For reasons that aren't fully understood (just as covered by some of the posters on pages 8 & 9 of this thread) the actual plant brew from good Hawaiian psychotria can be many times more powerful, all encompassing & longer lasting than anything that can be purified out & added back in. This is poorly understood, it could be the superior salt form of the actives in the leaf, or other components along with the leaf + the dynamics of digestion of the leaf form. Traditional Ayahuasca can be quite powerful & long lasting with good plants and considered to be caapi + psychotria by the Shuar Indian, UDV, and Santo Daime. It is safe and traditional. Benny Shanon in his book "Antipodes of the Mind" also mentions he used caapi + psychotria for all of his 130+ sessions. Recommendations for good caapi would be yellow cielo caapi vine or caapi extract. Recommendations for good leaf would be Hawaiian psychotria.
Clearlight experiments that involved several people back in the day (over a dozen trials) found the leaf brew form superior to extracted actives, they found the leaf brews very strong and powerful & clairavoyant (+5 Shulgin scale), while they mentioned that the extracted actives were mild (+3 Shulgin scale) at best, even up to 100mg. Again, this is poorly understood, but refer back to page 8 & 9 of this thread for more info.
Even Jonathan Ott found that in his 20 experiments posted in his book "Ayahuasca Analogues", that none of his later experiments with extracted actives quite matched the power of his 1st actual Ayahuasca brewed with caapi and good real leaf (experiment #1), he had no explanation for this. He did however find 70mg to be close to it, but still not the same.
In dreams, a brew of blended up psychotria leaf can be boiled in 1 and 1/4 bottle of spring water (21oz) for 1/2 hour, then filtered thru a wire mesh strainer to get out the course leaf fragments, then filtered thru a cotton ball in a funnel to get out the fine leaf sediment, changing out the cotton ball when/if it clogs. Having two large funnels, each sitting in a separate glass with a cotton ball stuffed into each funnel's tube, and transferring the liquid back and forth between the two funnels when the cotton would clog up, allowed the filtering to go fast and would only take up a few minutes at most. Then put the filtered liquid back on the stove and reduce it down to 2oz, and add your caapi. Phenomenal dream with good plants. The cotton ball gets out any fine muddy leaf sediment which is irritating to the intestines, for a nausea free to the stomach/intestines brew, this of course does not reduce "brain nausea" which can result from using too much leaf.
Taking a small sip of the leaf brew (before adding the caapi to it) can be done to determine the approximate "strength" of the leaf beforehand...depending on how bitter a sip of it is, you will be able to help gauge whether the admixture part (light) of the dream will be weak, medium, or strong ornamentally. If it's too crazy bitter, back off on the leaf amount used as this may signal a "too strong" leaf brew. The leaf brew and caapi (power) are taken mixed together (marriage) at the exact same time (just as the Shamans do) for best & strongest effects ornamentally.
As a poster on page 7 posted, the 1st 60 minutes from when the caapi takes effect is when some weak nausea or slight dizziness might be noticed during the dream, whereas after the 1st hour, there is usually little to zero nausea or dizziness as the harmine in the caapi has mostly worn off by then, as the half-life of harmine is around 1.5 hour. Then all that is left working is the more desirable tetrahydroharmine in the caapi and any leaf actives for the duration of the rest of the dream.
Why traditional caapi over rue?
Just as Bancopuma wrote earlier, "the more caapi the better." Caapi contains tetrahydroharmine as it's second largest alkaloid, and contributes greatly to the experience in many postitive ways, besides it's visionary, brightening and coloring abilities, it goes way beyond that....it seems to partially inactivate barriers or filters in the brain so that "mind at large" as coined by Aldous Huxley can be let loose a bit.
Mind at Large:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mind_at_Large
Tetrahydroharmine on it's own will also yield the same type visions as harmaline, it just takes more of it. For example, around 300mg of THH will yield the same visions as about 100mg harmaline...even if the THH dose or caapi dose is split in two over several hours, the visions will still be apparent some time after the 2nd dose takes effect, the doses are additive.
THH in the caapi also seems to strongly activate the right hand hemisphere of the brain-- the side that performs tasks that have do with creativity and the arts, feelings, visualizations, imagination, holistic thinking & intuition, empathy, spirituality & connectedness. In the first book mentioned below, researchers found that the right side of the brain lit up in brain scans of people who took LSD, mescaline, or mushrooms. The world is largely moving in the direction of the Left Brain: technology and science. What the world needs is to move in the direction of Right Brain development.
Quote from TIHKAL by Dr. Shulgin "More studies on tetrahydroharmine are absolutely imperative."
Trips (from this forum here on 12/2/2011):
Quote:As to how the THH altered the experience -> I find rue extract+DMT to be very similar to mushrooms. I found the THH added to the rue+DMT to shift the experience to a state much closer to that provided by LSD. It was more clear, more energetic, more euphoric, more focused, and when confusion struck it was definitely more "acid-like".
The world is moving in the direction of the Left Brain: technology and science. What the world needs is to move in the direction of Right Brain development: empathy, spirituality, connectedness. Compounds like tetrahydroharmine in Caapi could be said to improve emotional intelligence. Is this component of caapi a smart-nutrient for the right side of the brain? you be the judge.
Books to consider on this topic:
"Return to the Brain of Eden: Restoring the Connection between Neurochemistry and Consciousness" by Tony Wright.
"A Whole New Mind: Why Right-Brainers Will Rule the Future" by Daniel Pink
"The origins of consciousness in the breakdown of the bicameral mind" by Julian Jaynes
"The Master and His Emissary: The Divided Brain and the Making of the Western World" by Iain McGilchrist.
Mistakes made in the beginning years:
1) using a leaf brew (from the early days of using Peruvian) that had no bitter taste resulted in no admixture effects (tasteless leaf)
2) seperating the caapi and leaf brews by 15 to 20 minutes and not taking them at the exact same time mixed together always resulted in "hit and miss" sessions, whereas taking them together at the exact same time always resulted in strong sessions.
3) not using a cotton ball in a funnel to get out the muddy leaf sediment resulted in nausea in the stomach/intestines...whereas pre-filtering with a wire screen then a cotton in a funnel resulted in a dark tea colored brew with no stomach nausea, as the irritating fine particles of leaf removed--learned this from sync and meteor back in the day.
4) still using a leaf brew that was "crazy bitter" instead of only using half of it resulted in 90 minutes of way too strong admixture, overexposure of images, too much "light", moving to the side even a few inches would result in hundreds of new CEV's forming, open eyed images like the layers of an onion being peeled forever would extend into infinity, totally amazing but way too much, whereas using the proper amount of leaf was heavenly, contained oceans of love and resulted in many of the same type visions mentioned in Shanon's "antipodes of the mind".
With open eyes, the world appeared immensely beautiful, magical & transcendent and boundless feelings of love manifested for hours. Sound was not only heightened and clarified but audio hallucinations were produced -- sounds were quite different than normal, and music was exceedingly beautiful.
Examples of visions I saw with closed eyes in dreams: zooming in and examining the ancient city of Atlantis, beautifully decorated elephants from India, artwork from various civilizations of incredible beauty rivaling anything ever seen before, beautiful women wearing sparkling technicolor fabrics encrusted with microscopic diamonds & remarkable colors rivaling anything man-made, carnival scenes, totems on distant islands, chalkboards full of scientific discoveries and complex mathematical equations and concepts, personal biography, many animals especially birds, beautiful waterscapes & waterfalls, beautiful gardens, half-naked women twirling/dancing in front of slowly spinning marble pillars, breathtaking architecture, scenes of homes & people from the medieval renaissance, ships on the ocean, detached female faces, complicated spinning geometrics which usually indicated when a new stage or series of visions would begin. Flying like a bird is commonly reported, and I experienced this twice, once flying over Atlantis, and the 2nd time flying over what looked like modern present day Los Angeles...I could view all the swimming pools, homes & parks below, this went on for several minutes, other visions: too many other things to mention.
5) using a brew that had cooled down to cold would result in nausea & purging even if the brew was filtered properly, it had to be hot for the stomach to like it and process it effectively.
6) the first 90 minutes were always the strongest (just as Shanon mentions as well) then the session would go down in strength several notches for the next hour, so just know if the brew is too strong, it will lower in intensity after 90 minutes from when first noticed.
7) even the strength of the Hawaiian leaf can be variable, for example, with one batch would reach in and every 2 weeks would dream 15g of the leaf from many years ago, and it would be a moderate strength experience...this is still true with present day leaf, 15g is plenty! just remember the active levels in the leaf can vary depending upon the exact time in the morning they were picked, etc. This is why it helps to use the power of taste to get a good sampling of what is to come. Nothing is written in stone, some variability is the name of the game. It's always better to undershoot then to overshoot and have a challenging hour to 90 minutes before it lowers in strength several notches. If a challenging experience is encountered, it helps to close the eyes for an hour and not move much--find a happy place in silent meditation and the visuals should slow down quite a bit so long as you remain calm and focused, this helps to teach real world meditation techniques when normal as well.
8. Using an acid of any type such as phosphoric, citric, lemon juice, vinegar etc. to aid the extraction does little imho other than "mask" the taste of the leaf so that you can then no longer detect just how "bitter" the leaf brew is, and thus how strong it will be. Psychotria viridis is a member of the Rubiaceae (Coffee family). You don't see anyone adding acids to a coffee bean extraction to increase the extraction...the alkaloids in the leaf are already in a superior salt form in Psychotria and will easily dissolve into hot water along with the other components of the leaf, fats, oils, etc. I've never noticed any kind of increased potency by using any form of acid added to the leaf brew beforehand. It's true the water in the Amazon is slightly acidic, but only by a very tiny margin. Just make sure you have good plants, no amount of acid is going to make the plants stronger, just like with coffee, brew with plain very hot water, and pre-chop the leaf up into tiny bits in a blender--the cotton ball used later will remove all the muddy like leaf sediment from the brew and leave everything else important in the brew: all of the essence of the plant will remain.
Update:
There is highly active ornamental Hawaiian psychotria out there in dreams right now that is very exceptional at just 15g, with 20g being the strong limit. Accidentaly dreamed with 35g the other week in dreams with real caapi only and it was way, way too strong for 90 minutes, all could do was sit still for 1.5 hour and keep eyes closed in an attempt to slow down the visions/visuals (and they can be slowed down to a crawl with concentration) because with eyes open the whole place fills with fluorescent colors & visions, beauty is to the nth power, but too much leaf or light can be frightening in a mental sense as all sense of ego is lost and she holds on to you with a fine grip, difficult to describe, but it's definately not something you want to repeat...ended up there about 4 times in the past and once recently due to accidentaly using too much leaf.
Found 18g in dreams mixed in with good caapi (always taken mixed together in a 2oz reduced hot brew form at the exact same time) to be very exceptional however 2 weeks before that, just heavenly moderate strength experience with beautiful closed eye visions, open eyed beauty is still to the nth power just no frightening state as it's more controllable, music is beautiful, and there is most always a spirit guide seen (Mother Aya in beautiful female form) or sensed with closed eyes who helps guide the experience. Try not to overshoot your dream or it could be challenging for 90 minutes...best thing to do if this happens is to close eyes and meditate into a happy place and not move an inch (moving triggers hundreds of new visuals) so that a focused & calm place can be found....it goes down in strength several notches after about 60 minutes to 80 minutes later.
One of the best feelings from the dream experience is that of feeling as if one has finally arrived home & encountering the divine. Beauty is unique in that it has the power to reveal to us humans the existence of an ideal world beyond the world of sense. This, in turn, is a prime source for happiness. These feelings and insights are very common under the Ayahuasca intoxication.
From Benny Shanon:
Quote:The Ayahuasca experience is miraculous. Amerindian legends associated with the brew typically contain elements of the supernatural and the non-ordinary. The doctrine of the Santo Daime Church proclaims that the brew makes one enter another reality, the astral.
The UDV characterizes the brew as cha misterioso, mysterious tea. With this, people are prone to entertain ideas and reflections of an esoteric nature. Time and again, informants have reported to me that Ayahuasca made them appreciate the existence of a hidden reality to which human beings are normally blind. With this, people claimed, hidden forces were revealed and hidden meanings recognized. With this, questions regarding the paranormal and the possibility of miracles become especially pertinent. Indeed, having undergone the Ayahuasca experience, most people--including ones with higher levels of Western education--tend to believe that all sorts of paranormal phenomena are actual.
You may remember me as 69Ron. I was suspended years ago for selling bunk products under false pretenses. I try to sneak back from time to time under different names, but unfortunately, the moderators of the DMT-Nexus are infinitely smarter than I am.
If you see me at the waterpark, please say hello. I'll be the delusional 50 something in the American flag Speedo, oiling up his monster guns while responding to imaginary requests for selfies from invisible teenage girls.