uncomfortable ride, totally immersive, totally wrapped like an onion, impossible to get out, insane at points. But I eventually passed out and fully crashed into zonk-land, and then it was over. It was an alternate universe all right, but one that I was happy to finally wake up from.
However, Zoe 7 must be made of stouter stuff that I am. It is his testimony that being rigorous about the REM deprivation and staying awake through the extreme somatic heaviness of all the antihistamines is the only way to break through into the fully waking dimensional shifting state. I personally cannot stand to go without REM sleep for too long, and when I start having totally immersive lucid dreams that's when I know I have been fatigued and depriving my body of sleep for too long. My own mild anticholinergic experiments can be considered a mere fraction of what Zoe 7 put himself through in the name of science, and you can say that he came back somewhat fractured (for the better?).
So that's the tale of the Bizarro shaman, Crazy Kieri and his gang of alternate world-walkers, god talkers, witches on broomsticks, and those who seek the mystic vision in the hardest and most immersive forms. A little sleep deprivation here, a pinch of anticholinergic there, wham-o presto you are in your own little universe. Again, this is not a classical psychedelic experience like you would get from a 5HT2A agonist, but it is without a doubt the farthest anyone has mapped out there on the rim of human experience, beyond psychedelic you might say. The craziest shamen are the ones who drop datura in their ayahuasca brew, for the visions, no? Oh yes, the visions. If you want to give your gods physical form, then yes, here it is, that is the recipe. But beware, you will be giving your gods physical form, and will be doing so at the risk of your own health and sanity. Triple light-speed oblivion express to the universal dream space academy, first class, yes sir. You'll receive your official badge and uniform once you get there. You can trust me on that...
----
Some pretty good information in the following book, such as the following. I also suggest checking out all the entried for these types of plants in The Encyclopedia of Psychoactive Plants (Christian Rätsch, 2005)
Following the description of the structure and activity of scoplamine by Ladenburg, the search for synthetic analogues of and methods for total synthesis of scoplamine and/or atropine in the 1930s and 1940s resulted in the discovery of diphenhydramine, an early antihistamine and the prototype of its chemical subclass of these drugs, and pethidine, the first fully synthetic opioid analgesic, known as Dolatin and Demerold amongst many other trade names.
[image]/forums/thumbs/13-005/950278802-thumb_195.gif[/image] [image]/forums/thumbs/13-005/950278825-thumb_196.gif[/image] [image]/forums/thumbs/13-005/950278847-thumb_197.gif[/image] [image]/forums/thumbs/13-005/950278869-thumb_198.gif[/image]
[image]/forums/thumbs/13-005/950278892-thumb_199.gif[/image] [image]/forums/thumbs/13-005/950278915-thumb_200.gif[/image] [image]/forums/thumbs/13-005/950278938-thumb_201.gif[/image] [image]/forums/thumbs/13-005/950278961-thumb_202.gif[/image]
[image]/forums/thumbs/13-005/952156479-thumb_239.gif[/image] [image]/forums/thumbs/13-005/952156505-thumb_240.gif[/image]
"Pharmacology for Anesthetists 5," John D. Current, M.D., p. 195 | http://books.google.com/books?id=RJpEbB9_c9MC&pg=PA195
Here's a video on the criminal aspect of scopolamine (I haven't watched it yet): http://www.acidplanet.com/artist.asp?PID=577262&t=1
I have more links on the criminal aspect, which I'll update this thread with.
Datura, Belladonna, Tropane Delirients, Dramamine, Benadryl, Antihistamines & The Classic Anticholinergics
Well, okay, you wanted weird territory, here it is. Of all the families of classic hallucinogens the anticholinergics are gateways to the world of the Bizarro shaman, the one who likes to bend reality as far as it can go, the one who might not come back the same way ever again. Of all the hallucinogenic substances known to humans these are possibly the oldest, most powerful, as most dangerous to use. Found naturally in the Solanaceae family of white trumpeting-flower plants (such as Datura, Belladonna, Deadly Nightshade, Brugmansia, Jimson Weed, etc.) the tropane delirients atropine and scopalamine have been used by witches, shamen, and physicians alike for as far as recorded history goes back. Unlike the classic psychedelics which typically lead to perceptual distortions and lucid dream-like states, high dose anticholinergic ingestion leads to frank or concrete hallucination, which is the waking sensation that something or someone is right in front of you when in reality there is nothing there at all, or of believing that you are in one place when in fact you are somewhere completely different. Yet with anticholinergic hallucinations there is no doubt that what the user is seeing is not real, the acceptance of the dream-like delusion is total. The user simply forgets all previous waking contexts and accepts the paradoxical un-reality as reality, and for the most part retains little or no memory of it once it has passed. This is generally called delirium, delusion, or dementia, but experientially it is just plain strange. In a very real sense the user in the anticholinergic trance is sleepwalking: both fully awake and functioning in the real world while at the same time dreaming as if the brain were in deep REM sleep. How is that possible?
Well, first it is useful to know that anticholinergics disrupt the activity of acetylcholine at the muscarinic receptors of the cholinergic system, hence the name anti-cholinergic (and yes, it is called the muscarinic receptor because muscimol, the active compound of fly agaric mushrooms, has a high affinity for this receptor type, but as an agonist). Knowing that anticholinergics disrupt acetylcholine activity, if we look at Hobson's AIM model to try to figure out how anticholinergics work there might be some confusion. If acetylcholine is supposed to mediate sleep and REM activity, how can a drug that blocks the action of acetylcholine produce such profound dream-like effects? Once again this is a question not of action, but of dosage.
But before we get into a full clinical examination, it should be noted that experimenting with even extremely small amounts of tropane alkaloids is unpleasant. Of all the drugs mentioned in this text nothing disrupts the body's internal systems more than the tropane delirients. Motor control and mucus production go down, respiration and heart rate goes up. Common side effects include dry irritated throats, itchy skin, headaches, pressure in the head, blurred vision, pupil dilation, agitation, high blood pressure, and more. If you ever take a large dose of an anticholinergic it becomes exceedingly obvious that acetylcholine is a very important neurotransmitter, important for far more than just mediating sleep and dreaming. It is the workhorse messenger of the parasympathetic nervous system, interacting with both involuntary heart muscles and voluntary skeletal muscles to relax muscle tone and slow heart rate; it is intricately connected to stimulation of the glossopharyngeal, facial, and vagus nerves; it triggers production of saliva and mucous essential for eating, swallowing, and digestion; it is essential to long term memory formation and recall; and if your body runs low on acetylcholine it can lead to Alzheimer's disease. And although anticholinergics have been in wide use for at least thousands of years, they are by no means "safe" to use at what would be considered psychedelic doses. They are extremely dangerous to say the least.
So now that we've gotten that out of the way, let's take a look at what happens under a heavy dose of these bad boys. Under heavy Datura intoxication you essentially become a sleepwalker. A bloodshot-eyed, dry mouth, stumbling, agitated, delusional zombie. When looking at Hobson's AIM model it is hard to tell where this state actually is. It sounds like there is high acetylcholine action because of the dreamlike intensity, but obviously the user should be in a low cholinergic state if their acetylcholine uptake was massively disrupted, right? Both experientially and behaviorally it seems obvious that functions of the prefrontal cortex (contextualization of self) and hippocampus (memory formation and recall) are totally disrupted, indicating low aminergic modulation. But let's not forget that these areas also have high concentrations of muscarinic receptors which are responsive to acetylcholine, and an interruption at those sights might be enough to knock these areas into extremely low functioning states. And while dream-like frank hallucinations would seem to indicate high cholinergic functioning, this is not necessarily the case. To me it seems that there can be one of a couple things going on here...
First of all, Hobson's AIM model could be a little off the mark on a critical axis, and high acetylcholine modulation is not actually a requirement for dream activation. It could be that acetylcholine acts as both a dream promoter when aminergic functioning in the prefrontal cortex and hippocampus is low (while sleeping, resting), while conversely acting as a dream inhibitor when aminergic functioning is high (while waking, active). If we were to view acetylcholine as having a dualistic gating function on memory (waking memory input) and dreaming (sleeping memory compression) located at the hippocampus and mediated by environmental factors — such as the activity of the pre-frontal cortex, the levels of seratonin and melatonin, rhythmic circadian stimulation from the hypothalamus, etc. — then the picture becomes a little clearer. With this model any significant disruption of acetylcholine would disrupt the waking/memory sleeping/dreaming dichotomy, and thus the thin chemical boundaries which normally prevent the dreaming mind from intruding on the waking mind vanish. This model is not as clean as the pure aminergic/cholinergic duality in Hobson's unified theory, but as many chemical messengers have multiple functions in different contexts, this model or some variation on it is not entirely out of the question.
The other possibility, of course, is what I would call the boomerang effect of extreme acetylcholine interruption. Since acetylcholine is such an important messenger it is reasonable to expect that any major disruption in acetylcholine uptake would of course lead to an increase of endogenous acetylcholine production. If uptake is critically blocked the body may in turn totally freak out and begin pumping acetylcholine like mad, flooding the brain and body with as much as it can produce. And then, once the anticholinergic agent begins to metabolize... Wham! Acetylcholine smashes into the system like a runaway truck and transports the user seamlessly and instantaneously into a fully interactive waking dream-space. The acetylcholine boomerang effect was perfected by the amateur consciousness explorer Zoe 7, and detailed in his graphic autobiographical work entitled Into the Void. Within the pages of Into the Void Zoe 7 found many different ways to induce this boomerang effect on himself, including depriving himself of REM sleep for days on end and then ingesting a massive amount of Benadryl, which contains the antihistamine diphenhydramine, which also acts as an anticholinergic at high doses. Zoe 7 also used various different drugs and light-and-sound emitting brain machines (pulse generators) to amplify his technique, and this extreme REM deprivation coupled with the extreme anticholinergic action created what he subjectively believes to be complete dimensional shifts to parallel universes. The immersive states Zoe 7 produced were so profound he has now written two books about his visitations to alternate dimensions, and speaks around the world about his experiences. I'll talk more about parallel dimensions and alternate universes later, but what we are seeing here in this boomerang effect is more likely a profound immersive state brought on by a flood of acetylcholine hitting a REM deprived brain and forcing it into dream psychosis.
One might wonder why, during an intense acetylcholine boomerang action, isn't the memory also enhanced? Why does dreaming come to the fore and memory diminish? In this case in may be helpful to think of the hippocampus as a VCR for memory recording and dream playback (which may be accurately described as a kind of memory compression). Generally if the hippocampus is involved in dream activity it cannot simultaneously be recording memories of the event. This is primarily because the pre-frontal cortex is offline in the dreaming state, and cannot prime memories for delivery to the hippocampus for storage. The exception to this rule is, of course, the lucid dream state where the personal awareness of the PFC comes back online within the dream, as in the last few moments of dreaming upon waking up, where memories of dreams become more intense. In these fleeting transitional states the hippocampus can be both producing dream activity and taking memory info from the PFC at the same time. Thus the circuit from memory to dream and back to memory is completed, and acetylcholine is needed for every step of this functioning. Typically in an anticholinergic dream state there is no memory of what is happening to you. Zoe 7 claims that his use of brain-stimulating machines helped balance the acetylcholine boomerang effect and allowed him to retain enough lucidity to have a clear memory of each breakthrough episode, but I cannot personally verify that his methods actually work. Again, your mileage may vary.
Some limited personal experimentation with Zoe 7's techniques (modified for us normal humans, of course) have definitely led me to some of the most profound lucid dreaming experiences I have ever had, but that is clearly what they were. I have been in enough lucid dreams to realize when I am in one, but these were some of the crispest and most impressively detailed dreams I have ever been in, and by far the longest lasting (which is what made it both cool and exasperating at the same time). I kept walking around and knocking on things, feeling things, testing to see if everything was solid, knowing I was in a dream and that none of it was real. I was exhausted and wanted to wake up so I could get some sleep (get that?) and was not be able to, and was not able to fully get my bearings at all. Recursive realities fooled me into thinking I had retuned a couple times, when in fact I was still out of it. It was a very uncomfortable ride, totally immersive, totally wrapped like an onion, impossible to get out, insane at points. But I eventually passed out and fully crashed into zonk-land, and then it was over. It was an alternate universe all right, but one that I was happy to finally wake up from.
However, Zoe 7 must be made of stouter stuff that I am. It is his testimony that being rigorous about the REM deprivation and staying awake through the extreme somatic heaviness of all the antihistamines is the only way to break through into the fully waking dimensional shifting state. I personally cannot stand to go without REM sleep for too long, and when I start having totally immersive lucid dreams that's when I know I have been fatigued and depriving my body of sleep for too long. My own mild anticholinergic experiments can be considered a mere fraction of what Zoe 7 put himself through in the name of science, and you can say that he came back somewhat fractured (for the better?).
So that's the tale of the Bizarro shaman, Crazy Kieri and his gang of alternate world-walkers, god talkers, witches on broomsticks, and those who seek the mystic vision in the hardest and most immersive forms. A little sleep deprivation here, a pinch of anticholinergic there, wham-o presto you are in your own little universe. Again, this is not a classical psychedelic experience like you would get from a 5HT2A agonist, but it is without a doubt the farthest anyone has mapped out there on the rim of human experience, beyond psychedelic you might say. The craziest shamen are the ones who drop datura in their ayahuasca brew, for the visions, no? Oh yes, the visions. If you want to give your gods physical form, then yes, here it is, that is the recipe. But beware, you will be giving your gods physical form, and will be doing so at the risk of your own health and sanity. Triple light-speed oblivion express to the universal dream space academy, first class, yes sir. You'll receive your official badge and uniform once you get there. You can trust me on that...
----
Some pretty good information in the following book, such as the following. I also suggest checking out all the entried for these types of plants in The Encyclopedia of Psychoactive Plants (Christian Rätsch, 2005)
Following the description of the structure and activity of scoplamine by Ladenburg, the search for synthetic analogues of and methods for total synthesis of scoplamine and/or atropine in the 1930s and 1940s resulted in the discovery of diphenhydramine, an early antihistamine and the prototype of its chemical subclass of these drugs, and pethidine, the first fully synthetic opioid analgesic, known as Dolatin and Demerold amongst many other trade names.
[image]/forums/thumbs/13-005/950278802-thumb_195.gif[/image] [image]/forums/thumbs/13-005/950278825-thumb_196.gif[/image] [image]/forums/thumbs/13-005/950278847-thumb_197.gif[/image] [image]/forums/thumbs/13-005/950278869-thumb_198.gif[/image]
[image]/forums/thumbs/13-005/950278892-thumb_199.gif[/image] [image]/forums/thumbs/13-005/950278915-thumb_200.gif[/image] [image]/forums/thumbs/13-005/950278938-thumb_201.gif[/image] [image]/forums/thumbs/13-005/950278961-thumb_202.gif[/image]
[image]/forums/thumbs/13-005/952156479-thumb_239.gif[/image] [image]/forums/thumbs/13-005/952156505-thumb_240.gif[/image]
"Pharmacology for Anesthetists 5," John D. Current, M.D., p. 195 | http://books.google.com/books?id=RJpEbB9_c9MC&pg=PA195
Here's a video on the criminal aspect of scopolamine (I haven't watched it yet): http://www.acidplanet.com/artist.asp?PID=577262&t=1
I have more links on the criminal aspect, which I'll update this thread with.
Code:
[i]So after making quite a good search on the internet I got the answers mostly in accordance that you can combine Cacti + Harmalas.
Reason would be Harmalas only inhibit MAO-B and as Mescaline is a non-amphetamine, but "regular" PEA it will be broken down by MAO-A & MAO-B and thus a critically high amount of Serotonin would not build up.[/i]
Twilight Person. 2023-04-07. https://forum.dmt-nexus.me/threads/mescaline-maoi-safe.366555/
[i]Seeing as caffeine has some MAO (monoamine oxidase) inhibiting properties and the Syrian rue has even more, and since coffee is a stimulant and Syrian rue is a barbiturate, you could even say a pseudo-speedball was made, used, and abused by me.[/i]
RNOPRODUCTIONS, 2024-04-22, https://old.reddit.com/r/TripReportsTFTT/comments/1cst4yh/deleted_by_user/
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