I received a bottle of Mucuna Pruriens extract through the post on Wednesday morning. I had been intending to add this supplement to my daily nootropic/supplement stack for energy, mood, focus, and for the physical benefits of increased muscular fluidity/dexterity and increase in lean muscles mass with excersise, specifically yoga.
The recommended dose is 2 capsules of Mucuna standardized to 15% L-Dopa (800mg Mucuna extract containing 120mg L-Dopa). I skipped my Rhodiola Dose in case there were any interactions (read on), and took 1 capsule to be cautious. I'm glad I only took one. I did my morning yoga flow and felt sleepy so I had a little nap. I had the most incredibly vivid dream I have had in a long time. It was nightmarish, where I was being locked in a house with a demented psychopath who wanted to do terrible things to me.
At one point in the dream, I figured out that I could control the reality I was experiencing (to a certain extent), and everything changed. The entire realm - which was previously dark, dank and toxic - transformed in to a jewel-encrusted land of psychedelic hilarity. I was upon a boat, looking across the top from stern to bow, and there were many other boats next to 'mine'. They were very colourful and shaped in perfectly geometric fashion. I was able to control their movement with the power of my mind. I was exploring this strange place for a little while, until my mental power seemed to diminish and I was back in psycho land again, being chased by a lunatic. This battle between dream lucidity and flaccidity continued for a little while, until I was able to wake myself up from the nightmare.
Upon awakening, I found myself in an unusual state of perception. There seemed to be a slight resistance in my breathing, and my skin looked pale but beautiful. My muscles were soft and easy to move. Everything had a slight glow about it. Everything felt "pink" and fluffy if that makes any sense. I was experiencing some eye wiggles.
I went about my day with a very bright mood, feeling relaxed and empty of all the normal annoying thoughts that chatter incessantly in my head when I'm not meditating. Not in a benzodiazepine kind of way, this felt very different. Come night time, I could not sleep for toffees, and every time I tried to do so I would get intense brain zaps which would leave me feeling wildly dizzy and disoriented. I had been up on a hill overlooking the adjacent town all evening. I lay down on a bench and looked up at the stars, still having intense eye wiggles. I was chasing stars around the sky with my eyes because they kept moving, which was fun and very meditative. I must have been laying there for hours, because when I looked at the time on my phone it was 00:49.
I went home and tried to sleep, but it was impossible because it felt like something was being detonated in the centre of my head everytime I tried to fall asleep. So I spent the night playing guitar, amazed at the increase in dexterity.
By the morning I was very tired, and just wanted to sleep. I tried, but to no avail, only experiencing more head zaps. They became very annoying. As the sun rose, things started to become more psychedelic. The pink feeling and fluffiness increased, and I started experiencing morphing in objects. I would almost perceive faces melting in and out of flower patterns and wood grain. I could hear the ether, and there was many flashes of light, bursts of static, and moving shadows. I decided to go for a walk to get some fresh air, and I was feeling very weak and sometimes quite dizzy, like I would pass out on the spot.
I drank water and ate some wholesome foods (although I wasn't feeling very hungry), and I walked to one of my favourite places up on a hill where I can sit watching the world go by. Sitting for hours, I watched people jog past on their daily runs, gaped at aeroplanes flying overhead, and watched the sun come down and finally set. I was feeling absolutely wired, and by this time I was tripping pretty moderately, constantly. I was still having occasional head zaps, but they had lessened in intensity considerably.
Jupiter and Venus looked stunning in the blue sky in conjunction with the crescent moon, and I sat for a couple of hours watching this. As it got dark, I decided to go home and get something to eat. I was very tired and tried sleeping, but I still could not. I lurked on Bluelight for a while, amazed at how long I had been tripping on 1 capsule of this substance that isn't even supposed to be psychedelic, even at the recommended dose of 2 capsules.
By this time I had been 'tripping' for roughly 40 hours. I tried to go to sleep again a couple of hours later, and voila, I woke up at around 10:00 the next moring (Friday) feeling very refreshed.
At some points during this experience it felt like I was on the verge of "losing the plot", but I was able to keep it together. I knew immediately that it had to be the potentiation from the MAO b inhibiting aspect of the Rhodiola, keeping excessive amounts of dopamine and norepinephrine in my brain to work their magic. Mucuna also contains numurous other alkaloids, including nicotine, 5-MeO-DMT, and Bufotenin, so who knows how much they contributed to the experience.
It was far more than just a speed high. I am familiar with dopaminergic drugs, having abused methylphenidate pretty heavily some years back, and taken cocaine on countless occasions, amphetamine too. This was quite different. The high was lush. Everything felt marshmallowy with a psychedelic tinge, and I had long periods of very serene and tranquil mindstates that were void of internal monologue. The world looked yummy. It felt very relaxing actually, just being in the moment.
But it was also far too much for my brain. It felt like overdrive, like I was being driven on when I just wanted to rest. Yoga felt very good, but by the second day I was way too fatigued to do any asanas. It has left me with sensorial static. All those brain jolts seem to have done a bit of temporary damage, and my brain feels in need of some TLC. Visual, aural, and tactile static is apparent - in the case of the tactile sense, I am experiencing occasional parasthesias (pins and needles). It's nothing that a good diet and some excersise and rest won't cure. So I think I'll go and pour myself a glass of vegetable juice right now!
Conclusion:
Although it was delicious, I won't be combining Mucuna with Rhodiola any time soon. There is a definite interaction here. One normally needs to take a decarboxylase inhibitor with L-Dopa to allow great enough levels to reach the brain before it gets converted to dopamine in the body. Even so, with all the extra dopamine in the brain, there is only one good reason that it may stick around for so long (2 days) with such intensity: monamine oxidase inhibition of MAO b.
Additional notes:
I would like to try combining Mucuna with EGCG (from green tea extract) which is a peripheral decarboxylase inhibitor, and COMT inhibitor. This means that more L-Dopa has a chance to cross the blood-brain barrier before being decarboxylated to dopamine. This should produce a more intense high with less of the peripheral side-effects associated with excessive dopamine in the body. It could also be worth doing this with an MAOI selective for MAO-a, such as a low dose of harmalas. Although Rhodiola is an MAO a inhibitor, it also inhibits MAO b with almost equal intensity. An MAOI such as harmaline would presumably boost the serotonergic activity of the tryptamine alkaloids, whilst leaving dopamine metabolism intact.
