Hey guys.
A while ago, I "discovered" a new herb, that is garden sage, Salvia officinalis. At first I thought that it was Salvia divinorum, but I was wrong. Anyway, when I smoked the dried leaves of garden sage, I felt relaxed. I also noticed that I recalled much more dreams (and they were also much more vivid and lucid) after I smoked the leaves, and the effect lasted for 3 or 4 days.
Later on, I found that garden sage contains the Thujone oil. There are some resource on erowid about this, and also some examples of thujone oil extraction from Wormwood. I will attempt to make an extract of Thujone oil from dried garden sage leaves, with 70% ethanol.
Right now I'm still waiting for some leaves to dry, then I will put them in ethanol and wait for some time.

3 of my friends also smoked some garden sage leaves and 2 of them reported the next day that they had some awesome dreams and that they can recall more dreams than usually. One of my friends said he can recall his dreams, but that they were nothing special. I am very interested in dreams and the relation between dreams and garden sage. Maybe the thujone oil is the answer ...

I will let you know when I start making the extract. If anyone has any useful information (about thujone oil or extracting it), please leave it here.

Ethanol should be fine for extraction. i've heard some people evap the ethanol extract on glass and smoke the resin like a Thujone hash. Just start very small and work your way up until you know how it effects you. Thujone is also the active ingredient in Absinth. Could never stand the flavor myself. It is also about 160- 180 proof, so will get you drunk quickly in addition to providing you with Thujone. Most Absinth in the US is very low in Thujone, so I've heard of people extracting from Sage and spiking their own stock to increase the overall amount. Good luck and let us know how your experiments go. You might also want to search around the site as I think there are one or two (perhaps more) herbs that increase dream visions and recall. You might also want to read Dr. LaBerge's books on lucid dreaming and dream recall. Just keeping a dream journal each day and writing what you remember from your dreams first thing in the morning are supposed to increase your recall over time.

will this work even for a cannabis smoker to induce some dreams ?

only one way to find out....

but on a purely conjectural note, i highly doubt it, simply due to the fact that (At least IME) cannabis can entirely eliminate all dream recall, which seems to me as if it would negate dream recall enhancement.


i did hear smoking plain salvia officinalis leaf (sold at a store as a cooking herb) had strong psychoactive effects (possibly synergized by cannabis and/or tarragon).

this guy was saying he used a blend of tarragon and sage (never specified the ratio, i assume 50/50) to stretch out his cannabis supply so he could roll a joint (as he was smoking with 3 of his friends).

so they smoke it, without expecting any effects from the sage/tarragon (and only expecting mild effects from the cannabis), and all four of them felt STRONG effects, distinctly different and more powerful than cannabis (especially given the small amount used - he said it wasn't even enough weed to roll half a joint)

so that has been intriguing to me, but i have yet to roll down to the store and pick up some sage.

it has also got me thinking that sage (or some 5x sage or maybe even higher) might be a good changa admixture... something to play around with.

@Mitakuye Oyasin
Yeah, that's what I would like to do. Smoke the thujone "hash". But even though thujone is an active ingredient in Absinthe, I've read that it isn't responsible for hallucinations (but I've read this somewhere the internet, it might as well be just a lie).
Also, thank you for mentioning the books!
And I must also say that keeping a dream journal increases your dream recall a LOT. Just thinking about dreams and trying to recall them can increase your dream recall. If you write them down immediately when you wake up, you are able to actually remember them later on (most of the time though we forget the dreams right away when we wake up).

@Jin and @Parshvik Chintan
I am a regular weed smoker and smoking surely doesn't eliminate my dream recall. But, as you know, everyone of us is different and everyone has their own unique body, which means that the same drug doesn't cause the same effects on all people.

I am not sure, but as far as I know, thujone is the only psychoactive ingredient in Salvia Officinalis. Were these guys you mentioned smoking salvia officinalis or salvia divinorum? Because I'm pretty sure you can't get any strong effects just because of plain salvia officinalis leaves mixed with cannabis. And if you're talking about salvia officinalis, I'm pretty sure there aren't any 5x extracts ...

By the way, me and my friends are using Gingko leaves sometimes when we roll a joint. Some say it gives you a better high. None of us is sure about that, but it is true that we were quite stoned a few times when we put ginkgo leaves in the joint.

I posted this in another thread, but would like to share again my experience that fresh sage added to a fermentation vessel (for something like meade), unlocks a distinct psychoactive property not experienced in tea or tincture...wish i knew why...this is not placebo, but has been confirmed by many years of experience and lots of test subjects.

One of my favorite brews has been using sage, mugwort and wormwood in this fashion. Distilling this brew makes a more active "absinthe" than any commercial product i have tried.

Along this vein, I wanted to mention my friends story that using a "mugwort pillow" was what allowed her to begin her journey into lucid dreaming. She is several years into her lucidity now and no longer uses the mugwort, but insists that her pillow triggered the beginning of her adventures.

I'm also a big proponent of lucid dreaming...the standard "asking yourself if you are dreaming" several times a day, in addition to listening to binaural sound recordings was effective for me to get started, tho i *highly* recommend Silene Campensis. Also worth noting is Ashwaganda root. Calea Zachatechichi never worked for me, but i tried that over 20 years ago, long before lucid dreaming was a part of my routine.

@freerad
Nice!, I will make a little research on mugwort, I really hope it grows where I live too. Can you tell me though, how are you using fresh sage you mentioned in the first paragraph?
And can you give me some instructions on making distilled brew from sage, mugwort and wormwood? That would be great

And thanks a lot for the info on lucid dreaming and the herbs related to it, I never came across those herbs you mentioned. But I will definitely make more research on them, and everyone seems to recommend Silene Campensis.


Anyway, I'm still waiting for my sage leaves to dry, it takes a lot of time now because it got colder outside.

Thujone always kind of scared me to the honest. GABA antagonists tend to induce seizures and convulsions in high doses, and the one time I smoked Sage with cannabis, I felt very...wrong. Kind of hard to describe, but very schizophrenic, in a way.

Blessings
~ND

officinalis, hence his (and my) surprise at such strong effects, from an ostensibly inert herb (he was just using it as filler)


none that are commercially available, no, but it is easy enough to make yourself

I use just plain dried sage leaf in some of my changas. I made a "Salvia Special" changa that included Salvia officinalis, Salvia apiana, Salvia divinorum (5x), and of course spice and harmalas. It's one of the most potent changas I've made.

I haven't played around with Salvia officinalis, in the extraction sense. Like was mentioned, I'm a little wary of ingesting too much thujone because of the risk of convulsions, etc.

It does work well as a filler for Cannabis, that's for sure. And I love the taste of it.

As for other dream inducing herbs I would recommend any of the Ubulawu herbs. Synaptolepis kirkii, Entada rheedii, Alepidea amatymbica, Rhus pauciflorus, the list goes on. Africa seems to be a great place to find these dream inducing plants.

@Dioxippus
thanks for all the new info on dream inducing herbs. Do you guys however know any herbs that are common in Europe?

I recently found some links on Thujone oil, when I read them all I'll post some info here.
And by the way, how many dried leaves do you think I need to make an extraction? I got about 10grams of dried leaves now.

Well you can always order these herbs on the internet.

I would start with at least 28 grams if I was going to try an extract. You might not see much with only 10 grams. I could be wrong though!

I do have the herbs at home and I can easily buy them at local stores. The problem is that the herbs are my mom's, and I can't just take all the leaves off the plants. Maybe I'll buy a plant for myself ...

Whow, I just found out that mugwort is actually wormwood (Artemisia Vulgaris). Yesterday I saw a picture of wormwood and it made me believe that I have seen it already, somewhere in the nature. I'll go on a walk tomorrow and try to find any plants that might be growing, try to take some and plant them home, and add some dried mugwort leaves for my thujone extraction.

PS, found this on Erowid

I meant the Ubulawu herbs. You won't find those in many stores

I've read many reports of people having slight experiences from different salvia varieties.
Considering salvia divinorum... i think this would be a great area of research to look into!



Could you elaborate on this a little please? Like effects, or your process.
I plan todo similar fermentation experiments someday, and also to make absinth eventually.


Dioxippus: Thanks! will be looking into those Ubulawu dream herbs eventually.

Cufko: Whohw, i was mixed up about the two names being the same thing as well.

Oh yeah, right ... That makes more sense. Will definitely order some in the future

I'm glad we sorted some things out!!

Talking about wormwood, I found some plants today. The problem is that now I got 2 kinds of plants, and they all look like wormwood to me ...
---
I made a little research on Wikipedia.
I believe one of them is Artemisia vulgaris, and the other one Artemisia absinthium. According to wikipedia, both species are common in Europe. This is awesome, now I got 2 species of wormwood, woohoo!

As far as psychoactive effects go, especially in the dream realm, wormwood and mugwort can be very different. They are in the same genus, yes... but they are a different species entirely. There are two wormwood plants in my garden not far from a few mugwort plants, and it would be impossible to confuse the two. The plant, the smell, the structure and chemistry are very different. They even have different leaves and flowers.

Of course, the psychoactive part is merely subjective; you may or may not find a difference in effect between the two (though I doubt it, wormwood is notoriously more intoxicating than mugwort). But it might be worth noting that thujone is rather toxic in large quantities and it may not be safe to use it as you might use mugwort, which can be used safely in massive quantities in teas, incense, for smoking, and other ways. You would definitely want to do some homework before consumption.

Both are definitely strongly psychoactive though, and may be worth trying out (safely, in wormwood's case). Mugwort is certainly more clear and psychedelic, but it can also be too subtle for some to notice. For others, it can be as strong in waking states as light-moderate doses of mushrooms or LSA, or stronger in less lucid states.
Wormwood is far more intoxicating and many people describe it as fuzzy and surreal, and I'd certainly agree. While it might be better for those who prefer strong over sublte, it's worth noting that many have a strong body load or odd sensations that may be distracting or sickening.

Here's the Wikipedia and Erowid pages for both plants:

Mugwort:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Artemisia_vulgaris
http://www.erowid.org/herbs/mugwort/
Wormwood:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Artemisia_absinthium
http://www.erowid.org/plants/wormwood/

@Hiyo Quicksilver
Thank you for this information!
When I was reading about Artemisia vulgaris on wikipedia, I concluded that mugwort and wormwood are the same thing, because on Wikipedia it says:


I had a lot of difficulties recognizing the plants, because I was never in touch with them. So I ended up taking home 2 different kinds of plants, not knowing if any of those plants is actually from Artemisia genus, but I would find out later that they are both from the same genus. I was looking at the leaves and stems only, because they don't flower anymore in this time of year.

Here are also some pictures of the plants, might be useful for someone:

Mugwort - Artemisia vulgaris
Wormwood - Artemisia absinthium
Both plants

Please correct me if I am wrong.

The leaves of the supposed wormwood plant look about right, but I'm not sure about the flowers. Mine flower on the stalk, not the tip, but I've seen them both ways. The supposed mugwort looks a lot like a lot of other plants and not much like mine, but there are many kinds... Mugwort looks similar to many scrubby plants unless it's in its full, flowery glory. The blossoms are very distinctive and fuzzy, and often bud like hops. I'm crap at identifying plants though.

Both mugwort and wormwood are commonly available plants though, and you should be able to find exactly what you're looking for at most herb shops, health food stores and similar sources. Occult/spiritual bookstores often have high-quality mugwort bundles for incense or placing under pillows, and they're both very inexpensive over the internet. They're also very, very easy to grow. They're perennial (at least here) and will withstand early autumns and unpredictable springs, and they're also easy to grow in hospitable wild areas, provided your area is not prove to infestations of these plants.

@Hiyo Quicksilver
did you smoke mugwort/wormwood? or tea? or both?
if tea did you drink it before sleep or wake up around 4-5am to drink it?