Is Harmala addiction possible ?

[Eaglepath]

Very fascinating!! A real Viking!

 

[Jees]

...I also drink a cup of Coffee in the morning and haven't had any issue with it. ..

I think you have become deeply acquainted to rue, this sets you apart from us non-vikings who are just playing with it. To be honest intuitively I feel pretty okay with just 1 gr a day (good for 100mg total harmalas estimated) and with a 10 hours gap sometimes a second 1 gr optional. I feel it working on me and I'm not driven really to up dosage, feels like pretty okay just like that.

I don't really know what to expect by upping dose steadily over time. What's the extra gain to go that route please? Building up reverse tolerance + upping dose comes across as a double effect.
Where/why does a person finally draws a line? How do you determine your dosing limit ShamensStamen?

Edit:

And Jees, alright. So it took a whole month to get used to it...

Mind that it is tapering off during that period, so it's much less than 'a month of nausea'. It might be possible to reach no-nausea sooner with higher doses, but I felt no urge and took it slowly with 1gr (sometimes 2) a day. IIRC In the very first week I even took one capsule a day (600mg seed powder) to ameliorate nausea, I never had a hard time this way with only traces of nausea except for that coffee thingy. After that month (give or take) I felt 100% of the nausea hook. Much recommended.
.

 

[monomind]

Any advantage of taking whole rue over extracted alks ?
Or is just your busy schedule... ? :?:

 

[Jees]

Any advantage of taking whole rue over extracted alks ?
Or is just your busy schedule... ? :?:

Extracts miss out on some components that are beneficial to health, the raw material is full spectrum. Drinking a watery tea will come close to full spectrum but a capsule is so darn easy without the yuk.

 

[Sabnock1990]

I think you have become deeply acquainted to rue, this sets you apart from us non-vikings who are just playing with it. To be honest intuitively I feel pretty okay with just 1 gr a day (good for 100mg total harmalas estimated) and with a 10 hours gap sometimes a second 1 gr optional. I feel it working on me and I'm not driven really to up dosage, feels like pretty okay just like that.

I don't really know what to expect by upping dose steadily over time. What's the extra gain to go that route please? Building up reverse tolerance + upping dose comes across as a double effect.
Where/why does a person finally draws a line? How do you determine your dosing limit ShamensStamen?

Indeed i have become deeply acquainted with the Rue, i work with the Rue a lot, i'm quite experimental, and driven/dedicated, i just wish more people more fully explored what the Rue has to offer, it's quite the plant.

People are free of course to take the dosages they wish to take, my thing though is that most people don't really work with it enough to dive into the heavier Harmala territory, and so automatically they assume it's not as useful or doesn't provide nearly the same benefits as Caapi or is somehow inferior to Caapi, but imo that has more to do with their lack of experimentation rather than it being solely due to the Rue.

I understand that Rue can be quite rough, trust me, i know lol, i've been through a lot with the Rue, but lately i've come to understand that roasting the whole seeds prior to grinding, and most likely having Limonene in the mix, allows for a much more comfortable ride with the Rue, even ingesting the actual seed powder (though roasted), there's been absolutely no nausea or vomiting, very manageable body load, been able to let the Harmala dosage get stronger and stronger and not feel the need to back down on the dosage, and it provides quite the medicinal benefits ime.

By building up the reverse tolerance, the side-effects generally disappear, and while the Harmala content gets stronger, the reverse tolerance allows you to better handle higher/heavier Rue dosages without all the discomfort, therefore allowing you to experience the deeper levels of Rue that most people don't usually get to experience, which can take you to similar places as Caapi does. Like for example, with DMT in the mix, the higher the Rue/Harmala dosage, the more different the experience becomes, even to the point of it feeling way more Aya-like and like a completely different substance compared to using low to moderate dosages of Rue and DMT, also allows you to use just enough DMT to make a hell of a difference since the main medicine then becomes the Rue/Harmalas with the DMT being the light to illuminate the Harmala's aspects.

As for where to draw the line, just depends, there really is no line to draw when you dose like this, i guess you just keep going until you feel like there's nothing else to unfold in terms of the Rue/Harmala dosage, where it seems like overkill or unnecessary. What i used to do was take the same dosage, so like 4 to 4.5 grams, let the reverse tolerance build up and the Harmala content/effects get stronger and stronger, and then when things got too strong i'd back the dosage down a bit, keep taking that dosage until it got too strong, back the dosage down again and continue on, and just lowering the dosage bit by bit here and there until i eventually got to like 2 to 2.5 grams for a heavy Harmala dosage. Another thing one can try out is a CYP2D6 inhibitor if you can find one, which will potentiate the Harmala content in Rue without the need to take higher dosages of the Rue.

But yeah, if you happen to have any Limonene laying around, or can get some, i highly recommend trying out 10 drops of Limonene in a capsule, either before bed, or like an hour or two before the Rue, or just otherwise experiment with the Limonene and Rue, and see what you think about it. I'm pretty sure that Limonene is the active in Lemon EO that people used to talk about in terms of counteracting the nausea and vomiting with Psychedelics, and it seems to work for the Rue/Harmalas as well, much better than Ginger or Peppermint or Zofran. I really hope others will experiment around with the Limonene so we can say for sure. It may work from the get go, or it may take a couple or so weeks to build up in the body to become truly effective, idk yet, but it does indeed seem to work, and it works very well, ime. Limonene is also quite good for dealing with heartburn/acid reflux/gerd.

 

[Sabnock1990]

Any advantage of taking whole rue over extracted alks ?
Or is just your busy schedule... ? :?:

Extracts miss out on some components that are beneficial to health, the raw material is full spectrum. Drinking a watery tea will come close to full spectrum but a capsule is so darn easy without the yuk.

Yeah, i myself much prefer the full spectrum Rue seed over extracts. The full spectrum freebased Rue extract comes in at second place, with the purified manske'd Harmala extract coming in last. The Harmala extract feels much more like isolated Harmalas, still useful, but not as good as the full spectrum freebased Rue extract which still contains some of the other alks which contribute to how things feel and the benefits, but overall the Rue seed is best, imo/ime. The full spectrum Rue extract feels lighter than the Rue seed, and the Harmala extract feels lighter than the full spectrum Rue extract, but the Rue seed is the closest feeling to the plant, and i much prefer encapsulated seed powder (especially roasted seed compared to raw seed) over the Rue seed tea, no need to taste funky liquid when you can encapsulate

 

[monomind]

Any advantage of taking whole rue over extracted alks ?
Or is just your busy schedule... ? :?:

Extracts miss out on some components that are beneficial to health, the raw material is full spectrum. Drinking a watery tea will come close to full spectrum but a capsule is so darn easy without the yuk.

Yeah, i myself much prefer the full spectrum Rue seed over extracts. The full spectrum freebased Rue extract comes in at second place, with the purified manske'd Harmala extract coming in last. The Harmala extract feels much more like isolated Harmalas, still useful, but not as good as the full spectrum freebased Rue extract which still contains some of the other alks which contribute to how things feel and the benefits, but overall the Rue seed is best, imo/ime. The full spectrum Rue extract feels lighter than the Rue seed, and the Harmala extract feels lighter than the full spectrum Rue extract, but the Rue seed is the closest feeling to the plant, and i much prefer encapsulated seed powder (especially roasted seed compared to raw seed) over the Rue seed tea, no need to taste funky liquid when you can encapsulate

Thanks for the info, travelers... i see a rue capsule in my future :want:
What would you recommend as a beginner's dose ? 1g? less?

 

[Sabnock1990]

Personally ime 2 to 2.5 grams is a good beginners dose, light, but noticeable, 1 gram can be alright but it's a fairly light dosage. 3 to 3.5 grams is a more moderate dosage, 4 to 4.5 grams is a high dosage, anything over is likely to be strong/heavy.

 

[Jees]

Thanks for that elaborate #25 reply ShamensStamen.

...What would you recommend as a beginner's dose ? 1g? less?

You can always start low and build up, this has never done anyone harm. I started with 1 AA size capsule (600mg seed powder). We're all different and maybe the potency of seeds too. Now I take two of those and later on the day maybe 1 or 2 again. You can't go wrong. Just monitor the level of nausea and adapt from there

 

[Eaglepath]

Thought I should share my "Harmala" plant with you Harmala loving guys

 

[downwardsfromzero]

Eaglepath - nice plant. Here's a picture of my seedlings. They have a way to go yet!

 

[Eaglepath]

Beautiful

 

[BahiyaSutta]

First off, @ShamansStamen, paragraphs man! Those little text walls are difficult to read.

I've been taking harmalas more or less daily for many years now, never had any issues withdrawing them, even for reasonably prolonged periods (a few months without taking them to test exactly this hypothesis).

Regarding the GABA receptor binding, they are generally listed to be inverse agonists, though some research suggests they may have a mixed binding profile, or even be binding presynaptically. In any case, at the neural level, they appear to have the opposite effect of a benzo, inhibiting GABA transmission. This should make them anxiogenic and proconvulsant, however, as we who take them well know, they paradoxically present as a strong anxiolytic similar in effect to a benzo.

The mechanism behind this isn't well understood and is a whole other can o worms. To put it simply though, they are basically an anti-benzo and have some strong potential in treating alcoholism and benzo addiction in manner similar to how Suboxone is used in opiate addiction.

Regarding the Serotonin question. There is one old study that shows upregulation of platelet serotonin receptors with ayahuasca use. They did not elucidate in the study if this occurred with harmalas alone or with DMT alone and as far as I know there hasn't been any follow up to find out. It is intriguing research in any case, and yet another layer of the paradoxical effects of these strange and magnificent molecules.

It is fascinating, so many millions of people are in benzo hell and alcohol hell, but harmalas are the simple cure. I also have a friend who found rue to instantly remove his clonazepam addiction and withdrawals.

I am curious tho, do folks still need to taper or can you use rue to get off a strong benzo dose?

I also recently discovered that morning glory leaf is a very powerful natural non-addictive healthy blissful benzo, but it ONLY works when i am high on ayahuasca or loveyhuasca (will try with lsd next. It did nothing with iboga. I eat 1 leaf per hour, specifically beach morning glory.)

 

[Jamie01]

Are you sure beach morning glory contains natural benzos? A quick Google search only came up with flavonoids etc and claims of anti convulsant activit, anti spasm etc but that doesn’t make something a benzodiazepine.

 

[Transform]

Are you sure beach morning glory contains natural benzos? A quick Google search only came up with flavonoids etc and claims of anti convulsant activit, anti spasm etc but that doesn’t make something a benzodiazepine.

Some flavonoids act on the benzodiazepine-like GABA receptor, meaning they have a similar mode of action to benzos without actually being benzos.

 

[BahiyaSutta]

Some flavonoids act on the benzodiazepine-like GABA receptor, meaning they have a similar mode of action to benzos without actually being benzos.

Right. It is not actually a benzo... i was being imprecise with language.

 

[Transform]

Right. It is not actually a benzo... i was being imprecise with language.

Indeed, it was possible to catch your drift using that snippet of ethnobotanical knowledge - although there might be some other group of compounds that are actually responsible for the subjective effect.
For example, there's a group of indolizidine alkaloids (ipalbin and ipalbidin, as well as the glycoside analog swainsonine) found in some ipomoea species, the pharmacology of which escapes me at present.

And speaking of swainsonine, it seems pertinent to repeat this warning:

As far as toxicity goes, it is always strongly recommended that you research as much as possible about any plant you plan to consume. This would include looking into the pharmacology and toxicology of each of the alkaloids mentioned in the Nature study, as well as searching for any known traditional usage of the species concerned. Of course, it should go without saying that you must definitively identify the plant before consumption.

Bear in mind, too, that some species of Ipomoea can have a drastic purgative action.

The paper also states:

"A distinct heritable fungal symbiont that produces the toxic indolizidine alkaloid swainsonine occurs in I. carnea, I. costata and other species in the Jalapae and related clades"
"Poisoning of livestock following grazing on EA+ morning glory species has also been reported"

Proceed with care; you may want to look into extraction and subsequent chemical testing before proceeding with any species of uncertain composition.

Of course, livestock will likely have eaten far more than a single leaf for poisoning to occur so there's likely a degree of leeway here.