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The Night That Forest Grew
Desfontainia Spinosa, Tea & Cannabis
Citation:   CoffinTerror. "The Night That Forest Grew: An Experience with Desfontainia Spinosa, Tea & Cannabis (exp99135)". Erowid.org. Mar 26, 2019. erowid.org/exp/99135

 
DOSE:
T+ 0:00
10 g oral Desfontainia spinosa (tea)
  T+ 0:00   oral Tea  
  T+ 0:44 2 g smoked Cannabis  
  T+ 0:50 1 smoked Tobacco - Cigarettes  
  T+ 0:50   repeated smoked Tobacco - Cigarettes  
BODY WEIGHT: 123 lb
I am very glad for my experience with this plant. I am planning to try this one again, one day.

I first learned of Desfontania Spinosa (aka Taique) from one of my one of my [relative's] books, Medical Botany - Plants Affecting Man's Health by Walter H. Lewis & Memory P.F. Elvin-Lewis. Previous to reading this book, I had never heard of this plant. Anyways the book my [relative] gave to me after realizing my interests in botanicals and entheogens stated in chapter eighteen, 'Hallucinogens' section, the following information:

'Plant Group & Species:
Loganiaceae
Desfontainia Spinosa
Var. Hookeri

Vernacular Name:
Taique

Active Chemical:
Unknown

Comments:
Leaves employed in southern Chile as a hallucinogen.'


This leaves me with many questions. I did however recently (after my experience) find out that two chemicals from Taique have been identified as 'Spinoside A' & 'Spinoside B', but I know nothing more about them. Hopefully more information will be publicly available soon. But there won't ever be many answers to anything unless it is studied, researched, tested and so on. One of the vast reasons I decided to be a first, in modern day at least as it seems, to try this one and write a detailed report into my experience with it.

Obtaining what I needed to brew the hallucinogenic tea wasn't too hard. I searched online for a source to buy dried foliage and the flowers. I found a reliable source for both, but from different shops. At the time I was just reading up on a lot of plants and ordering them for research purposes (wink*wink). I don't know what made me decide to choose this one. I suppose mainly that it is a known hallucinogenic plant but no one has seemed to use it any time recently and publically spoke of it yet. So I knew if I gained access to it, I could conduct an experiment with it.

Here is how it started, and how I prepared it (honestly, it was pretty simple):
After receiving the dried foliage and flowers, I weighed out approximately ten grams of the dried foliage and flowers mixed together (when they arrived, I mixed all of it together). I proceeded to opening a number of tea bags and stuffing full and re-shutting each tea bag with the ten grams of leaves/flowers. I did it this way for a couple reasons, I knew for one it'd make the process a bit easier than other possible methods and that secondly the black tea leaves would help to cover the taste, but it only slightly took the bitter taste away. I boiled roughly about ten fluid ounces of water for exactly twenty minutes. I brought the water to a roaring boil, and put the infused teabags into the boiling water. I allowed the teabags to sit in the pot of boiling water for about five minutes, then turned the burner off. I allowed the teabags to sit and steep in the water for exactly one hour. By this time my Taique tea was finished, now I had roughly ten fluid ounces of Taque tea with ten grams extracted into the drink. I squeeze all the teabags til' I get every bit of liquid I can manage to out of them and continue to put all of the tea into one big cup.

I add four tablespoon scoops of sugar and some honey to attempt to help me with this new taste I was about to experience. After adding my sweeteners, and stirring the mixture up I have it finally. A year since I had first even learned of this plant I was about to experience what it had to offer, seeing no one had wrote an experience on it made me extremely excited to try it and also a bit nervous. But I dove in to it, and made it through it. And with that this is what I have to say for my experience with Taique, the Chilean Holly.

My experience:
6:00pm - I drink the Taique tea and begin to wait for effects. The taste is very bitter, but I have had worse and handle it better than I had imagined I was going to.
6:13 - First noticeable effects begin. I feel a slight euphoria and body high creeping in but at a very slow pace. I can't make much of it yet, or what to expect. I'm quite jittery at this point. But chilling and decide to turn on Adventure Time, which was a great idea. Cracked me up and relaxed me, oddly enough.
6:25 - The high has already built more in, I notice it's getting stronger. Colours are appearing with a different tint to them. My mind begins to drift more and I can't stay all too focused on one subject of thought for the most part. I already know this is going to be an interesting experience. I know that the simple tea preparation had worked. I wait for more effects.

6:40 - By now my body high has increased a lot compared to fifteen minutes ago. I don't feel much interested in television anymore. I turn the television off. Sounds are extremely enhanced and every sound sounds as if it is being played through headphones over my ears. The auditory part was very noticeable already and very interesting. I am still pretty jittery. Not nauseous at all but I do have an odd feeling in my stomach. It didn't bother me all too much but was regardlessly unpleasant. I have a strong stomach, for most substances. I also feel colder now. So I decide to go to my room and get a warm jacket. I then decided to kick it up a notch and got the last couple grams of highgrade Cannabis I had. I also know if there were to end up being any nausea the bud would likely help on that part, plus it is always good for enhancing other substances when combined with them.

6:44 - The high is getting very intense, still growing over me. Subtle visuals are beginning mainly in my peripherals. Things appear to spin in my field of vision but when I focus on them they appear 100% normal aside from feeling halfway in another dimension. Everything by now was very three dimensional looking. As if I was in an epic movie. I want to blast off and unlock even more of an experience since I'm already having such amazing vibes from the Taique tea. I pack a few bowls and smoke the two grams of smell good I have leftover from the week.

6:50 - After smoking the two grams I light up a tobacco cigarette, close my eyes and begin to focus. I see colours everywhere instantly when I close my eyes and keep them shut. Patterns and rainbows everywhere. Constantly moving, morphing and changing. Very similar to LSD in a way, I suppose you could say, but completely differently styled if that makes any sense. It seemed more natural. More organic-like. I could make out animals like fish, cats, birds and snakes. But each separate one in a solid colour form.

6:53 - I don't even know when or how it changed but I began falling into a trance-like state. I assume because I have had my eyes shut and been meditating and the weed is kicking in as well. Very intense at this point. And I figure I am not even done coming up from the tea yet. The closed eye visuals began taking on a whole new form. Now I'm looking at tops of trees, as if I'm flying directly overhead a vast forest. It was beautiful looking. All of the sudden a old house appears and my vision takes me inside it. On the old looking walls I can see pictures, very detailed pictures. Scared me a bit, but I observed them (realizing I was having extremely vivid visuals and felt as if I was lucid dreaming wide awake. Kind of like the trippiness of Salvia, without that freaky weird feeling all over the place). In one frame hanging on the wall was an old women. She had grey hair and wore very old looking clothes, I can't much even find words for to describe. The one other picture I saw inside the house was a family with a little girl and boy, two parents and the same lady. And it seemed as the pictured had aged quite a bit. After my focus begun shifting towards that picture, everything, the entire house dimmed until it was no longer there and I was in utter darkness. Through the piercing bleak abyss, I begin to see a circle form. I realize this isn't just a circle, it's like a portal. Or a wormhole. Glowing green and purple. Quickly from a far distance my vision swoops in a split second and next thing I know I'm in a wormhole of colours viewing amazing things within it. Seeing patterns of colours and breathing colours that look like veins. Parts of the wormhole seem as if they start to close around me which almost make me open my eyes in fright, but I keep going with the visuals and it always would stretch back open wider than it shrunk to. I come into a dark purple room where an off essence is and I begin seeing faces and arms in complete black clawing through the deep dark purple abyss in front of me. It was a bit much then, so I decide to give it a break and open my eyes.

7:03 - Upon opening my eyes, everything is completely different then when I had shut them. Things are breathing, and slowly moving and stretching out. Some things appear to be growing. I feel as if there is a giant orange bubble around my entire perception of the world, as well as my entire field off vision. It was more of a feeling then a distinct visual though. Everything was mostly normal but some objects were different colours then they normally should be. I could also see patterns forming on far away objects. I now know, only about an hour into my trip, that Desfontainia Spinosa has a lot to offer as a hallucinogen. I was also sure that I was not even experiencing it's peak effects yet. Seeing as how I could find no doseage information, I just winged it and did the ten grams in teabags as I said. It works. I also don't believe I need ten grams. I believe I had a high dose, but it was worth it for the trip.

7:10 - I can't decide what to do. From smoking and coughing, I was pretty thirsty. I went inside and got a glass of orange juice (knowing vitamin c will increase brain functions which is always a plus when your under the influence of a psychedelic). It tastes so much richer and sweeter and ecstatically more amazing than usual. I quickly finish my glass and begin thinking of something to do.

7:14 - The sun is just now going down, I had already just begun my trip and already was pretty deep into it. By this point, everything was moving. Things were trippy. But plenty more was to come. I decide to go out for a walk. I want music also, I always enjoy music with psychedelic experiences. I get my ipod and phone, cigarettes and lighter and wallet and head out on a walk around my neighborhood.

7:20 - Walking out front was amazing. Perfect timing. The sky looked absolutely beautiful. The sun was setting far on the horizon. It felt like I was frozen in time staring at it. Trees blew with the winds, and everything looked kind of like an animation but also kind of like a cartoon. In the sky I could see different colours all over. Tracers all around my field of vision. Sounds are very interesting I can hear some neighbor kids playing outfront and they sound as if they are directly in front of me, even though they were halfway down the street.

7:23 - I open my ipod and turn on Dark Tranquility's song 'Iridium', with the volume all the way up as usual. The song fits the trip perfectly, it's almost humorous. I can feel the song rushing through my body, my body high takes on an even greater feeling once the song is playing. Everything feels in extreme slow motion. Seconds almost feel as minutes.
Everything feels in extreme slow motion. Seconds almost feel as minutes.
The trip is already astonishing me, and I'm enjoying every second of it. Objects around me move, and stretch from big to small. It seems like the roads and distance objects are moving further away as I walk towards them.

7:30 - I walk a few streets away and see an entrance my brother had shown me before into the neighborhood woods. The same woods behind my parent's house, but an actual entrance on a trail through them. I walked down the hill and back up it, and into the trail leading into the woods. The song is over now and I haven't turned on another because I lost focus so I decided to pause, light up a cigarette and turn on a different song. I turn on Bring Me The Horizon's song 'Suicide Season' and continue my walk through the woods. I see bugs flying by, at least I am sure I saw bugs. They could've been my open eye visuals playing a complete trick on me. I literally thought bugs were getting on me so I put my hood on and tightened it. I found it funny and unpleasent but overall still enjoying the hell out of my night so far.

7:34 - I come to an opening where I can see the trees stretching high up, and I am positive as I stare at them I can see them growing taller. This is confirmed when I focus on the branches of trees and see them stretching, morphing around and drooping down in a melting-like manner. I feel like I'm surely at least somewhat peaking by now. I turn the music off after the synthetic part of the song and sit for a moment, I light another cigarette and chill on a fallen tree, admiring the scenery around me. Everything looks amazing. I feel like a kid roaming through this amazing forest. Usually I wouldn't be so enthralled about a walk in the woods but having a trip on the scale I was that night made it a fun adventure and memory. I begin to wish I had friends to experience it with. Surely next time I will be dosing up with some of my old roommates I think they'd enjoy this with me. We've also done plenty of shrooms and research chemicals together so I'm sure they'd be down for experiencing the Taique tea and Cannabis combo trip. My mind begins to flood while my eyes are wide open but my mind is off in space. I am without instinct just imagining me and my friends doing this together and what we'd be doing and how fun it'd be. I make it a goal to have some kind of a psychedelic experience with my friends sometime soon.

7:40 - I finally float back into reality and get up, halfway through my barley smoked cigarette and relight it. I begin walking again, turning on Bathory's song 'Mother Earth, Father Thunder'. This song fit perfectly with the setting I was in and the level I was on. Instantly with the song and nicotine going into me, the forest seemed to brighten up, and I suddenly somehow felt like Alive, lost in Wonderland. I felt as if I was traveling further and further down the rabbithole. Everything was very three dimensional in appearance. Fractals in the darkness of varied changing colours appeared.

7:55 - I walked for about fifteen minutes seeing all sorts of out of this world visuals of what was around me. I even saw some little stick men running across the sand trail. At least I remember seeing them, it is hazey yet clear. Kind of like an DXM trip but not at the same time. It had it's own personal and unieque feel and touch to this trip. Whatever chemical causes this psychedelic experience is certainly worthwhile for at least studying. I see glowing lights floating through the air, behind and out from behind trees and falling from the bleak sky above. When I looked up I felt lost in a maze, the trees and treetops looked undescribable but it seemed as if my world would begin to spin when staring upwards at the treetops and little bit of sky that was visible. I could see the dark leaves and branches moving at various paces and swirling around each other. It looked as if the trees were growing even taller, and dancing in a way. I felt tiny in the woods and the trees looked more than ten times as high as they should be. I can't even explain to you have intense of a hallucination that was for me. I've never been fully conscious for a visual that heavy. To literally see a tree normal then grow so high up, but not just one tree, all of them grew. some shrunk. It was unexplainable any further than that. But I wish I could'VE recorded what I was seeing. Then again I tend to wish that often with hallucinogens. I've been walking for about thirty minutes now and decide it's time to head back to the house. I turn on Azriel's song 'End Times' and begin walking home with yet another cigarette.

8:03 - Walking back through the woods looks like walking through a fantasy video game land. Or a legit background of a cartoon, is how I can best describe how things appeared visually to me on this newly surfacing drug. Some flowers I saw literally looked like they had faced and were staring me down. I felt odd until completely leaving the flower's presence to where I could no longer see them but had a odd lingering feeling due to them. Of all the things, so far this was the only semi scary part. Other than the high being herbal, making it pretty edgy. It was a good one, I can't lie about that though. Worth the experience so far, and my trip is still kicking hard. I am positive I must be peaking now. Things are in split seconds growing from small to big, they have surges of objects in different sizes moving around each separate object I see.

8:20 - I get back to my street and when I get to the house I plop down on my car and light anther cigarette. I, obviously, enjoy tobacco while tripping. The usual. One of my cats come up and begins meowing to let me know he's there. He jumps up on the car and chills with me. I pet him and give him plenty of attention and feel as one with him. I bring him inside and get him some fresh milk, which he excitedly ran to and drunk.

8:10 - I begin coming down, I feel the high leaving. An intense afterglow is no doubt present. Visual distortions still present. Walls in the house are moving and objects are moving, I feel very tired.
8:30 - My dad gets home from his friend's drunk with some danke. He gives me a few one hitter puffs and I go inside, get a drink of water, lay down and wake up at two pm the next day feeling a bit hungover but overall pretty great from the experience. Visuals are gone. No dreams remembered, though I don't at all rule out the possibility of vivid dreams from what I had all ingested.

What I learned from my experiment with Desfontainia Spinosa:
- It has the potential to be very psychedelic, certainly when consumed as a tea in a good dose.
- Open and closed eye visuals are present during the trip.
- Colours appear brighter.
- Auditory hallucinations are present from the start to the end. Sound is enhanced.
- Music and scenery is beautiful and feels other worldly.
- There is no doubt an afterglow from this substance.
- After my experience with the tea, I have tried it once more smoking it. I experienced a Salvia-like high from it. Like the threshold of breaking through into a Salvia trip. When smoked, Desfontainia Spinosa can also produces hallucinogenic visuals.

I am very interested in this substance after experiencing it, whatever it may be exactly that causes said effects. I will no doubt be returning to the Taique Dream once again to watch the forests grow once again.

Exp Year: 2013ExpID: 99135
Gender: Male 
Age at time of experience: 20
Published: Mar 26, 2019Views: 3,097
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Desfontainia spinosa (538) : Alone (16), Entities / Beings (37), Music Discussion (22), Glowing Experiences (4), Combinations (3), First Times (2)

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