So I have drank in a few ceremonies now about 4 or 5 to be exact but only 2 of them have been intense. I know what I'm getting myself into and am pretty experienced when it comes to these types of plants. But I was wondering what ya'll thought I would like to drink ayahuasca by myself solo I feel the most comfortable I think and I don't really like the idea of someone else measuring and giving me my dose (the 2 ceremonies I participated in both times the facilitator gave me a stronger dose than I really wanted at that time) and I also feel like being around a bunch of strangers is not the best for me sometimes I question their intentions (even though I may be completely wrong) but just the fact that I don't know these people brings up these dilemmas in my mind.

SO I would definitely prefer to drink solo but am a little concerned about my safety when I'm doing it alone I've seen people in ceremony start screaming and going mad and I think if that were to happen to my and I am by myself it may not end to well, but finding people I trust to drink with is hard as well so I also figure risking a little bit to drink by myself may be better than not drinking at all??

What do you guys think would you advise people to drink aya on their own is it a safe thing to do?

Depends on what you put in your brew, and also how much of it. The 'regular' brews with just enough caapi for oral activation, and in between 50 and 80 grams of 'regular' chacruna would be perfectly safe to do on your own (hawaïan chacruna is much more potent).
The more challenging the brew, the more sense it makes to have some insurance in the form of a sitter.

Unless you're not mentally or physically stable yourself, but that's obvious.

Yea Im planning on doing a heavy caapi dose with some hawaiian chacruna (maybe 13 grams) Im using muricata. I find a heavy heavy dose of ayahuasca is good to keep the anxiety down (at least that is my hypothesis)

DO you think the chacruna is too high what would be a minimal dose?

Hawaïan chacruna is about twice as strong as psychotria viridis from south america. So you can easily take twice the amount you're planning to take.

I don't have any personal experience with banesteriopsis muricata so i can't be of any help there.
But in the end it's the effect of all ingredients combined that matters, so whether you should take more or less chacruna depends on the effects of the other ingredients you're planning to use as well.
All i can say is that 13 grams of chacruna is about half as much as what most people would take when they're just using caapi and chacruna.

Ok thanks yea I tried 50g of the muricata last night and it did nothing (and I didn't feel like drinking more) so I didn't even bother drinking the chacruna.. I usually take around 100 - 300g of caapi but I heard muricata to be more potent but that was not the case for me... Oh well another time I will try it again

dmtsavedme, see this thread: https://www.dmt-nexus.me...aspx?g=posts&t=69995
You might PM, tregar. He's a bit of a Hawaiian chacruna aficionado.

My advice to brewers, especially those looking for "light" effects, is to learn your personal requirements for potent RIMA(MAOI). Once established, whether with cappi or rue, the tryptamine carriers are typically potentiated, even at modest "doses". This RIMA "dosing" is rather variable, person to person. Using extracts for RIMA is a bit simpler, if that's a goal.

Interestingly, the beta-carboline doses required for "full" gut/hepatic RIMA, are below those generally considered to be OVERTLY active on the CNS(brain). For some of us, me included, overtly psychoactive effects from beta-carbolines are not particularly obvious at doses that will facilitate DMT effects from a chosen carrier.

Peace

You should feel 50 gr of muricata. If not then wood is bunk, or something is off in the brewing style, or a combination. Did you have a premature purge perhaps?

Yea it may have been my brewing style I usually use vinegar and this time I did not (felt like experimenting), and also the wood is pretty small so it could be young as well Im going to try drinking 100g and also try brewing another batch with vinegar this time. And no I had no premature purge

Thanks Legarto Rey for the nice words and posting an old helpful link.

Dmtsavedme, the fact that you've had several good experieces (a couple of those intense) is a good sign that you already know what to expect and you should have no problem solo especially when using caapi and psychotria. 20g of hawaiian would be very good ornamentally.

Great read from Julian Palmer [love his book by the way "Articulations: On the Utilisation and Meanings of Psychedelics"]

From Julain "Why you should drink Ayahuasca alone"

http://julianpalmerism.c...d-drink-ayahuasca-alone/

I've only ever dreamed of the brew solo, and only with safe and traditional caapi + hawaiian psychotria, never had the opportunity to travel.

Benny Shanon had over 130 ceremonies in the Amazon, at the UDV, Santo Daime and many solo ventures, his book "Antipodes of the Mind" is a classic, and highly recommended reading. He also mentions in his book that he used caapi + psychotria for all of his over 130 sessions.

Look back on all the old posts by 69ron, and you'll see that he also preferred only hawaiian psychotria, it's safe, streamligned, nice & traditional.

I'm a traditionalists and will never change, but if you are someone like Julian who lives in Australia, you will find his book fascinating as he made do with the native plants around him. He also takes several pages to expand on his non-traditional experiences, as well as his traditional experiences.

From Benny Shanon:

Tip: Also don't forget to take care of your physical body, join a gym, lift weights, eat more salmon, go swimming all summer long, go walking for an hour, these are great stress relievers in this stressful world we live in, where technology, man-made stuff & sick ego driven no-tolerance corporate man-made policies have begun to play a dominating role unfortunately.

Go outside and meditate by yourself somewhere quiet under a tree, don't think of anything, just be pure consciousness, quiet the ego & brain. Move to be where you want to live if you aren't there already. Live your life don't be trapped. Be more Spiritual & Love & Beauty is brought out to the nth power with the brew--and then when normal baseline you also start to notice it more easily. These are just a few of the many valuable lessons the brew has taught me in dreams.

Back to topic: Good RIMA data there Legarto Rey! and a few last things to add:

20g should be a nice mild to medium level without being too strong. There was only one time many years ago when encountered 13g as being very strong, but it doesn't happen that often, but when it does, you will be able to tell as when the leaf brew is brewed down to 2oz it was wickedly bitter, and should have known better or would have only drank 1/2 of it or so it dreams. Always filter 1st, then reduce it down. The power of taste goes a long way in helping to determine upcoming strength, this takes some practice however. It doesn't help that leaf strength values oscillate depending on time of day it is picked, even if picked in the morning when they are strongest, they still vary a bit.

Palmer's link above "on why you should drink the brew alone" goes against the grain of what you hear most all the people on reddit saying, most all say go to a ceremony or looking for where to go in South America, constant questions about what retreat is best, etc. Nothing wrong with that.

I do like how Palmer is straight to the point and doesn't beat around the bush, he saids what is on his mind, and has over 20 years experience, he gives good advice. I could not imagine being around anyone on some of the more intense experiences when all could do was close eyes for 90 minutes and not move an inch in order to slow down the visions and meditate into a happy place for comfort and solice. Intense experiences are no fun and why also tried to shoot for the mild to medium dimension in dreams, which are heavenly. Like DruidDream used to say "you don't want to overshoot the admixture by a large amount and then be scared away from it forever."

Having encountered very intense dream experiences around 6 times out of the 55 times over the years, found this passage from Benny Shanon to be an apt description of what it is like:

From Shanon "Antipodes of the Mind"

I think if you start low, maybe even just start with vine at medium dosages, get acquainted, then do big/ger vine dosages over the course of some time. Then once they start to understand the effects/mao inhibition/visionary properties of the vine itself, then they can start adding in admixture [start maybe low/medium strength based on the general consensus on dosage] as they see fit. Same goes for rue I think - start low, work up with just the seeds themselves, get acquainted with their unique effects/inhibition ..then start adding the dmt or other admixtures.

I think there should be just general common sense when it comes to a conducive environment when journeying alone, understanding their personal limits [if they're able to realize them or not], and if they don't trust themselves to be alone then a sitter might be a wise idea for said individual. Really prepare for it though [as tregar put so well].

Prior psychedelic taking might be a good prerequisite too.

Yes, Tatt saids it very well, for one whole year drank nothing but caapi in dreams before even adding in the admixture (had no access to good leaf during that first year). Some of the most far out vision sessions I dreamed during the 2nd year resulted from the drinking of 1/2 a caapi dose by itself around 2pm, then at 5pm drank a whole caapi dose with a small amount of hawiian leaf admixture, this would result in amazing caapi heavy visions which were brightened & colored by the admixture, this would go on for hours even still seeing them before trailing off to sleep, don't take too much admixture if doing this or it could easily result in purging too early.

I avoid purging entirely by using proper filtering described in the "easy Ayahuasca" thread (eliminates stomach and intestinal nausea) but this will not exclude purging due to using too much leaf or admixture which can cause brain-related nausea. So keeping admixture at a decent mild or moderate level helps, just avoid too strong an admixture dose. The built upon filtering techniques were initially learned from Meteor and Sync, and made easier by using cotton ball stuffed into a large brand new clean automotive funnel all sitting atop a large see thru glass.

If you are wondering how the 1st paragraph mentioned visions are possible, it's because the longer acting alkaloids in caapi such as the visionary tetrahydroharmine (2nd highest alkaloid in caapi) has a half life of 11 hours, so additional 1/2 of a caapi brew is additive throughout the day or night, adding to the visionary power of the 2nd full dose. The side effects of this method are slightly increased dizziness and not wanting to move around much for a few hours, the benefits are powerful long lasting visions, many of which are like movies and not just static scenes that change, some are even interactive like allowing you to zoom in and view certain parts of the inside of an Egyptian palace to get a closer look at the details for example. Flying like a bird over parks and palaces and cities and landscapes is very common for many people with heavy caapi doses.

The caapi heavy visions with closed eyes that would result from this during the 5pm dose were spectacular with visions of twirling half-naked very beautiful woman dancers in front of slowly spinning marble pillars, beautifully decorated elephants from India, glistening water falls in remote places, entire scenes so elaborate and breath-taking it boggled the mind, many upon many elaborate meaningful things to see in scenes one after another. I still to this day wonder where do the visions come from? Perhaps the "akashic record" astral plane where all is known and all of history and the future is stored, and all that has ever been thought of by every human and animal has been stored. Perfect Platonic places and things are revealed, all appears new and immensely beautiful as if just created, some otherly world beyond this one of perfection and super beauty.

Caapi heavy visions are what I really seek...as a session that is just high on admixture only often results in closed eye visuals with little meaning--just an hour and a half long parade with closed eyes of fancy spinning, morphing, weaving, colored, beautiful patterns & geometric moving admixture effects, but with a session heavy on caapi--it's a whole nother place with real divine, transcendent, nature, cosmos, fantasy & culture inspired visions--the kinds of visions talked about in "Antipodes of the Mind" = visions with real meaning and hidden messages made known to the drinker--often paranormal in nature with solutions to problems you may have had for some time. On more than one occasion was shown where lost objects were hidden that I had been searching for quite some time, another time received the answer to a very complex unsolvable problem that had been eluding me for nearly half a year.

People who are artists or who are artistically inclined have some of the most impressive visionary experiences, just as Shanon mentions in his book. If you are an adventurer, you tend to have adventure related visions, Ayahuasca matches the experience to suit whatever your interest tend to be, if you are a cartoonist, you will tend to have some cartoon like visions with slapstick imagery, etc. It matches your personality to a high degree. I have indeed found this to be true.

Solo, imo, is the best way to go, i mean to each their own but solo is where the real work is. I've always done it on my own, and i probably always will. Psychedelics/Entheogens for me are not a social experience, it's experimentation.

Yeah ShamansStamen I'm with ya on preferring solo, that's been a majority of my experiences, aside from post-highschool days and currently my significant other [which she's been an amazing companion].

Though the deepest and most life-changing experiences were when I was alone.

thanks for all the replies guys it has been very helpful, one quick question for tregar you dont use vinegar or some sort of acid when cooking? Neither for the vine or leaf?

No vinegar or vitamin c or anything acidic ever used with the leaf whatsoever, just plain water. When cooking the vine, just use whatever you normally use, if you prefer vinegar then go for it.

Mind some tap water is really hard. It is a minority but enough to skip on generalizations that any water is fine, it is not.
For people having such higher pH (tap) waters, a drop of phosphoric acid brings it down to 7 or below and you wont even taste it. Beware that phosphoric acid does not evaporate off and will accumulate when concentrating the brew, that's why only 'a drop'.
The remark that jungle brewers never use an acid is a false one, they have acidy waters due the massive plant decay in those waters. I've read it can go pH4 there.

In general you're right tregar, majority of waters work without adding acid, just popping your wood of leaves in will drop acidity already by 1 point or so. Distilled or demineralized waters will show this effect the strongest.

I'm an enthusiast of "solo" entheogen work. Safety and prudence suggest a modicum of experience with the chosen ally. That said, tripping with friends, in the right setting, can be ecstatic!

I've resurrected an old thread that seems relevant. I must confess, I've not brewed and consumed B. cappi teas in excess of 50g. I admit my experience with cappi brew is vanishingly limited. The bulk of my experience with enteral(oral) harmalas has been via "extracts". I've never ingested ground rue seeds, only extracts. HUGE DISCLAIMER! Now, with low to modest doses of harmala extracts(200-400mg), my psychotropic experiences have been rather pedestrian. I'm not an artist or a very visual person.

I would never underestimate the psychedelic potential of enteral harmalas, or strong cappi brew. I've just not been there. Please recognize I'm NOT referencing parenteral(sub-lingual, smoked, vaped, rectal, IM/IV) routes of harmala utilization.

I have come to appreciate that with oral administration, a balance of RIMA(gut/liver MAOI) with a desired tryptamine(DMT, psilocybin...etc) carrier seems to be ideal. Too little RIMA and the DMT is not "liberated". Too much RIMA(CNS effects) and the DMT is "blunted".

I'll give the nod to vastly more experienced, tregar and tatt! Here's the old thread: https://www.dmt-nexus.me...osts&t=25452&p=2

Peace

That was a good link you posted, thanks for that Legarto Rey, went back and read it again, even though had read it long time ago, was great to read it again.

For 95% of dreamers, a single brew of caapi/admixture will suffice, but for the other 5% advanced dreamers, and even this dreamer had only ventured there with the 1/2 brew + 1 full brew hours later maybe twice a year at most in the past, as the side effects of dizziness and not wanting to move around much increase, and it's only to be dreamed with caapi and traditional and safe hawaiian psychotria due to the increased inhibition (you don't want any additional unidentified rima's or maoi's around from barks (even in trace amounts) for example which complicate things and can be unpleasant in the increased inhibition combination), but it is as follows in dreams below:**

**The Shamans prefer a brew which is heavy on caapi, the caapi is the "teacher" and "carries the message", the admixture I have found when added in to a heavy caapi session serves to brighten and color the visions. Taking 1/2 a dose of caapi at 2pm (around estimated 200mg+ alkaloids, no admixture) then taking a full dose of caapi (around estimated 400mg+ alkaloids) at 5pm with around 20grams of hawaiian leaf will result in hours upon hours of caapi visions that trail into the night before sleep, for a couple hours the visions are colored and lit up brightly from the leaf, then before bed you will still have visions, just in monochrome (one color usually green though much dimmer) by then, about a full 5 hours of visionary activity from 5pm on. The visions are better than high-def, with resolution and detail that is astounding, jungles, Egyptian palaces, flying over landscapes, island tikis, very beautiful women, gardens, animals, interior decorations of palaces, amazing to say the least.

Dreaming of Ayahuasca is like entering a University like Shanon once wrote, She has much to show and teach you and knows you well, so she tailors it all to your personality with uncanny accuracy. There is a theme to each session, it is not haphazzard with randomness, but very thought out and planned by "the teacher." Encounters with the Divine weigh prominently as do Paranormal encounters and Sacred Knowledge.