Calea Zacatechichi Close Up Photo by Rowan

If you’ve used Calea Z for dream-work before, please take a second to vote in the poll.

Calea Zacatechichi, the popular “dream herb” plant native to Mexico, offers many different options when it comes to how you would like to take it. A very common question I see and often get asked is:

What’s the best Way to Take Calea Zacatechichi?

The reason behind this question is  two fold:

Many people are aware of how bitter the taste can be, so they’re looking for other ways to successfully work with Calea Z. Secondly, perhaps some ways of taking Calea Zacatechichi yield better results for dream work – naturally you’d want know what works best and go from there.

Here is what I think are the most effective methods, in order of most effective/most popular, to least effective/least popular.

Smoking Calea Zacatechichi Leaves and Resin

This includes “normal” leaves, smoking it with blended herbs such as this popular Dream Blend, which many find less harsh than straight Calea Z, enhanced leaves – such as 10x CZ Leaves, as well as smoking specially made resin, like this 20x resin.

In my experience, smoking calea leaves is the most common and effective method. If you have a water pipe, using cold water or water with ice cubes is a nice way to make the smoke more gentle on your lungs. This is what I personally do.

Drinking Calea Zacatechichi Tea

Making and drinking Calea Zacatechichi tea is seen as the “traditional” method, as this is the way natives use this herb when working with their dreams.

Calea tea is a very popular option.

One thing to note if you’ve never tried drinking Calea tea; it’s quite bitter. Here you can read more about how to make calea zacatechichi less bitter.

Swallowing Calea Zacatechichi Pills

Places like I am Shaman also offer pills you can take that are full of powdered dream herb. You can also make these pills yourself.

In my experience, this was not a very effective method. You can read more about this here in my post on making Calea Zacatechichi pills.

Chewing Calea Zacatechichi Leaves

This is the only method of ingestion I’ve not tried myself. I know little about it, having only heard of it through people writing in on this website about Calea Zacatechichi that they’ve done this before. I’d ask you to share your experience with this if you have tried such a thing.

What Do you Think?

It’s been a long time since I used any dream herbs and my own calea z experiences are less than stellar, but I just can’t get this fascinating plant out of my head. It’s traditional to work with Calea via smoking it and drinking it in a tea -  and from reading experience reports and talking to others, the consensus seems to be that this is the best method. Or is it? I’m hoping you’ll vote in the poll above to help clarify this.

This website is exclusively devoted to using Calea Zacatechichi in relation to working with your dreams.

Calea Z, also called dream herb, comes up constantly on lucid dreaming forums and dream discussion groups. People always have questions on it! And there’s not one site people always get referred to – there’s actually NO websites just on Calea Z, until now! So I’m hoping this site will help fill the void.

CaleaZdreams.com isn’t a “blog” but rather a resource site or a guide on Calea Z.

If you have experience with Calea Zacatechichi, consider writing it up and posting an experience report! Email me for more info.

Click here or on the banner to visit CaleaZdreams.com.

PS Let me know what you think too by adding a comment below.

It is with great excitement that I share with you the opening of a lucid dreaming retreat in Tulum, Mexico!

The first official retreat comes up quick on November 1-8, 2007. After reviewing the itinerary of the week-long retreat, this is quite possibly the coolest thing I have ever seen in my life.

Seriously.

Don’t believe me?

Here’s a sample of the included activities:

Classes on:
Dream Yoga
Mnemonic Lucid Dreaming
Sensory Reduction via the onsite Dry-Flotation Tank
Sound and Light Machines
Plant Teachers

Local Trips to:
The Mayan Ruins
Go Swimming with Dolphins (!!!)

Sessions in the Dry Flotation Tank, optionally with the addition of:
Calea Z
Salvia Divinorum
Sound and Light Machines

The retreat is located inside breach-front eco-village in the jungle.

Onsite there is also a spa, yoga/meditation center, and a restaurant. Amazingly, there is even wi-fi access in your cabaña and all over the resort, so you can, say for example, update your blog on dreams & altered states from an ocean-front hut in the jungle after a day of meditation, dream practice, and total relaxation.

Pretty sweet, eh?

Come back to Dreaming Life soon to find an interview with founder of the retreat, where we will discuss his goals in opening up a lucid dreaming resort and what people can expect from visiting.

Check out the official website for all the details, including rates, registration, itinerary details, class descriptions, and more:

Aether Lucid Dreaming Retreats

http://www.aether.org/

P.S. I am tentatively planning a visit in the Spring of 2008.

untitled by Aussiegall

I want to create the internet’s best resource on Calea Z, including history, preperation, methods of ingesting it, cultivation, and more.

I especially want to create a resource that documents the relationship between Calea Zacetechichi and dreams.

And this is what I need your help with the most!

If you have taken the dream herb, I need to hear your story. I am looking to publish user reports / experience reports about peoples experience with Calea Z. The “reports” need not be formal or especially polished – just a simple reflection of the facts and the ensuing experience works best.

For example, a basic report would document how much was taken, how it was taken, and what happened. It doesn’t matter if you had crazy dreams, lucid dreams, and no dreams at all, I want to hear about it and put it online so people have a thorough resource on Calea Zacatechichi.

Also, if you have experience cultivating the plant, I would also like to hear from you!

For more info, please send me an email at consciousdreaming@gmail.com. You can also leave your email address by filling out the comment form below (your email is only shown to me, not website visitors) and I will contact you.

I am really excited about putting this site online. If you want to be involved in any way or have any questions, leave a comment or send me an email.

My goal is to have the site up and running in 4-12 weeks.

“There is something you are missing – just like Cannibas Sativa, Calea Z has a potent dark green female and a non-potent light green male.

I have had both – and some head shops sell pouches of the light green bunk kind.

Light green – tasted like rotting vomit, no real effect.

Dark green – tasted like rotting putrid vomit – slammed it all in one shot, tried not to vomit. The most intense, lucid, longest dreams I ever had!!!”

I’ve never heard this before and would like to open the question up to everyone.

Can anyone confirm that there are male/female Calea Z plants, only one of which is good for lucid dreaming?

“The tea is down right disgusting even when mixed with camomille, california poppy, and honey”

” How bad can boiled leaves possibly taste? So bad you’d want to chuck everything you’d just bought into the trash…”

“I drank the tea slowly, it was really bad-tasting and I almost had to throw up.”

“There is nothing in the world that tastes worse than this. It engulfed my entire mouth with bitterness, and made me want to vomit for a good 10 minutes.”

So…

What are some methods of improving the taste of Calea Z tea?

I don’t have much but here’s what I’ve discovered so far!

1) Boil additional bags of OTHER teas when making Calea Z tea. The idea here is to cover up the taste with another taste!
If you find that a certain tea works especially well, please share this with everyone in the comments section below.

2) Drinking it HOT as opposed to COLD is supposed to be better.

3) Adding other liquids and sweeteners to the tea is the most common and successful method of improving the taste.

This includes the follow:

milk, soy milk, agave nectar, honey, sugar, juice.

Dear reader…
As you can see, this list is not that extensive. Please contribute your own thoughts on the taste of Calea Z tea and how you made it taste better!

”I think if the Chantal indians knew
what capsules were, they wouldn’t have
been drinking that awful tea.”

What You Definitely Need
Calea Zacatechichi (also called dream herb or simply Calea Z)
Something to the grind the leaves with
Empty capsules
Lots of spare time

What’s Very useful to Have But Not Necesssary
Scale
A real Grinder

The essential steps are as simple as this:

• Grind The Leaves
• Place Into Capsules

Tips on the Process

Having a real grinder will save heaps of time.
You can crush up the leaves with an assortment of random objects. I once used the bottom of a saltshaker to crush the leaves against a plate, which I then placed in a bowl, which then later I grinded again by pressing and turning the leaves between the bowl and the bottom of the saltshaker. It took over an hour to do this for 10 grams.

How do actually get the Calea Zacatechichi into the capsules?
Once you’ve crushed up the leaf thoroughly, remove one end of the capsule and place it into the bowl of crushed leafs and “scoop” it into the open capsule. You’ll want to then …

Pack as much Calea Zacatechichi as you can into each capsule.
Use a small pointed object to push as much leaf into each capsule as you can. A chopstick works well for this. Scoop up the leaf, push it down, scoop some more, push it down…and then close the capsule.

Use a Scale To Determine Exactly How Many Grams You’re Working With
While I don’t think it’s possible to overdoze on Calea Z, knowing how many grams you’re working with is a just a sensible, responsible thing to do. It’s nice to be able to report the experience in terms of specific dosage intake, and will give you a good idea of what works for you in the future. You can buy small digital scales from Ebay that are good for this purpose. Another option is simply to buy a 10 gram bag and use it entirely for capsules. No need to bother with a scale and you can easily determine how much is in each gram by dividing the number of grams used with the number of capsules used.

Will taking all these capsules hurt my stomach?
I’ve not heard any reports of calea z capsule ingestion causing stomach pain. If this has happened to you, please share your experience with the rest of us.

Personally, this was a big concern of mine when I took a large dosage in capsule form; however I felt nothing in my stomach. (you can read my post titled Calea Zacatechichi: Smoking, Drinking, and Encapsulating the Dream Herb for more on that experience.)

I’ve also acquired a nice glass bong for the sole purpose (really!) of smoking calea Z and other dream herb concoctions of my shaman shop.

Without a doubt, taking bong hits of Calea Z is the way to go! The water – especially ice water – really takes away the harshness of calea z smoke. I can’t imagine now ever making the tea. It’s also much easier to smoke larger amounts with a bong than a bowl or a joint.

For me personally, the jury is still out on the effective use of dream herb for lucid dream induction. I enjoy smoking it though and it’ll be fun just sticking to it to see what develops. I have had a lot of intense dreams lately while smoking Calea Z and other dream-inducing herbs mixed together.

Oh! I almost forgot! I boughtseven 10X Calea Z capsules and took them 2 different nights. The 10X means it’s 10 x as strong as the usual dose. Amazingly it went through me to no effect. I’m beginning to think there’s something to the rumor that Calea Zacatechichi builds up in the body through repeated use.

I also got a bunch of herbs with dream properties. It’s Calea Z rounded out with 3 or 4 herbs which make it much easier to smoke than straight Calea Z, and, hopefully, more powerful than Calea Z alone.

The company I get these herbs from has accepted dreaming life as an affiliate partner; I can now promote their products using my page as a gateway to theirs. I’m really excited about this because they are a cool company with good products. You can check them out at IAmShaman Shop.

I can’t say the same about Google’s ads. These adsense ads often display the most ridiculous products marketed for people who will believe ridiculous claims. I actually saw one ad for ‘Spiritual Weight Loss.’ Puke.

Beyond this, I also experienced a lucid dream followed by hypnogogic illusion (I think.)

The dream was short but my degree of control was excellent. I was able to conversate with dream characters who wouldn’t give me what I wanted so I willed it and ta-dah, things and people appeared as I wanted them. Fun stuff.

Then both the lucidity and the dream ended & I’m not sure how to describe what happened next.

I can’t say I was dreaming and yet I wasn’t awake in the sense I am now.

But I was conscious of what I was seeing : the back of my eyelids, and the accompanying blackness of this which was immersed and enveloped by ever-changing shapes and psychedelic patterns.

For what I imagine was a minute, I took in the experience and then I – dammit – slightly changed the position I was lying in. The patterns just faded away into solid blackness and soon after I fell onto an unconscious sleep.

I imagine this experience is a form of hypnogogic dream imagery?