I recently had an experience that leads me to believe that perhaps pre-dosing with a small amount of alcohol may increase the absorption rate for the psychedelic lysergamides in hawai'ian baby woodrose seeds. I have been doing some research on what these seeds actually contain, and am convinced that LSA is not responsible for the psychedelic effects, and it could be that the ethanol is helping to convert the LSA to LSH, but I don't have much technical chem knowledge or experience so I can't really say. I have also read that the psychedelic effects of the seeds comes not from any one of the actives contained therein, but is dependent on their combination to reveal their true colors (electric blue, azure, violet and cobalt).

Here's a short synopsis of the experience: We had been traveling for two weeks and for the past had slept on the beach in mendocino county, trading various things (bandaids, water, salvia divinorum, kratom, etc.) for cannabis and hashish, which in mendocino are apparently so abundant that it is a readily available item of barter. We made our way down to santa cruz to spend a few nights at my step-brother's house. The second night we were there, everyone else decides that they want to drink, so me and my homeboy opt to instead eat a dose of harmala + HBWR. After some deliberation, it was decided that this was really not the environment to be experimenting with MAOI and lysergamides, so we decided to just take the woodrose, settling on 6 seeds as a good moderate dose. After skinning and consuming the seeds, we each drank a single alcoholic beverage, slowly. Within two hours I was fully tripping, comparable to my single harmala+HBWR experiment, only distinctly euphoric and without the sharp degree of mental wishy-washyness that the MAOI experience had. There were visuals at this point, an energetic vibration filled me and the walls seemed to jitter with a light I had not noticed. I noticed a very distinct mental clarity and my gestalt-o-meter was on overrdrive, I could clearly see into my companions, see their true selves as it were. After maybe hour three, people began to retire and my step-brother gave me a massive hit of hash out of his percolator and went to bed. I layed in the darkness and was wrapped in an electric-blue fractal revery. I believe it was actually some form of the madelbrot set, moving from right to left across my corneas and flowing down a river of clear impressions. Though I have had much more powerful visuals from other hallucinogens, the clearness of my mind and how direct the teacher was made the experience a sure +++. It was like being shown connections between totally different points in the universe; everything was hilariously shown as if on a lit-up-slide under a microscope: no connection between events or processes, however minimal or subtle, could have gone unnoticed. I cant say how long this went on, but eventually I lapsed into unconciousness, waking at 7 the next morning. I was in a very good mood and afterglowing until perhaps 11 o'clock.

I have had many great experiences with the convolvulacae in the past and consider the family to be a great ally to have, but this experience was unique in many ways. I felt no confusion, little stomach pain (except on coming up), and the visuals were striking. At first I thought it was a dosing issue, that perhaps these seeds were expecially potent and so when we had been taking bigger doses (9-12 seeds) we were getting lots of nausea. Me and two of my companions each took 6 seeds about 4 days after this experience. The others took kratom with it (my wife took ~4 grams and my friend took ~12 grams. I took none.) The friend had extreme nausea and general discomfort throughout, which I attribute mostly to the large dose of kratom. My wife tripped, but it seemed to me like a run-of-the-mill HBWR experience with mental flowing, bodily sensations, the usual but no exteme visuals despite moderate and unformed CEV's. I also only got a usual HBWR effect, not the vibrantly colored CEV's and shimmering/breathing OEV's. In fact, there were no open-eye visuals to speak of, and the CEV's were unspectacular. It even lacked the mental clarity of the other experience, and I can't say that much of anything was accomplished by my taking of them.

So, what was it? Does anyone else have experience with this? My guesses are that the ethanol either A) helps absorbtion rates, or B) it is helping to convert the LSA and perhaps other non-psychedelic ergolines into the more psychedelic LSH... or is that total bull and it's all in my head or what?

AFR, I'm no expert on these HB woodrose seeds, but i did try 3 once and had a nice experience, although the nausea was pretty bad!

-I guess the alcohol could possibly potentiate these. If this is the case, then these may be an excellent accompynament to a "baccanaian" blue lotus wine session!!

-I have visualizations of this being like a nicely euphoric laughing lsh like experience!

I'm glad someone has confirmed this. It has never been a small amount of alcohol in my case, though. I first noticed it after a large (20 units+) drinking session and a 3 course meal, I then ate 7 hbwr of medium potency. It was a level 5 experience with visuals more like DMT than previous ergoline experiences.

I always thought it appeared more powerful because I was going from a very non-conscious, anti-psychedelic alcohol experience to a psychedelic one. But since you weren't drunk it wouldn't seem that is the case. Seeing as it made medium potency/not-so-fresh hbwr more like very fresh ones, it could be that the alcohol converts it... such a shame there are no studies on these seeds... it would be great to see where the health benefits I've had come from.

On the few occasions I've done this combo, there is no hangover that would usually be there from the booze and I'm fully sober after the nausea stage. Sobering up so fast is very disorientating

Heath effects? What would those be?

You think you're going to get negative health effects from combining ethanol and HBWR? If you drink too much of the ethanol you may get brain damage but that should resolve eventually.

I've noticed increased metabolism, better blood circulation, improved memory and dream recall. Also really good for tooth ache and wounds... seems to increase blood flow to damaged areas. All subjective experience and speculation

Very Interesting! I'd like to hear more about this...if it is true it certainly would make the ergotized beer hypothesis of Eleusis that much more plausible. Will try with my next snakevine experience and report.