Let me clarify. The idea is that a person takes a course of caapi supplements until their brain has grown enough synapses to overcome their depresion. NOT every day until they die. Obviously to be truly happy they then need to learn how to think more positively, but all that can be discussed in the various threads on depression (see my 'General depression links' thread in the healing section). The discussion on whether or not there is such a thing as chemical imbalance in the brain has been discussed at great length in the threads I linked to there.


I love that stuff! I thoroughly recommend it. It doesn't make you puke- they must be choosing to do that entirely by themselves.

Oops. Seems like I'm causing an argument here--and I don't intend to be. I've read an awful lot of scientific articles in my day, and I only wanted to remark that the article that acolon_5 referenced did not really address (at all) the issue of "chronic" use of ayahuasca or using just one part of ayahuasca chronically. But it's also true: nothing in that article could be in any way taken to imply evidence that such use would be unhealthy. I DO worry that chronic and habitual use of things that have a strong physiological effect can make you unhealthy without you even noticing. Personally, I gave up all caffeine over a year ago--and doing so made me feel MUCH better, and increased the clarity of my thinking, too.

I AM pretty sure that Caapi wouldn't be considered a "food" however...

for some reason yerba mate makes me feel on the verge of puking about 50% of the time. Sucks cus I like the other effects, and have a bag of it ..dunno why it does this to me..green tea as well.

ya I get what you are saying..I mostly gave up caffine as well, but still use some herbal medicines daily. i think its hard though to really make the distinction between what is a food and what isnt. Its subjective and cultural. I mean, I think that one of the main things dictating morpholoy and evolution among life on earth has been its habitat, which includes diet to a great extent. Our human brain probabily got so complex on a bio chemical level by slowly aclimatising itself and making use of the various chemicals available in the plants and animals we were ingesting..terrnece mckenna talks about this quite a bit in relation to the mushrooms being injested in low doses along with the rest of the early mans diet, and as a side effect, it would strengthen they're hunting skills, further develope language and such(speculation of course)..

I also think that there are so many reasons out there to believe that alot of us are defficient in essential amino acids and tryptamines etc.. especially melatonin and seratonin. All the unnatural lighting we are exposed to into the late hours of the night, way to much caffine, alcohol and other stimulants being used. Lots of people find benificial effects from taking 5htp, melatonin and MAOI's like the ones found it cappi. I drink cappi tea every few days, usually about 10 grams, sometimes 2 grams of chali added and it seems to help me. I drink it at night before I sleep or in the middle of the night and than go back. It makes me very relaxed and dreamy every time, admix or not. Some of the time I will actually end up with closed eye visions and VERY meaningful dreams and revelations. Its very mild if walking around in daylight, but when laying down with closed eyes I can go deep. Sometimes I drink just a few grams before work with chocolate powder and stevia..better than coffee.


edit..our food is also grown poorly, leading to nutrient deficiencies..so it would make sence that people are finding relief in daily supplements.

So they drink 20-30g?! Wow... but then they actually WANT to purge, to get rid of worms etc.
I haven't experienced nausea personally, maybe I'm one of the lucky ones. I found that a tea made by simmering 5g for 20 minutes was as high as I'd like to go. No nausea, just a high-caffeine-ish level of stimulation, but feeling good without edginess or ill-feeling-ness (coffee and caffeiene pils really don't agree with me).

Back to aya supplements... unfortunately I don't need them, but if I ever do, or if I can be satisfied that I would be justified in giving them to someone else who does need them, then I'll report back.

Chronic MAOI use is not harmful unless you eat too many tyramines. Much stronger MAOIS then those found in caapi were once prescriped as anti depressants until more effective drugs (although not for everyone and not without their own side effecits) without the diet problems came out.

The thing I find intruiging is that THH and like compounds may be cures not just treating the symptoms.

One of the most profound experiences I ever had was living slone for six weeks in a cave on a desert mountain, on the ground with just a sleeping bag, and 50 miles from the nearest road. After only a week, when I had become completely attuned to the natural light cycle, I felt as though HEAVILY DRUGGED by a hypnotic within a half-hour after sundown (I literally COULD NOT stay awake--like a small child will fall asleep anywhere when they get tired), and a half-hour before sunrise I was BURSTING with energy, and wanting to jump out of my bag and run up and down mountain sides.

Modern people don't even have a CLUE anymore how badly screwed up we are by the way we live...

I am pretty sure the phrase "chronic use" probably would not apply to a relationship with ayahuasca... if it did it would more then likely be called impulsive or compulsive "use" by a rare, rare individual with some problems that had nothing to do with ayahuasca.

daily ingesting of ayahuasca as a supplement would be probably more homeopathic in its ingestion, it would certainly not be intoxicating, tolerances would exist for one...
but the way the word chronic is used in this context would say that my mother has a chronic use of vitamine c, or pepper, or that an elder taking asprin daily to prevent blood clots is chronic...
many people take medicines daily for various ailments... and that doesnt mean that they have a chronic use of said substance. soem folks rink a glass of wine a day for its malic acid and antioxidents... that doesnt make them a chronic drinker...

from dictionary.com: definition of chronic

–adjective
1. constant; habitual; inveterate: a chronic liar.
2. continuing a long time or recurring frequently: a chronic state of civil war.
3. having long had a disease, habit, weakness, or the like: a chronic invalid.
4. (of a disease) having long duration (opposed to acute ).

5. The illest shiznt yo eva smoked.

This is REALLY interesting. And I presume that THH was not prescribed back then. Yes, if it were possible for a course to cure someone, at a level of ingestion that didn't create nausea or require dieta, that would be revolutionary.

There are two mains MAO enzymes in your body A and B. They have designed drugs that interact with each one specifically and not the other. Since MAO B does not break down tyramine drugs that are specific for it have no diet problems. Problem is MAO A which breaks down tyramine also breaks down seretonin which is the main target for anti depressant drugs.

However with THH the upregulation of seretonin receptors that a few researchers have speculated and even have some evidence for (not sure detailed yet though) may be independant of its MAOI effect. Therefore a drug could be designed that does not interact with MAO but still upregulates seretonin receptors in a manner similar to THH. This is how medicinal chemistry works. I'll have to look up the basis for this idea that THH and ayahuasca upregulate seretonin receptors I forget the details and how much they really have direct evidence for.

http://www.springerlink....ontent/y5q8605810v415j3/

This might have info but I never read the paper

http://www.sciencedirect...695a3a8634c81f5ca1dda639

If you were going to do a toss and wash with strong caapi, I would say a teaspoon, or maybe less. Just enough so that you don't actually feel much of anything.


Also, SWIMfriend, there HAVE been literature that studies that CHRONIC use and RITUAL use of ayahausca. It has been found to be VERY safe. The Brazilian government did extensive studies on ayahuasca including "chronic" use. I unfortunately don't have these on hand, but I can assure you they are out there.

Also all the ancetendtal evidence from curranderos that use ayahuasca daily/weekly since adolescence shows that it is not physically harmful as many live into their 80s and 90s with no western medicine at their disposal.

No but syrian rue was perscribed as a sedative.

I don't question that at all...I only wanted to specify that the article you referenced didn't address the exact issue of chronic, small-dose use.

I'll reaffirm here that I know virtually nothing (yet) about this entire topic. I'm here to learn from a GREAT bunch of people who have TREMENDOUS experience. I DO know how to read a journal article (and also, I've had two years of med school--which really doesn't count for much, but....I have at least been well-introduced to "modern medical thinking". There ARE examples of substances where occasional heavy use is not known to be harmful, but "chronic" use is: tobacco comes to mind.

And I'll also restate what I thought was a useful point: One has to wonder, if it's necessary or useful to chronically use herbs with significant physiologic effects--what's going on with the user. People here are very interested in the SSRIs, for example, because they're involved with the same neural system that spice/ayahuasca is; but I would say that medicine/psychiatry has a VERY POOR understanding of psychological pathologies in general, including depression. It would be my hope that the insights earned from full-blown ayahausca and spice experiences would have a significant positive effect on depression--and I think some people here have said that they do. But if it is THE INSIGHTS/EXPERIENCE that helps with their depression, then confounding that with medical ideas about depression and serotonin systems doesn't necesarily follow...

Oohh. Good stuff. In my opinion that means that yerba mate is working on you. I'd suggest continuing to drink it, perhaps at a lower dose if it makes you feel too uncomfortable, and in all likelyhood, over time that nausea will subside and eventually be gone.[/quote]


i think you are correct as well dagger...green tea and yerba mate both have something in them that I can tell does the exact same thing to me..and I know for sure that I am right becasue my doctor gave me a herbal medicine to kill yeast for my stomach, and one of the main ingrediants is green tea extract, but the mate is better..I think I will start to drink mate every morning again, and just purge when i need to. Hard to do at work though..

No, its cool, you brought up a very good point. The article I have DOES NOT talk about chronic use of MAOI's + DMT on a daily basis and how that affects the brain and the body. Much heavier MAOIs ARE currently perscribed for depression and have been for a very long time. They do carry the "cheese syndrome" from eating things high in tryamine...but RIMA's for the most part do not have this restriction.



Well the curranderos of the Amazon would say YES....they call it a plant dieta. Every morning an apprentice will go to a secluded hut and partake of a plant so that he/she may learn of its spirit and become comfortable with it. This is however different from the conversation we are having about low dose Caapi as an antidepressant. I would say that SSRI's carry heaps of rather unsettling side effects and withdrawl symptoms that Caapi does not have. Not being a medical professional nor having studied the long term effects of Caapi I cannot say more than I already have. It appears to be safe for daily use. I would love for the medical and scientific community to research these plants more, but there is no market for it and the US government has such rigid restrictions on any scheduled chemical (esp psycadelics) that reseachers just don't want to touch it. Thank god for MAPS.

Both the experience as well as the pharmacological effect of Caapi help with depression. The doses I am talking about are too low for MAO inhibtion to take place....physically it should be safe...to use your example of tobacco: Would smoking 1 puff off of a ciggarrett ever morning be detrimental to your health? Probably not....not great for you but not dangerous like a pack a day habit (thousands of puffs)...the same applies to Caapi. It has been proven safe through thousands of years of use....would it be good to drink nothing but Caapi tea, probably not....but would it be safe to take a micro dose of it for a few weeks at a time (always take a week or two break after a few weeks of use!) probably. Do the risks outweight the benefits....YES, IMHO. Depression is horrible. I went through years and years of serious acute depression. Something WAS (and occasionally IS) going on with me.


But please, if anyone DOES have any info that daily micro dosing of Caapi is not safe, please let us know!

Most useful things are a tradeoff. It's hard to argue that self-treating a DEBILITATING condition with an herb which, through quite substantial historical experience, seems not to have negative effects, and which LACKS the same side effects that accepted medical drugs cause...would be a bad thing.

It's true that there is NO "built-in" safety feature with modern drugs: Researchers create something that seems likely to work, they test it for the effect they want, and then they perform a small but reasonable trial to find out if it's dangerous. From a rational and objective point of view, that is NOT nearly as thorough a test as one that involves generations of large numbers of users--as is true of the herbs under discussion.

I think the idea of modulating use--taking off periods when it doesn't seem needed, etc.--seems rational and wise.

SWIM is not suffering from depression, but he tried microdosing by making a cup of tea out of a teaspoon of aya today and yesterday and letting each cup sit overnight... there's a definite mood lift and increase in energy, I think Acolon_5 could be right about microdosing. Could this be the herbal answer to the pharmaceutical pushers' products?

SWIM might try gelcaps of powdered vine too to see if this has a similar effect. I expect in practice we would see extracts, but powdered vine requires the least processing so could be the least environmentally damaging and most cost effective if one gelcap provided enough of a lift.

Will someone PLEASE look into this, it would be wonderful to see medical trials and see ayawaska microdoses sold in supermarkets, instead of having kids damaging their brains / zombifying their emotions / committing suicide on synthetic poisons. I know there are some people working in the relevent industries on here, but I can't remember who does what...

I have just started a microdosing experiment, inspired by Acolon_5 and SWIM, because I was feeling sufficiently low to give it a try. This is day 2 of 27.

A batch of ayawaska was made using 100g of ayawaska in the usual method (low heat on hob, vinegar, filtered water, 3 washes).
Half of this was consumed by another person along with chacruna to give a successful visionary session, showing the aya to be sufficient quality.
The other half of ayawaska was reduced to a pint, frozen for a few months, then defrosted and used to make 28 ice cubes. One was ingested by a curious friend, leaving 27 (each 1/28th of a normal dose).
Every morning, I pour boiling water onto one ice cube in a mug and drink it first thing in the morning. I then wash and get ready for the day and eat breakfast an hour or at the least half an hour after ingestion.
Breakfast is usually muesli, but this may change.

Though it could be placebo, I feel I have noticed effects immediately, and they last all day so far. Increased mental energy and positivity. Also a slight dreamy feeling, and slight headache, but this could be from the cold I have or slight interactions with food because I am not following dieta. We will see as I recover from the illness.

I will post again when the experiment is concluded. Do comment if you have advice.