DOSE:		smoked	Calea zacatechichi	(dried)
		oral	Calea zacatechichi	(tea)

BODY WEIGHT:

160 lb

About a month ago I ordered some Calea out of curiousity. I hadn't done much reading on it before ordering it. It was cheap, so I figured I'd just go ahead and try it anyway.

Typically, I go through cycles with dreams. Most of the time, I'll only have slight dream recall, and my dreams would not be significantly vivid. Periodically, however, I'll start to have very vivid dreams, with excellent recall. I was hoping that calea would help me increase the amounts of vivid dreams I would have. The possibility of lucid dreams was also a nice incentive.

Upon receiving the package (2 oz.), on a nightly basis for about a week or so, I experimented with various dosages. Typically, I would smoke a bowl about 1 hour to 30 minutes before bed. Sometimes, I would complement or replace this with a tea. At the time, however, I was making the tea fairly weak; I would use just enough to fill a tea ball in some cases, or a tea bag in others. These amounts gave me a mild, stone-y feeling, like being slightly high on marijuana, only without the haziness. However, I wasn't getting any of the desired effects. My dreams seemed like they were no different then usual. I gave up on it for a while, and set it aside.

At one point, I gave away about 1/8 oz. or so to my friend, and he praised it as being highly effective and wonderous. He ended up ordering 4 oz. for himself. So, I figured that maybe I should give it another try. Fastforward to this past weekend...

First, I should note that Friday night, I didn't use any calea, but I had very vivid dreams (though that may be a side effect of salvia, marijuana, and alcohol that I'm not aware of). I decided I wasn't making the tea strongly enough. So, saturday night, I put 2 cups of water in a pot with about 1/8oz. of leaves, whole. I let it boil for about 30 minutes, strained it, and then drank it. I also smoked a bowl on top of this. That night, I had vivid dreams, but still nothing remarkable, since the previous night contained vivid dreams also.

Sunday night, I did basically the same thing, however this time I used distilled water, because I read that it may help prevent 'fizzing' rather than boiling, and I used more calea (~1/4 oz) and crushed it. I also let it boil for longer (~45 minutes), so that by the time I was finished, there was approximately 1/2 cup of liquid after straining. The tea was more bitter than usual, but nothing I couldn't handle. Let me just say this: to all the people that think that calea tea is the worst tasting thing in the world, quit crying and try some ayahuasca (yage, whatever...). Again, I smoked a bowl in addition to the tea about 1 hour before going to bed. After a long bout with insomnia (probably due to anticipation), I finally fell asleep, and, again, had fairly vivid dreams. One difference between the dreams of Sunday and Saturday nights, versus my usual vivid dreams is that they flowed much better and were much more cohesive. In other words, I wouldn't suddenly jump from one place to another, without any explanation.

I have yet to experience any lucid dreams. Also, the subjects of my dreams don't seem to be influenced by the calea at all. I'm not visiting ancient landscapes, or being led around by a guide, or whatever. In all my dreams so far, I've interacted mostly with people I've met in the past. In fact, one other point of note is that, usually, my dreams seem fairly random and are generally not really related to any recent events in my life (or at least, not obviously related), however, the dreams of the last two nights were very heavily related to conversations I had, people I met, places I'd been, etc. over the past couple of days. I'm not inclined to assume that this is an effect of calea, but I thought it was worth mentioning.

So, the jury's still out as to just how effective calea really is. Perhaps someone should perform a well-documented, double-blind experiment on people to see how much of this is placebo effect. Anyway, I'm going to continue to use my current supply until it's out (almost there...) and see if I continue to have vivid dreams. What I'd like to do, if I can time it right, is to begin using it again during one of my low-dream-activity cycles. Also, I'd like to try other methods, such as extraction using everclear, and perhaps smoking the gum that's left over.

Exp Year: 2003	ExpID: 28337
Gender: Male
Age at time of experience: Not Given
Published: Nov 19, 2003	Views: 18,037
[ View PDF (to print) ] [ View LaTeX (for geeks) ] [ Swap Dark/Light ]
Dreams (85) : General (1), Retrospective / Summary (11), Alone (16)