Dreaming Life » Lucid Dreaming Aids

B6Dreams.com launched – new site on b6 & dreams!

Ben — Wed, 04 Jun 2008 18:50:36 +0000

I’ve just launched a new website documenting this odd connection between B6 and dreams:

http://b6dreams.com

The site is structured as a FAQ document, with links to peoples experiences with B6 and its effects on dreams and lucid dreaming. I’m pretty excited to launch this site – I hope you enjoy it.

If you’ve got a story of your own about taking B6, drop me a line. I’m looking to publish experience reports on b6dreams.com.

Comments, criticisms, and suggestions about b6dreams.com are most welcome.

CaleaZDreams.com launched – New website on Dream Herb!

Ben — Tue, 27 May 2008 20:29:18 +0000

I’ve finally launched CaleaZdreams.com!

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.

Help Me Create a New Website on Calea Zacatechichi – Experience Reports needed!

Ben — Thu, 04 Oct 2007 20:03:42 +0000

I am opening a new website dedicated solely to Calea Zacatechichi!

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.

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

Ben — Thu, 04 Oct 2007 14:39:29 +0000

Northernstar recently left the following comment on Calea Zacatechichi: Smoking, Drinking, and Encapsulating the Dream Herb:

“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?

Did you know Stephen LaBerge has a patent on substances that cause Lucid Dreaming?

Ben — Mon, 16 Jul 2007 03:25:45 +0000

I found something really wild tonight.

I guess it’s old news since the patent is from 2003, but I see that Stephen LaBerge, the most famous lucid dream researcher and lucid dream author in the world, has a patent on “substances that enhance recall and lucidity during dreaming.”

Patent number 20040266659, to be exact.

Here’s a summary of his patent, in his own words:

“This invention relates to the field of Lucid Dreaming and the enhancement of dream recall and dream lucidity through memory enhancing drugs, including the class of substances that comprise Acetylcholine Esterase inhibitors (AChEls). Lucid dreaming involves dreaming while knowing that you are dreaming. AChE inhibitors (AchEl’s) inhibit the normal metabolic inactivation of Acetylcholine (ACh) by inhibiting the enzyme, Acetylcholine Esterase (AChE), leading to accumulation of Ach. AchEl’s are most commonly used to enhance memory, particularly in patients suffering from Alzheimer’s disease. Ach is also well known to be important in REM and thus is suggested herein to enhance dreaming and lucidity.”

Whoa! What did that just say?

(This makes me think of the movie Lawnmower Man, where the doctor gives Jobe drugs and then makes him a genius by combining it with virtual reality games.)

Pretty amazing stuff. If there’s anyone out there who could invent a lucid dreaming pill, I’d put my money on LaBerge.

You can read all the details of Stephen LaBerges lucid dreaming drugs patent here.

This got me curious – what other patents are there related to dreaming and lucid dreaming?

Quite a few actually.

We’ve got a patent for Equipment and methods used to induce lucid dreaming in sleeping persons, with LaBerges name attached to this one too.

This looks like a patent for the Nova Dreamer device, which detects REM and flashes a light with the idea that it will show up in the dream, and the dreamer will recognize this signal and know he or she is dreaming.

On a similiar but-this-probably-won’t-really-work idea, someone filed a patent titled Dream State Teaching Machine, which detects Rapid Eye Movement and then plays a prerecorded message in your ears via headphones, with the idea that you’ll hear it and become lucid.

There’s a not-too-exciting Dream Detection & Method System patent. Eh, next.

Ohhh – what’s this? Somehow someone got away with filing a patent for a Device that Records Dream Recollections ; also known as a tape recorder, or in this case, a digital recorder. What makes this different than a normal recording device? Not sure. Maybe because it looks like an alarm clock and sits by your bed?

Then this last one I found is pretty neat:

It’s called an “Apparatus for facilitating analysis of dream activity.” In more exciting terms, it detects your REM states, signals a sound to wake you when an REM period is over, and contains a voice activated recorder. The device is attached above your bed on the wall; the idea then is that it gently wakes you up once your dream is over and you can record your dream without even getting out of bed simply by using the voice-activated recorder.

I’d use it!

Bi-Weekly Dream Report: B6 Dreams, Teeth Falling Out, People Dying, and I’m Back in School. Again, and Again.

Ben — Thu, 12 Jul 2007 00:53:47 +0000

Since my last dream report roughly a month ago, I’ve been good and written down my dreams nearly every night, had some fun with B6, and paid attention to two themes that just kept coming up in my dreams: work and school, the latter of which is strange since I finished high school in 1999 and attented a tech school for just 18 months in 2004.

Work.

Lots of dreams where I’m at work or interacting in non-work situations with the people I work with. Some of the dreams are stressful, surely a metaphor for the stress of work, but others are just casually strange with little emotion attached to them. Weird. Kinda boring too! I already work 40 hours a day – must I dream about it too?

School.

I have so many dreams where I’m back in school again!

Usually I’ll find myself back in high school, although people I know from both middle and high school make appearances. Even a random girl from third grade showed up in a dream. I don’t recall thinking of her in years nor was she anyone I thought much of back then, just a classmate. Amazing how the mind pulls up such memories!

These dreams about school are starting to run into one another – after waking up I have the distinct feeling that the dream I’ve just had was part of a dream about school from before, and looking back in my dream journal, I can see I did have two dreams a few weeks a part about failing a class and wanting to just start over from scratch rather try and catch up. I’ve not noticed any continuity in my dreams before – and these dreams weren’t exactly like one long storyline, but they were very familiar and similiar in both content and location, so this is very strange to me.

I counted – since June, I’ve had 7 dreams that took place back in school, and 2 dreams taking place elsewhere but had people from school in them.

More Vitamin B6 Dream Experiments

I also did some B6 dream experiments for 3 nights in a row.

B6 definitely can have a crazy effect on my dreams, especially that first night.

(Click here for a more detailed B6 experiment I did last year.)

Here’s a short summary of a 3 day experiment :

Night One: 250MG B6

I had so so many long, detailed dreams, it’s hard to say where one dream ends and another begins.

So, I counted locations instead and found I was in 8 different locations throughout my dreams.

This was one of the nights I dreamt about school. The dream was extremely long and detailed and featured an abnormally large amount of dream characters.

Ultimately it was a metaphor for getting out of my old bad neighborhood, and the sympathy I feel for those still living there. I cannot emphasize how much in the dream I understood what it was like to be oppressed and trapped, but not even know it; it’s just something you’re a part of. It’s just your life.

This was one of those rare and amazing dreams where, upon waking and remembering it, you know you really truly felt something in the dream, something tangible and real, even if it was just emotion.

Night Two: 300MG B6

5 scenes. More dreams about class and a snake that was hundreds of feet long.

Night Three: 350 MG

Went to bed with a bloated stomach and was also very upset about something. Hardly recalled any dreams but damn can you believe it – had another dream with people from my high school. They were both people I see on myspace but don’t talk to their nor in real life.

Dreams of Note

I had the classic dream of MY TEETH FALLING OUT.

My two front teeth simply fell out. I was so so distraught over this and kept running my tongue over my empty gums, telling myself this can’t be real, this can’t be happening, over and over.

Then I partially woke up and could feel my real teeth, and what a wonderful sigh of relief this was to know they were still attached to my gums.

I dreamed that MY WIFE DIED.

It was a horrible, horrible dream. She had died and the agony was brutal. I lost it – animalistic sobbing, primal pain and suffering.

I find it fascinating that I can experience such horrible emotional agony in dream, and I don’t understand the reason for consciously making your dreams pain-free.

I dreamed about a shamanic ritual to the Gods.

It was beautiful, almost like a movie; wonderful cinematography, angles constantly changing, wide views of natural landscapes, timed sequencing of bow and arrows shooting, a Shaman singing a sacred song – perhaps this was the Shaman’s Icaro?

Overall, a beautiful and peaceful dream.

How To Make Calea Z Tea Taste Bitter…I mean Better!

Ben — Thu, 10 May 2007 00:17:16 +0000

Boiling a few grams of Calea Zacatechichi doesn’t leave you with the bestest tasting tea. In fact, it’s pretty nasty. I found the following quotes in the Erowid archives expressing this point, saying:

“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.”

How to Make Calea Z Capsules

Ben — Wed, 09 May 2007 23:51:23 +0000

Making your own Calea Zacatechichi capsules is really a simple process. Here are some instructions and tips from my own experience that I hope you will find helpful.

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.)

Chacruna Report by Juan from DreamMagick

Ben — Fri, 13 Apr 2007 21:58:41 +0000

Here is another guest post by Juan from Dream Magick on his experiences in Peru. This could be the last addition by Juan to Dreaming Life as he has recently set up his own website to publish his writing himself! Please check out his site at http://www.dreammagick.com.

Hello everyone!

Since coming back from Peru I have had many opportunities to work with plant teachers here in Mexico. Sometime in March I plan to go to Oaxaca, MX to work with mushrooms and salvia. The mushrooms called derrumbes start to show up in March sometime so I have been doing alot of writing while waiting for this time to come.

I finally have finished the chacruna report of my last diet in Peru which is posted below.

Cheers!
Juan

On October 31st, 2006 I began a one week diet with chacruna. I was in the same location where I had done my diet with Ajo Sacha just a few weeks earlier in Iquitos, Peru.

Chacruna is believed by many shamans to bestow many spiritual blessings upon those dieting with her. Without question, she gives one the gift of vision in the astral and spiritual realms which are realized on the physical plane as clarity, discernment and protection.

Once again, I was drinking a tea made from the chacruna plant on a daily basis, and I was bathing in a very concentrated mixture of chacruna every morning and every evening. This time, I was eating much less food. Daily, the shaman would bring me only fruits and water and he warned me that this experience would be far more intense. On the 1st, 3rd and 5th evenings of the diet, I was also drinking the sacred medicine ayahuasca.

Around 7pm the shaman came to my room to begin the ayahuasca ceremony. He asked me if I could see the symbolism of beginning my diet on Halloween or “Dia de los muertos” as it is called in Peru. Intuitively, I felt this was a very good omen indeed which signified another level of removing our masks, dying to the ego and being reborn. The shaman agreed.

As we began the ceremony, I got up to light a candle and I almost stepped on a centipede! Fortunately, I was still wearing my shoes, so I stomped him. The shaman laughed at me because he could see I really did not like the centipedes. This was the second one I had killed in my room in the last week and they really gave me the creeps. I could not get the vision out of my mind of finding one in my bed, which made me more uncomfortable as time passed.

“No te preocupes, Juan. Estas protegido!” (Do not worry, You are protected) said the shaman.

During the ayahuasca ceremony, I had many beautiful visions of my own death. There was a peace and serenity in these visions because I had the full realization that I had found my true purpose in life. At the end, I was met with a sense of completion and accomplishment as well as a knowing that my life had benefitted humanity through the work I had done with sacred plants. I also realized
that life was but one phase in the soul’s evolution. Rather than fearing the end, I found an eagerness to embrace a new beginning.

The following morning I began drinking the chacruna tea and within an hour I had fallen into a deep sleep.

Several hours later I woke up with a very clear recollection of my dream experiences which were a recurring theme in the chacruna diet.

I was in the basement of a mansion where a film crew was working. There was alot of construction going on as well.

As several people came up to me and asked about the details of individual scenes that were to be filmed, I began to realize that we were all making a movie and I was the director.

I decided to go check out the first floor of the mansion and it looked like a gangsta rap star’s house from an episode of MTV Cribs. The floors were all white marble and all of the walls were glass with 360 degree views of the caribbean ocean where it was located.

After checking out the first floor, I decided to see what the master bedroom looked like so I went up to the second floor. I took a nap in the master bedroom and when I woke up I had a level of lucidity that more closely resembled waking life than a dream.

I had all of my physical senses such as touch, smell, taste etc. In fact, as time went by, this was much more like an out of body experience. When I walked I could feel and hear my feet touching the floor and I was totally cognizant of my actions. There was no dreamy aspect to it.

As I came down the stairs from the master bedroom to the first floor I saw the boxer Lennox Lewis and ESPN Fitness Deva Kianna Tom talking to each other. They were both very upset with me and insisting that this was their shoot and they were tired of waiting to film their scenes. Kianna even told me that the crew actually hated me even though they pretended to like me. Lennox then threatened me and told me to “Go back to sleep….or I will put you back to sleep” as he taunted me with his fists in my face.

Upon awakening, I immediately understood much of the symbology from the dream. The three stories of the house represented the three states of consciousness. The basement was the subconscious where all of our realities are constructed. The second floor represented conscious awareness or the physical realm. Both Lennox Lewis and Kianna were representative of the male and female aspects of the ego trying to convince me that they were the director and that their version of reality was the correct one.

The concept that our lives were really movies that we are both creating and directing on a very unconscious level was one that chacruna shared with me frequently throughout the diet.

Now I could clearly see why the shaman said this diet would be more intense. The “dream” I had just experienced seemed to be a parallel universe or an alternate reality which was just as real, if not more so than normal waking physical reality. I had only been awake for about a half hour recording the details of my first dream when I became so sleepy that I fell back into a deep sleep.

In the following dream, I was at my Grandmother’s house in The United States. My Grandfather was in a wheelchair and he radiated an incredible energy of pure love to me. My Mother came into the room and told me we would be leaving to go to the airport in a few hours. She asked me if
my bags were packed and if I was ready to go.

As I went to the guest bedroom in my Grandmother’s house to get my bags, I began to look out the window. I could see that virtually nothing had changed in over 30 years since the last time I had been there. Slowly, I began to realize I was dreaming. But once again, this was much more than a lucid dream. I was in some kind of an out of body state or a parallel reality. I had all of my senses just as I did in the waking world and all of the characteristics of this state were closer to the waking world than they were to the dreamworld.

As I went back into the living room to see my Mother and my Grandfather, I began to question the reality more and more. I asked myself where my Grandmother was. I could not find my Grandmother and then I realized that my Grandfather was not my real Grandfather. I mentioned these things to my Mother and I told her this must be a dream because all of these things were not right and I could not even remember leaving Peru. I assured her that I must be dreaming.

We continued to talk more about the nature of reality and my Mother questioned my ability to distinguish the difference between dreams and reality. She mentioned to me that reality was wherever my undivided attention was and she challenged me to wake up. “Regardless of how many times you wake up, you are still dreaming…”, she said. She suggested that our entire lives were illusions created out of both imagination and memory and she again challenged me to wake up.

This reality was so real that I could not wake up. I tried every method I could think of to wake up, but I could not. My Mother argued that surely if this was a dream that I should be able to wake up. She explained that whether it was a dream or reality, or an astral projection or an out of body state, that these were all states of consciousness created with my own thoughts and desires. She told me that regardless of the dream, the inability to wake up is a sure sign that one is unwilling to accept full responsibility for the realities they had created.

At this point, I realized that my Mother was really the spirit of Chacruna appearing to me. I knew then, that obviously I was dreaming and I started running down a grassy knoll and I tried to fly. As I began to fly, I assured myself that I was dreaming, yet I was now perplexed with even deeper
mysteries. It is true, I reasoned, that if I wake up, I will still be dreaming. And even if I were to one day wake up completely from my waking dream, just who would I be? And where would I be? I began to see the logic in Chacrunas wisdom. I was choosing to remain asleep due to a lack of responsibility as well as a fear of awakening to the unknown.

When I awoke from this dream, I had fruit for dinner and I bathed in the Chacruna mixture. As I was recording my dream experiences, Chacruna spoke to me telepathically instructing me to relax and to get some rest. She explained that since I would be drinking ayahuasca the following evening and since I had already had two very intense teachings from her, she could sense I needed a little time to process all of the information.

I certainly did not disagree with her. As I had already slept 15 of the last 24 hours, I had no trouble staying awake. I read and meditated and listened to music. I even watched a few DVD’s on my laptop. Periodically, I would receive messages from Chacruna which I would record.

The following evening the shaman came to begin the ayahuasca ceremony. We spent some time talking and as I got up from bed to drink some more tea, the shaman stopped me from putting the cup to my mouth. I looked inside the cup and there was a dead centipede in it! Once again the shaman just laughed, but it really gave me the creeps!

After the ayahuasca ceremony that evening, I was laying in bed meditating and I was just about ready to go to sleep. When I reached up to turn off the light I saw there was a huge centipede on my pillow, right next to my head! I jumped up out of bed and I could not find any bug spray or anything to catch the centipede with. Finally, I found a can of aerosol hair spray under the sink which I lit with my lighter to torch the centipede.

During the whole process I could hear the voice of Chacruna laughing at me. I remembered hearing that at times the plants can have a very twisted sense of humor and now I had a good firsthand knowledge of exactly what that meant.

In the morning when the shaman came with my breakfast, I told him what had happenned. Again he just smiled and said, “Estas protegido!” (You are protected)

Something told me that I should accept the teaching that the spirit of Chacruna was protecting me and I would not see any more centipedes.

I said, “OK, Gracias!!” to both the shaman and the spirit of Chacruna for this protection.

Interestingly, I did not see another centipede for the remainder of my time in Peru.

That evening when I went to sleep Chacruna appeared to me as a female attorney. In all of the various scenes in my dream she would always be by my side as I was being tempted by outside forces which were attempting to lead me astray.

The outside forces would always manifest in different forms and provide very convincing arguments as to why they had power over me, yet Chacruna always provided the logic that allowed me to see through the illusions. In all of my confrontations with opposing forces, I would overcome them by knowing the laws which Chacruna had taught me. By being in harmony with the laws, nothing could harm me.

In another dream the same evening, I was at a 5 star restaurant with some of the most powerful and affluent individuals in the world. I was sitting at the bar watching all of the people who could have practically anything they wanted. They would order the most expensive wines and foods and be waited upon by servants, yet they were never able to satisfy their appetites or appreciate the things they were receiving. The more they ate, the emptier and more miserable they became. When I was given a menu and asked what I would like to order, I could see that all of the items which the elite considered to be of value were actually deadly poisons to the human soul. As I left the restaurant I was met by a priest who was praising me for my strength and courage to resist temptation. He began to adorn me with a golden necklace and appoint me as a holy man. The necklace was solid gold and as he put it around my neck, he mentioned that it was only halfway complete because it costed one million dollars. He explained that as soon as more offerings were received that he would complete the necklace for me. I declined to receive the necklace or the appointment as a holy man from the priest. I asked him if he knew how many people we could help
with one million dollars and I told him that buying gold necklaces was far from being holy or spiritual in my opinion.

Later, we sold the necklace for cash and then we threw a rave party on the beach and gave away all kinds of free psychedelics, sacred plants and lucid dreaming devices to the public to help them wake up.

In the following dream, I was in the jungle and I was in a very meditative state walking alone and talking to the plants and animals. The shaman was there and he was talking to me and showing me which plants were best to diet with.

When I woke up, the shaman was knocking on my door. He had brought my breakfast to me and he also began to explain that he had a group of two other woman who wanted to do the diet in the jungle. Since he planned to stay in the jungle with the woman to do the diet, he asked if I would be interested in coming to the jungle with them so that he did not have to travel back and forth everyday between the jungle and town. He also explained to me that he thought being in the jungle obviously would be a good idea as it would facilitate both the learning and the intensity of the experience for me. I agreed to go to the jungle with him to complete the remainder of my diet. We travelled about 45 minutes up the river from Iquitos to a private lodge and had an ayahuasca ceremony. This ceremony was technically my 3rd and final ceremony for my one week diet, although it was the 1st ceremony for the two ladies beginning their one week diet.

During the last week my body had become very weak. On most days I was eating only one or two pieces of fruit and drinking the chacruna tea. Although I was excited to go to the jungle and finish my diet, the process of moving from town and riding up the river during the hottest part of the day left me physically exhausted. When we got to the lodge, I sat down on a mattress in the ceremony house and fell asleep.

In my dream I was outside at the lodge and I was meditating and eating an apple. I was thinking to myself that even this physical life is a dream and someday I am sure I will wake up completely in this dream too. I asked myself if I was dreaming and I told myself that I was positive this was real life because I was at the lodge. When I woke up I was shocked to realize that I really had been dreaming and it was so life like that I could not distinguish the dream from reality as Chacruna had suggested to me earlier in the week. At first I felt a little discouraged, but I heard Chacruna remind me of the Hermetic axiom, “As above, so below”. She assured me that in reality this was a very good sign. I was getting into the consistent habit of questioning all realities and this was a step in the process of awakening.

Another thing that stuck with me from this dream (which became more and more common at the lodge) was the loss of time. The dream seemed to have lasted only a few minutes, yet when I woke up it was almost 8 hours later and the ceremony was beginning. At other periods, I would have dreams that seemed to have lasted for days or even lifetimes and upon awakening I would discover that only several minutes had passed in physical time.

Prior to the ceremony I began to talk with the two other ladies at the lodge. One was from Canada and her name was Eryca. The other lady was named Tabitha and she was from London. While we were waiting for the shaman to come and start the ceremony, we began talking about our experiences with Ayahuasca.

Eryca mentioned that she had read that the first scientists to study the effects of Ayahuasca called it Telepathine due to it’s proven ability to heighten mental powers such as clairvoyance, precognition and telepathy. As a psychic by profession, she was greatly interested in seeing if Ayahuasca could assist her in developing her mental and spiritual faculties. I told her had also read about this and in the amazon it was very common for the shamans to have shared visions.

The following morning, Eryca mentioned to me that she had a vision about me during the ceremony which was symbolized by the tarot card The Five Of Wands. She said that this particular card signified division and failure in partnerships and she asked me if I happenned to be involved in any potential business deals. She told me that the energy of this card was to be very careful of whom I was dealing with. She offered to do a Tarot reading for me to see if we could get any further information regarding this. The reading was very insightful and the most convincing aspect of the reading was that in the position which dealt with business I drew The Five Of Wands!

Due to the accuracy of Eryca’s visions, I recalled a vision that I had which I originally gave very little thought to. I saw a friend of mine in Iquitos who was walking out of the front door of his house on crutches and his right leg was bandaged heavily. As my friend had recently left Iquitos to have emergency surgery on his leg in Lima, Peru, this vision did not surprise me. However, seeing him at his house in Iquitos was odd because everyone knew he had been in the hospital for over a month. Upon returning to Iquitos at the end of the diet, I learned the night I had the vision of him at his house was the very night he returned to his home in Iquitos to be with his family.

The following day Eryca, Tabitha and myself decided to eat several San Pedro cactus. In Peru, many shamans mix San Pedro with Chacruna. The San Pedro is known as a very strong and masculine spirit which is a true guide and guardian. The experience lasts for 15 hours or longer and is a profound journey in connecting with nature. The Chacruna mixed with San Pedro is known to give incredible visions during the night hours. We all laughed and figured since we already were dieting with Chacruna which went so well with San Pedro that we should give it a try. Since we were only eating an apple a day and the Chacruna tea on our diet we joked that a few San Pedro cactus should give us a little extra energy if nothing else.

The spirit of San Pedro communicated to me through the experiences of the day which confirmed what the shaman had been telling me all along.

“You are protected”.

Just after ingesting the cactus, I went to meet the boat at the dock of the lodge which had delivered some food and water to us. Walking back up the stairs to the retreat, I had both of my hands full and I slipped on the muddy steps, catching myself on the tiptoes of my wet Reebocks. As I looked down, I saw several rusted nails sticking out of the stair I was balanced on. I realized that falling could have resulted in a very serious injury such as a puncture wound from the nails, getting a concussion by slipping and hitting my head, knocking my teeth out by falling face first onto the stairs, or even breaking my leg or my knee from the fall. As I was balanced on the steps, time seemed to stop and I looked to my left to see the shaman who was now just smiling at me. He said nothing, although I could clearly hear him telling me I was protected.

San Pedro is a very outgoing and active spirit to work with. Whereas the ayahuasca medicine is all about journeys to infinite spiritual dimensions, San Pedro is all about merging and connecting with nature and the physical dimension. As the hours passed and we began to feel the effects of the San Pedro cactus more and more, we became more and more active and we went swimming in the amazon which helped me to overcome my fear of being eaten alive by an anaconda or a crocodile.

Later in the evening, at the peak of the San Pedro journey, one of my friends called me outside to look at the stars. After a period of gazing at the stars, we realized that we both had on only our pants without our shirts and no shoes. We did not have a flashlight and we had wandered far from our maloka hut and we were in the middle of nowhere in the jungle.

The intial reaction for most people in this situation would most likely be to panic. However, there was an understanding between us that was clearly being received from the spirit of San Pedro. We both knew that at any time we could have stepped on snakes, scorpions, rocks etc. and received life threatening injuries. Yet, through this entire experience we could sense a guide that not only protected us, but one that also led us back to our maloka in total darkness. Overall the experience with San Pedro had left me with a knowing that I was one with nature and not seperate from it. The greatest teaching that had been imparted to us all was that when one is in harmony with nature, all things are truly possible and that no serious harm or injury would happen to you.

The next evening we had another ayahuasca ceremony and the shaman was singing the same icaro over and over and over again. An icaro is a song that functions much like an interdimensional telephone number. Willing spirits give the shaman the correct icaro to contact them and when the shaman hums the tune of the specific icaro, the spirit associated with that icaro appears and performs healings. Normally, a shaman will sing many different icaros over a period of several hours, however, during this ceremony, the shaman sang the same icaro all night.

Icaros are most often simply tones or frequencies that are not in any specific language, as was the case during this ceremony. But after several hours of hearing the icaro, I began to clearly hear a voice in English. As the shaman did not speak a word of English, I knew the voice I was hearing was that of the spirit making contact with me and speaking in a voice it knew I would understand clearly.

The rhythym of the original icaro sounded like “YA-YA – da-da-da-dee-dee – dee-dee-da-da”.When I heard the voice in English it said in a very audible voice, “Juan, Juan, This is my jingle. Let’s intermingle”.

In all of my previous ayahuasca ceremonies I had seen many incredible visions, but I had never made actual contact with a spirit or interdimensional being which is a very common occurence for the shamans. intuitively, I felt that hearing the icaro in English as an invitation to “intermingle” was one step closer to actually making such a connection.

As the effects of the ayahuasca became stronger and stronger, I found myself in a deeply visual trance like state where I was flying through the clouds. There was a peace and serenity in this state that I cannot describe with words, but I saw unicorns, angels, rainbows and lightworkers welcoming me to their paradise. They shared a very beautiful truth with me that all things are possible to those who assist in the creation of the cosmic plan of evolution. Taking an active role in the conscious co-creation of the cosmos is synonymous with being in harmony with both the laws of nature and the divine plan.

The following day I continued drinking chacruna tea. As I drifted off to sleep I had a dream which seemed very symbolic to me in light of my recent ayahuasca visions the night before.

Once again I was flying through the clouds and in the next instant, I was in a meeting with Stephen Spielberg and a board of studio executives who asked me what the script was about for my upcoming film project. We discussed in detail the possibility of an apocalyptic tale of the impending doom of civilization due to wars and global catastrophes. The executives were all in agreement that death and destruction would be a sure hit at the box office although they wanted to know if I had made a definite decision as to how the movie would end. Everyone loved the concept, yet they were all leary about financing a project with such as dark ending due to the fact that it was not a good vehicle for a sequel were the film to be a success. I mentioned that the vision I had for the ending was one in which humanity wakes up and realizes that their true place in the cosmic plan is to assist in the peaceful evolution of all forms of life by living in harmony with nature and the cosmos. I reasoned that this ending would be wide open for many great sequels in the years to come as there would always be new planets, dimensions and worlds for the enlightened humans to travel to and save from extinction. As I finished my pitch, I could see Speilberg smiling and nodding his head in agreement. The executives congratulated me and told me that they would back me and give me whatever resources I needed to film such a beautiful script.

During the last ayahuasca ceremony of the Chacruna diet on the following day, I made contact with one of the spirit doctors for the first time. Normally, after about 45 minutes of drinking ayahuasca, you will begin to see visions, but in this particular ceremony, the visions began within twenty minutes and they were so intense it was more like smoking 5-MEO-DMT than it was to any ayahuasca experience I had ever had previously. It was so overwhelming that I knew I was leaving my physical body, in fact, I could not even feel my body any longer. The visions I had initially closely resembled the aboriginal art that is painted on digeridoos. I could hear all kinds of buzzing and humming and everything was vibrating and pulsating. The best way I can think of to explain this is that normally in an ayahuasca ceremony one may have visions, but this was so powerful that I was the vision. There was a complete dissolution of the physical body and ego and a morphing or merging with another state of being.

My next point of focus was the face of what the shamans of Peru call a “morena” which is not a black or dark energy, but rather a deep brown colored benevolent spirit. I recall sensing a love, warmth and compassion that was beyond the physical plane as I looked into her eyes. I did not need to say a word, because this vibration was so completely harmonious and beautiful that it dissolved any fears or doubts I could have had. I do not know where I was, but I was not in the ceremony house laying on my mattress as I had been just a few moments before. What seemed to be a few minutes later, I awoke as if from a deep sleep on my mattress in the ceremony house. For the next several hours, I lay awake contemplating what had just happened.

Technically the Chacruna diet was over, yet the most powerful experience was still to come. It was the morning of the 7th day when I woke up and we were planning to take the boat back into Iquitos after breakfast. The shaman came in and sat down next to me and begin talking to the group. Since I was the only one in the group who could speak Spanish, I was translating everything he said to the group. He began to explain that the icaros he sang during the ceremony actually called specific spirit doctors to the ceremony to conduct healing rituals. He told us that there was a hierarchy of healing spirits that helped humans to purify themselves and raise their vibratory rate to be able to access more interior spiritual realms. The group of spirits closest to the vibration of humans are called “morenas”. Morenas are always present to assist the humans in their evolution. When the intention on the part of the human is clear and their vibratory rate has been raised through the purification of the diet process, contact with the morenas is normally made.

I had not said a word to the shaman about what happened the night before, so this was really blowing my mind!

As the shaman continued talking, he began to tell the story of how his grandfather had been a curandero and he began studying with him when he was only 4 years old. For a period of 10 years, he watched his grandfather prepare all of the various teas and baths for the diet process. When he was 14 years old he had been dieting and studying for 10 years and he was allowed to drink ayahuasca for the first time. He went on to explain how this was his shamanic initiation and since he had already been in a process of preparation and purification for 10 years, many spirits appeared to him in the ceremony.

At this point, I had been translating for about 30 minutes and I began to have trouble maintaining my focus and understanding what the shaman was saying. I thought I was just tired from the night before, which is common the day following a ceremony. I excused myself and let the group know that I just had to lay down for a few moments. I was already laying in a hammock in the ceremony house so I just snuggled under the blanket and closed my eyes. What I saw looked like something from an Alex Grey vision. I was viewing a world of pure vibration and energy. Everything was pulsating, breathing and alive. Everything had eyes, a spirit and consciousness. It was infinite, yet at the same time it was all one thing. Once again, there was a complete dissolution of the physical body and the ego. This was not a vision. I had merged completely with this presence in another world or dimension where both space and time did not exist as they do in the physical realm. There was an immediate deep conviction that this was a connection with plant sentience instead of contact with a spirit being from the night before. There were voices I could hear that sounded like munchkins from The Wizard of Oz movie that were greeting me. Two voices I can recall specifically, said, “Hey Juan! What took you so long?” and “Get in here! We have been waiting for you!”

It seemed like an infinity had passed where I had seen a vision so complete that there was no doubt left as to how my path would progress. I had received a complete transference of consciousness that answered any questions or concerns I could have had. This was a major source of healing that I had been seeking my whole life. I had found a surety and a knowing that resolved the doubt and confusion that had prevented me from taking action in the past. As I was acknowledging all of this information, my senses slowly began to come back. It seemed like the time I had been gone was an entire lifetime if not longer.

The shaman was asking me if I could help him continue translating. I asked how long had I been sleeping and they all looked at me with puzzled looks on their faces. Apparently what I experienced as a lifetime in this visionary state occurred in roughly 20 seconds.

As I awoke and we finished talking, I left the ceremony house to go back to my private maloka and pack my bags as we were all planning to take the next boat back into Iquitos. I was walking along the wooden walkway which was about 2 feet off the ground that connected all of the malokas of the retreat together. One of the boards was dry rotted so bad that it completely disentigrated under my right foot and my foot went through the walkway and landed on the ground beneath.

Once more, I could not help but realize the symbolism of this event. I was walking barefoot along the walkways and any number of things could have happenned to me which would have resulted in serious injury, such as cutting my foot on a nail, skinning my shin severely on the next board in the walkway, or even stepping on centipedes or snakes or breaking my ankle on the ground below when my foot touched down.

As I left the lodge, I felt I had fully received and accepted chacruna´s blessing of protection. Likewise, in all of the symbolism of the never ending dream and writing one´s own script in life, I felt challenged to bring as much consciousness as possible to whatever reality I was co-creating. The interconnectedness I had found with all of nature and the rest of humanity as a result of experiencing these transpersonal states of awareness was truly best explained by the words of the shaman which I would remember everytime I tried to find a way to explain it all.

¨No hay palabras explicarlo, pero sigues tomando su medicina!¨ which means ¨There are no words to explain it, but keep drinking your medicine!”

Bi-Weekly Dream Report: Lucid Dreams all night long, Calea Z in a bong, 10x Calea Z capsules

Ben — Fri, 30 Mar 2007 02:31:52 +0000

The other night I had lucid dreams all night long. Funny, as nothing seemed to particular cause this except for an uncomfortable bed. Somewhat like the Wake Back to Bed (WBTB) method for lucid dream induction, the pain in my back and shoulders kept me half-conscious throughout the night. What kills me is I know I had conscious dreams throughout the night but I only vividly remember 2 dreams!

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.