The following report is a story told through the eyes of Youseff, a fictional character.
Introduction:
In preparing for this experience, I had abstained from high tyramine foods for 48 hours and food completely for 24 hours. I had also abstained from any mind altering substances for 48 hours.
I had 8g of ground Syrian rue & 60g of powdered Acacia maidenii bark between 2 people.
During my last attempt at creating an ayahuasca analogue, I had used 20g of bark, I had tripled the dose for today’s session but shredded the bark from a different tree. In comparison to my last batch, which appeared to have a greenish colour; this powder was much redder.
Set & setting:
I had set up the fire drum for today’s session and had 4 other friends over other than the 2 of us who were taking part in the ayahuasca. I felt I had enough support and experience to comfortably to be able to have a deep experience.
Preparation:
I had placed 60g of AMB suspended in 1L of tap water with 1/8 cup of vinegar on the previous night. I boiled this the next morning for just over an hour, agitating the mixture once in a while, till I was left with a small amount of potent liquid. I drained the liquid through a coffee filter and put the bark back into the pot. I repeated this step another 2 times. I had boiled the Syrian Rue for an hour and filtered and repeated once more. I did not reduce the brews after this step. The result was 1.5 cups of Rue and 1 very potent cup of AMB for each of us.
Result:
T+ 0:00: Drank the rue in 15 minutes
T+ 0:30: Began drinking the AMB, this would take 30 minutes.
T+ 0:50: I purged, but kept most of it in, continued drinking the remaining quarter of the cup.
T+ 1:30: After a few joints, the familiar hazy sensation was being felt, albeit slightly stronger this time. I was still feeling the brew disagree in my stomach, but without the need to purge. My friend hadn’t needed to purge but noted he didn’t feel any more euphoric than the previous session’s low dose.
T+ 2:00: My friend purged and noted he felt better, however had not felt the trip intensify.
T+ 3:00: We broke our fast on a packet of plain crackers. The haziness still persisted, albeit never having intensified.
The result of today’s sessions has left me wondering where I could have gone wrong. I had used bark from a different acacia then the previous session and three times as much; however the effects felt never seemed remarkably more intense. My friend noted that he hadn’t felt any different despite having purged himself and feeling a little sick afterwards.
Conclusion:
The first conclusion that I can come up with for today’s result is that I may have the wrong tree, or I have removed bark at a time of year which isn’t optimum for DMT yield. This is the most logical explanation I have come to think of. I was advised by someone of the unreliability of Acacia maidenii in yielding a high DMT content depending on a range of factors. I will aim at obtaining bark from species of Acacia obtusifolia or Acacia longifolia if I can find them. The belief that I felt more euphoric than the previous session had me slightly convinced that the species was correct, yet my friend had not felt any difference whatsoever. However, my sensation could be credited to experiencing a placebo. The fact that we both purged during the experience leads me to assume that the brew was strong enough, and if there was any DMT initially we should have felt it.
I decided not to increase the amount of water to vinegar ratio; keeping it at 32:1 respectively. I suspended the bark in the acid water solution overnight with the idea that plant cell material would break down and more alkaloids would be extracted over time. I was advised to try increasing the amount of water used, however I had decided to follow Ott’s recommendation of using only a small excess of water, perhaps this decision negatively influenced the result. Although, I was inconsistent in following Ott’s method as he also recommended not boiling for prolonged periods of time.
If there is to be a follow up experiment, I do not believe that simply increasing the amount of bark will produce the intended results. I pose the question for anyone reading this with more experience than I that if it is indeed the correct tree should I have felt more during this session? Is there a way for me to confirm that it has a high DMT yield before going through with making ayahuasca out of it? I also am reluctant to believe that my method of preparation was the reason I had not felt an intense experience. Although it was not consistent to any one particular recommended method, it was not so inconsistent from any single one of them.
Suggestions anyone??