Hi fellow travellers.

I'm a psychonaut for about a year now (If I exclude my years of cannabis use). My use is mainly as a support for meditation which I practice a lot. For a while I used mushroom and then lsd, usually in tiny dose as my goal isn't to blow away my mind. For the last few months, I relied a lot on Iboga which is an amazing plant. I did a few relatively large dose (1 gram of TA extract) but mainly used it in small dose. It's amazing how much I gained from this plant. A lot of anxiety and various affects and craving are gone. It seems that I got pretty much all I could get from it and the its subject to a law of diminished return.

For the last week, I've been drinking some caapi tea daily. I drink it in the morning before going to work and during the day. I use an handful of leaves that I boil for 30 minutes with some lime juice. The increased clarity I get from it is pretty nice.

I also got a few plants known for increasing the odds of having lucid dreams:
Catnip
Silene capensis
Calea Zacatechichi
Wormwood (Artemisia absinthum)

My plant at first when getting cappi was to brew Aya. I don't have the DMT source for now but will eventually. People talk about brewing 100 grams of caapi when making Aya. Is that with the vine or it apply for the leaves too? 100 grams, that's a lot of leaves!

I'm also interested in doing combinaison of the above plants. Any suggestion or warning is welcome.

Feel free to check out the aya sticky in the Ayahuasca subforum, it pretty much explains the general gist of it.

As far as the leaves to vine go, it really depends on a lot of factors, from personal sensitivity, to potency of plant material. Some say 50g caapi and 50g viridis is a good place to start, for me that was a little low so I started with 100g caapi and 100g p viridis.

Keep in mind potency of p.viridis also differs, some certain strains are allegedly up to 4 times more potent than others, so everything is relative. Feel it out for yourself and do what feels most natural to you. Start low and work your way up. I personally like to brew caapi and leaves separate and drink my way up to personal sweet spot. As far as caapi to leaves ratio, it depends on the leaves, for chacruna (p. viridis) it's generally ok at 1:1 ratio (again, depending on relative potency of leaves), for something like chaliponga, the leaves are much more concentrated so you would want to start out somewhere around 3-5g and work your way up much more carefully since it's a lot less forgiving than p-viridis in the dosing department (very easy to "overdo" ). So, it's generally recommended to start with chacruna for the first go-round, it's more of a friendlier giggly leaf. That's where I started, tried both, and ended up liking both for their own relative characteristics.

Would have to grope around consciously and find your own sweet spot based on your own sensitivity and quality of plant material, there's no "standard" answer

As far as adding the wormwood, catnip and other herbs, I dunno much about it, I've only ever smoked those so I wouldn't know if it would be helpful or harmful with the brew. I do know the basic brew tho, if you get it right, would be plenty for an experience in and of itself. Welcome to the Nexus

When people talk about 100g caapi for ayahuasca, they're referring to the vine.

Calea tastes pretty terrible, but I think it definitely has an effect on dreaming. I'm not sure if my incidence of sleep paralysis has gone up since DMT or since calea, but either way, as vivid of an experience as it may be, it's been an undesirable side effect of such endeavors.

It seems that brewing with chacruna and caapi is simple enough for me to do it. Water+vinegar, leave for the night, then simmer for 3 hours, empty and repeat two times. I can do that. I'm tempted by pharmahuasca but I get going the above route should be fine. For now, I really enjoy the caapi tea. My mood keep increasing everyday. It's not too expensive and if I improve my extraction (I only boil for 30 minutes), I should get more of it.

I've gotten to where I just boil the caapi for 9 hours straight, then strain and reduce. The admixture I just make like I would tea, boil it on very low boil for 30-45 mins, strain and that's it. This works for me, but I do use a little more plant material for it than most, so I'm not 100% sure that it's optimal

Do whatever you feel most comfortable with I guess

I managed to down some calea last night. I tried mixing it with orange juice or 10% cream. I didn't have milk so I used cream but I think the thickness of the cream help mask the taste quite a bit. A mix of orange juice and cream worked quite well too. You down this while avoiding breathing by the noise for a while. I can't say it improved my dreams (I generally can't recall my dreams) but I had to use some sleeping pills since it was so late and I couldn't sleep. I hope to try again without the pills.

Not sure if I understood correctly:

-You boil the caapi alone for 9 hours
-You strain and discard the materal
-Reduce??? (you boil again alone?)
-You add the chacruna and boil for 45 minutes
-You strain.

Is that it?

Not entirely.

I boil the caapi for 9 hours straight, with maybe a tablespoon of vinegar per single dose boil.

Strain caapi through tshirt and/or a strainer if you have it (I layer t-shirt inside a wire mesh pasta strainer, and pour caapi brew through that, minimal sediment this way I've found)

Take the chunks in the t-shirt/strainer and either discard, or freeze to add to another brew down the road, up to you, but I wouldn't use it more than twice at most.

Take the remaining caapi liquid, pour back in pot, and reduce down (just evaporate water on low heat setting) to drinkable amount (say, 100mL or so)

Make the ad-mixture separate, so just add water, a tablespoon of vinegar, the leaves, boil on very low setting for about 45 mins, then strain thru tshirt/wire mesh strainer again, and reduce THAT liquid down to drinkable amount as well (the same 100mL or so)

At the end you should have two liquids, roughly equal, one caapi, one admixture. Drink what you feel is a comfortable amount of caapi, wait about 30mins till you feel the MAO inhibition (you'll feel almost a little drunk/sluggish kind of) then chase with your admixture of what you feel is a comfortable amount. Just do what feels natural, your body knows best so listen to it. And then just be conscious of the journey and enjoy the process brother

Also be sure to read the All about Aya sticky in the Ayahuasca subforum. It covers everything perfectly