Fellow Nexians, I need some help.

To preface this, I've tried Ayahuasca a total of 5 times now. The first two times, the aya was prepared for me, and the last three, I prepared. The first two times, a friend who has travelled extensively through Peru on Peter Gorman expeditions prepared the brew for me, using mimosa in a standard 3x3 cook (5g the first time, and 8g the second time), and encapsulated syrian rue (3g both times). My first two brews were made using 6 and 8 grams of mimosa in a 3x3 cook, and first with 3g of rue, and then with 300mg of harmine (converted from freebase to citrate in an aqueous solution). My latest brew (taken last night), was prepared in a 3-liter THP at a 1g:200ml ratio using exactly 140 degree acidified water, using 20g of freshly shredded and semi-powdered black caapi (~3 inch diameter vine) and 12g of powdered mimosa, brewed separately (the caapi yielded a clear light, golden brown tea, and the mimosa yielded a clear pinkish tea), and were slowly reduced to two doses of about 100ml each for the caapi and mimosa, respectively.

The mimosa in question has yielded several quality extractions using both the FASA method, as well as STB pulled using xylene. The Harmine has been used to great effect in several smoking blends. My former roommate also had a very strong ayahuasca experience, prepared using 5g of mimosa and 3g of rue, by the friend that prepared my first two ayahuasca doses.


Now here's my problem: in all five ayahuasca experiences, I've never achieved more than threshold effects: a few sporadic visions, nothing at all dmt like, more like random images from a dream, as well as some amorphous blobs of whitish color changing shape against the blackness, and the occasional sparkle of rainbow-colored specks of light. This includes my experiences last night where I ended up taking both doses. After last night's experience, I did however experience a very strong enema-like purge. My bowels are still purging to some extent this morning.

In contrast, I've vaped DMT and changa about 20 times since 2011, achieving breathrough in over half those experience. I've also had a number of very strong psilocybin mushroom experiences, ranging from 1 to 4 grams dried, and tend to achieve stronger results than any of my friends (on mushrooms from the same batch).


Thoughts/suggestions?

I'm in a similar boat, I've attempted pharmahuasca a total of maybe 8 times in the last year and only had 1 trip with full DMT effects and another with moderate effects (like 20mg vaped). The rest were barely threshold-level.

How are you dosing the solutions? In my experience, waiting more than 20 minutes to dose the mimosa/DMT is less likely to produce any effects. Most recently I tried taking it all together ala ayahuasca and had the aforementioned moderate trip. The best one was when I took the DMT at 15 minutes after the rue. Timing seems to be critical.

My hypothesis is that after you ingest the harmalas (MAOI), it is necessary to have them both in your stomach (where there is MAO), and in your bloodstream/liver when taking the DMT. If you take the DMT too early (i.e. with the harmalas), there is no MAOI activity yet in the bloodstream and so anything that is absorbed is quickly deactivated. Too late, and the harmalas have already mostly entered the bloodstream, leaving the DMT vulnerable to MAO in the stomach.

You could also try upping the dose of mimosa. Several scientific papers put the oral bioavailability of DMT at around 20% of the amount ingested, so you may need to take as much as 200mg to get breakthrough effects. The oral dose is considerably higher than for vaped DMT. Be careful though, your mileage may vary.

In most cases ayahuasca dud brews are the result of underdosing the aya vine, or syrian rue. although 3 grams of rue can be a sufficient dose for many, you may need to up to 4 grams.

Also 20 grams of aya is not nearly enough, some will claim that 50 is enough for them or 70, but i have dud brews if i use less than 100 grams.

Try upping your harmala dosage, and do not up the dmt dosage, the doses of mimosa you are preparing would be extremely strong once you get it fully active...

I used 20g of vine, after reading suggestions in Dagger's THP thread that 10g has been more than sufficient to achieve ayahuasca breakthrough with a THP brew.

In response to timing, I space the mimosa about 15-20 minutes after taking the rue/caapi.

Thanks for the suggestions. I've still got about 90g of shredded black caapi, so next time I'll use considerably more.

I would suggest going with the tradition method from Peru, Caapi and P. Viridis. I hear that 50 grams of both is a good starter dose. I've only had brews made in the jungle, so im sure the dose was much larger because it was a very VERY powerful experience to say the least.

Spend time with your brew when cooking, send your intentions into the brew as it cooks. Spend your day prior to meditating and preparing for a powerful possibly life changing experience, whether or not that is the outcome.

The more intention, and positive, loving energy you put towards the experience, the more you will gain from it. The spirit of ayahuasca works in very mysterious ways, be patient and trust that your experience will come. If you have little faith just aim for a stronger dose and that will make the turnout of a good experience more likely. No one has ever OD'd from Aya so you can go as deep as you're willing