Wild about Animals!

[The Monkey Mantra]

No, this isn't another SLR bestiality thread.

When I was in Nepal a few years back (I was 19, so it must have been about four years ago) I was sitting in a juice bar with a couple Nepali kids I'd befriended when one spotted a gecko on the wall. Both of them knew I liked psychedelic drugs, and informed me that local kids use the geckos as a powerful psychoactive agent. They said people would break off the tails (which come right off, as we all know) and spread the juicy wounded tail all over a cigarette paper before rolling a cigarette or spliff. They said it makes you trip, and it's powerful and potent and very short acting. It SOUNDED very DMT-ish to me, but really, it could be any number of things. If smoking is the method of administration I'd have to rule out psychoactive peptides, right? Has anyone heard anything like this?

Also, has anyone here tried the Dreamfish (Mao Mao) or any of the other psychoactive animal species?

Plus, a random anecdote: A friend of mine, now in his fifties, recalls a spider bite that sent him into a fractally psychedelic experience for a couple hours. Any leads?

Edit: Just found this:

NSFW:

Sir,

Although it is common knowledge that many plants contain psychoactive substances, the fact that certain animals also do is barely known. The use of various insects as substances of abuse is interesting and has not been reported in detail in medical literature. We would like to illustrate two cases of animals used for their psychoactive properties and a brief review is provided.

A 60-year-old man with a 35-year history of heroin dependence was admitted for detoxification. On detailed evaluation the patient admitted to using scorpions on many occasions when heroin was not available. He described a distinct pleasurable effect of the sting that was more potent than heroin. He experienced an instant rush and would feel relaxed and would be under its effects for almost six hours. The patient used to collect the scorpions from the crevices in the rocks and would make it sting his hands before disposing them. He did not report any hallucinations or loss of consciousness any time during his sojourns.

A 35-year-old man with a 15-year history of heroin use was imprisoned for alleged illegal activities. While serving his term, the patient shifted his drug of use to lizards due to non-availability of heroin. He would catch lizards pull out their internal organs and burn them. He would later take the charred remains and fill them in a cigarette and inhale deeply. He claimed instant high on this substance and claimed it to be as pleasurable as heroin. On his release from the prison he continued using heroin. Both the patients were assessed for any psychopathology and did not have any co-morbid psychiatric illness.

Scorpion venom contains low molecular weight basic polypeptides, neurotoxins that are the principal toxic agents. These toxins act on ion channels, promoting a derangement that may result in an abnormal release of neuro-transmitters.[1] The release of serotonin caused by the poison may be the reason for the pleasurable feeling associated with the poison. The effects of poison on the sodium-potassium pumps in the nerves may also explain these effects. The acute effects of scorpion envenomation include extreme anxiety, pain at the bite site, acute renal failure, myocardial toxicity, left ventricular dysfunction and pulmonary edema.[2] Agitation, seizures, squint, miosis, mydriasis and coma are the acute neurological manifestations of toxicity.[3] Literature is sparse on the long-term effects of these toxins in humans.

Other creatures that have been used for their psycho-active properties include fish, wasps, toads, snakes and even human body parts.[4] Newspaper reports are available of rising scorpion sting use in Gujarat, India for their psychoactive properties. The practice of medicine is made interesting by these occasional cases and in addiction medicine some patients never fail to surprise you.

Citation: Varghese ST, Balhara Y, Mondal A. Unconventional substances of abuse: Scorpions and lizards. J Postgrad Med 2006;52:325-6

Article references:
1. Nencioni AL, Carvalho FF, Lebrun I, Dorce VA, Sandoval MR. Neurotoxic effects of three fractions isolated from Tityus serrulatus scorpion venom. Pharmacol Toxicol 2000;86:149-55. Back to cited text no. 1 [PUBMED]
2. Rajasekhar D, Mohan A. Clinical and echocardiographic findings in patients with myocardial toxicity due to scorpion sting. Natl Med J India. 2004;17: 307-9. Back to cited text no. 2
3. Bahloul M, Rekik N, Chabchoub I, Chaari A, Ksibi H, Kallel H, et al . Neurological complications secondary to severe scorpion envenomation. Med Sci Monit 2005;11:196-202. Back to cited text no. 3
4. Rudgley R. The Encyclopedia of Psychoactive Substances. 1st ed. Little Brown and Co: Great Britain; 2000. Back to cited text no. 4

These users could be just a wee bit delusional, but the men I was with in Nepal were *very* on the level. They were very intelligent individuals. Their stories were based on personal experience, too.



-TMM

 

[LuxEtVeritas]

Was your friends experience accompanied by the usual harsh negative effects of a spider bite? ...i do not know on record there is anything of that nature reported for any spider bite, but most are certainly nasty

you might find this link interesting...it notes speculation Dream Fish contain DMT, though as we know ingestion of DMT orally is generally not viable...perhaps an analogue with some oral bioavailability

http://www.a1b2c3.com/drugs/var004.htm

 

[The Monkey Mantra]

Lots of sponges make brominated analogues of DMT. Perhaps the bromine would block the activity of monoamine oxidase on DMT. Makes sense, considering how bulky it is. If the Dreamfish is eating and bioconcentrating the chemicals from the sponges or anything else that feeds on them, the DMT (analogue) hypothesis could be viable. I've not seen any work on the psychoactivity of the brominated DMT derivatives, though I admit I haven't gone very far to look.

 

[Jabberwocky]

could be a venom too of some sort? I know in japan it is ultra-chic to inject (intravenously) cobra venom for the 'rush' it gives you (basically an endogenous release of opioids).

 

[The Monkey Mantra]

A spitting cobra's venom has a bunch of disulfide bonds to keep it hardcore stable outside of normal ranges of temperature, humidity, pH, etc. This is a trait shared by most snake poisons, and perhaps the poisons of an Epibates or Phyllomedusa frog.

This stuff is not spitting cobra venom. If it's a peptide, I have to assume it'd be broken up by that heat, or at least completely denatured. IV would work, sure, but not smoking. Maybe they absorb enough from lip contact, but I'm not sure. Again, this is really about throwing it out for speculation and hopes that one of our international bluelight members will have heard something about this. I should actually see if I can find a nepali message board and someone there who can speak english to ask around Kathmandu.

 

[Black]

i smell jenkem about those geckos.

 

[The Monkey Mantra]

^^ I'm not discounting the possibility that it's BS, but there certainly are a ton of psychoactive animal products out there, so I don't think it's a good idea to just dismiss this off-hand just because it's anecdotal. The guys I was with certainly weren't trying to trick me or fool me or get me to smoke gecko, so I'm not sure why it'd be jenkem if he claimed he had personal experience. These were pretty good, honest people, and I spent a loooong time with them.

 

[negrogesic]

The local method for getting high isn't always a good one.

Also, I don't think there are any venomous geckos. Yet, you could possibly get pretty delerious from the resulting salmonellosis...

Maybe there was mistranslation?

 

[Limpet_Chicken]

I don't know about scorpions, but I read the title of the mentioned research papers, and Tityus species, seem unlikely to me, some of them are up there with Andronoctus or Leiurus, or nearly so in terms of lethality.

AFAIK most scorpion venoms cause huge release of adrenaline and noradrenaline, not sure about Tityus species, but most of the Buthidae are pretty similar in that respect, and they are well known for being one of the few families of scorpions to very commonly pack lethal stings.

I do recall reading of psychotropic bamboo worms though, don't know much about them though other than the natives where they occur would eat them for food,, minus the head and intestines, but would eat the guts, and go into a dreaming/trip state of some kind, the head was said to be dangerous and avoided, although I wonder if it merely contained more of the same.

Edit for seeing post just after mine was finished:

Nope, no venomous geckos, there are two venomous lizards, in the genus Heloderma, the gila monster and mexican beaded lizard, but both are american species, and certainly not native/occuring in nepal, they have quite a toxic bite, although the amount of venom introduced in a bite is small, certainly not something anybody would get bitten by choice either, I have seen one chomp down on a guys hand on a nature documentary once, a gila monster, and it looked like it had jaws like a bulldog, and didn't let go, damn thing had to be prized open and yanked off, as they don't inject venom through hollow fangs like snakes do, but have grooved teeth in the lower jaw, so have to actually chew the venom into what/whoever is being bitten.

Poisonous lizards on the other hand, there could well be, wouldn't surprise me if some can take up toxins in the diet in a similar manner to some frogs, and of course there is the (im)famous salamander brandy of parts of slovenia, although it is supposed to be quite unpleasant stuff, a dirty trick of sorts pulled by the distillers to increase the potency of the booze when ingredients for fermentation are scarce, in a similar manner to how Cocculus seed (containing picrotoxin) used to be added to beer for the same reason.

 

[LuxEtVeritas]

with these anecdotal reports we cannot rule out even if legit that these positive experiences are aberrant and only occur in a small subset of individuals

indeed though it appears the right amount some toxins can produce a pleasurable psychoactive experience