Growing Up
Saturday, January 15, 2011

Married, female, age 42.
115 pounds
19 months detoxed from opiates, muscle relaxants & SSRI anti-depressants
DMT Fanatic since August of 2009.
Longest trip of my life to date - 14-16 hours


Ever since I “broke my head” in December, 2009 with a series of extremely rough DMT breakthroughs, I have had this nagging and oppressive thought that my death is near, sometimes imminent. And for no obvious reason. This was my first real experience with the type of anxiety that could result from a heavy duty panic attack that felt like it had settled into a level of low-grade psychoticism for about six months. Then started beginning to truly heal in the next six. But nowhere near where I should be. And frequently, this sense that it will all be over soon. I had better take care of what business I could. One thing I had on my “bucket list” ever since reading about it, was to try Ibogaine.

I feel I have been shown my place in history and time for the first time in my life. It is tremendously reassuring on some deep level.

00:

Ingested 17 00 gel caps packed with 9400 mgs of ground iboga root bark.

+00:30:

Got a very strong alert. Body load, feeling of instability and starting to see trails but something else. The room was developing little tendrils and wisps of weird ectoplasm, different texture but same appearance as tendril-filled and expanding dense white smoke or vapor.

+00:45:

Starting to notice some nausea with head movements and am not sure if I could stand up if I tried.

+01:00:

There is the most bizarre sensation of liquid energy moving in my spine that literally, casues me to sit up straighter. Very still. Now I am tripping hard. The tendrils of ectoplasm have expanded, thickened and radically multiplied, At this rate, they will very rapidly fill the room and clearly “rip reality at the seams.”

I am beginning to see, peripherally at first but rapidly moving more into central vision, figures of people and cats that were not in the room with me. Soon they are in my central vision and I spend about 15 realtime minutes talking and reaching out. I snap out of it and realize just how intoxicated I am. This is coming on so fast and hard for a relatively low dose. I lay down, but the movement is too fast. Thus begins a Hellish purge. The purge is ongoing, miserable and comes from rapid movements of the head and open eyes. Once the material has been purged the dry heaves continue . . . .

I am hearing a bizarre background buzzing sound that I have never heard before. I have difficulty describing it, but it's like a combination of bass male voices that are trying to hit higher notes, long singular notes, chant-like, but combined with a deep buzzing of the world's largest insect. This sound remained until we after I emerged from ibogaspace and into the rest of the trip.

I turn the ambient, psy trance, electronica Youtube playlist down significantly and finally, I am able to lay on my side on the bed, with my bucket on the floor beside me.

+02:00:

The moment I lay down, the 3-D, very detailed visions began. This was different from the echoingly spiritual, highly polished & edge defined, short (elves) entity hyperspace. Different from the repeating dissociative visuals with the non-Euclidian geometry and extremely bizarre scenes of sagespace. For lack of immediate nomenclature I'll call it ibogaspace.

Ibogaspace was not as sharply defined as hyperspace to me and had much more of the dissociative visuals of sagespace. Though the geometry was distored, as it can be sometimes in hyperspace, it was not non-Euclidian. But, it was equally 3-D and detailed. As colorful as hyperspace but with a darker edge to the colors kind of like really big mushroom doses can hit me. There was an insane playfulness with a deadly serious undertone here. This place soon seemed to me like an Ibogaspace/reality that was a fairly accurate representation of the societal structures & values as our own. Lessons were being pushed on me/imparted from the moment my eyes closed.

It began – I am surrounded by tribal dancers, some sort of stereotyped, stylized version of what African tribal dancers might look like. They had highly decorated shields, small spears and were covered in very colorful trinkets, regalia, decorations, etc. They were dancing around me joyously in a circle. Then I was led to a building with a door and I entered.

I am in a room, a kind of either small office or waiting/reception area. I am standing and there is a middle aged burned out man, who looks really tired sitting behind a desk. The door on the left side, in front of the desk, opens and a diminutive secretary with a bouffant hairdo rapidly enters, arms full of stuff, which she rapidly sets down on the desk. She sits down in her chair, behind the desk and begins to take notes as the burnout sits down and dictates. Soon he notices me. He stands up and looks very impatient and exacerbated. He unbuttons his cheap gray business suit coat. His foot taps. He tries to show me something.

+02:34:

I am up and retching horribly again. The last of the bark feels like it is out of me. I guess I absorbed what alkaloids I could. There were no visible capsules or capsule halves in the bucket. Once the bark was gone, all purges were dry or yielded only nasty globs of mucus rich saliva.

The room is completely filled with the ectoplasmic tendrils. I can barely see the borders. There are a lot of standing people and a few wandering stranger cats. The real cats have been slowly bailing from the room as if the vibes were just becoming way too intense. My most strongly bonded cat, Hathor, re-joined me soon after and stayed the rest of the night. Music is fantastically distorted and almost uncomfortable. I turn it down even more. Sometimes long sometimes short sounding. Sometimes I am sure I just heard a patch of tune and am convinced it is endlessly repeating . . . .

When I speak to entities, I realize I have NEVER heard my voice sounding like this. It reminded me of the very end of Episode 2 of Through the Wormhole, where Leonard Susskin's theory is explained. Like I wasn't really on my bed, but actually, really spread out much more diffusely within the rooms, up on the walls and ceiling. The echo sound was unreal and reverberating with a metallic vibration.

+03:30:

I slowly and very carefully, with closed eyes, ease myself back down, this time feeling more stable, I am able to lie in my usual, surrender position, on my back with arms and legs slightly spread, hands palms up.

I am back in the room wth the burned out guy and his assistant. They get more done this time and he looks at me longer. I'm sitting up, sick again. I am shaking deeply all over, both my extremities and my center. My spine. My heart. My head.

+03:40:

Back down and again in the room. I try to open myself and use my DMT surrender skills to see if I can get more information and move the trip along. All of a sudden the burned out man, shifts to the side on his foot and a door opens behind my desk – he points in a way that says, “Watch, but do not enter!”

I am shown what I can only describe as a reality that might have developed had I been born a boy. This was an outrageously, detailed lesson and I got to see this boy's early life and interactions with my parents as their first born. But something happened as he entered young adulthood and it was the cause of his premature death. Much of this was highly symbolic and/or direct download, but much was actually illustrated, including scenes in the house in which I grew up.

+03:50:

I close my eyes and the scene does not change. I still see the room as it appeared with open eyes. After awhile it changes and shifts and I am back in the room I was in before in igobaspace, or back mainly seeing the room. The door behind the desk closes, the secretary exits out the door in front of the desk. I am still viewing it from the left side. All of a sudden the burned out man points to the wall in front of me and I notice that it has turned deep, blood red and there is a small square opening, that quickly changes to a tube and I am drawn up and inside. I am in what appears to be a blood vessel. The details are fantastic. I can see the individual cells of the vessel walls. I can see individual erythrocytes, immune factors and fantastic nanomachines! Like the ultimate “Fantastic Voyage.”

This tube is sinuous, twists and turns and opens up into a dark, red room. I watch the walls which have weird, scrolling textures for awhile. Bizarre faces appear in the walls and their mouths open obscenely wide. The mouths are huge and are filled with endless rows of ugly teeth in grotesque gum tissue. Then all of a sudden the whole room turns light pink in color and instantly transforms into a delivery room. A woman is in the absolute extremis of labor. Her vagina has replaced the main tooth-filled mouth. The husband is nowhere to be seen. She is altered/sedated and surrounded by personnel and machines. The baby crowns, she screams, the vagina expands in that truly fantastic way, the hips spread and a baby girl emerges into the hands of the doctor covered in slime and blood.

I have just witnessed my birth. I am utterly, emotionally detached. I am a pure spot that absorbs lessons.

+04:00:

The scene instantly changes. I am out on an open “street” that is filled with human looking but highly psychedelicized entities. Their entire bodies were in extremely rapid movement but the details on their bodies were not in movement/changing, they were not “self-transforming.” The entities are on the street, in the air on the walls of the surrounding buildings, some in small one-person vehicles, some on bicycles and others on foot. Many are pink, purple and/or orange. There are green tones.

I watch this scene for awhile, and then I am led by a female entity to the side of a building and shown a wall. I look closer and realize that it is something like a building wall but with a deeply detailed scrolling texture, like language or data. A square opening appears and I am sucked inside. It is a short passage, red-orange in color and leading to another scrolling textured (different) building wall. This happened again. Then on the third level “wall” a small square thing appeared. It was very strange! I could cause this thing to move with my will, I would think move up, down, left, right and it would instantly comply. I was unable to turnaround. This was a one way trip!

The square thing allowed me to not only change perspective but to cause a specific area to become incredibly magnified and detailed. I could then back away to get the bigger picture of the wall. I cruised up, down, left and right awhile exploring and trying out the square. It was fun.

Soon the perspective was out of my control, but I kept the control/magnifier square - it followed me wherever I went. Now I realized what I was seeing/being shown. I was in a huge, kind of sub-fractalized city of very tall buildings and within them endless other layers. This place I very quickly came to realize was like the deep, high, rich and dusty old stacks of some library. This place was literally, “The stacks of my life,” and I was being gently encouraged by entities in the general vicinity to actively explore, which I did.

I spent a fantastic amount of time in here. I reviewed HUGE swatches of my life, with particular attention to and focus upon key areas within my childhood. Incredible, fantastic depth. I had forgotten that I remembered so very much. So many details. So many visits to relatives' houses. So many days in school with friends, peers and enemies. So many milestones. So many victories. So much tragedy. A lot of pain. God! Arriving home the very first day I was permitted to walk to my second grade school with other kids rather than my mother. Coming home on that new day of independence, opening the front door feeling so proud and independent and what do I encounter when that door opens. A wall of Mom smell. She is baking homemade sourdough bread. Still one of my faves (I make it now) to this day. Wow! The day I first learned to tie my shoe and her role in that. The day I learned to ride a bike. First day in kindergarten. Touring more than one pre-school before Mom decided that was good enough for her kid.

I was shown/came to know that somewhere along the line in this not-too-unusual human experience, something had gone wrong. I had forgotten the lesson that my Mother taught me as a little baby. I talked the talk but I no longer walked the walk and had not done so for a very, very long, long time. Decades. This was one of my greatest personal failures.

I was shown the obvious, what we all know in our hearts. What all good Mothers teach their babies naturally. That we all need love and nurturance, all of us, no matter what. I was shown that almost everyone fails to remember this very important lesson in their lives. They are hurt, they experience deep loss, they experience fundamental lack of control for the first time. . . . The wound is deep. It does not heal, though given time, a nearly guaranteed healer, it can thickly scar over. That was what I had achieved. I had forgotten my Mother's most important instruction. What she taught me before I had language, the structure that rules my thoughts currently. I was also shown that I have another chance. It is NOT too late. I am not too burned out/jaded. I am not too old. I do remember everything, even this lesson, the one I took to my heart as a child. I am capable of sharing this lesson via my actions and words with others. No need to preach, just be.


+06:00:

Life review in fully immersive ibogaspace continues without let up. Well, actually, a few times I am permitted back out into the general street area for little rests, but then back in with the controller/magnifier square being with me . . . Once I actually surface back in my room, completely crushed, having to pee and realizing this was not going to happen. Closed my eyes and was IMMEDIATELY back where I had been.

When I do surface, my short term memory is complete hash and getting worse until at the peak if my thoughts were graphed as language, I couldn't hold one longer than a short, simple sentence. This seems odd in hindsight. My long term memory is ultra detailed and crystal clear. Thought we needed functional short term memory to be able to preserve long term memories. Maybe not. Very deep lessons.


Same kinds of lessons but out of childhood and into my life with my husband. Too much focus has been put on pain. With pain and bullshit, best to live/experience the moment completely and utterly fully (Zen Master says “Fuck!” when he stubs his toe) but to then move on. Lessons learned, but move forward.

I was shown directly how to apply this in my future relationship with my husband of 22 years. I was shown why I'm not what i should be. What I need to do. What I need to stop doing. What to say. When to say it. And why. It is important not to have too many unanswered “Whys” at the end of one’s life.

06:30-08:00:

I began to surface more frequently. Began to try to take water without purging. Began to think seriously about making a try for the bathroom.

This last part in Ibogaspace was more review but also a meeting with the tribal shaman from the group I saw at the beginning. The regalia and adornments were gone. He was an old, long haired, bearded, soft spoken African man. He showed me many things. I saw the complete life and death cycle of many, many different plants, animals, and humans over the deep past. He also showed me how they relate to my place in my life currently.

He gave me more instructions on how to try to maximize the potential of the second half of my life and locked the lessons in each time by pointing to a floating analog clock that showed seconds/minutes/ . . . . /decades . . .it was winding down. The clock of my life. Still about 1/3 to ½ left depending on choices and for lack of a better term luck . . . but still, winding down.

I am not left ego-swollen and thinking I am a key in history from all of this. As a matter of fact I am filled with an even more profound sense of just how very small I am in the overall, miraculous, beautiful scheme of things but also a deep quietness of my center, a calmness. It is just that I see my place in this long-term cycle that is LIFE clearer than ever before.

+08:30: By the time I’m more fully surfaced, just like that first DMT experience, I am convinced that I am nearly baseline and the entire experience will be over in two to four more hours. This is hilarious in hindsight and as I sit up on my bed with eyes open I watch over time as the open eyed visuals become more hectic and intense. People and animals are visible and moving in my peripheral vision. The streamers of ectoplasm are everywhere. Head turns make me nauseous but it is much better than before. I am able to take and hold a bit of water.

+09:45:

I make my way super slowly, flat footedly, one step at a time, eyes mainly closed, purge bucket in hand to the bathroom and take what I think may be the longest pee in my life.

+10:30:

The entities are dying back and the ectoplasm isn’t so, well, everywhere anymore but I am still incredibly high, it is coming in waves, I am tripping hard and whenever I close my eyes I’m seeing the room I was in with open eyes, then changing into a red, green or silver room with the scrolling wall patterns. I no longer have access to the controller/magnifier.

+11:00:

I smoke a small amount of pot with my husband and the effects pick up again quite nicely. By now I’ve spent some time online checking in and reporting effects.


+12:00:

I am exhausted and attempt to go to bed. Surprisingly, I sleep a solid, dreamless three hours.

+15:00:
Upon arising I am very surprised to find I am tripping MUCH harder then when I fell asleep hours ago. Now new and improved, with extra ectoplasms and bonus tendrils! After an hour or so it settles down as long as I do not move my head. I am still very, very unstable on my feet.


+18:30:

Back to bed for two choppy, weird, hallucinatory hours.

+20:30 - +35:00:

Interesting day. Every time I sleep or trance even a bit with eyes closed the visuals with open eyes crank up. Slowly getting a bit more stable on my feet. Still feel very intoxicated. A glowing, sensation of euphoric warmth flows within my body. Whenever I move, the edges of things in the room get these parallel slim slivers of blue/white/silver light that radiate out from those edges. With the sudden turns this happens so much that they sometimes fill the room and break off into little wispy tendrils of smoky ectoplasm.

Throughout the experience, from the first hour forward I had the nagging, recurring thought that iboga hit me the way I always fantasized a good stiff dose of a tropane would.


+25:00:

Still tripping such that I cannot drive or attempt thinking about gardening or extracting safely and correctly. Still getting occasional peripheral entities/movements, smears of occasional ecotplasm and a feeling of comfortable intoxication. I can sleep 2-3 hours at a time and wake up tripping much harder than when I fell asleep.

+27:00:

Take a 2 hour nap. No longer getting weird rooms with patterned textures whenever I close my eyes for any period. Eating dinner makes the visuals die back a bit. I feel very good.

+31:00:

Still getting visual effects, especially with head movements and there is a warm euphoric glow constantly circulating throughout my body.

+39:30:

Current state. Preparing for a relatively early bedtime. Curious to see what effects tomorrow brings.

What a beautiful priveledge of an experience. What a perfect point in my lifeline to have it. I am so glad I did it. I do not feel ready for a flood dose. I feel I will likely never do it again. I was shown the even deeper meaning of my signature below.

Deep Feelings of Peace & Love to All

wow i think that may suffice as a flood youd have to ask GD but damn i am happy for you and understand so much of what your saying here just because i was a little bit below where u went but close. im kinda scared to go further now lmao. but you guys know me, if its nessicary ill do it and i think it might be considering my own opiate issues still ever so subtly there. god bless

that sounds like a really amazing experience!
I'm very happy for you

i actually had to postpone my munchies momentarily, as i became glued to the computer screen


note to self: temporary cure for munchies = pandora's writing

Pandora,

I've only gone into intense trips for 9 or so hours on LSD. The lingering effects other then being incredibly tired were gone after that. By the time I had a full nights sleep I was fairly base line after those experiences.

It amazes me the duration of the effects never mind the depth. I am quite curious about trying this, but obviously need a large commitment of time to do it justice.

Thanks for the great trip report.

Rivea

Holy smokes! That was stunning. It sounds like a daunting experience. I am really curious to hear about the next few days/weeks... That was a great report. Very thougthful and detailed. I was sort of exhausted from reading it. Not because of its length, but because of its content. I have been avoiding a breakthrough dmt dose for about a year now, and I've actively been trying to find the right time to smoke one for the last 2 weeks. I haven't had any thc for the past 2 weeks and I quit smoking after my last sub breakthrough trip (3 weeks), and it has put me in a highly suggestible and psychedelicized state. I've been spending quite a bit of time on here and it seems like ever day, I'll read a post that will really hit me. This one was a doozy though. Reading it was like watching a fully formed 3-d film in my head. I'm sure a large part of that was your writing, but the content.... damn! I hope I get to experience Iboga some day. Also: I hope I never get to experience Iboga some day.

I had an interest in Iboga awhile ago, due to my history with opiates. I have a very long history with them. I'm 42.5 years old, so add 9 months to that and you have the length of my history with opiates. I was conceived into a miniature ocean of opiated amniotic fluid. Thanks mom! I don't remember, but I experienced my first withdrawals about 24 hours after my birth. I picked up again in my teens. tylneol 3, or whatever I could find. Just here and there. Then in my mid 20's I found heroin. It took me down fast. By the time I was 30, I had cleaned up my act. Then 2 years or so ago, I injured my back and had to be on painkillers. Quitting time brought back the horrors. I credit my rediscovery of psychedelics and learning to use them responsibly and respectfully with getting past what could have been another serious decline.

Cab you tell me anything about your motivations for taking iboga, other than just bucket list? Did it have anything to do with the opiates listed in the heading of your post?

Thanks again. That post really moved me.
Isn't the Nexus an amazing place?
What a great way to start the day.

Thank you for taking time to read something so long.

I just want to say that I may not have emphasized the emotional detachment enough. There was an intellectual part of me that said I should be freaked out at much of the material, beginning with the Grofian stuff leading to my birth scene. But, it was pure, emotional detachment. Very intoxicated but detached from emotional content. This was extremely helpful in allowing me to take in, accept and work with the heavier material.

Finally, I sincerely feel that DMT was a great prep for Ibogaine. My DMT surrender skills were essential to literally getting this trip started.

Thank you for reading such a long report and your thoughtful comments.

My main motivations were to help lock in the detox. This winter has been testing my resolve on that front with pain.

My secondary intention was to work on my life's traumatic events.

My third intention was strictly the "bucket list" one. This reminded me like a modern-day, African, Mysteries of Eleusis and I felt very, very strongly called at this point in my life.

Thank you for this very detailed, reflective and eloquent report. I found your story quite visionary, it wasn't hard for me to visualise what you were describing at the different times. A few parallels with my experiences cropped up, like seeing the room with your eyes closed, travelling through tubes, and your personal library. One of the objectives of my initiation was to empty out my own personal filing cabinets of excess stuff I no longer needed that was weighing me down. And I would like to echo your descriptions of emotional detachment. I can't say I ever felt terror, or even anxiety throughout my experiences. I was certainly uncomfortable at times, but never scared.

One small thing, in the future, or for others, I would recommend caution when dosing on Iboga, it is wise to stagger taking it than taking it all in one go can strain one's system and put it more at risk. The Bwiti dose over a couple of days for initiations. Staggering eases one's body and mind into the experience. However your dosing strategy seems to have worked well, but I would recommend this for higher dosages of root bark.

Interesting you mentioned tropanes. They are actually one of the only plants that can stop Iboga dead in its tracks, Belladonna is an antidote. However I have experienced a Brugmansia flower tea, and it was worlds apart from the Iboga experience, in terms of experience, usefulness and healing.

Its still very much early days, and the Iboga will be present with you for some time now in the form of this positive, charged, grounded afterglow, to make it easier to enact any changes you want. A South African Iboga(ine) provider and Bwiti initiate I have been in touch with says Iboga "gives the person what they need to know or experience at that specific point in time."

I think Iboga is a great wonder of nature, and it warms my heart to see a fellow human...and Nexian...having an encounter with this amazing plant. I wish you all the best for your future Pandora.

Wow! Thanks! I have some root bark that I've ben putting off taking - waiting for it to feel right. usually I feel so darn good, I can't bring myself to take the bark that I know will make me feel icky and stay in bed for a day! And, most people I've talked to don't remember their trips. But you have inspired me to find the time to do it. Maybe next month...

To me this sounds like one of those experiences you have to both surrender to as well as give it your full attention, in a way. The sheer length is enough to make you give in (and to what?). Thank you for your honesty highlighting the good and the bad. Definitely one to try, if never to be repeated.

I just want to say I fully agree. The reason I did it this way is because generally I purge very, very easily and I only had the once dose. I had taken half the capsules, then decided within 5- 10 mins to take the rest, knowing that the purge was inevitable, but sincerely wanting to put it off as long as possible.



My husband and I are very, very intrigued by this. Would you (or anyone else) happen to have any links or references?

Peace & Love

Yeah I figured you knew what you are doing, and it definitely seemed to work well regarding the dosing. It would be very frustrating to start purging long before you've finished dosing, and I think this would be ok with the dose you took. I would be much more apprehensive say if someone planned to take 20g in one go.

On the Belladonna/atropine front, I quote from page 72 of 'Chapter 14: How Ibogaine Works' of 'Iboga: The Visionary Root of African Shamanism':

"In Africa, as in the West, an antidote does exist, but not everyone is able to handle it. The ngangas keep their secrets, but we know that atropine (derived from the famous belladonna) used in a weak dosage suppresses the effects of ibogaine - it is also, when misused, one of the most deadly poisons."


From:

Goutarel, R. Gollnhofer, O. and Sillans. R. (1993) Pharmacodynamics and Therapeutic Applications of Iboga and Ibogaine. Psychedelic Monographs and Essays, 6, (70-111).

http://www.ibogaine.desk.nl/bwiti1.html

"Atropine sulfate at doses of 1-2 mg/kg does not affect the toxicity of ibogaine but does away with the ataxia, tremors and most of the external signs of intoxication."

"The slowing of the cardiac output is responsible for the drop in blood pressure. These effects are suppressed by atropine."

"The electroencephalogram shows a typical arousal syndrome when 2 to 5 mg/kg of ibogaine hydrochloride are given intravenously. They suggested that the site of action of ibogaine must be in the ascending reticular formation. Pretreatment with atropine (2 mg/kg) blocks this ibogaine-induced arousal."

(From animal studies).

D-d-d-damn, P. What a trial by fire. What a spinegripping adventure and eloquent retelling. Your recall is incredible, and you're very adept (as per usual) at linguistifying the unoofable.

I envy you the experience, and hope it serves you well going forward.

Bancupuma,

Thank you for such a quick and meaty reply to my inquiry.


Uncle Knucles,

Thank you for your compliments and patience with such a long read.

I think that the dose you had was perfect, Pandora. Just because you didn't eat a huge amount, doesn't mean you didn't achieve exactly what you were supposed to with a proper dose of iboga. Not everyone needs a lot, and judging from your ability to describe and recall everything with such vivid detail, it seems to me, that you got exactly what you needed.

I am very happy you were able to share this with everyone. This is a great view into what iboga can do for some people, and it was on a dose that was much less heavy than someone might do to detox. I believe when you are not detoxing, or trying to break an addiction, the doses can often be much lower. I am sure your size and individual body chemistry all played a roll, as well. The Bwiti have an experienced person administer the iboga slowly to watch for when the initiate reaches the proper dose. You seem to have hit the mark pretty well.

Again, I thank you for sharing this incredible journey, and it seems you have gotten some very good healing and revelations from iboga, as I and many other have. This medicine is not for everyone, and can be dangerous for some people, with certain conditions, but I think it is relatively safe, when the person undergoing the experience is very informed. I would recommend anyone thinking of undergoing this type of experience, do as much research as possible. This is BIG medicine, and it's not necessarily as safe as ayahuasca or other traditional psychedelics.

Many people do not enjoy the experience, but most find that it has helped them in some way, afterward. It does seem to be pretty gentle on the psyche, and I like the way Pandora explained being emotionally detached from the experience. Sometimes when we let our emotions get in the way of us taking a good look at ourselves, we forget to think more critically, and we get defensive. Iboga seems to allow one to see themselves in a much more honest fashion, without the defense mechanisms kicking in. It lets us keep our egos, but let go of much of the lies we tell ourselves. I think this is a big part of the way it allows people to heal.

And again, WAY TO GO PANDORA!!!

GratefulDad,

Thank you very much for this thoughtful and in depth reply. I am aware you almost never read trip reports and am honored.

I should have mentioned you in the introduction. It was your presence in chat that let me to understand I could in fact locate an Ibogaine distributor that will ship to USA. I was able to procure the 10 grams without having to spend money I did not have. I was able to take this journey at the perfect point in my life, rather than wind up continuing to wait until someday when I could conceivably travel out of country . . .

We may not see eye to eye on everything, but your words about this medicine are pure gold. Your guidance has been invaluable and I am sure will continue to be so.


Today has felt like the day after a very strong/heavy acid trip - that nice glow. I still have the warmth in my body and occasionally have felt tripped out but the visuals have radically died back. Was down to little trails this morning and nothing but lights behind my eyes and sparkly enhancements with open eyes as the day has progressed.

I have the strong impression that I have gained a lasting access to the finely detailed contents of my long term memory, especially childhood. Like I have kept (it is no longer visual) that square controller/magnifier and can use it at will. With this new viewpoint, I can examine individual memories, in particular ones of strong emotional content, and then literally back up and view them as part of the whole, the wider/bigger picture. This is wonderful.

I have had an indefeatable positive mood without being loud or manic. I am calm and relatively still. I am beginning to see why many call this "Initiation," and think I may have titled my report correctly.


One final thing that boggles my mind: This morning my husband found an unconsumed gel cap in my trip room. I missed part of my dose and only took about 9 grams! Amazing.

Peace & Love

Many of the Bwiti only do one initiation. I believe only Ngangas (someone who works with the medicine) do more than one large initiation dose, normally. Or sometimes those that need healing may. Much of the time, after the initiation, one only takes small doses of the bark, and this can help bring back the things they learned the first time around. It is also good for depression in some cases, helps with energy, and for controlling the appetite when on hunts in the jungle. It can help with night vision as well, apparently. Bancopuma seems to have a fair bit of knowledge on some of the more traditional customs, and I always like to read about his experiences.

I am flattered that you have enjoyed our discussions about iboga, and glad that much of it has rang true for you. I am still learning as much as I can from the medicine, and am by no means an expert. I do have a fair bit of experience, and have been studying it since around 03, when I first started looking for a way off methadone. It was the only thing that showed me it could be done, and gave me the actual chance away from the physical withdrawal. It showed me the light at the end of the tunnel. I have since learned how to use it even more successfully for opiate detox, just form my personal experiences.

Most of the people that I speak with don't really like it as much as I do, so I think it isn't necessarily for everyone to have a lot of in depth work with. However, I feel that anyone that wants to research it and thinks it may be of some help, should go ahead and give it a go. They should definitely read about all the precautions, since it is a great deal heavier than many other experiences.

My first flood dose was in 04, and I had two more flood doses, one in 09 and one in 2010. I have been much more involved in the iboga community since 09, and have found that I think it will be a part of my life for good. I do use small doses of bark, whenever I feel the urge, and it's very good at keeping me on a good path. It has enabled me to really look inside, and be honest with myself, so I can spot behaviors that are less than healthy for me, very easily. I think it really helps me get in tune with what my body needs and wants, and since it hangs around so long, it's one of the easiest to integrate into daily life. Not to mention, it seemed to help open me up to fuller/deeper psychedelic experiences on other substances.

One thing to remember, though, Pandora, this is just the beginning! Now with your new found sense of calm and understanding, it's up to you to create the exact life you want now! I wish you well in all your endeavors, and again thank you for sharing such a beautiful experience!

Great report Pandora! I'm glad you got what you needed by taking the appropriate dose. I can totally identify with a lot of the effects you describe: the spine straightening, extremely still body, eyes closed vision, internal body vision, and extreme past recall. I noticed that it didn't dissociate my emotions completely though, it only seemed to take away feelings of shame and guilt and fear, allowing me to view my own past with love and affection. Also, the effects do pick up in the dark and upon waking. After my flood I also experienced quite a few nights without dreams per se... instead I would wake up and in my minds vision there would only be an immense dark sphere which was really awesome to behold. Congratulations for getting to know yourself again!

Great report, fun to read, very inspiring

jungleheart,

Thank you for being my vicarious trip sister off and on throughout the weekend in chat. Should you ever choose to try something similar, as you have suggested you might, I hope to be able to do the same for you.

Much Love & Peace