Hello! I'm Bonanza.

I'm highly interested in different concepts of reality especially in virtual realities and how to induce/experience them. I'm also an amateur "dream-hacker" interested in dreaming (as a kind of virtual reality). I made my own experiments with oneirogens like calea ternifolia, melatonin, vitamin b6, noopept and others. In my private research on dreams I stumbled over DMT and pinoline as parts of a possible mechanism for dream sleep visions. So I decided some time ago to register to this forum a good friend of mine recommended to me.

I had some talks with befriended psychonauts who tested several substances after I told them about the paper about the neuro-chemical mechanism of dream sleep visions (Medical Hypotheses(1988 ), 26, 119-124, J.C. Callaway).
I'd like to show and to describe the subjective effects all of them noticed after trying different substance combinations. I'm going to describe the effects of the drugs in a simplified terminology of a dream enthusiast in brackets. The reason I do this is, that I believe some people may not recognize these effects even if they already tried the drug, because they weren't thinking in terms of dreams and dreamlike states rather than other kinds of characterizations for their states of mind.
1. They all smoked marijuana (day-dream-inducing) and combined it later with smoking calea ternifolia (night-dream-enhancing). All the "subjects" noticed some kind of clarification and more control over their thoughts in contrast to just having smoked marijuana. Some said they dreamed less than usual others anything to the contrary.
2. A full week they smoked DMT at least once a day. The next week they did high doses of marijuana (about 5 to 10 g per person) which resulted in DMT-like visuals with closed-eyes, which was quite interesting considering the fact they did no DMT that week. They all had less rememberable dreams.
3. Another test with marijuana was the combination of melatonin (sleep- and night-dream-inducing) resulted in stronger tiredness and weariness.
After several DMT-trips of the subjects the same combination (marijuana+melatonin) a week later the amount of marijuana needed to induce DMT-like CEV was significantly lower (about 2g).
4. Calea Ternifolia with LSD (psychedelic; thus it shares 5-HT_2A-Receptor affinity with DMT for example) (only two subjects) resulted in a paranoid weird trip in which both subjects goaded each other in their paranoia. (Best Quote:"Let's do more acid, so it's going to be more like acid again..." ) They just found out it got weirder. Probably just a "bad" trip. (They told me it was fun afterwards.)

Well these were the human-experiments I conducted in order to find something out about DMT and pinoline as part the mechanism for dream sleep visions and Calea ternifolia (I'd love to find out what the active compounds in this herb are). Now I'm trying to make sense of it. I guess to some recreational marijuana users it is clear that chronic consumption results in less rememberable dreams and discontinuation of marijuana consumptions may result in vivid rememberable dreams. I also guess that marijuana and calea ternifolia act as antagonists in some way. The potentiation of the tiredness by combining marijuana and melatonin and the CEVs especially with the lowered marijuana dose by melatonin ingestion which could result in highered levels of pinoline (MAO inhibitor) may be indicative for a higher DMT production or levels. So is marijuana in high doses linked to higher DMT-levels in the brain? What does Calea ternifolia do? I had similar effects to Calea ternifolia with noopept, just for the record. And how does this fit to the strange LSD-trip or was it just an isolated event? Does somebody else has experiences with mixing psychedelics with Calea? I only have experiences with high doses of 2C-C (about 200mg+) with noopept which were even weirder (Pandimensional egyptians from hyperspace told me I'm not allowed to be "here" ). Does somebody know how the pieces fit? Is the active compound in Calea ternifolia a racetam or similar acting compound? Any ideas?

Very interesting. I wonder how we are going to identify and crack the code of Calea Z/Ternifolia. Checking for DMT-levels in the brain might just be a good way to start. But if what you say about Calea Z as a racetam holds merit then checking for an Acetylcholine connection might show some beneficial results. Does anyone know the reason why there is no information available on the mechanism of action or pharmacology of Calea Z?

I never got a notable psychoactive effect from Noopept. It reduces tireness for me but that's all. What effect are you refering to that is so similar to Calea?

For me, I have taken Calea about 5 times. I just can't get over the taste. 3 out of 5 experiences actually notably altered my consciousness. I can't help but wonder (jk) if the sheer shock of the taste is responsible for producing some of it's effects. One of them which was aided by an unknown strain of Marihuana in the middle of the night produced audible+visual hallucinations in the form of an entity. Upon lying in bed my body was in a state of shock and experienced sensations of cold and coulden't stop shivering even though my bedroom was sufficiently isolated. Which in turn might suggest a link with ACh.

Another time was aided by doing a lot of meditation in the weeks prior to that. After doing a light Chi Gong exercise I was very suprised to see and feel energy coming from my hands as I was breathing out. During a conversation I was having with roommates I was moving my hands playfully and imagined juggling some type of energy ball. And again I was very suprised to actually see tiny spheres made of energy bouncing forth from my hands for a little moment. For this reason I am still very into this plant and consider it very interesting.

It's all a little bit anecdotal but the shivering might be a real link to look into. And might just hook this up with a link to Sleep Paralysis and the sorts.

Unfortunately I don't have any highly sophisticated analytical devices like spectrometers (for quantitative blood or urine analysis of DMT and DMT metabolite levels) or even NMR or deuterated DMT.
But there is an easy, practical way for a "hobby neuroscientist" to begin by measuring EEGs with OpenBCI, a kickstarter project, which allows you to record EEGs with a Brain-Computer-Interface (BCI). Look it up. It could bring us some clues, if above-mentioned experiments were repeated for the sake of EEGs.
The similarity between noopept and Calea Ternifolia I mentioned before was in terms of dreaming. They both act dream enhancing and make dreams more memorable. Perhaps because they both enhance your memory. (I'm not quite sure if this is true, because Calea always brings me into an interesting non-sober state of mind and in such states of mind I usually don't want to learn data or facts I have to remember rather than learning something about my mind, control, focusing attention, and so on, but in fact it seems to enhance my episodic memory. So I can't really say something about "nootropic" effects of Calea Ternifolia. But I totally prefer it to marijuana, because it doesn't mess with my dreams (only enhances them), allows me more control over my thoughts compared with marijuana and there are less legal issues.)
Another way to "crack the Calea code" would obviously be chemical analysis. But who knows if this is really possible. Well, given the fact that huge proteins normally can't pass the blood-brain-barrier it has to be a quite simple molecule. Perhaps it is an Oligopeptide. That would fit with the similarity between the memorability of dreams with Calea and Noopept and with the fact I haven't noticed any potentiation in combination with MAOIs. Maybe the substance we are looking for is destroyed by the preparation of the samples for analysis. Maybe it is a macromolecular compound in the plant material that has to be cleaved into an active compound. But if so, why is it possible to smoke Calea. I also imagine to have a slightly different effect by smoking the herb. Perhaps thermolysis produces derivative substances. Has anyone tried to vaporize it?
If we could have an idea what substance class the compound of Calea is, then we would just look for them, test them one by one. And maybe then we would realize that there is no oneirogenic effect by consumption of any of these compounds, and they only are active as a mixture (that may also be true for Calea, like in many other phyto-pharmaceutics.)
Perhaps analyzing the urine of "chronic Calea" users could bring us some clues, what this substance might be and how its mechanism works.
- The shivering... hmm.
Well, Calea is very bitter stuff. I wonder what its relative bitterness to bitrex is.
How did you consume your Calea? I guess drinking tea is the most healthy but most bitter way to consume it. Another way would be to make an alcoholic extract and drinking it (the taste is less bitter and you can drink a bitter shot instead of a whole glass of bitter, bitter, bitter tea). You can also make an alcoholic extract, evaporate the solvent and encapsule the residue. Or you just smoke it, what might be the easiest but perhaps most unhealthy method. A friend of mine used to make capsules of the herb or extract and reported to have noticeable effects. I would guess, that the effects of shivering due to the bitter taste of Calea are confined to the wakeful consciousness, not to the dreaming one (unless you drank a tea and compulsively lick you bitter lips while being asleep. )