DOSE: T+ 0:00	500 mg	oral	Valerian	(capsule)
T+ 0:06	500 mg	oral	Valerian	(capsule)
T+ 0:13	50 mg	oral	Vitamin B-6	(pill / tablet)
T+ 0:16	1.0 mg	oral	Melatonin	(pill / tablet)
T+ 0:42	2.0 mg	oral	Melatonin	(pill / tablet)
T+ 0:56	1.0 mg	oral	Melatonin	(pill / tablet)
T+ 1:10	1.0 mg	oral	Melatonin	(pill / tablet)

BODY WEIGHT:

125 lb

This experience report contains two of my experiences with various dream-potentiating herbs. The first was relatively unsuccessful, so skip to the second if you wish.

First Try--Substances:
- 3 Herbal Plus Standardized Kava Kava Root softgel capsules - 110 mg of root extract each (55% kavalactones = 60 mg)
- 2 Herbal Plus Fingerprinted Valerian Root capsules - 500 mg of root powder each
- 1 Melatonin tablets - 1 mg of melatonin each

Results:
This combination had little effect. Dreams became slightly easier to recall.

Second Try-- Substances:
- Herbal Plus Fingerprinted Valerian Root capsules - 500 mg of root powder each
- Melatonin tablets - 1 mg of melatonin each
- Vitamin B6 tablet - 50 mg of vitamin B6 each

Time Taken:
T+0:00 - 1 Valerian capsule
T+0:06 - 1 Valerian capsule
T+0:13 - 1 Vitamin B6 tablet (given to me by a friend)
T+0:16 - 1 Melatonin tablet
T+0:42 - 2 Melatonin tablets
T+0:56 - 1 Melatonin tablet
T+1:10 - 1 Melatonin tablet
T+2:09 - Lights Out (9:15 PM)

The Dreams:
As I was falling asleep, my mind gradually began thinking weirder and weirder thoughts. It pondered one concept, then branched off to a related concept, and continued this until it was thinking a creative thought that it normally wouldn't be able to. The first few times I noticed this happening, my conscious mind kept analyzing it, causing me to stay awake; so I decided to just let it be. (All of this happens to an extent normally, but it seemed more pronounced this time.) Eventually, I fell asleep.

I remember briefly waking up and going back to sleep several times in the first few hours. At 3:55 I woke up from a crazy, complex dream and quickly grabbed a piece of paper and pen to write it down. This dream had at least three completely different scenes; or one might consider it three dreams that transitioned into each other perfectly. The first part I remember was jumping into a shallow (about 4 ft.) pool of a paint-like substance. My goggles (I was wearing goggles for some reason) got stuck at the bottom of the pool, and I was drenched in the substance. Many people, some whom I know from physical reality and others whom I don't, were gathered in cliques around the pool. A black girl helped me get my goggles, and then I walked into a school. (At this point I was no longer wet from the pool.)

The environment of the school did not look like my real-life school, but I treated it as if it were. I wanted to get to math class without being late. Unsuccessfully searching for it on the third floor (which coincidentally is the floor of my real-life math class), I checked my schedule and found that this math class was on the fourth floor. As I was walking to the class, I had incoherent thoughts hoping that my main math teacher would not be there, and that the 'other' math teacher would be there. I don't understand what my mind meant by this since it would make sense for me to have only one math teacher.

Somehow, class became irrelevant as I walked into a chapel, where a Catholic priest of Korean ethnicity (my mom is Korean, and I have attended her Korean church before; this is probably why this material is in my subconscious mind) was performing a service. I became upset at my mom because she kept talking loudly to me during the service, drawing attention to us. Because I was mad at her, she left my general area and started chatting loudly with the priest, who was on the other side of the church, right in the middle of the service. This didn't seem to upset the priest. My (male) cousin, sitting next to me, was laughing at this incident, which prompted me to laugh also. When we were no longer laughing, a real-life acquaintance of mine looked at me and laughed friendily. For some reason, I didn't laugh with him; afterward, I felt a bit guilty for not laughing with him -- it was funny.

It's interesting that when I woke up, my mom was chatting loudly with my aunt downstairs (they were up late because it was New Year's Eve and they had gone to a midnight mass). Her real-life voice probably corresponded to her dream-voice in the chapel. My mouth was dry, so I went downstairs to get a drink of water and then went back to sleep.

I'm not sure exactly when the following dream occured chronologically, but I remember its details vividly. It took place in my upstairs bathroom. Have you ever seen commercials asking you to sponsor a child in a poor country to pay for food, medicine, etc? Similarly, a person, whose appearance I don't remember, was trying to have us sponsor a snake for $180. The next thing I remember, he had left the room, and I was stuck in it alone with a bunch of snakes. There were two cages, each containing several snakes. A small, thin snake remained still beside the more distant cage. A huge snake was resting on top of the other cage. For a long time, I stood where I was pondering whether I should wait for the person to arrive again or whether I should just burst out of the room. When I finally resolved to burst out, I noticed that the large snake on top of the cage was a cobra, likely venomous. I can recall its details exactly: it was brown and white, and I remember seeing its scales vividly. This made me hesitate, but I decided to jump out of the room anyway. As I was escaping the room, the dream ended.

My final dream made the most sense of all. I was across the street at one of my closest friend's house, and we were about to go to a guitar store to practice. His older sister warned that it would take a while, and I remembered that I had to do some homework. The homework corresponded exactly to the work I have to do in real life by the end of the Christmas vacation, so apparently my dream-self thought he had school the next day. As I was walking past his dad, who was watching TV, I actually remember thinking to myself that I felt weird, as if I were on a subtle drug. I had a slight I-don't-give-a-f*** attitude, and my vision was shifting around a lot more than in physial reality. As I was exiting the house, my sleeve got caught in the door handle; and his dad opened the door for me and made some comment that I didn't hear well. I smiled and began walking home. While I was in my driveway walking to the garage, a car was driving down the street, making me a bit nervous. My vision was perfect, except that it was wobbly.

I knocked on my door, and my dad queried, 'who is it?' as usual. I had to yell that it was me several times before he opened the door; and as I was waiting for him to open it, I thought to myself that my voice sounded different. My dad was watching Chris Rock on TV; and my mom was also in the room, but I don't recall what she was doing. At this point, I awoke suddenly, glancing around my room and feeling disoriented and startled for a few seconds. I smiled, recording what I could remember.

Conclusions:
This experiment had much more success than the first, probably because of the vitamin B6 and added melatonin.

About six months before this experience, I had been keeping a dream journal in an effort to promote lucid dreaming. It didn't help me in that respect (I had lucid dreamed *before* keeping the journal but not after), but it did help me remember much more detail from my dreams. At that time, my dreams were usually about as vivid as they were in this experience.

Therefore, the natural way to achieve these types of dreams seems to be to keep a dream journal. I will restart my dream journal tonight, and once my dreams are regularly as detailed as the dreams described in this experience report, I will try the experiment again. Will these dream-potentiating herbs enhance already-vivid dreams to a level I've never experienced before?

Exp Year: 2002	ExpID: 11570
Gender: Male
Age at time of experience: Not Given
Published: Oct 7, 2004	Views: 81,136
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Dreams (85), Valerian (48), Melatonin (94) : Alone (16), Retrospective / Summary (11)