DOSE: T+ 0:00	500 mg	oral	Tabernanthe iboga	(extract)
T+ 0:45	500 mg	oral	Tabernanthe iboga	(extract)
T+ 2:00	1 g	oral	Tabernanthe iboga	(extract)
T+ 4:00	500 mg	oral	Tabernanthe iboga	(extract)
T+ 6:00	500 mg	oral	Tabernanthe iboga	(extract)

BODY WEIGHT:

96 kg

INTRODUCTION

The aim of this report is to analyze the effects and research practices of iboga for further examination into iboga’s hallucinogenic state, particularly Tabernanthe Iboga Total Alkaloid Extract (TA extract). In what follows is a description of my second experience with iboga and my first investigative attempt to make some sense of iboga hallucinations in general. This report will examine: 1) the phenomenology of my iboga experience, i.e. what was seen, heard, felt, and 2) a proposition to think critically and seriously about iboga hallucinations and what they could mean. Psychedelics alter consciousness, allowing people to experience a different reality. I want to know more about these altered (lucid) realities that iboga produces, to investigate them, engage with them, and to make sense of them. I want to know whether iboga is a tool that bridges ordinary reality with other realities not normally seen with sober perception. I also want to know if it is at all possible to prove these hallucinations as real? Common sense would say they are not; nevertheless, whether hallucinations are true or false I want to think about the depth and breadth of iboga hallucinations.

METHODS

T: 0+ (21:30, Friday)
Eight participants including me took part in an intention ceremony. We ate one 500 mg capsule of TA extract at 21:30 followed by a second 500 mg capsule forty-five minutes later. Then we went to our beds to await the psychedelic trip.

T: 2+
1.5 to 2 hours passed before we took two more 500mg capsules.

T: 4+
1.5 to 2 hours passed before we took one more 500mg capsule.

T: 6+
1.5 to 2 hours passed before we took one more 500mg capsule.

The inspiration for this experience report is rooted in the previous iboga ceremony I participated in months earlier (deon, 2017). In that ceremony, I saw visions of entities during the come down phase, the period when I should have been sleeping and recovering from the experience. I expected to see the same or similar entities on this trip, therefore decided to conduct an experiment to communicate face-to-face with them. I assumed these entities would not speak any human language and could not communicate telepathically. Prior to the ceremony I made printouts of visual representations to build a communication framework, to have something to talk about, and to teach them aspects of human culture. Also, I wanted to test whether I would get an affirmative response or reaction from the entities looking at a particular image.

The first folder contained printouts of simple arithmetic to teach the entities about human numbers. Numbers 1 through 20 were printed out in this fashion: I → 1, II → 2, and so forth. A list of numbers from 0-100 was printed out to show the entities a short range of numbers. Then I prepared a sheet of examples with basic addition, subtraction, multiplication, and division as: IIIII I + III → IIIII IIII, 6 + 3 = 9 and so forth, keeping the same numbers, but replacing the arithmetic signs. The second folder contained images of sacred geometry patterns and the third folder contained images of ancient alphabets. The purpose of showing these images to the entities was to look for reactions; a strong reaction toward one of the images could be looked into greater detail for the next iboga ceremony. The ceremony lasted from late Friday night until Sunday midday. The plan was to show the printouts to the entities during the come down phase if or when they presented themselves.

RESULTS

The trip itself is not the focus of this report; the come down is. With that said, it is important to note that one should prepare mentally for what could arise during the psychedelic experience. Plan for an intention ceremony for what you would like to work on for yourself. This is an unavoidable stage in the scientific study of iboga. All users of this substance will have to pass through this difficult stage before one is able to study the hallucinatory effects.

Some time had passed after the flood dose stage before I went to the living room at around 13:00 on Saturday to lie down and recover. Six or seven hours later I went back to my bed but could not sleep. Then I went back to the living room where our guides/trip sitters were still awake and I tried to get some sleep thinking that the white noise from their conversations would quiet my mind. On the contrary, that is when things started to get interesting.

The experiment I planned to conduct did not happen. While I lied in the living room trying to quiet my mind to go to sleep, deeply buried emotions came flooding back. Each image and thought was more horrible than the previous. For roughly ten hours (22:30 Saturday till 08:00 Sunday) I saw amazing and terrifying images of moving landscapes, twisted and contorted, some a mess, and others as flashes of storylines popping into my field of vision (with my eyes closed the entire time). Eventually the lights were turned off, the trip sitters went to bed, and I continued to process the images in my head. Iboga does something to mental images by contorting them, making them cartoon-like, vivid and colorful, while other images are clear still frames or videos of imaginary or personal past and future events. When a vision became too intense I removed it from my internal projector screen and then another would take its place.

It was during this time when I noticed something fascinating happening in the room. There was quickly vibrating fuzz covering everything, as if the dust was alive. The dust was probably not moving; the iboga still in my system probably altered my vision to make it seem like everything was vibrating. Unlike my first experience with iboga at this stage (well into the second night and in complete darkness), this time there was a single dim wall lamp above me, allowing me to see the dust. The dust was also intelligent. When I looked at the wall lamp, vibrating dust was collecting under it, as if it were manifesting into something, and dropped near my leg when presumably the weight of the dust became too much to bear. On the living room table, dust collected on water bottles and other objects. The dust used material objects as a base to build other complex objects. Images of people, plants, and technologies sprung from these objects scattered around in the room.

As I lied on the couch, I turned my head toward the adjoining living room table to see tiny, still orange lights coming from very high-tech gadgets pointed in my direction: a black/grey device the size of a large mobile phone with vertical flaps protruding from each side, long and gangly speakers extending from a tall water bottle, and handheld devices by entities in the room. At first I thought my trip sitters were controlling these recording technologies. I wanted to get a better look at these technologies so I picked up my mobile phone and pointed the light from my home screen toward them. The light cut through the holographic objects. The objects created by the dust continued to move around and resumed their form when I turned the light off.

As I scanned the room, I noticed small people observing me, like they were studying my body and mind. I presumed they were the ones now controlling/directing the advanced audio and video recording equipment pointed in my direction. Everyone wore what seemed to be futuristic Halloween outfits. When I say Halloween outfits, do not think of Pokémon, Wonder Woman, or Spider-Man; think more like futuristic young people’s apparel. Some wore masks, partial masks, and some did not wear masks at all exposing their (human) faces. At any given time there were between 5-8 entities in the living room observing me. They were doing research but their outfits and demeanor suggested that they were children doing a school project or field trip. There were one or two taller beings at the door that straddled the living room and kitchen, also dressed in bizarre outfits, observing the kids and me. I suspected these beings to be their teachers. What were they doing, why were they here and so interested in me and not the other participants? Perhaps I was the only person awake or was the only person who could see them since my mind was the only one producing these hallucinations at that moment.

At one point I needed some water and walked toward the kitchen. When I was on the other side of the living room table where the little people were, I saw what they were doing. Their attention and equipment were still focused on my place on the couch even though I was standing behind them. Many of them had mobile devices showing images and words. These were the same images and words coming from me as I tried to quiet my mind to go to sleep. The images were being sent from the mobile devices to a laptop computer and were organized and sorted according to a software program I did not understand nor have ever seen before.

As all of this was going on, I heard many small feet running around upstairs, rummaging for something. I suspect they were looking for my experiment documents. My place on the couch was directly below my bed upstairs. My backpack was wedged tightly between the bed and nightstand. No one was in my bed at the time yet I heard the glassware on my nightstand bump into each other and make noise. Then I heard cheerful screams and more scurrying footsteps moving to the area around my bed. It could be argued that one of the other iboga participants could have been moving around upstairs, but I do not believe this. Each step a person takes produces a pounding sound that is easily heard from downstairs; on the contrary, I heard light pitter-pattering footsteps like those of children.

DISCUSSION
I think this inter-dimensional or time traveling school trip theme had something to do with my intention of conducting an experiment during the iboga retreat weekend. There is no way for me to prove this; it is just a feeling I have. As well, I saw and heard these things while under a powerful psychedelic drug, thus the chance of them being hallucinations is very high. Having said that, is it possible to prove that these images are not hallucinations? Rodriguez (2007) wrote a paper about testing the objectivity of subjective experiences of N,N-dimethyltryptamine (DMT). For example, the transfer of information from one person to another in the DMT state, or relaying information to a DMT entity who then relays it back to another person visiting the DMT state, would suggest that the DMT realm is an objective reality and not just a subjective hallucination. What experiments can be done in the iboga state to test for objectivity?

First, I recommend using night vision and/or thermal cameras to try to record these entities in (a) complete darkness and/or (b) with a dim light in a corner of the room. It is possible that if entities are present they will leave a heat signature or give off sounds. Second, there needs to be more than one person awake to test for intersubjectivity; there is little credibility in one person’s account of what happened if he or she is the only person who saw something. Third, what experiments can be done with the iboga entities? Rodriguez (2007) suggests ways of objectifying the DMT experience, so there could be ways to objectify the iboga experience. To do this, it is necessary to know what the physiological and mental effects of the drug are to identity experiments suitable for various stages of the iboga experience. The most promising stage, I believe, is the come down phase.

The first phase, i.e. the flood dose, is nearly impossible to conduct research oneself. It is too chaotic, visual, and psychedelic. If one were to conduct an experiment in this phase, perhaps the participant could self-report to an experimenter who records audio, takes notes, and asks questions about what the participant experiences. The second stage is the worst stage to conduct experiments because the participant is in a state of physical pain and unease and is trying to recover from the first stage. Also, light nullifies any visuals, as iboga requires darkness for visuals to be seen (to the best of my knowledge darkness allows for greater perception of visuals); although, it could be interesting to remain in a pitch-black environment during the afternoon of the second day. The third stage, the come down, is where research has the most promise. During this prolonged stage from Saturday evening until late Sunday morning (considering there is not much light) the iboga user has just enough iboga in their system to see hallucinations in his or her external environment—rather than lying in a bed with eyes closed, which is a waste of precious observation time in my opinion—to interact with the hallucinations and to record their findings.

I accept the possibility that my intention to conduct an experiment with whatever entities I hoped to encounter may have had an influence on the visions of children and teachers on a school trip studying me as the object of experimentation. As unrealistic and optimistic as this sounds, I would like to conduct my next experiment with these school kids as I appreciated their curiosity and careful documentation. Whether these school kids are real or not, I invite them to make a return visit if it is okay with their parents and educational institution. In consideration of their advanced technology, I figure they were time travelers or came from a neighboring intergalactic civilization. I am not sure (yet) what the literature says about the validity of hallucinations, especially psychedelic hallucinations. I wonder what could be done to test their existence? Is it possible for drug-induced hallucinations to be real? What if certain drugs are tools/portals/bridges to see altered realities that are only accessible with said drugs? Something would need to be verified to test for the hallucinations/visions’ validity, such as the school kids predicting an event at a specific time, date, and place in the future (that is, if they are indeed time travelers). What kind of information might the school kids impart or add to the next iboga experiment I will conduct that would give credibility to the their validity?

CONCLUSION
Psychedelics produce amazing and convincing hallucinations, especially under the influence of sleep deprivation, lack of sufficient food intake, and the vomiting of food and liquids during the flood dose in the case of iboga. I still wonder though if they are mere hallucinations. What if they are not? If they are not, how can one prove them to be real? Proving them to be real requires repeatable scientific methods or ways to prove their existence.

What I have learned from taking iboga two times and studying its hallucinogenic effects in the come down phase is: 1) a pitch-black room is best to see entities/hallucinations in the room, i.e. in one’s external environment as opposed to eyes closed, 2) it is recommended to sleep or try to sleep during the second day (in my case, Saturday day) if you can, but stay awake for the second night, 3) it might be necessary to “black box” scientific methods along with some assumptions to build on, otherwise it will be impossible to make any progress in the study of iboga hallucinations. When you plan to work with iboga, and you are interested in making some scientific observations, I suggest expanding upon the recommendations made in this experience report. The come down phase is a fuzzy crossover period where I believe the most fruitful interaction and exchange with entities will occur. There must be other common denominators that I have overlooked that can be expanded. Repeatability is a key component to understanding what is going on because science demands repeatability and provability for results to be taken seriously; I intend to continue my work both inside and outside of academia until I have a better grasp on both.

The visuals produced by iboga and other psychedelics are written off as hallucinations. The questions I am interested in concern the potentiality of these hallucinations to be taken as real. From a spiritual perspective, there may be domains inaccessible to humans operating with ordinary consciousness. Are these normally off-limit domains suddenly accessible when people alter their consciousness? It could be that these domains are real, perhaps overlapping with our own reality, although very difficult to prove, and the questions I am interested in concern bringing back information from alternate realities to perhaps one day prove their existence. Without proof of these claims I am speculating. But at least I am asking such questions; at the very least I might prove my speculative questions to be false, which will undoubtedly lead to new questions about entheogenic altered states of consciousness. The lucidity of TA extract hallucinations makes it extremely special as a focus of research compared to other psychedelic substances.

REFERENCES
deon. (2017). “Bizarre Visions After Flood Dose: An Experience with Tabernanthe iboga (TA extract) (exp110492).” Erowid.org. Published September 28, 2017, erowid.org/exp/110492
Rodriguez, M. A. (2007). A Methodology for Studying Various Interpretations of the N, N-dimethyltryptamine-Induced Alternate Reality. Nat. Neurosci, 21, 67-84.

Exp Year: 2018	ExpID: 111679
Gender: Male
Age at time of experience: 26
Published: Mar 8, 2018	Views: 2,872
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Tabernanthe iboga (200) : Entities / Beings (37), Multi-Day Experience (13), General (1), Group Ceremony (21)