I wake up for hours because of the extra catecholamines kicking around(dopamine, noradrenalin etc). I won't take Benzo's because they make you stupid and there addictive...

Does this get better the more often you take it?

One day is subjectively such a long time to be degraded or even ruined by sleep disturbances!

After more research it seems that Noradrenaline may very well be the cause as Dopamine isn't effected as much as serotonin and norepinephrine.

The recomended medication for high NE levels are Clonidine & Guanfacine which are used for ADHD and help re-establish disrupted neural networks in the prefrontal cortex. Another route is lithium but many people say they feel blunted and unintelligiginent on it.

May also help is melatonin & valerian root

I sleep well after drinking Ayahuasca - by the time I am ready for bed I am out like a rock for a few hours.... I usually wake up refreshed with only a little sleep. Never bothered me....

I cant imagine trying to fix the problem with meds... Seems like that would just lead to more issues when you need more medications to stop the side effects of everything else you take...

For me sleep trouble with maoi comes and goes. Recently it has been pretty bad, and I need to hold off the rue for a good 8 hours or more before trying to sleep. I've been eating more than 200 mg per day for the last 6 months, so I would say no, it doesn't get better the more often you take it.

I sleep great. Harmalas in general seem to have improved my sleep over time. If you take a big dose though you probably won't be falling asleep for hours, or at least not full sleep. I just try to accept it and go with it instead of fighting it. Cannabis helps for me, and headphones.

i find sleep while micro dosing to be lite and broken, it feels like a halfway sleep.

it doesnt feel like im getting extra tired during the day but i miss the feeling of a good night of solid sleep.

when not micro dosing and following a full dose i sleep fine but it takes me a while to get there.

after a full dose of harmalas I tend to not sleep very deep...my sleep feels light and broken as if I spent the night in theta. I might dream a lot but I don't get the deep restorative sleep and have woken up feeling tired.

After tryptamines like psilocybin and esp melatonin at the right dose though I actually get a nice deep restful sleep. If I overdo melatonin I also don't always get that deep restorative sleep.

@OP
How much light and sound pollution are with you when you try to get to sleep?

(Nice coincidence BTW )

What !? You ate 36g of harmala in 6 month
what did you gain (or wanted to gain) from this experiment ?

Haha that is the kind of equation I prefer to leave unsolved... although thanks to rue it has been very economically managable. At the beginning I gained freedom from opiate addiction. After that I gained empathy, compassion, the willingness to help my fellow bro. Aversion to lies and lying. Sensitivity to energy flow throughout my body. Sensitivity to just about any psychoactive compound at just about any dose.

I have, however, lost a good amount of sleep. Which is what this thread is about.

I suggest you all have a look at this Clonidine as it's VERY commonly prescribed for sleep disorders and opiate withdrawal by pdocs. This especially applies to those of us in the UK using moclobemide which stays in the system longer than harmine. It is non-addictive unlike benzo's which are also stupifying.

There is even a WISEGEEK page on it

Fine with MAOI but can't be taken with tricyclic antidepressants. Link "Some manufacturers suggest avoiding co-administration of MAOIs and TCAs with some alpha2 agonists (but not clonidine)"



None as it is neurochemical related and not stimulus related. I was original poster, lost password.

I take smaller doses of harmalas with melatonin before bed pretty consistently. I never have any trouble getting to sleep or staying asleep with this combination. I tend to sleep (or want to sleep) a little longer than if I just take melatonin alone or don't supplement anything before bed and I dream vividly but still wake up feeling rested and refreshed. If you'll indulge me, I'll try and elaborate a theory I've developed about this.

I think you may be on the right track with the catecholamines. I don't think loading up on pharmaceuticals is the answer here however. It would be safe to say that in a very generalized way MAOI's are going to enhance the effects of your current biochemical balance. There are a whole lot of things effecting this, but in the interest of simplicity of explanation let's just discuss the one that is most pertinent to this issue.

The brain functions on what is known as the sleep-wake cycle, which consists of circadian rhythms and sleep-wake homeostasis. Very basically your brain runs a different cocktail of chemicals for wakefulness and for sleeping. One of the major factors here is the serotonin-melatonin balance; in general your brain favors production of serotonin and various catecholamines in the waking state and daylight hours, at nighttime and when relaxing/meditating/drifting off to sleep the brain favors production of melatonin and beta-carbolines such as pinoline, harman, and the tryptolines, which themselves have MAOI properties.

What I'm getting at here is a set and setting kind of thing based on biochemical composition. If you inhibit the activity of MAO when you are running the waking consciousness operating system you are going to facilitate a buildup of things like histamine, serotonin, glutamate, orexin, acetylcholine, and various catecholemines which all work to promote alertness and waking states. It's pretty simple to understand why one would then encounter sleep disturbances. This also kind of ties into the studies correlating low levels of MAO with agression/irritability/etc... That's a pretty natural response to abnormally high levels of stress hormones.

Alternately, if one is to take harmalas when the brain is running the relaxation consciousness operating system, generally one should expect them to synergize with the effects of the endogenous beta-carbolines and result in increased relaxation, well-being, and the facilitation of access to hypnogogic/dreaming/meditative states. When people take ayahuasca (or any harmala + dmt combination) they typically end up laying down, closing their eyes, and entering a resting/dreaming/meditative state. Which again promotes this natural synergy with the endogenous bedtime neurococktail and would explain why people usually report sleeping well and waking up well rested rested after a ceremony.

So the hypothesis I'm effectively pitching here is that better experiences (and better sleep) can be obtained by taking harmalas at night time, taking them while in a relaxed state of mind, taking them in conjunction with melatonin or other tryptamines, and/or taking them while engaging in practices like meditation or yoga.

There are a lot of things that can effect our natural baseline hormonal/neurotransmitter balance. As an example, people that meditate or practice yoga consistently have naturally higher plasma levels of melatonin (and likely beta-carbolines) and lower levels of MAO and stress hormones than control subjects. So engaging in these kinds of practices consistently can make a difference. Likewise, diet makes a big impact, eating foods high in neurotransmitters, amino acids, and flavonoids and avoiding refined sugars, steroidal hormones, and stimulants can make a huge difference as well.

As a side note, I doubt benzos would be very effective with harmalas because the harmala alkaloids themselves function as inverse agonists at the GABA-A receptor making them effectively anti-benzos.

I tried the discussed medicine and it worked... Norepinephrine was the culprit as I fell into a deep sleep. I felt really calm the next day but a little bit tired. You can find more information here: How does clonidine help ADHD?

As for the dreams, too much Serotonin disrupts dream formation and as dreamer042 says, excess serotonin is hard to be gotten rid of when taking MAOI & DMT.



Thanks for that, but there are some that are confined by law still... and resort to other MAOIs which don't give "restoritive sleep" but "catecholamine sleep" instead! It really ruins the potential of healing from DMT as people have to trade in their good nights sleep for insightful trips and end up feeling wrecked the next day.

Man, your explanation is fascinating! Thanks for sharing

I just wanna add a few things to this thread. One, Clonidine is metabolized by CYP2D6, which Harmalas potently inhibit, so if using Clonidine, especially taking it maybe 6 to 8 hours into the Harmalas, it will be potentiated, so the dosage of Clonidine must be adjusted or else you can have low blood pressure the next day or two, plus Clonidine is long lasting in duration, it has a long half-life, personally i prefer Tizanidine, also potentiated by the Harmalas through CYP1A2 inhibition, but shorter half-life so is out of the system within a few hours.

Another thing, i haven't particularly tried benzos with Rue/Harmalas, however Lemon Balm which inhibits GABA Transaminase and raises GABA levels seems to clean up how the Rue/Harmalas feel and counteracts any GABA-A inverse agonism that may be there. I also think the GABAergic Alpha-Pinene can do the same, as i've taken Lemon EO for a good long while and it too definitely cleaned up how the Rue/Harmalas feel.