I was reading about some substances on Erowid a few days ago and came across a post that laid out an alcohol extraction method that is so simple it’s almost silly. Basically you take the plant matter, stick it in a coffee mug, pour grain alcohol over it just enough to cover the leaves, microwave 20 seconds, add water, microwave 30 seconds, check to make sure the water isn’t low, another 1 minutes, etc, and then strain out the liquid and drink it.
I thought to myself - hmmm, the evaporation temperature for the alkaloids in C.Z. is something similar to the boiling point in water, so as long as the water doesn’t boil, I should be ok using this. Well, I tried it with about 6 grams of C.Z. plant matter and (don’t laugh) a pretty old bottle of cognac I had sitting around. I don’t keep much hard liquor in the house. That stuff is bad for you .
I made the extraction and (insert a series of explatives here) I couldn’t believe my taste buds. It was noticeably WORSE tasting than normal C.Z. tea! How can this be?, I asked myself. I was sure C.Z. tea was the worst tasting non-poisonous substance (I haven’t tried poison, so I can’t speak to that) on earth. But no! It seems that the alcohol extraction method yields higher alkaloid content, therefore, is more bitter. Moreover, the aftertaste got worse and worse for a long time, and while it wasn’t nauseating, it was pretty bad. It lasted for about 30 minutes.
I wrote all that just to warn you - if you think, say, kava kava tastes bad, well you might want to avoid this completely. I’m pretty sure that camel sweat would be much more tasty.
Now for the effects. It took until after the aftertaste wore off (25-30 minutes) for the full effects to kick in. It was sedative, but also cleared my mind for a while. I mean, I was about to fall asleep, but I’m not joking, I was doing some very clear thinking. I think that’s part of what makes CZ work.
Moving on, I had quite a body load. It was like I got very heavy, and was being pulled down into the bed. If it was much stronger, it would have been a nausea-like dizziness. Thankfully, it wasn’t much stronger. With some concentration, I was able to relax forget about the physical effects, and I tried to start meditating to perform WILD. Well, since I didn’t have a clear meditation plan, this was a joke. My mind was, by that time, racing so fast that I couldn’t possibly formulate a plan at that late stage.
I jumped from one thought to another so fast that I gave up on Lucid Dreaming altogether. I was a little frustrated becaues the stuff tastes like **** and I knew I would have to try again. I did have a lot, and I mean a LOT of hypnagogic imagery. Basically, if I thought it, HI would appear to describe the thought. It was pretty amazing.
The Dreams:
Well, I won’t bore you with the details of the dreams, and this isn’t an adult content site, so I can’t tell you about some of them anyway. Needless to say they were vivid, many, and varied. I am sure the C.Z. was at work. Were they conscious? I honestly don’t recall. I didn’t prepare a journal, and didn’t expect to complete the experiment.
However, I did learn something that to me is somewhat profound. Calea Zacatechichi may be the mexican “Dream Herb,” but it is not the “Lucid Dream Herb.” In fact, I’m not sure that such an herb exists. While I do believe that this plant can make you have a lot of very vivid dreams, I think that set and setting (here we go, back to the basics) are FAR more important than any of us realized years ago when C.Z. got first mentioned on this forum.
It seems to me that with the right mental preparation, C.Z. could HELP one lucid dream in a vivid, perhaps profound way. However, I dont’ think it will induce lucid dreams for someone who is not mentally prepared, and has no plan.
At any rate, the alcohol extraction was definitely a success in terms of increased potency and decreased preparation time. If anything, a decrease in dosage may be beneficial. I don’t recommend the use of any substance to anyone for obvious reasons. However, for me, C.Z. merits more study.[/b]