DOSE:

oral

Calea zacatechichi

(extract)

BODY WEIGHT:

135 lb

I frequently dream but only on rare occassions do I become lucid, and it never lasts longer than a few seconds. I heard that Calea can help you be lucid so I ordered a kilo. The first time i began by just smoking a joint before bed. Ughh.. this stuff tastes and smells extremely bitter. There is no immediate effect. Maybe reports of an immediate effect are your brain producing endorphins to compensate for the horrible taste. My dreams were slightly longer, nothing amazing. Smoking it was not worth it, but I thought maybe a tea would be more effective. Ughh times a million. I forced myself to drink a tea cooked from 20 grams. There was still no immediate effect, but this time I awoke once in the middle of the night from an intense dream and still had a long dream in the morning. I thought that wasn't worth the nastiest thing i've ever tasted.

It became clear I needed an extract. I bought two fifths of everclear and soaked nearly a pound of calea in it for 7 days. I strained it and then let it evaporate in a wide open container until the amount was cut in half, which took another 7 days, then I added water to it until it reached its original volume. I wanted a strong effect so I decided to mix the extract with orange juice and started chugging several mixed drinks (several ounces worth of Calea?). This still tastes bad but I was determined. I was instantly buzzed from the everclear ofcourse but within 20 mins I noticed a real change in color and light. I didn't feel at all like I was tripping but the visuals are comparable to a low dose of mushrooms. I was kind of stimulated in a weird way but at the same time I felt I could fall asleep if I tried. I sat in silence and smoked some chronic while I was listening to what I thought was someones car stero in my neighborhood bumping. It just kept going kind of on the same beat and I was confused as to why they kept listening to the same song over and over. I put on some construction ear muffs which I always wear to block out sound when I'm relaxing.

To my surprise the music was suddenly louder. I knew something was up so I went to the center of my house where you can barely hear outside noise and I still heard the beat clearly. It took me some real observing to realize that the sound was perfectly in sync with my heart beat. I now understood I was listening to my own heart rythm on top of some other unknown body functions. This kinda freaked me out for a minute but I got used to it. The sound faded and I stopped focusing on it and went to bed. Within 30 mins I was already waking up from a dream, which is really odd because I know that the first stage of rem sleep typically starts 90 to 120 minutes after falling asleep. The dream gave me very powerful strange emotions but I couldn't remember anything about it. It was very easy to fall back asleep. Then I started waking up every 15 to 30 minutes in the same way, with a strong emotion from the dream but barely able to remember anything. This carried on all night and it seemed like I woke up about 40 times which started to get really annoying.

When I finally woke up in the morning I realized that I had slept for 14 hours, I typically sleep about 8 hours. I was impressed by the herbs power but dissapointed I didn't remember anything. The twist is that the next night I just went to bed as usual with no Calea at all, but this time I experienced several of the most vivid dreams of my life and in my last dream I became the most lucid I have ever been for about 2 minutes. Usually the moment I become lucid I instantly wake up but I was able to sit on a couch in my dream for a minute amazed that I wasn't waking up. I still have never been able to walk around in a dream lucid I can only sit there and stare for a minute. After that second night my dreams returned back to the typical slight recollection.

I have repeated this process with slightly lower doses of Calea to avoid waking up a million times with the exact same result. The night I take the extract my dreams are incomprehensible, but the following night is amazingly clear. I don't do this often because I have had some really fucked up nightmares that left me more weirded out than any trip. I've taken high doses of hallucinogens which can be pleasently terrifying, but nothing leaves my heart pounding like a fucked up nightmare. If you do this be prepared to be scared, remain humble and know that everything is a learning experience, even heart-stopping nightmares.

Exp Year: 2004	ExpID: 38378
Gender: Male
Age at time of experience: Not Given
Published: Nov 23, 2004	Views: 41,023
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Calea zacatechichi (97), Dreams (85) : General (1), Retrospective / Summary (11), Alone (16)