"But with the jurema, the impression I gleaned was that it's best to let the sediment settle and then decant because it's nauseating. Could you say whether you think this is the correct approach for jurema?"

The sediments are active, and produce more unpleasant stomache sensations for me. If I don't drink any of the sediments from the mimosa I save them and add them to the next batch as its cooking.

Thanks Jamie. And thanks to Hyperspace Fool for the interesting and informative post about sediment.

I cooked a 10g dose of chaliponga this evening - supplies turned up unexpectedly early.

* Measured the leaves very carefully on sensitive digital scales
* Put them in a food processor to chop them up coarsely
* Put them in a coffee grinder, ended up with a mix of powder and teensy tiny fibrous bits (stems I guess)

Previously when I tried to put chacruna leaves directly into the coffee grinder it didn't work so well. But I now realize that if I chop leaves in the food processor first, I'll get good results from the grinder.

3 x 30m cooks followed, with the water being decanted from each pot:

Pot 1) 300ml water, 1 tsp. 6% acidity vinegar, brought to a low boil very briefly (half a minute or less) and then steeped (hot enough to steam slightly but no more - no bubbles at all) for a total of 30 mins, with the lid of the pot on.
Pot 2) 200ml water, 0.5 tbsp. vinegar, same cooking style. Water was about a third less opaque from this pot, even with the reduced amount of water
Pot 3) 100ml water, no vinegar, same cooking style. Squeezed the water out of the sediment. Water opacity was weaker still, but not extremely weak.

Out of interest after I decanted the 3rd pot I added a bit more water to the sediment and boiled it hard for 5 mins and examined the resulting water color - it was quite pale, but not colorless by any means. I poured that away, anyway.

I reduced the output of all 3 pots very slowly down to 80ml (2 shot glasses). The liquid looks a lot cleaner and drinkable than the chakruna brew I made some weeks back, and is not far off a totally watery consistency, although it is very dark indeed - impenetrable in fact.

I don't yet know whether I'll take jurema or chaliponga with the caapi tomorrow night. Obviously I've read up on chaliponga, and the impression I've gotten is that it's relatively cold and stark, but can be rewarding in its own way.

If I do take the chaliponga I'll probably down the 50g of caapi and 5g of chaliponga together, and then wait a bit. Depending on what happens after about an hour I will take another 50g of caapi on its own, or do the other 5g chaliponga along with it.

If this sounds spectacularly unwise, it would be great to hear about it.

I'm actually doing something similar, in any case found this bit helpful;
http://www.dmtsite.com/d...nformation/sources.html

scroll down to Ayahuasca preparation, has a general synopsis of the drinking down the page. Of course dosage would be individual, but I think it captures the spirit of it quite well

This is also re-iterated in the nexus aya sticky for the most part, doesn't hurt to have different angles tho

Hi brokenChild! Your nickname sounds a bit sad. I hope you don't actually feel like a broken child.

Anyway, what a co-incidence - I looked at that page for the first time maybe half an hour before you posted me a link to it! These small synchronicities happen all the time - the universe winking at me, hehe.

am on my way to fixing I think, thanks tho

happy journeying fellow traveler

All of this info has helped quite a lot in preparing my own aya(soon to be) and deciding on how I will dose it. thank you.

Ayahuasca experience #3 (last night).

Prep:
- Good diet
- Took some 5HTP a few days before
- Stopped food 9h before
- Stopped water 6h before

I reduced 100g pre-brewed caapi from the freezer slowly into just over 4 shot glasses worth. There was a lot of sediment.

I already had 10g chaliponga reduced to 2 shot glasses from cooking the night before.

I already had some jurema brewed up from another cook a couple of weeks ago. The jurema wasn't inner root bark, so it's weaker.

T: 50g caapi
T+10m: 5g chaliponga
T+30m: nausea, started to dance and listen to music
T+1h: not feeling much (apart from caapi, a bit)
T+1h10: 25g caapi (75g total)
T+1h20m: 2.5g chaliponga (7.5g total)
T+1h30m: feel heavy, spaced out, whooshing in ears, face feels puffy
T+1h40m: 12.5g caapi (87.5g total) and 1 tsp olive oil (I read it can get things kickstarted)
T+1h55m: 2.5g chaliponga (10g total)
T+2h35m: consult internet about mixing jurema with caapi and chaliponga
T+2h50m: 2.5g jurema
T+3h05m: nausea, heart rate up, lymph nodes under jaw a bit swollen ,cold, definitely tripping mildly (body starts to look a bit foreign, I start noticing tiny things on common objects)
T+3h10m: another 1 tsp of olive oil - astonishingly peppery
T+3h30m: really spaced out, but no clear sign of DMT action
T+3h35m: 2.5g jurema (5g total)
T+3h40m: oral purge
T+3h40m: 12.5g caapi (100g total)
T+3h45m: 2.5g jurema (7.5g total) and another tsp. olive oil
T+3h50m: 2.5g jurmaa (10g total)
T+4h00m: 2.5g jurema (12.5g total)
T+4h10m: definitely flogging a dead horse, went to bed

So in total that was:
- 100g caapi
- 10g chaliponga
- 12.5g jurema

I recognized that I was mildly tripping, it was unmistakable and I recognized it with a smile from 20 years ago when I last did LSD. But really nothing eyebrow-raising at all. I was just 'pretty spaced out'. Balance was off again, flesh looked waxy and foreign, face felt puffy, I was pretty hot and then got very chilly.

Possibilities (not mutually exclusive) that I can think of (in no order of likelihood):

1) Terribly weak DMT ingredients
2) Bad cooking
3) Bad DMT ingestion timing
4) High threshold for MAO inhibition
5) High tolerance to DMT
6) ?
...

Not sure what to do next time. I read somewhere about a guy that took 11 tries to break through. I should probably try and track that guy down and ask what he thought he did wrong! Maybe it can help me.

Comments and suggestions extremely welcome!

Bro I say this again.



maybe weak ingredient and definately 2 and 3 combined makes the whole experience like you said

my earlier post is still valid

peace

Hello vineseeker!

Can you clarify whether you are you suggesting I did a bad cook? And if so, would you be so kind as to point out where you think I could have done better?

And are you saying that it seems like I personally need to adjust the DMT ingestion timing, or that DMT should always be taken 45m after the MAOI (by anybody/everybody)?

dmt and vine, dont just spread the drinking over the 3h or more.
Do not drink any water after drinking the vine or the dmt.
Drink 50-100g vine in one dose, then wait between 30min and 1h until maio inhibition takes place. Mostly you feel it coming yourself... I drink the dmt when I feel it
drink DMT also in only one dose.

cook caapi at least 3x3h and add lots of acid until ph4.

That works for me at least. And of course its also possible to drink caapi and dmt together in ONE dose, but then you have to dose higher dmt.

I pretty much stuck to my original plan of 50g caapi and 5g chaliponga, wait an hour, then do the other 50g caapi with the other 5g chaliponga. The rest of the time involved was kind of 'it didn't work, can I salvage something'. I like the 2-stage plan because then if I purge it early I've got some backup.

Maybe next time I should just have 2 full doses (or more) on hand instead. Sounds better.



No water was drunk way before the brew, and I didn't drink any until the next morning either. Just mouth-swilling and spitting.



I've probably been laboring under a mistaken assumption, thinking about it. I was assuming that the MAOIs do something to the stomach so that the DMT isn't zapped by the enzymes (or something - I'm not sure where I picked up this idea), and therefore the ingredients needed to be mixed IN the stomach, and therefore the DMT had to be drunk while the MAOI was still present and not digested. I'd better check my assumptions and research how that whole MAOI thing works...

Waiting until I feel it (the MAOI) is something I can try, because I definitely know when the caapi has kicked in. Trouble is, that didn't happen until 1h30m after I took the 50g caapi. Maybe I just take 100g at the start. <hopes he doesn't barf straight away>



I did that. I think the caapi cook is fine. I feel the caapi quite strongly (mostly as a trippy kind of sedative), it's just not anything eyebrow-raising at 100g.

I probably added too much acid (vinegar) because my brews are quite vinegary. Makes me shudder before downing them.



OK, thanks for your advice.

if the maio inhibition is not in place your precious dmt molecules are destroyed by the body very quickly If you do not want to dose high you better wait until it works... or keep eating dmt until your body cannot destroy it anymore

I feel people can over emphasize spacing out the admixture and vine. I also think 1 hour is far too much time to wait and will shorten your peak.

Spacing out is a method some people like and on paper it makes sense but in my experience I don't notice a whole lot of difference.
Give the vine a head start to inhibit mao in the gut before you introduce dmt to the system but I think the body absorbs the dmt at near the same rate as the harmalas inhibit the mao also giving the user a nice comfortable come up.

Its a fine method and does make a difference but its not mandatory for a successful launch and sometimes peoples words seem to imply it is and even tell others that's the reason for failed launch. Not saying you are doing this btw.
I wouldn't space things out more than 15-20 min tops. A bit of a head start is sufficient.

About the no water suggestion. Drinking water within reasonable amounts is fine and at times needed to get things going. I will explain. This has happened to me more than once.
When a person fasts or partial fast and cuts off drinking water a couple hours before ceremony the stomach is quite empty. A very reduced shot of aya is sometimes not enough substance to get the digestive track working. I once had an empty stomach and drank my cup of a very, very strong brew. I layed back in the darkness for close to 2 hours as the Icaros began and others were rolling around the maloka moaning and obviously fully into the experience as I just sat feeling nothing.

I had my water bottle with me as I always do in ceremony's and knew what the problem was so drank about 8 ounces of water. With this in my belly i felt the digestive system kick on and began to come up within 5 min and had a powerful journey.

Water is not a bad thing in small amounts at a time and is needed to stay hydrated and to keep energy levels up. Low energy can keep the experience lesser. That's why I also don't ever fully fast. I need energy to really journey it takes quite a lot of energy to fuel these experiences. Food and water = energy. You don't want to guzzle a lot and dilute the aya in your tummy taking it longer to absorb and be digested. I think that's what you meant. Some fruit or even sucking on a sour candy can also get he juices flowing as well. 1 ounce shot of ya isn't always enough to get thing moving down there.

Its best not to recommend 100g vine in one dose to a first time user of caapi. There a a significant number of people that even 30g of vine is super strong for them. If a persons system is sensitive like this 100g would make for a very uncomfortable and possibly terrifying experience. I think a safer recommendation of 50-60g for a persons first time is best. Some even think thats too much.
That's just me.

Tell me about it, my stomach sets everything on hold forever

I've found drinking water to promote purging (too soon), or making it at least more difficult to keep down. I like to save the purge for expelling energetic ballast in the heat of intensity, not before.

Alan Shoemaker (he runs an aya center in Peru) has been very clear about the following:
about aya slow kicking in:

about food prior to ceremony:


Personal tests show that oat indeed make aya-life better, it soothes the stomach, no cramps or upsets and stimulates/ triggers the transit. It gives the stomach volume to chew on and the oat "greases" the channel, this last I think is important. The tannin sort of de-grease (?) the tissue, and the oat compensates for that. In no way it lessened the actives. Also, it neutralizes the taste of the tannins rapidly. Drinking water might help things too, but I guess the oat does extra job what water cannot do.

It took me long time before checking out on the oat, so far without the honey, I dunno what extra that can give, must try later.

Second, I use soy-milk to make the oat, dunno how that compares to regular milk.

Purge: it will prevent a premature purge, but when the energetic purge calls for later on in ceremony, the oat will not prevent that from happening, it will make that one come out easier, more "greased" and less harsh.

PS1: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0yJJ59iCZzo

PS2: no idea about cross relevance with aya, but in hikuri ceremony it was told not to use water but apple juice for sake of the stomach.

Thanks for the continued advice, OM, VS and Jeez!

Tonight I'll choose the high end of OM's DMT timing advice, which is just off the low-end of VS's advice on the matter. I've tried unsuccessfully a few times with 5-10 minute offsets, so it's good to mix it up a bit.

Also, I'm going to eat porridge with honey 20 mins before ingesting the caapi. I love porridge anyway, so this is a good excuse to eat some and experiment at the same time! Thanks Jeez.

Oh dear, I'm not a very good Ayahuasca scientist, because I change so many variables between each attempt. Ingredients, ingestion offsets, fasting periods, brewing technique... I guess I'm hoping I'll just luck out on some more effective combination and then just repeat and refine.

I ran out of pre-brewed caapi and DMT tea after last time, so yesterday I made a THP (The Herbal Percolator). THP extraction is allegedly (or at least I inferred from what has been written) stronger than boils, although I have no idea how that could possibly work. It is certainly relatively quick, but it remains to be seen whether it was effective.

Materials
=========

* 1 4L glass jar (just looks like a jam jar, but massive)
* 1 7L high thickness/rigidity PET container (which had still mineral water in it originally)
* Lots of cotton wool gauze (and I mean LOTS for stuffing the bottom of a 7L container)
* 1 piece of cloth for laying on top of the ingredient
* Tap water (I have 3 filters of various sorts in my house before it even gets to my tap, and then I put it through another Brita filter before it goes in the brew). I'm trying this because using large volumes of ingestion-grade distilled water is expensive in this country.

I cut the bottom off of the PET container, turned it upside down and put it on the jar. Then I stuffed the cottom wool gauze in and experimented with drip rates for a bit. The PET container's opening was rather wide, so I had to do some serious stuffing to get a 1-2 drop drip rate when filled with 1L.

Caapi
=====
1) 50g chunk of whole thick yellow vine from same source as last time, put in a high power blender until extremely finely shredded (with some small percentage actually powdered).
2) 8L very hot water acidified with 5% white wine vinegar, 1 tbsp/L
3) Boiled down to 80ml (2 shot glasses)

Chaliponga
==========
1) 10g of the greenest looking leaves from this batch (I was thinking fresher is better), same source as last time.
2) 4L very hot water acidified with 5% white wine vinegar, 1 tbsp/L
3) Boiled down to 40ml (1 shot glass)

The water on each occasion was 'very very hot' but I didn't manage to get hold of a suitable thermometer yet, so it couldn't be measured. What I did was bring the water to a boil, and then leave it for a short while. The water was still very, very hot when I put it in. Maybe 80 degrees C.

Notes:

* Trying to shred a whole, dry, thick piece of caapi in a blender can break the less resilient bits of your blender
* Drip rate increases with more volume (duh). So if you add a lot of water in one go, it will go through faster. I used a greater ratio of water than 150ml:1g where necessary to compensate for the increased flow rate
* If the cloth laying on top of the ingredient is too expansive and folds in on itself, it can trap air and start floating itself. I mitigated this by pressing the fabric down (and the air out of it) with a ladle, while pouring the water in
* I am not wanting to use very hot water with PET plastic on a regular basis due to possible health issues, so more thinking to be done there. I have a couple of ideas for PP plastic replacements.

The plan tonight:

T-6h: Last food (steamed fresh salmon)
T-4h: Last drink (hot water)
T: Small bowl porridge (made with water) and honey
T+20m: 50g caapi
T+40m: 10g chaliponga

I used some spoons of porridge to chase down the medicine too

Well, in the end I didn't take the porridge. I was all ready to cook it and then it just didn't feel right. Also my wife agreed that I was changing too many variables at the same time.

Anyway, here's what happened:

T: 50g caapi (THP extracted), started dancing (helps me keep the stuff down)
T+25m: 7.5g chaliponga (THP extracted) (continued dancing)
T+1h: not feeling much apart from a few rushes, tinglings and very slight visual disturbances and a 'mongy' caapi feeling, laid down, unintentionally fell asleep
T+2h10m: woke up coming up strong and purged orally immediately. impressive and immersive CEVs, strongly altered open eye visual state, extra dimensions, loss of sense of self when still, can't write, lost... laughing
T+2h40m: wife walked past the room so I called her in and talked to her about what it was like. hard to talk, keep getting lost internally in warm chocolatey gooey love feeling and just being still and simultaneously falling... my wife reminded me to try to gain some insight about addiction (since I'd told her this was an aim), and I had a go, but eventually I realized that it doesn't work like this - you have to flow with the direction of its power, it doesn't give it's power to you to use.
T+3h25m: peak definitely well over, very few visuals, highly unusual state of perception/reality in recession. I realized I had 2.5g chaliponga left, so I took it, with no other effects than nausea and fatigue for the next few hours (which was fine)

After the peak was over I was lying in bed just observing what was going on internally. Lots of insights were supercrystalclear during the experience but I'm clear on all that when straight anyway, so no surprises. Just reinforcement.

I know I cancelled/negated/diffused a lot of the power by talking to my wife and also attempting to route the experience a certain way. This had the effect of 'unlosing' myself, and when I realized that was what was happening, the door was already closing.

Next time I'll just stay in a totally dark room on my own and hopefully get pulled down deeeeeeep.

Does the THP work? Certainly seems to. I had half as much caapi as usual and only a bit more chaliponga than last time (which didn't go anywhere), but it was STRONG. I also waited a bit more before taking the chaliponga. Another difference was that I only used the very green leaves from my chaliponga batch.

I felt very very relaxed today and not very tired even despite only 4h sleep. I feel that the brew has healing properties which go to work in the background.

The next brew will again be using the THP, with 75g caapi (+50%) and 11.25g chaliponga (+50%), same diet and spacing.

All comments and tips are very welcome. I'm interested in deepening and lengthening the journey, getting totally lost for a long period.

Last night I took 50g caapi and 11g chaliponga, 20 mins apart. Both were brewed the THP way as previously.

I didn't take notes this time, but I think it started coming on strong about 1 to 1.5 hours in, and the DMT peak lasted about 2. Hard to say really. :-)

The effects were the same as last time, except stronger and longer lasting. Very strong open and closed eye visuals (very vivid colored fractals, geometric patterms, 'energy waves', 'matrix'-style reality made up of symbols, and so on), plus 'visions' of various sorts, re-realizations, 'aha' moments and associated chuckles. The connection with the body was very faint. Breathing was an anchor, whenever I took a deep breath. Deep breaths were so smooooth and soooo deeeeep! :-)

A few times I felt like it was putting me 'to the test', seeing if I could be affected by certain visions. But as the untouchable subject I was invulnerable. Thoughts were pretty much non existent for the DMT peak. A lot of internal chatter came back afterwards, hehe.

I don't remember the content of the experiences very well. I decided not to take notes beforehand, and I'm not sure I would even have been capable of it. I was totally engrossed, forgotten.

I'd be very grateful if people could offer some advice about what other things Ayahuasca can bring about, which haven't been experienced here.

I can continue to take Ayahuasca (as various combinations of caapi/rue and chacruna/chaliponga/jurema) but if I've 'gotten the message' of Aya already then it occurs to me that I might as well hang up the phone. In that case I would try spice, because I'd like to experience hyperspace.

Corto, question for you; when you embarked on your journeys, did you introduce any music to it in the beginning, or did you find it more beneficial just to go into yourself in the ambient silence? Thanks!