These past few days, I've gotten a distinct buzz after my pots have been burbling away on the stove for a while.

Do any of the bright minds here have any scientific speculation on the matter? Has anyone else ever had interesting experiences just from brewing?

I've also been shifting toward something like a quantum level of sensitivity to substances. I haven't brewed for a while, and this time I noticed extremely distinct scents in the air (with the same batch I always brew)--elements of fragrance that I noticed the first time I smoked the ENHANCED Caapi changa.

I've definitely had experiences in the past where sitting over the stove for 9 hours resulted in a unique meditative state, but this could be due to a number of things.

What interests me are the subtle feelings of harmala intoxication, not dissimilar from microdosing with Caapi. A very specific lightheadedness, even some gut disturbances. And the *distinct,* unshakable harmala smell that I could never pick out before until I smoked it.

I just thought it was interesting and that I should share. The only thing that is different with a control batch of vine over the passage of time is my own awareness. It's curious to note the way perpetually saturating my body with harmalas has impacted my awareness over time.

I would not say that I feel like I am coming on to the brew, but I do feel some excitement and some anxiety about what is to come after I drink the brew....

Makes perfect sense. I start getting appreciably stoned just by packing my pipe with cannabis. And I've had some really unique and magical evenings extracting MHRB. I think it's by virtue of a cognitive association between the activity and the end result. Pavlov's dog, anyone?

always every time i dose anything powerful i can feel its effects linger before i even come near it
kind of like how i dream a perfect sequence walking up to the alarm clock and then it goes off, as a crude example.
our perception of the time is only half the story. the fact that we can feel things before they happen says something that is confirmed by the spirit who stands on the other side of time waiting patiently and ushering scientists along the folding fractal.

i've always loved this kind of phenomena

^ I've never had it happen to me, but my dad tells me stories about those alarm-clock dreams. Proves the astounding speed with which the mind can conjure these stories...

speed? you mean time working backwards? hard to wrap your head around isn't it?

Yes, Ms. Minxx, that is so perfectly known... getting this buzz just from brewing.

My friend experienced this many times, it must be those few molecules which are in the air (because you smell them) which just act as a "key" and trigger that well known feeling. Or it really is pharmacologically caused, by applying the alkaloids thru the lungs. Or maybe both. This gets however enhanced for my friend every time, because he always takes small spoons of the brew to taste and test it during the process. But he even experienced it before he did that.

I agree with applecore, I think it has to do with cognitive association. I also get this when picking mushrooms, for example

I get this early in the evening just before I go to bed knowing fully well that my wife is waiting in bed waiting for me. LOL, It is congnitive association indeed.

Ms Minxx, not to change the subject, I have actually had that happen to me. I happends more frequentlty now days. Anticipation. mmmmmmmmmmm

One can say that smell (cognitive association) is a "pharmacological phenomenon" (a substance binds into a receptor, hence transduces what your brain interpretes as X smell).

Keep in mind that the sense of smell is a sense that is associated strongly with memories, sometimes i dare say more than visual or aural -at least for me-. If for example a song makes you remember a person and triggers feelings, a smell you have associated with that person might have tenfold this effect, almost like an instant flashback of emotions. Very,very interesting!

Here a rather interesting topic that might pop up is the "anchoring of the experience". Ancoring of the experience is the act where one purposefully ties the feelings of the experience to a stimulus, that can be used for recall later. The anchoring is something that also might happen by itself in the form of association, for example "the smells of our grandma's house which you happen to love a lot", but here we have purposefullness and usually tying a rather acutely strong experience to prefferably a strong stimulus (smell is ideal for that). There is a sub-population that such phenomena might be studied: for example ecstacy users that utilise Vicks (rather strong smell) and/or menthol cigarretes during their experiences, hence the MDMA feeling propably gets "anchored" in the intense smell.

^ Actually I read recently that a study has proven the sense of smell to form stronger cognitive associations than any of the other four senses.

I get that shift when smelling the DMT I had extracted as well. Not snorting it, but just a light smell. I can tune into the energy of the DMT as well and feel a shift, though I am somewhat energy sensitive.

Yes, the power of smell and association to memories really seems to be very intense.

Someone even suggested to use it when learning for an exam: While you are learning you use a special fragrance. Later, during the exam, you use the same fragrance to be able to access those memories more easily. I have never tried that (don't have many exams anymore) but I think this should work great. At least I know that strong effect when smelling something, even from your childhood, you get instantly transported back in time to that place.

^ Freakin' brilliant -- I've got to try that.

I think the "scientific speculation" on the matter has been covered pretty well - the smells probably cause an association with previous experiences, thereby leading to the experiences you describe.

I don't think this fully describes the phenomena you and me and others have experienced. In addition to the "association effect", it seems to me that the materials in question - whether Ayahuasca, Achuma, or even semi-synthetics such as LSD, have a subtle "charge" or "energy" which seems to traverse the normal space-time barriers. This charge is "subtle", and not everyone picks up on it, but I've felt it from both LSD and DMT prior to ever taking these substances, so I'm convinced it's real, and not just the "association effect". Some people can consciously pick up radio frequencies which are always passing through us, and these people were considered "crazy" prior to the discovery of radio waves. In the same way there are other frequencies/vibrations that some people pick up but that "science" hasn't fully described or even discovered. I think this "charge" may be what you're experiencing.

The first drug my friend ever took other than weed was HBWR. The day he ordered it he went to bed, and woke up many times throughout the night, and thought he was on something, and at the time thought he took hbwr. The memorys are pretty mixed up, as I was half asleep, but he distinctly thought he was on hbwr, then when waking the next morning knew he didn't.

Another time he was supposed to get drunk with some friends, but didn't, so he went to bed. He had the same feeling whenever he woke up he thought he had drank with friends earlier, and he was still half drunk from it. He then remembered the next morning he never drank.

Just shows the power of placebo and being half asleep.

I'm sure it's the molecules in the air, up our nose, etc.... not placebo, the reason i say that is if it stinks, i get it, if it doesn't i don't.... ie never got placebo feeling from holding a sheet of acid, and certainly don't get the placebo brewing aya just looking at the material - it's only once its on the stove and the smell starts rising up my nose. If my weed doesn't smell strong, i get no major pre-buzz, even if i recognize it as strong weed... if it's stinks and dank i just might...something about odor i would say affects my brain fastr than anything... even a woman with perfume across the room can give me a headache, not placebo, some craps going up the nose.

... it only take one single molecule of certain poisons to affect people, a celiac gets a stomach ache from a single molecule of gluten.... I can't see how so many molecules of drugs beind sniffed right up our nosese could not affect our consciousness in some way however minor.

And come to think of it, even hash that smell strong does not buzz me from the odor.... i just think it's too sticky and those molecules are not flying around like weed, aya, vines, powders, etc. whic are so loose and airborne.

just my thoughts, cuz i'm getting a buzz now from caapi brewing since yesterday everytime i re-start a boil.