DOSE:

20 leaves

oral

Calea zacatechichi

(tea)

BODY WEIGHT:

210 lb

I'd recently obtained a Calea zacatechichi specimen and lately my careful watering has been paying off. At one point some of the leaves began to dry, it'd been a long weekend and (oops) forgot to water for a couple of days. I plucked these leaves off, and added them to a collection of perhaps 10 which had already been shed.

I boiled some water in a standard stove top tea kettle and got a typical tea mug. I then carefully crumbled the leaves over the mouth of the mug and added hot water, stirring to ensure all of the fragments were thoroughly soaked.

I added some clover honey to offset the slightly bitter taste, and downed the tea as quickly and carefully as I could.

I started to feel the first effects after about 15 minutes. I felt myself drift into a kind of tranquil, meditative state. The bedroom window was open, and the nighttime air smelled especially nice. Also there was a very gentle, constant, slightly chilly breeze wafting in over the top of the bed, and I found it easier to focus on the sound of the breeze coming in the window and brushing against the leaves of the trees outside. The TV in the bedroom was on, and some sort of advert appeared describing some cologne or maybe shampoo, with some bluish, fluid slow-motion visuals. Some beads of the blue stuff were flying offscreen, I noticed they seemed particularly interesting to watch.

About 30 minutes into the experience, a variety of imagery started popping into my mind. It very much resembled those few minutes you're still awake just before your mind and body turn in for a night's sleep, lots of imagery and ideas about abstract things. They seemed more vibrant than usual, for lack of a better phrase, I was experiencing a greater amount of 'images per unit time' than typical for me.

I finally turned out the lights and drifted off to sleep. I had a very vivid dream, filled with color and action. Some scenes I still recall with some clarity include being in a room with a woodgrain table, on which are sitting maybe a square of four huge Othello games pieces in bright red and white. A bald man resembling the musician Moby was looking down at them in my presence, but I was not actually seeing myself in the dream at this point.

In a later scene, I had some bizarre imagery where I saw myself walking into a bathroom in a motel room; all of the tile and surfaces were completely white. The toilet and bathtub were in a separate room to my left, and I walked in. A bright-yellow toilet plunger behind and to the right of the toilet immediately caught my eye. Then, after a few moments I noticed that something seemed to be emerging from the toilet, it turned out to be feces. I am not into 'skat' or other such fetishes, so don't get me wrong here, but I was amazed at how detailed the poop was. It was a multitude of shades of brown, and shaped as you might expect, cylindrical in some places with a few large curves along its length.

The following day when I awoke I was remarkably tired. I'd gone to bed earlier than usual so I found it strange that I would feel so exhausted. Even a strong cup of coffee didn't take away the hazy, drowsy feeling, and this feeling lasted until the late afternoon.

The most startling aspect was in how much of my dream I remembered immediately after I awoke. It was literally as if my ability to recall my dreams had doubled, and the length of time the strong memories of my dreams remained also doubled.

For me (and, I've heard, for many others) dreams in the morning are like sand running through the fingers, you start with a good clear idea of what's there, but gradually as your mind fully awakes from the dreams the memory of the dreams fades. In the aftermath of this experience, I can say clearly that my dreams in this case remained clear in my mind significantly longer with, I believe, the assistance of Calea Zacatechichi.

Exp Year: 2001	ExpID: 4756
Gender: Male
Age at time of experience: Not Given
Published: Jan 20, 2001	Views: 29,955
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Dreams (85), Calea zacatechichi (97) : Alone (16), First Times (2)