Has anyone tried Calea zacatechichi ?I heard it helps w/LDs

Didn’t work:( I took at first one pill and smoked some i went to sleep with no results, the next night i took 2 pills but still didn’t get any good results.I think that calea might work by ingesting large quantities, i dont know, thats my best guess.

Did you only try Calea for 2 nights?

yes i only used it for 2 nights thats how much i had.

My most recent research is pointing to a scenario in which there are two (or more) alkaloids, not just one, in c.z. that make the plant effective for lucid dreaming. One alkaloid, or set of alkaloids, is water soluble. The other isn’t, and must be extracted via burning or some other method. To get an outrageous effect you would have to drink a lot of the tea and smoke some of the dried material thereafter. I have pretty cool effects from just the tea, but I’m pretty sensitive to the plant.

Another interesting thing to note is that the effects of the plant come on more quickly if used sublingually, or if chewed… but it tastes HORRIBLE that way as you can imagine.

One really odd thing I’ve noticed is that the aweful taste isn’t quite as aweful as it used to be… or perhaps I’ve just gotten used to it. I can drink it, and then afterward I actually appreciate the aftertaste - not for the flavor, but because I know the effects are going to be nice.

Regardless of what method you use, you can’t be conservative with C.Z. You have to use keep drinking the tea or smoking the bowl or popping the pills until you start to get the effects. That’s the ONLY reason I don’t really think the pills are the BEST method.

Think of it like this… if you were to smoke a bowl of weed you wouldn’t take one hit, have no effects, and just say… “I’ll wait a few minutes to see if anything happens.” You smoke until you feel it.

If you treat C.Z. that way you’ll get much better results.

Yeah Davion that makes complete sense, two or more alkaloids and them being either water soluble, or the other being burnt. Being water-soluble is special for many drugs, pharmaceuticals, herbs, etc. It would be great if scientists could single out these alkaloids or compounds then this would allow us to really concentrate the substance and get tremendous effects! It would also be quite interesting to find out what it is that makes Calea function. Then other similar drugs may be found to be closely related.
Yes it also seems some people are particularly sensitive to Calea. I am sensitive to it, not extremely so, and I am impressed with Mazatecs 10X pills. I have dreamed every night for over two weeks, this is unusual for me. I have taken the pills for all but 2 of those days. My above post has a wrong sentence in it.

I wouldn’t mind smoking Calea if it wasn’t so strong, maybe I will try a quick toke or two before bed. I tried smoking Calea only once and it seemed to work but I need to try it more or a definite conclusion. And I have not tried brewing Calea Tea, although I have some bulk Calea and I will try this. Davion can you give me some pointers on how much Calea to brew?

I have not tried an extreme amount of Calea. Could be interesting. What I do like about the pills is I don’t feel any effects, when I wake up NODDA. I will have to test the tea. With smoking, I felt the effects mostly in my lungs, smoke.

TWIPS, maybe try what Davion says. Alternatively, just try a different product. I have personally used some bunk Calea.

That makes PERFECT sense, Davion, and thank you for posting. I’ve read your Erowid reports on calea z and I wouldn’t mind hearing what else you know about this fascinating plant.

My experience with calea z has mainly with the 10:1 Mazatec pills. I did smoke a calea cigarette the first time in addition to the capsules, and didn’t quite “break through,” besides getting a slight leg cramp and a faint buzz while drifting off to sleep. The one time (out of five attempts thus far) I did remember any sort of effect was when I had taken a single capsule by with some tea containing a small amount of melatonin and valerian. The dreams were undoubtedly un-melatonin-like and incredible in general. But a week later I tried the same experiment with two capsules and nothing happened.

I haven’t given up on it yet, but I now have a general idea of where to go from here…thank you again.

I think the biggest differences between the way we use C.Z. and the way the Chontal tribals used it are…

1.) They always drank the tea then smoked some of the stuff.

2.) They always used a LOT more than we do. By all accounts they were using about 10-15 grams per dose. We use about 1-3 grams per dose.

For me, 1-3 grams is fine. But draw your own conclusions as you consider these facts.

I recently bought 30g Calea. I made a tea using 2g of the herb and tried to drink the brew. The taste was so horrible…there are no words to describe this nasty stuff!

Anyway, I got a strange body feeling…in fact, It was hard for me to walk. I did not expect such a strong effect. I took 0.5g cannabis the day before with much lower effects…

Unfortunately, the stuff had no effect on my dreams…:sad:

Hey, you are from germany, right?
I´d be interested where you bought that stuff, since there were some speculations on active and inactive plants around.
How much water did you use with the 2g?

I didn´t think that anyone could have such heavy effects from calea in waking state…
I did hardly feel anything.Well, I did, but after practicing lucid living for some time I am now very good at placebo effects :wink:

Traumgänger

I got it from head&nature:

Direct link removed. Please don’t link to vendors

I boiled the herb in a small teacup of water :smile:
I definatly felt an effect…no placebo :wink:

I have tried Calea differnt times from different suppliers to test out the theory about there may be an in active strain and an inactive strain out there…

in Both case I only smoked the herb as the tea sucks…

The kind I bought from legendary ethnobotanicals worked after only two days of smoking a bowel before sleep…The first time didn’t work but the second night I had results as well as the nights that followed.

took a month off away from the use of the herb…

The kind I bought from peruvian journies…it didn’t work the first 3 nights. I was upset and though that I finaly found the inactive strain that Davion mentioned. I decided to try again on the fourth night before going to sleep I smoked 3 bowles to see what would happen… As I was falling asleep I began to hear things, very starteling. I managed to fall asleep and had several false awakenings(no lucidity damn it…missed the signs) and they were VERY real. The next day I went back to one bowel of the stuff and had very similar results.

What I have concluded is that in my opinon their isn’t an inactive strain, just less active plants…However, with that said, it also seems like it builds up in your system(body) if done in successive nights to the point where it is very active…

So if you decide to try it, I recomend smoking it for every night before sleep for about a week…I guarentee the stuff works well…

Remember if drinking Calea use Mentos, or a strong mint. I do not particularly like mint flavored toothpaste. I mainly use mentos. Chew a mentos and then down the drink, then keep chewing the mentos after you swallow the Calea tea. The mint nullifies the taste of the horse liquor. Easily swalloweed then, no more bitter beer face.

I just ordered some of this stuff kind of on a whim. I ordered from Mazatec, from what I’ve heard it’s good stuff from them right? Anyways I’m pretty small and I’m sensitive to medicine so I’m going to try just taking a little bit so I don’t mess myself up or something. I read just about every report about it on erowid and it seems like something interesting to try. I want to try smoking it and having the tea which I’m hoping can’t taste any worse than that cake with barbeque sause that I acidentally ate. If so I can just chew some kava root afterwards to numb my mouth maybe…
I don’t know, I hope it does something at least since I paid for it. :tongue:

Old skuller-How much of the Calea did you smoke each night? One joint, two ? or whatever? Also, I wonder since the smoke is harsh, if anyone has tried using a water pipe to filter out the harsh tars etc, but would it also filter out the important ingredient that we’re looking for?

Also, I would love to read Davions posts on this herb but I don’t know where to find it. :smile:

The meso americans also put the plant below their pilows.

I’ve had calea for about 4 nights in a row now. I have found that drinking the tea is important. The pills don’t work as well, I believe for the same reasons davion mentioned.

I have noticed that mint tea mixed with calea leads to an explosion of dreams. Another effect of mixing these I have noticed is a night with nothing upon successive nights is better than the nights with something. I have no idea why, it is probably due to your brain adjusting to the chemicals.

I have also tried snuffing the calea with interesting effects. This is probably similar to chewing without the taste :eh:

I have concluded that this plant definitely has dreaming effects that are more than placebo, but these effects may vary greatly from person to person, and by the amount of the tea you are able to drink.

I smoked my calea in a water pipe. I’m not sure if it filters out the good stuff or not but it makes the smoke easier on my throat. I haven’t gotten it to work very often but when it did it was really cool. It was like my dreams took on a constant vividness so there weren’t parts that were vague, I could remember the whole dream. Also time seemed to be slowed down so when I woke up I would think I had slept in late but I really had like 5 more hours to sleep. I smoked it for a long time when I first got my water pipe and eventually I started to get body aches from it, I’m not sure why. It’s been a while though so I’m willing to try it again.

Thanks Aydira for that helpful info. I smoked Calea for one night with no results, but I believe it takes a little time to build up within the system. I remember when I first smoked a joint of weed, I got absolutely nothing from it.

:smile: My friend suggested I smoke another joint so I did. It knocked me on my ass and was super fantastic. So maybe Calea is similar and takes time to build up in the system to be effective. :smile:

Well all, I believe I have a progress report to tell. I have been experimenting with Calea and smoking it during the day. I have found that a water pipe filters out most of the harsh tars and does not filter out the active ingredient which produces vivid dreams.

For those of you who do not know how to make a water pipe, allow me to explain it. You will need a small soda bottle, (glass or plastic), a piece of quarter inch polyethelene clear plastic tubing, (about two feet which is sold at most hardware stores for very little money, maybe ten cents a foot), a small piece of cotton, and some packing tape.

Cut the tubing so one piece is about ten inches long and another is about six. Discard the excess. Fill the bottle half way with clean cold water. Place the longer piece into the soda bottle so that it almost touches the bottom of the bottle and extends over the neck of the bottle by about four inches or so.

Take the smaller piece and place it into the bottle so that it extends above the water level about two or three inches but so that the other end also extends about four inches over the neck of the bottle.

These measurements need not be exact but should be reasonably close.Stick the cotton into the bottle opening and seal it with a piece of tape. Place the calea cigarette into the smaller tube extension and inhale through the other tube. That’s it. Enjoy the good smoke without the harshness or harm to your lungs. :smile:

Calea is similar to Melatonin in the sense that the body after a while adjusts to it and it no longer is effective for dream recall. So the bottom line is that you cannot depend on it to work everytime. Maybe one has to abstain from it to allow the system to clean out and then start over again. Frustrating . :bored:

I’m going to get some from iamshaman.com. Did you guys get the regular, or 10x extract? Can you even smoke the 10x extract (in joint form)?