Do you make your lemon balm tea the same way as you would make a cup of tea in the morning or is there more boiling involved?

My friend sometimes drinks with me and he purges quite early and quite hard, this would probably be useful for him.

Yeah, i make my Lemon Balm tea pretty much just like any other herbal tea. I take water, heat it up in the microwave for a few seconds or so, and i dump in my Lemon Balm, stir, and cover it with a small plate as to avoid evaporation of essential oils. I let the herb sit in the water for about 20 minutes and then filter it. No boiling necessary

And yeah, it might be worth a try for your friend to see if Lemon Balm can help. I can tell you from my experience, that i can take 6 capsules of ground Rue seed and there's no nausea whatsoever when Lemon Balm is included, without the Lemon Balm, i purge big time. And also from experience, 215mgs of extracted Rue Harmalas is quite strong, lasts about 7 to 8 hours, and gives me an "afterglow" the next day or so, and as long as Lemon Balm is included there's essentially no nausea (there may be just a tiny hint of nausea but i find it goes away pretty quickly and it can be easily helped with Cannabis). Though at 200mgs there's no nausea or purging at all, ime.

So i'm of the opinion that Lemon Balm def. eases the stomach woes Ayahuasca is associated with. And why some people prefer the purge, or think the purge is necessary, is beyond me. Idk about anyone else, but i much prefer Ayahuasca without the purge, as there's hardly any discomfort and the experience is still as full as ever.

The purge is about letting go. Many people go to great lengths to avoid it, but I have come to embrace it.

Well the purge does absolutely nothing positive for me. For me, the only thing i'd say the purge is good for, is to soothe the stomach when i feel the nausea. The effects, the experience itself, has never been altered due to the purging. To me the purging is nothing more than a side-effect that i wish to avoid. Many people may think i don't know what i'm doing because i want to avoid the purge, but as many times as i've taken Ayahuasca AND purged, it has come to my attention in a vision Ayahuasca has showed me many times, that specifically tells me that this stuff CAN be used without the purging.

It's like too many people believe that the purging is set in stone, like it's one of the rules for Ayahuasca, that you must purge. Well i'm here to say that you don't HAVE to purge. Some might feel better if they purge, but by adding in the Lemon Balm, one is then able to quell the nausea and purging, so that one is able to focus on the experience without stomach pains getting in the way.

This stuff is POWERFUL medicine, and by eliminating what i deem to be an undesirable side-effect, it allows the medicine to be even that much more powerful. Besides, i never was able to achieve Harmala effects past 5 to 6 hours because i would always throw up. Now that i don't have to throw up, i can take higher doses of Harmalas that lasts about 8 hours.

Also i'd like to note that Lemon Balm also helps to quell the stomach issues from ground up Rue seed in capsules. With Rue seeds, there's two sources of nausea/stomach discomfort, one is from the Harmalas themselves and the other is because you've ingested the Rue seed. In me experience, a few grams of Lemon Balm made into tea, can and does stop the stomach discomfort for atleast 6 capsules of Rue seed. 6 capsules of Rue seed is what i started out taking until i started doing my own Harmala extractions. And had i known then that Lemon Balm could'a saved me from so much stomach pains and nausea, i would've added it in way before now.

cheers Sabnock, I will post the results when I next drink with my friend.

K, i look forward to hearing how it goes. I've also been thinking that in the near future i want to try adding in a little fresh Ginger root with my Lemon Balm, and then there shouldn't be any stomach issues whatsoever. I feel that the Ginger could take care of the little tiny hint of nausea that usually Cannabis ends up relieving, since here soon i'm gonna have to give up Cannabis for awhile and still want to take Ayahuasca. So if your friend wants to be really sure, the Lemon Balm will help out about 98%, but adding in some Ginger as well certainly wouldn't hurt.

yeah I guess munching a bit of ginger cant hurt, I was going to get him to try that as well.

I will use him as a human guinea pig, I will lemon balm him first, then gingerfy him the time after, then combine both for the 3rd time.

theres nothing like human testing

Sabnock - is that dried lemon balm you're using, or fresh?

Interesting results, btw, particularly that you say the lemon balm increases the visions. Then again, nausea-free aya sounds kinda appealing too!

I think we're essentially developing our own science of admixture herbs.

I use dried Lemon Balm, but i'm sure fresh could possibly be used. And yeah, the visuals have been colorful and vibrant and bright. It's awesome. And yes, developing our own recipe of admixture herbs is more like it I also one day wanna see how Ayahuasca is with Skullcap and possibly Passion Flower added to the mix.

Basically, i'm now looking at Ayahuasca much like people look at Changa. The idea of being able to control how deep you go, and the idea of mixing in certain plants to see how much influence, if any, they may have on the Ayahuasca experience.

Also, i have a quick question for anyone who might have an answer. Do you think there's a possibility, that because Lemon Balm apparently has Cholinergic and GABAergic properties, that it could possibly do some of what Amanita Muscaria does? I know Amanita contains Muscimol which is an agonist at the GABA-A receptor, as well as Muscarine which is an agonist for Muscarinic Acetylcholine receptors.

Now, Lemon Balm apparently acts as an agonist at both the Muscarinic and Nicotinic Acetylcholine receptors, and apparently has Acetylcholinesterase and GABA-Transaminase inhibiting properties.

So i guess my question is, if mixing Lemon Balm in with Ayahuasca, could the Lemon Balm possibly do some of what Amanita's can do? If so, i think it would be even more of a spiritual brew, don't you? Plus, this could be the reason why Lemon Balm seems to make things a bit more visual for me??? who knows.

Also, Skullcap is said to apparently bind to GABA-A at the same place Alcohol, and Benzos, and Quaaludes and all that stuff binds to, so Skullcap may be even more of a GABAergic herb than Lemon Balm, and thus might mix in nicely as well.

Precisely today I was reading a summary about A. Muscaria (in Dale Pendell, 2010) so I have information handy.

The actives in Muscaria are ibotenic acid and muscimol. Muscarine is reported to have minimal presence, that's a misconception you can still find easily.

Presumably, ibotenic acid excites glutamate receptors (I have no reference at hand) and muscimol, as you said, binds to GABA receptors - there's a more accurate description here. So looks like the effects of Muscaria and lemon balm are not similar in a neuro-chemical level either.

Oh okay. Thanks there Vodsel

So the Ibotenic Acid i'm assuming triggers the NMDA receptor which could lead i guess to excitotoxicity, and apparently that's one thing that Harmine apparently reduces through increasing the EAAT2 function. So speaking of Amanita's (not that i've ever taken them or even plan to), would Harmine then be something one could hypothetically take with Amanita's in order to prevent any poisoning that may occur due to the Ibotenic Acid?

And also, if Muscimol is the primary "psychoactive" constituent of Amanita Muscaria, then doesn't that mean it's psychoactive properties are caused by GABA-A agonism? If that's the case, then by possibly adding Skullcap or maybe even Passion Flower into the mix, it could very well cause a similar psychoactive effect? And since Lemon Balm inhibits GABA-Transaminase, i know the inhibition causes the buildup of GABA in the brain, so wouldn't that also contribute to GABAergic effects, possibly making things a little more visual?

I've often times wondered what kind of effects people get from Amanita's, and since they say you can get visions from it and all, and feel euphoria and it's connection to spirituality, i wonder if some elements of the Amanita experience could perhaps be interjected into the Ayahuasca experience through other means such as GABA-A agonism.

Alcohol, benzos, and methaqualone actually all bind to different allosteric sites on the GABA-A receptor.

I have a lot of experience with skullcap alone and in combination with other mild sedative herbs. I think it would probably go well with ayahuasca, but it might not be as strong as you are expecting.

I only have limited experience with lemon balm so I can't compare the two, but I can say that the commonly available Scutellaria laterifolia is pretty weak even at doses as high as 5g. Scutellaria galericulata on the other hand is much stronger in my experience. The only problem is that you'll probably have to collect it from the wild yourself if you want to try this type of skullcap.

Yeah i know about the different allosteric sites or channels or what not that different things bind to when it comes to GABA-A, so i'm of course not expecting anything near the same results when it comes to Skullcap or other herbal GABA-A type herbs, but i feel if perhaps Skullcap is mixed with Lemon Balm in Ayahuasca, the combo could provide a kick ass calming effect that can ease you into the experience while reducing the chances of a "difficult/bad" experience.

As for S. Laterifolia, i've heard before that it's kinda weak, so i don't think i'd have a problem adding larger amounts of the herb to make a tea.

I was gonna try mixing in Passion Flower, but i'll be dammed if i can drink Passion Flower tea. The first tiny little sip instantly made me nauseous lol. So i think i'll check out Skullcap at some point or another and see how that goes. How's the taste of Skullcap?

I have a fair amount of experience with Amanitas. The worst symptoms of poisoning that this mushroom causes is nausea, vomiting, and salivation. It can have a deliriant effect in some people, but there is no evidence for excitotoxicity of ibotenic acid when used orally. This mushroom has been used safely for thousands of years by natives of Siberia.

Combining it with harmine probably couldn't hurt, although there are reports that harmalas can greatly potnetiate Amanitas.


The pharmacology of muscimol is more complicated than this. It's also a GABA-B and GABA-A-rho agonist. But to be honest, it is unknown exactly how muscimol causes its hallucinogenic effects.

The only other GABA-A agonists that I know of that consistently causes hallucinogenic effects in some people are zolpidem and zopiclone. I've used zolpidem and its hallucinogenic effects are very different from amanitas. So there has to be something more going on besides just GABA-A agonism.

As for lemon balm, I think that it could hypothetically in high doses have an effect similar to amanitas since it increases levels of GABA, which agonizes GABA-A, A-rho, and B receptors just like muscimol.


I think that GABA-A agonism is not enough to mimic the effects of Amanitas, but I think these herbs should definitely be experimented with and could possibly alter and even enhance the ayahuasca experience.


I think it's super bitter but definitely bearable and not nauseating.

Thanks for your reply Powerful

Yeah i just got curious and started wondering what about Amainta's do people like, and from there i got off into wondering what it'd be like to have similar effects mixed in with the usual Ayahuasca-ness. At least it's good to know the "poisoning" symptoms aren't much of anything, and yeah mixing it with Harmine would most likely potentiate it. It would be interesting to one day figure out the process behind Amanita's effects, i've never taken them but i hear some good things about them, although some say they suck but i guess there's mixed results with a lot of things.

Anyways, as for Skullcap's taste, hopefully it's bearable enough for me to try mixing it in with Lemon Balm and Acacia. If it isn't, maybe some sort of extract or concentrated tincture might be of use.

Thanks again for the reply though.

WOW! YEEEEEEE! WOW! YEEEEEEEE!

Lemon Balm, is indeed the shit. Well, it and Passion Flower. Passion Flower, is smoked mixed with Cannabis, the Passion Flower intensifies the experience and increases visualness, it's AMAZING!.

The Lemon Balm.... I had to buy some more cuz i ran out, and the stuff (and online vendor) that i got this new stuff from, AMAZING quality Lemon Balm (at least, it seems so with Ayahuasca, lol). I do wish to grow my own Lemon Balm and Passion Flower come this spring, amazing allies in the Ayahuasca realm

Woah dudes! I spotted a green orb that was a little smaller than a golfball, at the top of one of my curtains in my room. There was NO way in hell that it was some sort of reflectory light or anything like that, and plus it was the only like real thing i've seen, i mean it stood the fuck out. Of course, i'm relaxed so i have more of a curiosity about it but i think maybe it was just part of the experience and that it was meant to be, for now.

Plus i keep talking in tongues or what seems like maybe Spanish and i have full on acents to match the different languages and yeah, weird but intriguing. And i would like to note, that i don't know any other languages, i'm American through and through, don't know Spanish, couldn't speak it to save my life.

I have loads of lemon balm outside my house. I have used it in changa, but have yet to try it in a tea. I have enough lemon balm to last a year once summer arrives. It is very handy. I also have wild Mullen and mint that grows in my garden. I love picking my own changa admixtures. Just need to plant some cappi and mimosa now Thanks for the info, Sabnock

This has been happening to me for a few years now. It's not Spanish I'm speaking, but some unknown language. Now, when I, say, bang my knee or something, instead of the traditional English expletive, I'll exclaim in this weird language I've never heard before. It sounds vaguely South American, but I can't be sure. I speak it randomly while sober, not while on DMT.