Coleus blumei

[santaonacid]

The Coleus Enigma - Other Psychoactives - Welcome to the DMT-Nexus

New member so couldn't post on the above thread.
Found a Coleus plant literally in my house yesterday and randomly ID'd it.
Although it doesn't seem to be of much use as a psychedelic, I was wondering how to best consume it as a dream enhancer.
Yet to come across any largely successful extractions done on the plant other than:

Coleus Blumei Extract - The Ethnobotanical Garden - Shroomery Message Board

Hello, here we go This is the fresh plant material. I decided to include leaves and stems for this extract. I found it best to break the stems at the nodes and slice them down the center. wet

www.shroomery.org

This however seems too time consuming and not worth the while.
Also attached is a picture of the plant. It's native to where I'm from (SE Asia)

Has anyone tried leaves of this pattern?

 

[kerelsk]

That's a very handsome coleus

To my knowledge, they aren't psychoactive. They might have some strange hidden secrets, but don't beg investigation by ingestion in my humble opinion

 

[Psilociraptor]

There are several glowing reports on erowid. My opinion from what i've read is that it's probably a genetics thing. One thing i noticed at the nursery today is that there is very little proper labeling of the species. Wouldn't surprise me if most of what people have has been hybridized or mislabeled

 

[trncefigurate_aomn]

A helpful method with coleus seems to be to dry a leaf/leaves in small pieces (or larger ones but they may take several days to dry!).
Then, you can put a small piece in your mouth perhaps holding under the tongue! It can be kept there for some time especially if the piece is small enough. Then of course after you can swallow and eat it.

If you feel called by both yourself and the plant, and you can tell that the soil it is growing in has not left anything in the leaves that you would not want to introduce into your body, this method may be what will help you!

Some of what you experience may be subtle, but my interpretation is that part of this plant's teaching is how to notice subtle parts of your perception and world, and appreciate them more!

 

[santaonacid]

There are several glowing reports on erowid. My opinion from what i've read is that it's probably a genetics thing. One thing i noticed at the nursery today is that there is very little proper labeling of the species. Wouldn't surprise me if most of what people have has been hybridized or mislabeled

True. I am of the same opinion after looking up on it. I wonder if the amount of sunlight it receives also might have something to with it, as more sunlight means more anthocyanins and less chlorophyll. So might be some other stuff going on in there? Only a passing thought, as my knowledge regarding stuff like this is very limited :|

The Plectranthus genus is native to many tropical areas in Asia, Australia and Africa.[14] These tropical areas, because of the extreme diversity of flora, have many different niches to fill when it comes to areas of light availability. Plectranthus scutellarioides species can fit almost all of these niches, due to the adaptive radiation the Plectranthus genus underwent, and continues to undergo. Plectranthus scutellarioides plants that grow in areas exposed to extended periods of light tend to display brighter and more variegated leaves. Plectranthus scutellarioides plants that grow in areas near the floor of these tropical forests, and therefore are exposed to less light, often have greener foliage. As time has passed, plants have adapted to the light available in their ecosystems, allowing for greater diversity and speciation of the Plectranthus genus.[15]

 

[santaonacid]

A helpful method with coleus seems to be to dry a leaf/leaves in small pieces (or larger ones but they may take several days to dry!).
Then, you can put a small piece in your mouth perhaps holding under the tongue! It can be kept there for some time especially if the piece is small enough. Then of course after you can swallow and eat it.

If you feel called by both yourself and the plant, and you can tell that the soil it is growing in has not left anything in the leaves that you would not want to introduce into your body, this method may be what will help you!

Some of what you experience may be subtle, but my interpretation is that part of this plant's teaching is how to notice subtle parts of your perception and world, and appreciate them more!

That is indeed a good way to go about it thanks for the tip. Is it okay to dry it in front of a fan?
Guess I'll try a big leaf in small pieces

That's a very handsome coleus Smile

To my knowledge, they aren't psychoactive. They might have some strange hidden secrets, but don't beg investigation by ingestion in my humble opinion

Well I wouldn't normally bother with it but I'm literally stuck at home for a week due to exams, so I figured it wouldn't hurt to try it.
Also seeing as many positive reports as I have, its hard to attribute it all to placebo, or even calling all those people liars.
Either way it goes, I won't really have wasted much time

 

[Psilociraptor]

That's an interesting point. I don't think anyone knows anything about the actives of this plant, but i have heard speculation that the red ones are more potent. FYI you have a serious responsibility to report back on your experience

 

[santaonacid]

Yep. Will do so once i try it

 

[santaonacid]

Plucked two leaves
Leaf 1: about 3.5 inches in length and 2.5 inches in width
Leaf 2: 2.2" inches x 1.9"
These were plucked at 11:50 pm. Perhaps not very bright of me at that.
Leaves seemed healthy, with a shiny layer (dust) on them. Velvety to touch.
Leaves washed in normal tap water gently and dried in paper napkins.
Now, I have two alternatives, as I decided not to wait two entire days to let it dry:

a) to microwave-dry the leaves and ingest orally (no smoking paper with me rn)

b)eat them as is

According to reports, microwaving should not cause any loss is psychoactivity and may in fact help isolate the compounds which are of interest to us. This led me to consider option a).
As for b) well, it's been known to provide some effects as well. And well, it's just easy all I gotta to do it chew and swallow it.

If anyone is online do tell me what you think is the better way to go.

 

[santaonacid]

So I went on to microwave-dry Leaf 2. It was done in 3 different sessions each lasting 15-20 secs. The leaf was reduced to half its original size.
This I consumed orally, keeping it in my mouth first then chewing it. Wasn't much to chew though.
15 minutes later I eat the other, bigger leaf (Leaf 1) as it is. This tastes quite bitter to me, though I've had worse. Takes me 2-3 mins till i swallow it.
In no more than 5 minutes I started feeling this mild sedative effect. It didn't make me sleepy, but when I moved my body it seemed to be slower and my muscles had this 'lazy' sorta feeling. Quite similar to alcohol imo. Then I waited a bit but no other effects were notcied. EDIT: Attention span was affected, but I disregarded it as placebo. In retrospect, I'm not too sure about that. I did try quite hard to study but i couldn't.
Later last night I plucked 4 more leaves and had them in a quid, which again gave me no results.
I had good, short sleep with relatively longer dreams. Nothing that out of the ordinary, nor can I recall them. The only thing was the quality of sleep. I slept from 4 am approx to 7 am. Feels like 6-7 full hours.

Possible conclusions:
1. Both leaves were taken from different plants. Perhaps the plant which gave me leaf 1, and four of the leaves later, was not useful for our purposes.
2. Method of ingestion. Seems likely that micro-dried leaf was the only one that had effect. This is reinforced by the fact that i felt the sedative effect too quickly to be attributed to leaf 1.

What I do know;
1. The more mature the leaves, the more bitter they are.
2. Ingested orally, the prospects don't look as exciting. Especially not if you have to bear the bitter taste only to feel close to nothing.
3. It definitely has some effects. Although mild, it may be quite enjoyable for some.

Well I'll just smoke it one time in the coming week. Definitely can't pluck leaves unnecessarily, mom wouldn't be happy about that. Also it's a beautiful plant
I'm a tad bit disappointed, but still optimistic about smoking it somehow.
If anyone thinks I did something wrong do let me know.

 

[trncefigurate_aomn]

So I went on to microwave-dry Leaf 2. It was done in 3 different sessions each lasting 15-20 secs. The leaf was reduced to half its original size.
This I consumed orally, keeping it in my mouth first then chewing it. Wasn't much to chew though.
15 minutes later I eat the other, bigger leaf (Leaf 1) as it is. This tastes quite bitter to me, though I've had worse. Takes me 2-3 mins till i swallow it.
In no more than 5 minutes I started feeling this mild sedative effect. It didn't make me sleepy, but when I moved my body it seemed to be slower and my muscles had this 'lazy' sorta feeling. Quite similar to alcohol imo. Then I waited a bit but no other effects were notcied. EDIT: Attention span was affected, but I disregarded it as placebo. In retrospect, I'm not too sure about that. I did try quite hard to study but i couldn't.
Later last night I plucked 4 more leaves and had them in a quid, which again gave me no results.
I had good, short sleep with relatively longer dreams. Nothing that out of the ordinary, nor can I recall them. The only thing was the quality of sleep. I slept from 4 am approx to 7 am. Feels like 6-7 full hours.

Possible conclusions:
1. Both leaves were taken from different plants. Perhaps the plant which gave me leaf 1, and four of the leaves later, was not useful for our purposes.
2. Method of ingestion. Seems likely that micro-dried leaf was the only one that had effect. This is reinforced by the fact that i felt the sedative effect too quickly to be attributed to leaf 1.

What I do know;
1. The more mature the leaves, the more bitter they are.
2. Ingested orally, the prospects don't look as exciting. Especially not if you have to bear the bitter taste only to feel close to nothing.
3. It definitely has some effects. Although mild, it may be quite enjoyable for some.

Hello! Yes, coleus does seem to be its own type of medicinal plant experience; it does seem to affect both set (mindfulness, attention, language) and setting (sometimes affects how ones' surroundings are perceived).

I had a small piece of dry leaf tonight to see if i could delve into your experiences with attention span.
In the future if you have your own plant or plants, I guess i would recommend having the leaves dry on their own on a plate, piece of paper etc, just because allowing the process to happen over a longer period of time may include some additional chemical reactions perhaps that especially could make the leaf less bitter tasting (depending on your type of coleus)!

In this experience tonight I learned/solidified a key idea about language, i've put it in here as it is a bit detailed;

Spoiler

which is a bit hard to express but that language in complete sentences is assymetrical.
We can otherwise write, talk out loud, or try to think (this might not be as functional due to the limited hardware) in parts of sentences, to experience a simple yet meaningful alteration in how our cognition expects itself to be existing.

Literally the way to test this is to start saying something out loud/begin writing a sentence, and before finishing, stop and move on to saying/writing something else, perhaps repeating the process!
You may notice that you still feel well aware of what you were going to say, it was processed somewhere in your cognition.
This can help with habits, if there is a personal habit you would like to change, write or talk out loud in sentence parts, because,
the habits are in your brain/etc in the form of complete sentences.
When you change your default mode of communication, these habits can't change along with it and will not be able to blend in with any sort of subconscious or subliminal suggestion for you to perform the habit, because they now will stand out as being in the form of a complete sentence.

Parts of sentences are unique because any one can come before or after another. To bring this experience to our perception and mind, and be able to do so dependably by writing or talking out loud in sentence parts, it is similar to a type of meditation. It is very relaxing and freeing. Coleus seems to be able to lead to laughter and jubliation but by meeting it, and as a result ones' own perception halfway with ones' own ideas.

I think that your change in attention/focus does have something to do with something in coleus interacting with attention span possibly including language; it seems to involve a change in latency (``A measure of the time delay experienced by a system``) of some part or parts of what allows us as people to create attention and focus, including by using words and language!

 

[santaonacid]

Hello! Yes, coleus does seem to be its own type of medicinal plant experience; it does seem to affect both set (mindfulness, attention, language) and setting (sometimes affects how ones' surroundings are perceived).

I had a small piece of dry leaf tonight to see if i could delve into your experiences with attention span.
In the future if you have your own plant or plants, I guess i would recommend having the leaves dry on their own on a plate, piece of paper etc, just because allowing the process to happen over a longer period of time may include some additional chemical reactions perhaps that especially could make the leaf less bitter tasting (depending on your type of coleus)!

In this experience tonight I learned/solidified a key idea about language, i've put it in here as it is a bit detailed;

Spoiler

which is a bit hard to express but that language in complete sentences is assymetrical.
We can otherwise write, talk out loud, or try to think (this might not be as functional due to the limited hardware) in parts of sentences, to experience a simple yet meaningful alteration in how our cognition expects itself to be existing.

Literally the way to test this is to start saying something out loud/begin writing a sentence, and before finishing, stop and move on to saying/writing something else, perhaps repeating the process!
You may notice that you still feel well aware of what you were going to say, it was processed somewhere in your cognition.
This can help with habits, if there is a personal habit you would like to change, write or talk out loud in sentence parts, because,
the habits are in your brain/etc in the form of complete sentences.
When you change your default mode of communication, these habits can't change along with it and will not be able to blend in with any sort of subconscious or subliminal suggestion for you to perform the habit, because they now will stand out as being in the form of a complete sentence.

Parts of sentences are unique because any one can come before or after another. To bring this experience to our perception and mind, and be able to do so dependably by writing or talking out loud in sentence parts, it is similar to a type of meditation. It is very relaxing and freeing. Coleus seems to be able to lead to laughter and jubliation but by meeting it, and as a result ones' own perception halfway with ones' own ideas.

I think that your change in attention/focus does have something to do with something in coleus interacting with attention span possibly including language; it seems to involve a change in latency (``A measure of the time delay experienced by a system``) of some part or parts of what allows us as people to create attention and focus, including by using words and language!

I shall try the method you have suggested. Plucked 5-6 leaves and put them between paper napkins and kept it in a drawer. I'll try a leaf in about 5 days. Should be ample time for it to dry up.
Though will it be dry enough to smoke it by then? It seems doubtful. I'll probably have to microwave the ones i wanna smoke. Lets see.

And as for your observation on language, I'll definitely pay more attention to that the next time I try it. Sounds pretty interesting, that!
As for latency. That was just the word i was looking for. That is exactly how i felt, along with the sedation. Its like i turn my head to the right but the 'feeling' of my muscles turning comes a little later. Was unsure how to describe that uptil now. An interesting effect indeed. I'm curious what effects higher doses may be able to induce.

 

[trncefigurate_aomn]

I shall try the method you have suggested. Plucked 5-6 leaves and put them between paper napkins and kept it in a drawer. I'll try a leaf in about 5 days. Should be ample time for it to dry up.

Though will it be dry enough to smoke it by then? It seems doubtful. I'll probably have to microwave the ones i wanna smoke. Lets see.

And as for your observation on language, I'll definitely pay more attention to that the next time I try it. Sounds pretty interesting, that!
As for latency. That was just the word i was looking for. That is exactly how i felt, along with the sedation. Its like i turn my head to the right but the 'feeling' of my muscles turning comes a little later. Was unsure how to describe that uptil now. An interesting effect indeed. I'm curious what effects higher doses may be able to induce.

Based on what you are describing in the last part, i would suggest to take just a small part of a dry leaf, maybe the size of your pinky fingernail. Depending on the size of your leaves you are drying you will end up with what seems like between 7 to 20 individual pieces per leaf!

Definitely be cautious and patient with a smoking experience! Your coleus seems to be the kind that contains forskolin;

Coleus is the source of a unique substance known as forskolin. Forskolin helps naturally increase a signaling molecule in our bodies called cyclic adenosine monophosphate, or cAMP. In turn, cAMP supports blood vessel relaxation and healthy heart muscle contractions.

Research also shows that forskolin may also support the smooth muscle of the lungs for healthy breathing and bronchial function.

It would be good to gradually continue to try small pieces of the dry leaf orally to make sure you are familiar with your personal reactions to it!

 

[santaonacid]

Based on what you are describing in the last part, i would suggest to take just a small part of a dry leaf, maybe the size of your pinky fingernail. Depending on the size of your leaves you are drying you will end up with what seems like between 7 to 20 individual pieces per leaf!

Definitely be cautious and patient with a smoking experience! Your coleus seems to be the kind that contains forskolin;

Coleus is the source of a unique substance known as forskolin. Forskolin helps naturally increase a signaling molecule in our bodies called cyclic adenosine monophosphate, or cAMP. In turn, cAMP supports blood vessel relaxation and healthy heart muscle contractions.

Research also shows that forskolin may also support the smooth muscle of the lungs for healthy breathing and bronchial function.

It would be good to gradually continue to try small pieces of the dry leaf orally to make sure you are familiar with your personal reactions to it!

It's quite difficult to differentiate between C. Blumei and C. Forskohlii. It's got me a little confused ahh.
Forskolin, however, shouldn't be a problem according to me. A single or even a few leaves shouldn't contain high enough amounts to pose a substantial threat. And at least in India, forskolin extracts ase used widely by people who mostly see the effects as desirable.

Coleus is POSSIBLY SAFE for most adults when given intravenously (by IV), when inhaled (breathed in), or when applied as eye drops. However, there can be some side effects. When given by IV, coleus can cause flushing and low blood pressure. When inhaled, coleus can cause throat irritation, cough, tremor, and restlessness. Eye drops containing coleus can cause stinging.

Special Precautions & Warnings:

Pregnancy: Coleus is POSSIBLY UNSAFE when used during pregnancy. High doses of coleus might slow or stop the growth of the fetus. Stay on the safe side and avoid use.

Breast-feeding: There is not enough reliable information about the safety of taking coleus if you are breast-feeding. Stay on the safe side and avoid use.

Bleeding disorders: There is some evidence that coleus might increase the risk of bleeding in some people.

Heart disease: Coleus might lower blood pressure. There is some concern that coleus might interfere with treatment for heart or blood vessel diseases and could make these conditions worse. Use coleus with caution if you have a heart problem.

Low blood pressure: Coleus might lower blood pressure. If your blood pressure is already low, taking coleus might make it drop too much.

Surgery: Coleus might increase bleeding during and after surgery. Stop using coleus at least 2 weeks before a scheduled surgery.

The side effects seem rather minor imo which is why I hadn't worried to much about the presence of forskolin. Nor having a heart condition, it SHOULD be mostly safe for me to consume even what is considered a moderate to high dosage.
All that being said, I definitely plan on being careful in every step. Every person does have a unique reaction to substances and it'd be foolish to underestimate it's potential threat in the given situation.
I just feel that taking such a tiny part of the leaf doesn't make sense, especially given the mild effects of coleus. It can very well be placebo, and my worry being that at such a small dose I doubt I'll be able to tell if the effects were actually brought about by the coleus.
Unless, the given method of consumption is at least 15-20x times more effective than what I used previously

 

[Wyald]

My personal opinion is that there is definitely an active "variety" of coleus. I believe the best bet would be to try and re trace it genetics to come to more "wild" varieties. I'm almost positive that if someone went deep into its native habitat and sampled a "traditional" amount of 100 leaves of a variety that wasn't that of the enormously hybridized and crossed ornamental varieties that obvious effects would occur.

On a side note: I don't know the validity of this nor could I access the full article (perhaps someone else could), but it is interesting and more fuel for the Coleus Enigma fire. Are We Growing Psychotropics in Our Backyards?: A Case Report and Literature Review of Coleus blumei - PubMed

 

[Wyald]

Also according to one website this is what the "original" coleus looked like.

Quote: "One place to start is with old, botanical illustrations in journals know for limited artistic license, precise morphology, and accurate colorizing. Yes, they did paint the old volumes by hand back then. Curtis Botanical Magazine Volume 79 of 1853 is about as accurate an example as we can get. The plant came from Mr. Clapton of Low's Nursery, England by way of Belgium and originally from Java. Was this thing a garden plant and heavily modified or selected? We cannot be sure but early cultivars mostly did have the dark red center and lime edges as the plate below shows."

 

[rOm]

This one coleus am investigating too. Starting to chew two fresh leaves daily. I feel like I like the effects.

 

[downwardsfromzero]

The most powerful lucid dream I ever had occurred as follows:

I woke up suddenly in the night and a few seconds later I heard a large leaf fall from my Coleus (Solenostemon scutellaroides) plant. I took this to be a sign of some sort so I retrieved the leaf and chewed it slowly before falling back to sleep - which, of course, is when the dream took place.



Coleus is a strangely satisfy plant to grow. It propagates well from cuttings, too. I've managed to keep a specimen alive for about 8 years through taking cuttings. Watching how the leaf pattern has changed during that time has been noteworthy; the leaves are much less strongly patterned at the moment than they were on the mother plant, and a self seeded daughter plant - the flowers are self-fertile - is also displaying interesting pigment trickery.

Some specimens of Coleus have an interesting, hard-to-define effect on consciousness when smoked. The most interesting one I tried had no red pigment but there's no reason to believe the pigmentation has any effect on the psychoactive properties.