Psychoactive Lichen!!!...Novel Entheogen needs Research!

[dumbstruck]

Hah! Interesting! Regarding the article that I posted from a 2006 issue of Vice Magazine. They mention a bar named Sirkus in Reykjavik where "Essa" was interviewed regarding the lichen. From the context it seemed clear that it "local kids" were getting high off the stuff. Quoting a review of Sirkus:

Everyone seems to have some pretense of being an artist in this hipster oasis, complete with palm-tree murals in the courtyard and a knowingly kitsch, retro interior. DJs 3 nights a week play an eclectic mix of pop, indie, salsa, techno, and metal, and you can expect a line after 1am. Look out for their annual Tom Selleck moustache competition.

Sounds like an ideal place to interview people for local weird drugs! Anyhow, there were 4 reviews on google, and one was even in english! This is contact information along with reviews and pictures. We need to find someone who speaks Icelandic or maybe someone should just give them a ring and find out if anyone there speaks English. Haha. Would be a rather funny call to receive on their end. Ask for "Essa"! A quick google search also gave a couple people who live in Iceland named Smari Einarsson. There is enough contact info to find some of this out! If no good ideas are posed on how to contact these people I'll probably just send a translated email or two in a couple days. I will report back if I get anywhere.

 

[blue_velvet]

Any R. Gordon Wasson's around?

 

[biopsylo]

this is all very interesting. im liking the lichens.

just a couple thoughts. if its a tryptamine, then there is probably no one in rehab for it!

another thing- many to most icelandic people speak english, no??!

 

[dumbstruck]

^ I didn't know many Icelandic people speak English. I remember hearing it is one of the most difficult languages for an English borne speaker to learn, so I guess I just assumed it would be uncommon. Well with a review of the bar in English (good English too) that gives me hope for being able to get in contact with someone who can eventually help!

I certainly wouldn't think there would be anyone in recurring rehabilitation for tryptamines, but they might have experience with dealing with people currently on the drug or know of people who abuse it who are in their programs. They seem like a logical place to get me in contact with someone who can help identify this enticing lichen. If it has been a drug of abuse for 9 years surely they have enough information to at least describe its' appearance and where it grows, and maybe even tell more about its' effects.

How should I phrase the email to these folk? I was going to say I represent a group of independent American researchers and we were looking for information on drugs of abuse that are lichens. Or something to that effect. Any suggestions on how to come off appropriately?

 

[pau]

from what I've read : Iceland is indeed a partying, English-speaking, kind of place.

 

[dumbstruck]

edit: Oops. Realized this is the second thread linked in the OP. If you read that ignore this. If you didn't, here's the good parts.

I hope this is okay. I found one thread saying something about spoiler tags being used in a certain way being inappropriate here, but I couldn't find out the certain way! It's long so I figured it was appropriate.

Spoiler

Quoting from this thread on BL. Long and might not be the Icelandic lichen (though it seemingly grows in similar climates), but VERY INTERESTING.

I've come in contact with THREE lichens and a variety of other psychoactive plants. These are in the high NA arctic. I lived for 13 years there, and had a fascination with interviewing Elders. I don't know what these psychoactives are, but they bear remarkable similarity to tryptamines.

Even in the arctic, humans found a way. I wonder what these compounds actually are? Are they legal? Could they be mass produced?

I would liken it to a heavy mushroom trip, though longer and smoother. The lichen anyway. They wouldn't let me use the other plants, you have to be "accepted" first.

Wow, I just checked back, I didn't realized I'd raised this kind of a stir!

I'll see if I can check with the Elders and find out more info. I feel a little bad, because they trust me, and I don't think they want this to get out there. I'm not accepted yet, so I haven't tried anything else yet.

I agree, the title should be "Psychoactive Lichens"

By the way, I, personally, would define the trip from the best of the lichens as some sort of mixture of psilocin, MDMA, and also something sedative. I take benzos, and it seems similar to that, except it doesn't kill the trip.

Only one of the lichens is worth taking, IMO. The others are like shrooms but with lots of benzos, so you don't really get that amazing of a trip.

There might be a benzo-analogue in these, too folks. I think there's at LEAST three psychoactives in the best of the lichens.

I'm not home right now, but ASAP I will talk to the Elders. Please don't just spread this info to everyone and your grandma, they trusted me.

BTW, the lichen takes a LONG time to grow. If we end up putting these chems on the street, it'll be synthed, not in lichen form.

EDIT: When I go home and get to use the stuff again, I will write a trip report for you guys, to wet your whistles. You guys deserve it for all the help I've gotten over the years!

Deep relaxation, visions, and euphoria? That sounds pretty damn close.

Man, now I can't wait to go home, I feel like I'm on the cutting edge of psychedelia here, it's great!

I hope I can satisfy all of your curiousity, but right now I'm withdrawing from hydromorphone, so it'll have to wait.

Also, I'm at uni, so probably 'till next break.

But I WILL do my best. I'll also answer ANY questions I can, so go ahead and ask. This wasn't in Iceland, but northern Canada, btw.

Guys, the major problem is that the lichen takes decades, not months, to grow.

You can't mass-produce it without synthesizing it, and we don't even know what the chemical is; haven't even isolated it yet, so how could that be done.

It's also not a common lichen. It's not on every rock, you know. Some lichens look like it, but they aren't it.

Quote below is referring to "Rock Blooms", a psychoactive lichen found in the Himalayas that is sold online. Does not seem like the same species or even particularly desirable.

I never did see "trolls". But I did see a lot of arctic wildlife. I don't know why, but always arctic. Perhaps cause I grew up there.

It IS possible they are selling the same species. I did note a distinct sedative feeling. Perhaps they are selling ones without much of the psychedelic chems and only a little of the sedative?

It is VERY sedating. I normally move a LOT on mushies. But on these I basically sat/lay for a long time, meditating in a heavenly state. I also felt sleepy and extremely relaxed.

Random different guy anecdote...

I completely wrote off lichen as a possible psychedelic back in 1995, when a fellow senior classmate went on about a certain species known by him and his friends to have hallucinatory effects. While some of his information about psychedelic substances was true (certain blue-stemmed mushrooms, cough syrup), I became convinced he was pulling my leg about the psychoactive properties of lichen, since I was very eager to try any and all hallucinogens and was thus seemingly gullible due to my zeal.

It seems there are many psychoactive lichen, and it seems that many do not take particular precaution in boiling them up and trying them. So, you Northern Canadians -- get cooking!

Unrelated, but this is a DMT analogue (5-bromo-DMT) found in sea sponges and other marine invertebrates.

 

[bransondude]

Just a word about IAS's lichen, don't bother if one wants psychoactivity. Tasted like butt, did nothing even after a fistful orally.

So, the lichen take decades to grow, grow on rocks, and in very cold regions. At least it'll never become popular. Sounds like the kind of thing someone with a lot of expensive equipment could research for fun. Learn the actives and then leave the living lichen alone.

 

[PsilocybeChild]

Unrelated, but this is a DMT analogue (5-bromo-DMT) found in sea sponges and other marine invertebrates.

"Some Metabolites of the Marine Sponges Smenospongia aurea and Smenospongia (= Polyfibrospongia) echina"

-wikipedia

 

[ms_manic_minxx]

My heart overflows with joy at the thought of psychoactive lichen.

It also makes me want to sing... Jonsi .

 

[SKA]

Thx Bransondude. I won't bother I Am Shaman's Lichens. May they crumble and fall into oblivion for selling people crap like that.

I don't know if all Lichen species grow that slow. Perhaps some will grow much faster.
First thing to do is to identify psychoactive Lichen species, by mostly trial & error + the little scientific and experiential information we have on Psychoactive Lichen.
It might be handy to rule out a number of Lichens known to be toxic and a number of Lichens that have been used to eat without known psychoactive effects.
If we know this, then we may see if this Lichen species can be made to grow faster.
Ideal temperature, lightlevels and humidity in a terrarium? Soil/Growth medium rich in nutrients? A little Insect-symbiotic help perhaps?

But for now I don't see much else we can do but scrape Lichens off of walls and treebarks and start smoking/drinking tea in a really really low dose and increase the dose from there, Shulgin style.






PS: Concerning the Lichen that Shulgin describes in PIHKAL; It is said to contain Olivetol ( or something close to that word ) which is an essential oil that closely resembles THC. A simple conversion into 9 Delta THC, a THC analogue, can be made with Orange juice. ( I've ordered TIHKAL and PIHKAL so I can check this out )

If this is so, then we could find other, more easily and quickly grown plants that also are rich in Olivetol. Then we no longer have to trouble painstakingly slow growing Lichens.

 

[L_Starr]

.
.
Im lichen this already!!

.
.

LMAO thats great!

Also I psychoactive compounds in lichen now that i havnt herd of! All the ones by the sea side are defintally not psychoactive.

 

[ms_manic_minxx]

This thread is really growing on me. :roll:

Maybe everyone at the Nexus could pitch in and we could buy Sealand...

 

[biopsylo]

iceland, check
rocks and lichens, check
Bjork? 8)
what you didn't think she would be in the know?:lol:

 

[SKA]

Well needless to say; Might anyone of the Nexus happen to travel to Reikjavik, Iceland, or better; live in Iceland, they should defenitely look into this issue.
Ask the local Youth and if possible visit this bar named Sirkus.

This may be our best bet in finding the particulairly Psychedelic Lichens from the Stone Soup-article, which are said to bring about lengthy visions of trolls much resembling DMT elfs in nature.

I found this article on Lichens and their various uses: http://web.uvic.ca/~stucraw/part1.html

I'll copy and paste a few interresting lines from that page.

A novel species of Dictyonema was used by the Waorani as a hallucinogen. They called the lichen Ne/ne/ndape/ and used it in shamanistic rituals (Davis and Yost 1983)

Source "Davis and Yost 1983" sounds like it needs further investigations. Also Waorani culture & history seems worthy of investigation too.

An unidentified saxicolous lichen was called Jievut hiawsik [lit. "Earth flower"] by the Pima of California. It was used as a good luck charm, and it was smoked for its narcotic effect (Curtin 1949).

In Mauritania, Parmelia paraguariensi is mixed with tobacco and smoked. It is also burned as an insect repellent and used as perfume (Lange 1957).

An unidentified pyrenocarpous lichen was used by the Denís of Amazonian Brazil as an recreational snuff (Prance 1972).

 

[Dorge]

I've worked with usnea, for it's antibiotic properties and oak moss for perfumes.
I've also been very interested over the years of the club moss lycopodium species called lost in the woods that would cause confusion if you smoked it. And the natives in the USA did smoke it.

 

[blue lunar night]

^ i love the fragrance of oak moss, it is deeply satisfying.

unfortunately i don't have a bioassay to share
but for the love of the lichens i'll offer some pictures of Dictyonema sericeum, suspected "hallucinogen" 'nenendape' of the Waorani/Huaorani in Ecuador.

and some related South American Dictyonema species:

apparently Dictyonema, is more closely related to mushrooms than other fungi, being composed of cyanobacteria & basidiomycetes, rather than the typical/common ascomycetes.

and such an enchanting emerald hue! :shock: :surprised

 

[Dorge]

Thoooooose are just lovely..........

 

[Ljosalfar]

Awesome! Thanks for the enchantment and the phylogeny tip!

 

[blue lunar night]

i just found this little nugget of info regarding the Dictyonema species, from Richard Evans Schultes' article, "Psychoactive plants in need of chemical and pharmacological study".

...Dictyonema was once employed in shamanistic ritual, but it apparently has dropped out of use. It was taken "when bad shaman [sic] ate it to send a curse to cause other Waorani to die." It was prepared as an infusion with certain species of bryophytes called kigiwai. The effects of the drug were headache and confusion; it is also said to cause sterility...

seems perhaps it is more pleasing to the eye than the body or mind...
o well
the intrigue remains

 

[SKA]

Thanx for the Visual aid blue lunar night. It's beautyfull.

I found something Wikipedia(source: Shulgin) has to say about the synthesis of 9-Delta-THC by reacting Olivetol, extracted from certain Lichens, with D-limonene in the presence of phosphoryl OxyChloride:

Synthesis talk that involves highly watched or dangerous chemicals and proceedures are not allowed in the Nexus. Please read the attitude page.

This compound has been documented [2] as being a usable ingredient in various methods of condensation reactions, which can produce a synthetic form of THC.

One such method is a condensation reaction of olivetol and pulegone[3] as mentioned in the book PiHKAL by Alexander Shulgin. In PiHKAL, Shulgin also notes a cruder method of producing the same product by bringing to reaction olivetol and the essential oil obtained from orange peel in the presence of phosphoryl chloride.[3] It can also be produced by reacting olivetol with a-pinene.
Another method for the stereospecific synthesis of Δ9-tetrahydrocannabinol comprising condensing olivetol with 2-carene oxide.[4]

I bought PIHKAL an TIHKAL recently and I'm gunna read more, hoping to find Shulgin's mention of what species of Lichens he extracted the Olivetol from.
I checked Wikipedia on "Olivetol" to see if there are other plantsources for Olivetol, but it didn't mention anything but "certain species of Lichens".

Olivetol - Wikipedia

en.wikipedia.org

UPDATE: Ooh in the bottom of that Wikipedia page, where the sources are listed, a species of Lichens that contains olivetol is mentioned:

Hassuni I, Razxouk H. (2005). "Olivetol: Constituent of lichen Evernia prunastri Ach. or "oakmoss"". Physical and Chemical News 26: 98–103.

I suppose Hassuni I, Razxouk H. is a source worthy of investigation too.
This is the little fellow:

Here is more about the Olivetol containing Lichen "Oak Moss":

Oakmoss - Wikipedia

en.wikipedia.org