Psilocoraptor, harmalas are definitely nothing like tryptamines in the possibility for having extremely negative psychological incedents, in my experience. It is more in line with "catching a buzz", initially I just feel calmed and meditative. The onset can be somewhat intense, like a large 'force' is hitting your system, but it's more like the 'force' of a sedative hitting your system at first.

Once you're comfortable and lie down, close your eyes in darkness, then it can start taking you places. Dreams and visions in the minds eye, very unlike the optical-nerve input of tryptamines.

It isn't something to be really afraid of in my opinion, unless you're all full of gunk and you gulp down a high dose of harmalas. Then you can be in for a lot of shaking and puking for a little bit. But even that is much rarer than people seem to make it out to be.

Sipping at your caapi tea is probably the preferred method. Don't be afraid to take some larger swigs once you figure out how strong your tea is. People have noted its very hard to OD on caapi, like harder than you would think. It stones you, and you feel calm, and lie down, and generally feel quite good for the most part.

Adding in tryptamines is another story.

Okay good to know. Thanks for your response. That's sort of been my general impression of it. But i've only taken it in combination with chacruna and that was before getting ill. And it was wild to say the least... Then i read some report of some guy on shroomery going to the ER on 1oz which probably just unnecessarily launched my hesitation to new heights. I was already a hypochondriac before Lyme, but this damned illness certainly catapulted that to new levels.

Also what do you mean by "full of gunk?"

Care to point me to the shroomery post? I don't always trust posters on that site, there may be some credibility, but one report amongst many doesn't hold much water. 1oz of caapi could certainly send you in the danger zone if you used stimulants often, or any other of many drugs.

By full of gunk I mostly just mean having eaten a bunch of heavy/unhealthy food that's rubbing you the wrong way/ inflamming you. But also energetically, if you've been in high-strung environments and feeling stressed I could imagine you'd have a hard time getting yourself straight and calmed (energetically healed in my lexicon...)
'full of gunk'- the state where you've taken a bit of more than you could chew, best to let your body-mind system come to more rest.

Best of luck! A cup of caapi is reeeally good. Fear is the mind-killer. I have never gotten unbearable herxes from harmalas myself.

https://www.shroomery.or...Number/16699195#16699195

Yeah I used to frequent the shroomery years ago before coming on here. Once I got out of the whole polydrug addiction thing I started to realize the energy of that site wasn't right for me. Hard to put my finger on it but i supposed the culture is too westernized for me.

The gunk thing makes sense. That's sort of what I figured but not everyone likes to attribute the purge to psychospiritual phenomena so i figured i'd ask for clarification. I've got plenty of emotional gunk so I'll just take it slow and hope for the best lol.

Really great to hear about the herx thing too. One of my biggest issues with psychonauting since having Lyme is nobody on my Lyme forums can relate to these experiences. So i just kind of abandoned the whole thing for a while. It was really comforting to step back into hyperspace today but also incredibly heavy compared to what I remember.

Looked at the shroomery post and the fellow apparently was taking Psilohuasca. Which is one combo that /should/ be ok safety-wise but from reports sounds almost invariably intense, with a greater incidence of body-oriented distress.



Lyme and being in an unhealthy state in general makes taking psychedelics more difficult to rove and scan the mind with clarity and a semblance of comfort.

Nevertheless, I've been better with the sacred medicine than without. After a psychedelic session I always feel more in tune with my body and more relaxed in the world. It isn't easy at first most of the time.

Like a quote I heard "The white man drinks to feel good at first and bad later. The Indian eats peyote to feel bad at first and good later."

Take care

"Like a quote I heard "The white man drinks to feel good at first and bad later. The Indian eats peyote to feel bad at first and good later.""

I love that. So true. In all honesty my reaction has been the same. A little over a year ago I was at a farm "party" with some of my burner friends. I swear I felt like i was stroking out continuously. Just all kinds of nasty neural inflammation. I had some ALD-52 and was incredibly nervous that I was going to bust a blood vessel from the vascular strain or whatever. I mean i just felt like crap. But i took it anyways, had an unspeakably beautiful trip staring out over the orchards as the sun went down and never felt an ounce of pain.

So you're right. I'm definitely better off with it and all my other trips have been similar. But like you said the illness really throws your center off. It's hard to find comfort when you feel you can't even sink some roots into the ground. I struggle to be in my body at times which is so bizarre given how many years i struggled being in my mind. So it is definitely much more of an exaggerated preflight anxiety than anything that's every manifested negatively.

Good catch on that shroomery post. That is certainly a key detail. The poster had talked about his experience with b caapi several times on different threads and seemed to only briefly touch on the fact that he was consuming it with mushrooms. So I glossed over it. Even then it's quite strange to me. I've never heard of psilohuasca being so rough.

Anyhow Caapi's on the stove Smells divine. God I love the novel sensations of foreign botanicals. What a trip.

Hey, I'm sorry for the long delay in updating this thread. I had to try this out and then subsequently go through a period of deep searching.

Dosing the vine every day lead me to do a 3-day water fast. So I stopped doing the vine to do that.

I started up again after that, but there still wasn't something quite right. It wasn't answering all my needs. I came to a really important realization:

COINFECTIONS.

In my case, babesia. This infects red blood cells. I tested positive for it back in 2009. I took Mepron for it, but apparently if you've had babesia for more than a year, Mepron may not kill it for good.

So I had something compromising my blood, and regular antibiotics, natural or not, won't touch it. Trying to attack it from a psychospiritual angle won't help, either. This parasite is effing you up, and you need to get rid of it.

So, I'm doing that now, with Artemisia and Cryptolepis, and it seems to be a game changer.

Ayahuasca still may or may not hold some benefit for me, but I had to take a break from it and deal with the babesia first, which it seemed most things were not touching.

Glad to hear an update from you Rythym, the effects of the lyme have a way of keeping one from taking action and even making posts in my experience.

Have you been tested lately for Babesia or other coinfections?

It is upsetting to be have so little control with this disease. Chronic Lyme & co. seems like a "superbug". Antibiotics don't work like they should, it's very persistent.

Personally I'm in really rough shape with it, I don't have a lot of resources and no health care, so I try to take as many supplements and be happy and alive as much as possible. I'm on a quest for health but it is not easy.

I heard recently Syrian Rue has some anti-Babesia potential. Found one article quickly.[1]

I also got a sample of white vein borneo kratom to see how it would affect me. It's good and doesn't give me the wobbles like I remember happening. Energizing and kills some the fuzzy background pain that can keep me from moving. It can be helpful if you're in so much pain your day is just ruined, makes it a little more bearable.

It's tricky--yes and no. Sometimes it's just not in our best interest to take a certain action--but we convince ourselves in our head that it is, and then we get all anxious about when we can't bring ourselves to do it. Lyme seems to magnify this brain-body war. I wouldn't say it necessarily causes it, though.



No.



YOU CAN TAKE CONTROL. Constantly dancing with Lyme and coinfections is NO way to live. Stephen Harrod Buhner's books on healing Lyme and their coinfections is how I finally took control. I'd say one of the major dangers of using psychedelics to help fight disease is that it introduces the "Let It Be" way of thinking into getting better, physically. That philosophy may work on an emotional level, on a relationships level, but when it comes to physical health, sometimes, "Let It Be" can be poison. You don't let it be when a truck is pinning you to the ground.



Stephen Harrod Buhner is my resource. He's my remote herbalist via his books.



Very interesting!



I've discovered time and time again that I can't use painkillers of any sort, because they numb me to what I'm doing with my joints, and when they wear off, my joints are quite worse off than before.

I admire your fast and decisive replies Rhythm.
What you say makes sense and has focus.

I feel really discombobulated.
I'm going to sleep.

Haha, beautiful reply.

More evidence ayahuasca (vine) has benefits for Babesia:

http://goodbyelyme.com/free_articles/coinfections/expel_babesia



I wasn't even looking for this! It just came up in my search for herbs against Babesia. This website and Stephen Harrod Buhner both mention Syrian Rue, but it seems that harmine is the main active constituent, so in theory ayahuasca vine would work as well.

...as an adjunct to a broader herbal protocol. : P

I wonder if microdosing iboga could be effective too. Ibogaïne and harmala's are very much alike chemically. There is some evidence that harmala alks are effective against parkisons. Iboga has in addition to many other effects that may be helpfull against neurodegenerative ilnesses (like NMDA-antagonism and acetylcholinesterase inhibition), simmilar effects as harmala alks on the dopaminergic system.
Many symptoms of lyme are simmilar to those of parkinsonism. On a dutch site on lyme disease, i've even read that sometimes people are diagnosed with parkinsons, while they actually have a borrelia infection.

I went off this exact theory/perspective and microdosed iboga for 4 months earlier this year. I sort of made progress, and sorta didn't. It was a very interesting ride, both in terms of insight and in terms of body changes, but in retrospect I am not sure the body changes were good ones. It seems that perhaps it allowed my body to better adapt to being sick.

Once I combined Japanese knotweed and iboga, it was a world of difference. And the couple times I combined the anti-babesia herbs and an iboga microdose, *whoa*.

In other words, I am finding that *combinations* of herbs apparently work best for Lyme and coinfections, because it is almost always a combination of organisms, and highly intelligent ones at that.

I thought Iboga was going to be a cure-all for this and it wasn't.

But yes, there is evidence that points to iboga as a big help in this arena.

In europe, japanese knotweed is generally seen as an ivasive species. A plague, almost. It grows almost anywhere, and once it's there it is almost impossible to get rid of it.

It must be incredibly easy to grow an almost endless supply of it. Harvesting is probably difficult, because it's the roots that you're after. But still. Wherever you live, there's a good chance there's a bunch of those plants growing somewhere near your house.