Good Evening. I saw all of this in a dream so take as it what you will.

The Beginning:

Last night after much work, preparation, and trial and error, I was set to give an ayahuasca analogue a try.

I had prepared S. Rue alkaloids by using the easy ayahuasca extraction method. The alakloids were off white/light tan after drying and from 100G S. Rue ~4.5g alakloids were obtained. Alkaloids PH tested fine before final drying in low heat double boiler.

I had prepared a highly concentrated ACRB tea of 50g ACRB strong boiled in distilled water and a bit of fresh lemon juice for acid until the ACRB powder was dark black. Enough to service at least 4 if not 5.

Well, my inexperience and my food scale being about 100mg off caused me to dissolve ~1.6g S. Rue alkaloids in orange juice. I did not know the potency of my S. Rue extract. and the 100mg mistake was compounded by 4 given how I weighed.

A large meal was eaten an hour before ingesting harmala alkaloid orange juice.

The Rub that lies therein:
Extenuating circumstances caused my companions to decline the journey at the last minute due to last minute unforeseen obligations in the morning - but not before I had ingested my portion of the S. Rue alkaloid laden orange juice.

I had attempted to overestimate harmala alkaloid dose per person from normal 200mg to 300mg doses to account for my alkaloids probably having plant matter etc... Again, when nothing visible did not float or settle in the orange juice, I should have noted the purity I had achieved. The extra 100mg, making each alkaloid dose ~400mg per person, is also an exacerbating factor. Another thing not to ignore, when people say don't eat for at least 6-12 hours... it is beyond wise. Nausea is not the primary reason, hyper delayed onset was in my case.

Within 30 minutes of ingesting my S. Rue alkaloid OJ I experience hyper pleasant effects in the forms of visual tracers, enhanced mood, talkativeness, and seeing light and energy transfer from everything I touched and most living beings. Seeing what could only be described as Auras on EVERY living thing, while inanimate objects seemed to ripple whenever a living entity touched them or got very near to them

Within 2 hours I was at slightly lower stage than this but had no thoughts of drinking the ACRB tea. Sleep seemed better at this point. I settled onto my couch, accompanied by my dog and a relaxing show from netflix and proceeded to drift off into sleep for 5 hours. A very peaceful sleep.

I awoke after my 5 hour slumber and noticed my stomach was empty from the large meal but something was amiss. I attempted to stand up, a terrible idea. My vision swam with tracers unpleasantly and I felt immediate loss of balance and vertigo. Nausea crept, but was tolerable. I was experiencing a highly delayed digestive process in terms of MOST of the S. Rue alkaloids I concluded. Effects should have been almost non existent, but instead rivaled that of other more popular psychedelics - except scarier. Scarier being owed to the locomotor ataxia. Imagine having no ability to walk like a normal human being. Having tried countless other psychedelics without this experience I was slightly terrified.

After forcing myself to purge and sleep, locomotor ataxia and visual symptoms subsided concurrently 13 HOURS after waking up journeying harder than I had been before sleep, making it a full 20 hours after initial ingestion.

Further research done indicated similar experience for some people with S. Rue raw and alkaloids at doses as low as 3g raw that lasted 3 days or more. Though my head is starting to clear very rapidly now that I can walk straight - probably related to anxiety dropping as well as neurotransmitter levels.

The Lesson:
Don't eat for 6-12 hours. You want your body to process everything rather efficiently. Start with 1.5mg/kg of S. Rue alakloids especially if extracted and very light colored. Raw content can vary a lot more I'd imagine, so I will not speak to that as I can not intelligently. Even 200mg extracted S. Rue alkaloid seems like overkill for someone who is 88kg after my experience and reading about multiple cases of what appears to be hypersensitivity to S. Rue alkaloids, you don't want to have a bad time or wind up like I did.

The Bright Side:
I had what I would describe as a more traditional dose of harmala alkaloids (in ayahuasca brew, the amount is large per person it seems from my reading). It provided me with excellent introspection and insight. Also, I saw the way energy and matter seem to interact in a very real way. But this was not something to be entered into blindly as I did. One must certainly progress to amounts like that or else prepare to lose a few days to unintended consequences.

~A Fellow Traveler~

Thanks for sharing your experience (and for learning "the hard way" for others)

I don't think it could ever be said enough times that syrian rue is by no means a replacement for caapi.

Peaple think that because they both contain the same active chemicals they are the same....but they are not AT ALL the same.

Nor is caapi a replacement for harmala. They have entirely different spirits, but both are highly beneficent, if in different ways.

And while they both contain beta-carbolines, the ratios are different - harmine being the primary active in caapi and harmaline being the dominant in (most) harmala. This accounts for harmala being a much more efficient MAO-I as well as the likelihood of negative interactions being greater. Also, harmala lacks THH (I think), making the harmala-only experience much more sedate without the mild ecstatic feeling caapi can give.

Not eating before or directly after taking any psychoactive is key. That accounts for your long-lasting effects (maybe) as well as the high dose. But other than duration , looks like you had a full-on harmala experience, which will probably bode well for any future harmala experiences. You have to get to know him, I think.

Thanks for posting.

I've seen lots of debate, information, misinformation about the alkaloid content of Caapi & Peganum Harmala. I'll attempt to summarize a bit below...

B. Caapi Alkaloid Profile from Wikipedia:
Harmine, 0.31-8.43%
Harmaline, 0.03-0.83%
Tetrahydroharmine, 0.05-2.94%

S. Rue Alkaloid Profile from Wikipedia:
Harmane, 0.16%
Harmine, 0.44%–1.84%–4.3%
Harmaline, 0.25%–0.79%–5.6%
Harmalol, 0.6%–3.90%
Tetrahydroharmine, 0.1%
Total harmala alkaloids were at least 5.9% of dried weight, in one study.
Vasicine (peganine), 0.25%
Vasicinone 0.0007%

Erowid's Opinion:
P. harmala, or Syrian Rue, is the plant from which harmine was first isolated, as well as a source of harmaline and tetrahydroharmine. Total beta-Carboline content runs almost 4% by weight in the seeds of Syrian Rue. These alkaloids occur in roughly the same proportions as in B. caapi. Ten grams of Syrian Rue seeds provide about 400 mg of total beta-Carbolines, about that amount in a typical dose of ayahuasca.
http://www.erowid.org/pl.../syrian_rue_info4.shtml

Scholarly HPLC/NMR Analysis:
http://www.ajur.uni.edu/...0et%20al%20pp%201-4.pdf


As is highly evident, various tests can produce some surprisingly different results, leading me to believe that Syrian Rue alkaloid content must vary sharply dependent on something. Growing conditions, climate, age, etc... More study would be most interesting.

It would appear harmalol is very much present, but articles analyzing effects are difficult to find.

Also, it would seem that erowid's article is at least semi-accurate. The alkaloid ratio profiles of the two plants seem very much closer than most care to admit, unless I am reading it wrong. The only notable difference is that some specimens of Caapi can contain a lot more THH. However, in my experience, can and do are quite different .

I'd love to hear or read any qualitative or quantitative feedback in regards to this. I find this area of discussion highly interesting as RIMA/MAO-I information appears to be reported in a skewed manner compared to the analysis I've read.

~A Fellow Traveler~