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Important lesson:Iboga's darker side.

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polytrip

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I'm still a fan of iboga. It's a wonderfull substance and i'm glad that i've experienced it. I will probably take iboga again at some point.

But i feel that the dark side of iboga would also deserve some attention. I wouldn't want to say to people "don't take iboga". I would rather urge people to be cautious. Iboga requires a lot more respect and caution than any other hallucinogenic i'm experienced with.

The first time i experienced iboga's dark side was the first time i ever experienced it, in extremely small amounts. Even then, it became clear to me that i was much more intoxicated by it than i was fully aware of. That's one of iboga's dark sides: although you fully realise, like with most well known psychedelic's that you're under the influence of a magical substance, you never realy realise how far it is actually taking you. You tend to underestimate the degree in wich it affects you.

But there's more to it. Iboga can cure people from addictions they've been struggling with for a lifetime, it can reset the mind like probably nothing else can. Iboga's therapeutic potential is probably greater than that of most well known psychedelic's combined.

But this means that iboga is a very powerfull medicine. And no powerfull medicine is free from risks or side-effects.

If you take iboga without a guide, there is a chance that you'll actually reset your mind in a negative way, without even noticing it.
If you're struggling with psychological or psychiatric problems, then iboga could probably be a great help if you take it with the proper guidance, but if you take it without a good guide it can probably worsen your situation quite a bit.

I have had a few very good and positive experiences with iboga that definately have had some positive effects on me. But i also have one extremely negative experience with it, that definately has had a negative impact on my psyche for the last couple of months.

I'm not sorry that this happened to me because i see it as a good lesson i've learned. But i still feel that it would be wrong not to mention this darker side of iboga.

A bad-trip on iboga is absolutely far, far, far worse than the worst bad-trip on LSD, shrooms, ayahuasca or DMT. Iboga goes deeper than anything else and it is very intense.

I think that my previous experiences with psychedelic's and especially with ayahuasca have enabled me to overcome this drawback i've dealt with and to deal with it in a positive way, but it has left me psychologically drained for at least two months.

I felt unfit to take any psychedelic drug for the past few months. I felt the opposite of a positive afterglow. I even had moments that i craved for marihuana and unhealthy food, wich is the total opposite of what iboga used in a therapeutic way, is supposed to give you.

I still would recomend iboga to every psychonaut. But i also recomend caution.
And i think that people who're inexperienced with psychedelic's better stay away from it untill they've become more experienced with altered states of mind. Like i said: a bad trip on acid is NOTHING compared to a bad trip on iboga.

And doing it alone can be dangerous (you could even choke in your own vomit, like with severe alcohol intoxication). This substance realy requires a sitter.

I've been naïve and iboga taught me a good lesson. Don't make the same mistake.
 
justine said:
Could you please tell us a bit more about this difficult iboga trip ?
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The moment it started working, it felt like someone had put electrodes on my brain and was giving me very heavy electric shocks. These shocks where very strong and very painfull and made me shake heavily, while it felt the electricity was literally frying my brain.

This would have been an exhausting experience on it's own. But besides that physical sensation, the electric shocks where related to deeply psychological shocks as well: whenever another wave of shocks was coming i had the sensation of unexpectedly all of a sudden 'waking up' in the middle of a scene where i was dying.
And it wasn't like i experienced the whole scene of my death. I experienced the short flash...where you realise that you're going to die right now...and it seemed that time paused and just that very primary sensation paired with the electric shocks seemed to last an eternity.

And it went on and on.

-I suddenly 'woke-up' swimming all alone in the middle of the ocean with no boats or land in sight, like i had just fallen from a cruise-ship or something...and i wasn't experiencing drowning there, i just experienced that moment that you realise:"i'm all alone swimming in the middle of the pacific...no man can survive this" lasting an eternity, while being shocked by both that realisation and the electricity.
-I suddenly 'woke up' falling of a cliff. And again, i didn't experience the whole fall, i just experienced that moment that it hit's you: "i'm losing my balance, i'm falling"...for again an eternity.
-I was at a construction site when a huge crane was tumbling down and heading towards me. And i didn't experience the whole event but just the very brief moment that it becomes apparent the crane is falling and it's falling to fast and it's too big to outrun it.

etc...

And eternity's on iboga last ten times longer than eternity's on acid or DMT.

In total, this whole experience lasted for maybe 18 hours.
And i was already totally exhausted from the physical and mental shocks after the first few hours had passed.
And that sucks very much. It's like climbing a high mountain and being totally exhausted when reaching the summit and then a storm comes up, it starts to snow heavily and you realise you have to climb all the way down again with your now frozen limbs, sour muscles and bruces from climbing all the way up. And then, while you're already totally exhausted it slowly becomes clear....i'm totally drained already and the hardest part is yet to come.

You cannot fight it, yet you can't surrender to it either. It just rips you apart.

But i will be taking iboga again. I'm still fascinated by it. It just taught me a very hard lesson.
 
Dang that sounds like a tough lesson to learn, i was curious about iboga but will after this wait for a good few years before reconsider doing it.
 
Polytrip-excellent posts.

I think its important to have a balanced view of any mind-altering substance and I thankyou for pointing out how iboga is not all inspiration and renewal.

May I ask about the doses and preparation you were taking?

I have a stash of 99% pure ibogaine HCl which Ive possessed for about a decade and Ive still not felt its been time to sample it.One day I plan to take 7-9mg/kg ie substantially less than a 'cure my habit' dose as that would not be my intention/requirement from it.
 
thank you for sharing this with us... it is very powerful.

i've had some brutal & horrifying aya journeys... and i sense from your description how iboga could extend beyond that... truly humbling.

be well <3
 
corpus callosum said:
Polytrip-excellent posts.

I think its important to have a balanced view of any mind-altering substance and I thankyou for pointing out how iboga is not all inspiration and renewal.

May I ask about the doses and preparation you were taking?

I have a stash of 99% pure ibogaine HCl which Ive possessed for about a decade and Ive still not felt its been time to sample it.One day I plan to take 7-9mg/kg ie substantially less than a 'cure my habit' dose as that would not be my intention/requirement from it.
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I was taking powdered iboga rootbark. After i discovered that shortly after having flooded with iboga, the dose required to 'breakthrough' into the iboga realm is much, much lower because of the amount of noribogaine present in the blood, i took 5 grams of iboga rootbark wich under these circumstances is comparable in strength to what 10 grams of rootbark would normally do. Altough taking iboga this way has the advantage of not having to vomit, this method of administrating the substance may have played a role in the extremely unpleasant effects i was having. Maybe the levels of noribogaine in my blood where just too high, i don't know. Noribogaine is an SSRI, so in a sense you're combining iboga with an SSRI when you take iboga again shortly after another iboga session. On the other hand, the bwiti consume iboga for days in a row during an initiation.

Having an expert guiding you, is realy essential. Both in terms of safety and in getting as much out of it as you can.
Thinking: "i'm an experienced psychonaut, i can handle anything on my own" was naïve.
 
Why was 5 grams equal to 10?
And what sort of guide should i let assist.
With DMT i could not imagine being guided...

I plan on using the substance, and i neither know nor would want to pay a person who I don't know to guide my trip.

Are you sure that a guide can prevent those kind of trips?
 
That sounds rough Poly.. did you learn anything from this?

Why did you feel the need to dose so much iboga so soon after a flood? I can't imagine wanting to do that... after a flood most people have very little desire to ingest any mood altering substances.
 
kyrolima said:
Why was 5 grams equal to 10?
And what sort of guide should i let assist.
With DMT i could not imagine being guided...

I plan on using the substance, and i neither know nor would want to pay a person who I don't know to guide my trip.

Are you sure that a guide can prevent those kind of trips?
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I accidentally discovered that, shortly after i had taken 12 grams of the stuff, taking 5 grams would result in an almost equally strong experience. I have no explanation for that phenomenon but i do know that noribogaine stays in the bloodstream for several months. I think that having significant amounts of noribogaine in your blood hugely amplifies the effects of iboga so you need half the dose to get the same effects. But maybe that also caused the very unpleasant effects i was having, since noribogaine is an SSRI and SSRI's could interact with ibogaine in a very negative way.

A guide is a good idea, first of all because you won't be able to move for many hours and you could seriously hurt yourself when you're trying to walk.
Secondly, the iboga experience is unlike DMT, a bit foggy. It's hard to navigate within that iboga realm.

Iboga is partly a hallucinogenic substance like DMT, but partly a strong dissociative drug that seriously impairs your judgement. Your mind isn't clear like on other psychedelic's.
 
ouro said:
That sounds rough Poly.. did you learn anything from this?

Why did you feel the need to dose so much iboga so soon after a flood? I can't imagine wanting to do that... after a flood most people have very little desire to ingest any mood altering substances.
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I think i felt that i could have taken more out of the iboga than i did. I now see that i was too 'gready' for deeper insights and experiences.
 
polytrip said:
A guide is a good idea, first of all because you won't be able to move for many hours and you could seriously hurt yourself when you're trying to walk.
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I have never really seen that as a problem on the harmalas. Walking is rarely something I do on it, but when I do, I manage fine. If I don't I either crawl, or decide not to move. Of course, iboga lasts for a much longer time, but still, I don't feel those reasons are essential, unless there is something serious going on, such as suffocating in your own vomit etc.

Anyone have any reports about such occurrences happening?
 
I don't think Iboga is dark. I just think it is tough love. I have never had anything but humourous and wonderful light hearted experienced with it and I have done it three times now.

But also, I've taken Ayahuasca hundreds of times and been through a helluva lot with that.

For sure, Ayahuasca can be dark, but it is also bringing up our own darkness. I could also say the same about Iboga, except I have never gotten the slightest hint that Iboga was inherently dark, only that it brought up OUR darkness.

I got that the first time I dosed on 2 grams (which I do not consider a proper dose) I felt it would be something like a hard stick which would be wacking me over the head, but actually, it showed me how gentle and light it was, and that its power then was in bringing up our darkness.
 
i have to both agree as well as disagree with much of this, i definitely agree that iboga/ibogaine can have a very dark side as earlier this year following 2.5 weeks of daily dosing of pure ibogaine hcl as well as a total alkaloid extract i requested lithium from my doctor to tone down the after affects a bit namely the delusional paranoia i was experiencing at the time but also i have to disagree that a guide would have been beneficial. firstly i didn't wish to speak to a single person while on it and anyone who tried to speak to me just ended up irritating me beyond belief and secondly i've found ibogaine to be the only hallucinogenic that i retain a clear head on in comparison to dmt or mushrooms but i am also a person who seems to have a reverse effect from most drugs than others do, most people ive sat for on dmt/aya describe what i would describe ibogaine as and when i describe my own dmt experiences they cant seem to relate to them what so ever. the same goes for smoking pot as i find it impossible to relax or sleep on it, i get insane amounts of nervous energy as well as anxiety and panic attacks so really i think with any substance it turly does depend on the individuals personal physiological makeup.
 
let me add, i do plan on acquiring more ibogaine sometime soon but following my first experience(s) with it in march i havent really touched anything since only even smoking pot 5 or 6 times not to mention having my strong opiate dependance abolished by it :) tho it did have a long term effect on altering my personality in an extreme manner. earlier prior to this i was quite extroverted to a fault but ever since i am more reserved than ive ever known possible. amongst other things
 
Wow, poly... I do think it's safe to say that you've experienced the worst of the worst. I believe I went to the same place you experienced, albeit for me it was a "single session" in the death-chaos state, rather than repeated sessions over and over. Your 'waking' experiences - falling, drowning, construction accident - did these feel like dreams or did they feel as real as real can be? On Salvia for example, some experiences are felt in a hazy sort of lucid-dreaming state whereas other, particularly notable journeys - waking up in another person's life for example - are as real as anything in our waking lives.

Here's my own trip report on what happened to me on shrooms + weed at a rock festival - A harrowing, unsettling seed of cosmic fear - Please help me map this terrifying place! - Welcome discussion - Welcome to the DMT-Nexus

Particularly of note is the "electrocution" theme which we both experienced. Some sort of time loop - planck moments vibrating at the instant of utmost death-fear.

There's also this similar report by someone else at erowid:

Salvia divinorum - Erowid Exp - 'Reliving My Death Over and Over Again'

An Experience with Salvia divinorum. 'Reliving My Death Over and Over Again' by Cory B.
www.erowid.org

I've read others with very close similarities as well, just can't find them at the moment.

For me personally, this was a very hard experience to integrate. It really woke up some deep fears that I suppose I had been procrastinating or sweeping under the rug, and some I never even thought of before. You're definitely not alone, there are others who have been through at least a fraction of what you experienced. It's my personal belief that it has something crucially important to do with the brain being overloaded - we can take a lot at once, but I think there is a point where the hardware of the brain itself hits a reboot switch as if to repair itself. if your dose was indeed twice what it should have been, perhaps this set off a sort of seizure - and here's where your awareness can get stuck in a nasty time loop, and it seems not terribly uncommon for this "wall" to be hit at the point-of-impact of ego death/transition.

There's an entire spiritual world on the other side which we're able to experience and travel through - it's a shame to get caught up once in the barbed-wire at the top of the fence (on the cosmic scale that may be all it is - but for us it's a little closer to plummeting into a great and torturous abyss). But you rose up from that, and you're here, and thank fuck for that. Please be well and I sincerely wish you a positive ongoing integration. I wouldn't wish what I went through on anyone. nobody, anywhere, deserves such a harrowing experience, and for me, seeing you here and healthy having been through what you experienced gives me much faith and hope.

There's a dearth of experience reports written on ibogaine at erowid. I highly recommend submitting your trip report there, as there's not a single one yet listed under "bad trips" and it is important people know the range of power of drugs like this.
 
Hey Mr polytrip, I know this is an old post but I just noticed something I missed before...from what I gather you experienced these very unpleasant sounding effects consuming a few grams of root bark pretty soon after a larger flood dose?? I just wanted to chime in and say the guy who initiated me was of the opinion that this was a pretty dangerous thing to do, and I think it does have something to do with the long term half life of noribogaine in one's system as you mention. It is absolutely fine to take micro or booster doses following a flood it seems, but taking larger doses within a few months of a flood dose is dangerous and not advised. I don't have that much trust for the guy who initiated me anymore, but he certainly knows his iboga.
 
I have had many difficult experiences on Iboga myself..

Forgive me for not reading every response in this thread - so if I missed something, I apologize.. But poly, the first thing I would ask is - did you have anything else in your system that you were mixing with Iboga? I took Iboga once, less than 24 hours after an MDMA experience, and found out the hard way that that is an absolute no-no...

That aside... Iboga can be a very harsh teacher, especially because of it's long duration.. a 5-10mg/kg dose can teach you something.. But most of my difficult experiences have been in the 15-22mg/kg range, and let me tell you.. For me, they were almost always difficult.. I was usually left with a glow that lasted for weeks, yes: but the experience itself almost always had some very terrifying moments.

On the eboka forum we have some members whose mantra is "eat more iboga!".. I take that with a grain of salt myself, erring on the side of caution. Though a big dose of Iboga will tend to end up positive in the end, the path you take to get there can be, sometimes, incredibly difficult and spiritually painful.

I described the majority of my first flood as "having my soul ripped inside out and passed through fire".

Thanks for sharing your experience poly. Iboga is POWERFUL medicine, and needs to be taken only with the utmost respect and preparation.
 
Oh, I was also going to mention that most people tend to agree that root bark is much less forgiving than TA or HCL...

A 15mg/kg HCL trip can be very healing and over in less than 24 hours, whereas 15mg/kg with root bark can last for 3 days or more, depending on how you do the math.
 
I just wrote about a similar piece in a thread called Iboga vrs. Babylon. My personal thoughts now as it flickered in my neurons a grand aha moment, is that dark side of Iboga, all the violence and death and rape and sex that one can see on larger doses. That is like a portal of the root into god. It is a reflection of the endangered state that Iboga is in now. And if people don't recessitate the heartbeat of a sustainable Iboga then the world is going to fall into this violence completely. On my first flood despite all the beauty, I really was perplexed by the vulgar violence, I couldn't figure it out. Now it is painfully obvious to me it is directly tied to the way that Iboga is murdered/poached in the most Virgin Forests that Mama Earth has to offer.

It is a mirror of our present state if we don't change our ways. Then I personally believe in 15 years when we have an abundance of sustainable Iboga, the visions will be all love. Welcome to the Iboga Age (Golden Age) which the Vedas forgot to mention. We are it. Just like raising a child or growing dreadlocks we must love the process and not be hungry for the results.
 
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