// EDIT: I do now see that this post is very long, much longer than I wanted. If you don't like to read much/get bored, please skip to the part that says 'Summary'.

At first I'd like to say I am new here and I don't know if this is the right place to post this. I'm sorry if I was wrong.
I want to thank this website and all members very much. This has been a great source of information for me.

A couple of nights ago, I tried ayahuasca for the first time. It was the worst trip, and possibly the worst night, of my life. I figured something went wrong, but I don't know what exactly. This is why I registered on this forum: to maybe find out what I did wrong/what went wrong and to get advice for my further explorations of ayahuasca.

Previous psychedelic experience
My previous experience with psychedelics is about 10 psilocybin trips and 1 somehow failed attempt on a dmt trip. After a bit more than 1 toke, my heart rate went up drastically, which made me very afraid of leaving my body. I got scared and stopped inhaling more. I heard the 'mmmmm' sound go louder and I saw very detailed fractals I had never seen before. This lasted for 5 seconds and then the 'mmmm' sound faded out and the fractals disappeared.

Ordering ayahuasce ingredients online
A year ago, I heard about ayahuasca, and got very interested in it. I was looking for a way to try it. I live in the Netherlands, which has some places that let will guide you in your trip. One is the Santo Daime church, which, as I have heard, is very strict. The other one was quite expensive, and I can't afford that.

Then I found that an online smartshop based in Amsterdam sells the ingredients. After contemplating brewing it myself and taking it outside a ceremonial place, I figured with a low dose, it could not hurt that much. So I ordered the ingredients and a couple of days later I received them.

I got 50gr of cut up B. Caapi and 5gr D. Cabrerana leafs, along with a manual of how to brew it. As it was the easiest thing to do for me, and, based on my research, I couldn't see anything wrong with it, I followed this manual. (Which I will not do the next time, if there will be a next time)

My diet
There are so many diffent ayahuasca diets on the internet. I found that some are based on ceremonial stuff and some based on scientific stuff. From all these diets I extracted my own diet:
- I am not on medication
- I haven't used any xtc and shrooms for a significant time
- I haven't used alcohol, cannabis and caffeïne for 3 days
- I don't use any other drugs, besides nicotine
- I haven't used supplements / 5-htp / st. Johns worth for a significant time
- I didn't eat any cheese or meat or tyramine-containing foods for 2 days*
- I didn't have any sexual stuff for about a week
- I didn't consume any media for half a day
- I only drank water for half a day
*I did, however, eat 3 slices of bread with peanutbutter on the day of ingestion. I read somewhere that peanutbutter wouldn't hurt, and I love it so much, so I just ate it. I always use the peanutbutter that contains chopped-up peanuts, instead of the other, creamy one.

My brew
As I stated above, I followed the brewing-manual I received from Azarius, along with my ingredients.
I used 2 pans: a little one for D. Cabrerana and a bigger one for the B. Caapi. Added 300ml and 500ml water and 200ml of lemon-juice in both pans. Then I heated it up slowly until the water boiled. I put the fire down to a minimum, and let it simmer without boiling for half an hour.
Then I put the liquids, seperated form eachother, in 2 other pans, using a piece of a t-shirt to filter out the plant material.
I then repeated this same thing. So I added 300ml water and 200ml lemon-juice to the D. Cabrerana and 500ml water and 200ml lemon-juice to the B. Caapi. Heat it up until it boils, turn the fire down and let it simmer for 30 minutes. Then I filtered the liquid in the same two other pans.
Then, I repeated this again, only then with the half amount of the liquids.

To summarize: I added 750ml water and 500ml lemon-juice (?!) to the D. Cabrerana and 1250ml water and 500ml lemon-juice (?!) to the B. Caapi.

I ended up having two pans full of liquid:
- a bit less than 1250ml, containing D. Cabrerana extract and a lot of lemon-juice
- a bit less than 1750ml, containing B. Caapi extract and a lot of lemon-juice

I boiled both liquids down on a low fire. This took me around 5 hours. I was left with two half cups of liquid.

Drinking it
Around 23:30 I made a little ceremony (mostly to overcome my fears of the taste of the brews) and I started drinking the B. Caapi one. It tasted completely different than it smelled. Because of the crazy amount of lemon-juice, it just tasted acidic. It tasted like puke. After half of it, I added a big amount of sugar to overcome the acid taste, but it didn't help. I found out that only the first sip was terrible. After that, I couldn't taste much, because my acid-taste-receptors had died.
I drank tha B. Caapi brew in 2 minutes.

15 to 20 minutes later, I drank the D. Cabrerana brew. This was much easier, because of the deadness of my acid-taste-receptors. I drank this in less than a minute.

Waiting for the effects
I thought that with my completely empty stomach, it would take maybe 20 - 40 minutes before I could notice the first effects. I just sat down, meditated a bit, thought a bit and just waited for the first effects to take me over.

I felt nothing after an hour. I felt nothing after an hour and a half. Then I thought my brew wasn't good or I did something wrong. I figured the long-time exposure to the heat made all the chemicals inactive. I was a bit disappointed and went to watch one episode of Game of Thrones. As I thought the ayahuasca wouldn't work anymore, I rolled a joint and smoked some of it. Fast, I started to feel a bit bad in my stomach and stopped smoking. I thought it was the acid on my empty stomach.

The first effects
When the episode was finished, I went to bed. There, with my eyes closed, I saw some simple patterns moving slowly. I was happy. I thought my brew worked a bit, but was not very potent and had to be stimulated by smoking weed. This is why I smoked a bit more of the joint.
Very slowly the patterns got more sophisticated. They stayed not very visible though, as if the opacity in photoshop was set to 20% or 30%. And they didn't move much or change much. They just were there, and moved very slowly.

At some point I realised some parts of my face felt different than normal. I also realised that the visuals were according to this feeling on my face. Say, my nose and right cheek felt different. The visuals would then align to my nose and right cheek.

Alarm!
Suddenly, I had a lot of pain in my head. It felt like there was way too much blood in my brains, especially in the part in the front, behind my forehead. It felt like my head could explode.
I got up and sensed that I was in severe panic. It seemed like there were alarms going off in my brain. I was very scared!
I turned my computer on to try to find out what was wrong with me. I searched google for something like "ayahuasca brains explode" and "ayahuasca brains blood". I couldn't find anything more than possible MAOI - tyramine reactions. At that time I was sure this couldn't be my problem, because, at that time, I was sure I didn't consume any tyramine-containing products.

Somehow this made me feel better, because I couldn't find any relating problems. Also, the biggest pain in my head was gone. I kept feeling a little bit of this pain for the next 3 hours.

The rest of my trip
I put on some music. At first some recorded Icaro's. Then, because It didn't make me feel any better, I put on Shpongle, my usual trip music. To my surprise, this didn't do anything to my trip. The visuals didn't change and the music was just there. There was no feeling to the music.

The visuals were still of the same type: they didn't change much, they didn't move much, and they were not very bright, just slightly visible.

After some time I went to look in the mirror. I looked pretty normal, until I noticed my pupils were huge. When I looked better, I thought to see my pupils dilate and shrink all the time. It seemed the muscles were fighting very hard to keep my pupils so wide. It was frightening to me. From this moment on, I thought I could feel these muscles working. My eyes felt like my brains felt previously: like they could explode.

For what seemed hours, I couldn't keep my eyes open for a long time, and I also couldn't keep my eyes closed for a long time. After a while of having them open, the tension on them was too heavy. And also after a while of having them closed, the tension on them got too heavy. So I had them open for 20 seconds, then closed for 40 seconds, then open for 20 seconds, then closed for 40 seconds, etc.

All the time, my brains felt like they were paralysed. There were no thoughts or anything. Just a bad feeling and some barely visible CEVs.

At some point, these visuals got more intense. For a really long time, I saw an eye, like a biological drawing. It was like a ball hanging in between two muscles. I saw the muscles working like I felt the muscles in my eyes working to keep the pupil dilated. This was very frightening and it lasted for a long time. Just the same scary visual of the same thing for a very long time. At the times that I opened my eyes, it was gone, but when I closed my eyes it was there again, immediately.

There were also some flashes of very detailed, bettery visible CEVs. They were all very frightening, but they were gone really fast, so I couldn't really analyse what I saw. I remember most of them were very scary faces of a creature that wasn't human but resembled humans very much. It was like a very distorted human face. I remember most of these faces had teeth standing in all directions.

At another point, it felt like I would have diarrhea, so I got up and went to the toilet. But there was nothing (only pee). Having my eyes opened in a light environment, I saw that my vision was blurred, like seeing the door wave a bit, nothing special. And no diarrhea. Also no puking.

I felt I was coming down a bit, smoked the rest of my joint to relax of the tense night I had had and went to sleep.

Summary
My diet was good (I think), except for 3 slices of bread with peanutbutter.
My brew contained 50gr of B. Caapi, 5gr of D. Cabrerana and 1 liter (!) of lemon-juice. Also, some sugar was added to the B. Caapi brew.
I first drank the B. Caapi brew, waited 15-20 minutes, then drank the D. Cabrerana brew.
1.5 hours after drinking the last brew, I smoked some weed.
Half an hour after that, I started seeing some visuals.
Suddenly I felt like my brain would explode of too much blood pressure, especially in the front.
The whole trip, it seemed like my brain was sleeping: there were no thoughts.
The whole trip was very body-oriented. The body load was huge. It seems crazy to me that this same substance causes ego-deaths in other trips, when so aware of my body.
Most of the visuals were at photoshop opacity 20%-30%. The same CEVs stayed for a long time and didn't move much or change much.
There were some better seeable flashes of CEVs that were scary.
For a long time there was one better seeable CEV that was in direct correspondence of what I felt in my eye.
At some points, I felt I would have diarrhea, but I didn't. I also haven't puked.
Although it was very scary, the trip seemed very mild, like a low dose.

My questions/contemplations
This experience was totally different from what I expected. My main question is:
Why?
Were my expectations of this taking home-brew ayahuasca unguided in my bedroom wrong?

I do think that the biggest part of my trip wasn't nice, because of the big pain in my head. Starting a trip with 'your life is threatened'-alarms is probably not very good and will influence the rest of the trip in a negative way. I'd like to know why this exploding head pain was there? Was this a bad MAOI - tyramine reaction, caused by the peanutbutter?

I think I drank 1 liter concentrated lemon-acid on an empty stomach, which seems a very stupid idea to me. Is this stupid? Is it common to use so much lemon-acid? Does it do more bad to me than give me a bad taste and bad teeth?

D. Cabrerana contains, beside n,n-dmt, 5meo-dmt. I read that, when smoking this, the effect of these two is completely different. Like 5meo-dmt gives a much bigger body-load and body oriented trip. Do you think the presence of this substance influenced my trip a lot?

I know opinions about this differ a lot, but I still want to ask. Tripping on ayahuasca without a shaman or other kind of guide: very bad?


I think the main thing I'd like to know, is: Should I try again? And if so, what should change? Should I do this with a shaman per se, or can I go on experimenting on my own? Should I use a plant without 5meo-dmt, like P. Viridis? Should I just not eat peanutbutter? Should I boil instead of simmer, to make brewing take less time? Should I use another type of acid than lemon-acid? Or should I not use an acid at all?


I see that this post is much longer than I wanted it to be. I'm sorry for that, and I am very glad you took the patience and time to read it all. I hope the language doesn't look very stupid.

Thank you very much for every bit of advice, opinions or thoughts!

Isn't D. Cabrerana heavy in 5-MEO-DMT? Could you have just overdosed? I know that 5-MEO-DMT has a heavy body load, heavy on the mental state, and low on visuals. But its many times more potent than just DMT.

Unfortunately, there seems to be hardly any info about the amount of 5meo-dmt in Chaliponga.



Reading this, I think 5-MeO-DMT had a big influence on my trip. My CEVs were indeed void of colour and everything did feel cold.

If it is true that there was a significant amount of 5-MeO-DMT in my brew, I believe this could have been one of the main reasons why my trip wasn't anything like what I was expecting.

However, this does not explain the enormous pain in my brains. If this was due to, as you say, a possible overdose, overdosing this stuff feels very strange. Overall, I thought my trip was very mild. There was almost nothing going on in my head except some negative feelings. If a too high dose makes your brains totally numb, then yes, maybe I have overdosed myself. But this didn't feel as what I would expect an overdose would feel like.

No 5-MeO-DMT in chaliponga leafs in any significant quantity has ever been found. There's only one publication that mentions 5-MeO-DMT traces, not in active amounts.. It's mostly a rumor that got spread by 69ron. I've tested chaliponga myself, with no signs of 5-MeO-DMT. Notice how all those " 5-MeO-DMT in chaliponga " posts are old

Anyways back to your trip, sounds more or less normal to be honest. Ayahuasca is known for often resulting in strong body-load during the experience. Sometimes it can be a pressure in the head, or nausea, purging, diarrhea, other weird somatic effects, etc. Sometimes it feels like that's ayahuasca 'fixing' things inside. When such things happen I try to take it as a reminder of my own mortality, as a test for myself, to have patience and strenght to accept all of the difficulties.

Ayahuasca would not be as special imo if it tasted sweet and was always pleasant.

Of course, one wants at some point at least to have more visions and less negative body effects, and it should happen at some point or another, if you keep consuming in appropriate set and settings.

You can also attempt to change plant material if you are willing to get ayahuasca from another source, just to test. I also advice you to take a smaller dose next time just in case, also so you gain some confidence again.

rickbreda wrote: ..after quite a few years of examining dietary issues i would say to this: not good!..infact the worst experience i ever had i had ingested sugar..it may differ in how it affects individuals, but it's always on the no-list of the diet-conscious..
also, less crucial but relevant, lemon juice/acidification can add to nausea and over-acidify the stomach, leading to unpleasant effects..traditional ayahuasca uses no acidification
..the most common forms of ayahuasca use P. viridis, and while there may be no 5meo-dmt in Diploteris, most people who've tried Diploteris consider it 'heavier' in some way..
..sometimes it's a combination of a few factors which affect the experience..

This was very stupid of me. I knew that sugar was a definate no-go in the diet, but somehow at that moment I forgot about that.
As I drank it in darkness and my taste-buds were over-stimulated, I don't know how much of this sugar I have actually ingested. The morning after, there was still a lot of sugar in the cup.




As nen888 says, I will use P. Viridis and no added acids the next time I try this. What exactly do you mean with a smaller dose? Do I need to take less of both substances, or just less of the DMT containing one, or just less of the Harmaline/Harmine containing one?

Thank you all very much for your clear answers!

If I remember correctly, you said you only took 50g of vine in the brew? If so, I would not recommend going any lower then that. 50g is about the lowest end of the spectrum for MAO inhibition, at least with most individuals. If you are going to lower anything, I would say lower the DMT containing plant in the brew. However, if you try viridis next time, keep in mind that viridis is not nearly as potent in tryptamine content compared to chaliponga.

Uhm am i reading wrong or did you actually drink 2 x 500ml of lemon juice in your combined brews?

That if anything would make me very sick aswell.


Nowadays i just use plain water for my caapi brews, feels like spares the stomach alot, i just boil it for like 5x5hours or so.

Then next time I will keep the B. Caapi the same and use relatively less P. Viridis. So I'll go with 50gr of B. Caapi and about 25gr of P. Viridis. That should be a proper low dose, right?

Yes, I drank a total 1 liter of lemon juice. I have no idea what effects this might have on my body. I do know that it tastes disgusting, like drinking your own puke.

5x5 hours is a very long time! But this seems like a better thing to do than drink all of this acid.

Thist first time, I brewed and drank the Caapi and the Chaliponga seperately. This seems to make sense to me, as I first want my MAO's to be inhibited, so I don't give them a chance to break down any DMT. Does doing this seperate make a lot of difference? Or can I also just brew and drink the two things together?

Yeah Id definitely avoid all that lemon juice. Ayahuasca is itself acidic hence the alkaloids will be water soluble, no need for extra acid. 3x3 hours is already good, if you want to do 4x3h to be more thorough, its also ok. 5x5 sounds overkill imo but its def not wrong, each one to their own, some people preffer to be very thorough and dont mind so much about energy and time.

I think brewing a few doses of the plant material separate is a good idea because then you can adjust the dose of one or the other plant material in subsequent trips.

It is still a bit controversial though whether its better to consume them separately or not. Some argue, as you said, that if you give some time the MAOs will be inhibited, and then one can take DMT. But at the same time there is another process going on, which is the metabolization of the MAOIs themselves by the CYP enzymes, turning harmaline, harmine and THH into harmalol, harmol and tetrahydroharmol, which do not present significant MAOI activity. So as time passes you are less MAO inhibited.

I think maybe the indigenous got it right in the first place, take the DMT and the harmala-containing brews at the same time (if you have them separate, either mix or just take one after the other), and take another dose or two later on if necessary.

Ah my bad, its good to know you followed up on that. I won't mistakenly get chaliponga for 5-MEO-DMT in the future.

I just came past this sticky, which seems to be a great overview (I haven't yet read it all):
https://www.dmt-nexus.me...spx?g=posts&t=39239

On differences between plants, it states the following:



From what I have found this far, there are a lot of sources stating the presence of 5-MeO-DMT in Chaliponga and also a lot of sources stating the opposite. Both sides contain older sources and newer sources, as well as (in my opinion) trustworthy and less trustworthy sources.

Although I DO trust that you have not found any signs of 5-MeO-DMT in your tests, this could also be due to circumstances. Maybe Chaliponga produces 5-MeO-DMT only when it is in stress or when it is grown in temperatures between x° and x°?

What I would like to see, is a definitive answer to the question of whether or not there is (or could be) a significant presence of 5-MeO-DMT in Chaliponga. And if there is not a definitive answer, I think it would be best to have to contents of this great, informative sticky posts changed to something in the line of:

Always try to find the sources of statements, or in other words, published references. Otherwise numbers quoted in some thread dont mean much.

https://wiki.dmt-nexus.m...eO-DMT#Diplopterys_spp.

here's the more up-to-date info, cross checking with published references. Check that page for other plants containing 5-MeO-DMT.

I've looked all over literature, and the only claims of 5-MeO-DMT in chali are in trace amounts or nothing at all, meaning, no possible effects from it. If you try to go back to the references for all the 5-MeO-DMT in chaliponga claims on the internet, you will find that they all lead back to the Agurell et Al publication, which mentions only 0.0035% of 5-MeO-DMT in the stem, not the leaves. That's not enough for effects at the levels consumed in ayahuasca (for a whooping 5g chali dose, that would mean only under 200 MICROgrams of 5-MeO-DMT, considering you used all stems and no leaves)

You can read some more of the discussion in this thread too https://www.dmt-nexus.me...spx?g=posts&t=13372

As you can see, 69ron was the only one claiming 5-MeO-DMT to be there, and in the end agurell et al was the only reference for the statement (christian raetsch had something to do with this misinformation too, publishing unreferenced claims). Then some people could swear they felt something very distinct to DMT, and they mentioned a specific vendor that stocked these 'different' leaves which for sure had, as they claimed, 5-MeO-DMT. So I bought those exact leaves and tested them myself with GC-MS and they had no 5-MeO-DMT at all, not even traces detected.

I think chali has mainly DMT, and the differences in effects might be a lot of placebo/self-suggestion going on. That being said, it is NOT impossible that there is 'some' chaliponga out there that has different genetics and displays high amounts of 5-MeO-DMT. But so far nothing came up yet, and to believe it happens is just as likely as expecting mimosa hostilis to pump out some 5-MeO-DMT too, or whatever.

Personally if I was interested in DMT, I would rather look into specific yopo-related plants (anadenanthera falcata seeds has been shown once to contain high 5-MeO-DMT levels, but also has shown mostly bufotenine.. gotta find the right genetics). Or I would try to find virola-related plants, if bark resin is around (though not sure how reliable the ones found around are, and neither how sustainable harvesting practice is). Or, maybe, I'd look into growing turkey red phalaris.