| DOSE: |
10 g |
oral |
Kratom
|
(leaves) |
A few months ago I purchased an ounce of kratom from an online retailer. This vendor is very reliable and I am 100% sure that the kratom I have is genuine. For a variety of reasons I didn’t get around to trying it until last night. I had had a particularly rough day, and when I tried to sit down and relax in the evening I found myself unable to stop thinking about the days’ unpleasant events. I don’t make a habit of using drugs to drown out my problems (in fact usually I use them to bring my problems and shortcomings out so I can address them face-on), but under the circumstances I figured I’d allow myself a bit of indulgence. I chose kratom out of my somewhat extensive herb collection because I was curious about it and from what I had read it sounded perfect for my situation.
I decided 10g would be a good starting point, so I eyeballed a bit more than a third of the package. Thus, my dose was probably somewhere in the 8-12g range. I crumbled the leaf into a pot, removed as many veins as possible and added 250 ml of water. I brought it to a boil and allowed it to simmer lightly for 15 minutes. I then poured it into a French-press coffee pot and filtered out the leaf. I reserved the liquid and did a second extraction in the same manner. I then combined the two liquids and simmered them until there was a reasonable quantity of liquid for consumption (~150 ml). I allowed it to cool for a bit and began drinking it at 9:10.
When I took it off the stove the liquid looked like a strong cup of black tea. Interestingly enough, it clouded as it cooled and by the time I drank it it looked as though someone had added milk to it. The tea was intensely bitter but bearable. I found that the bitterness only lasted as long as there was tea residue in my mouth, so chasing each sip with water helped quite a bit. I finished drinking at 9:15 and began watching some SNL with my roommate.
By 9:25 I started feeling the first inklings of activity, but they could well have just been placebo. The back of my throat was numb and I felt a bit spacey. The come-up was incredibly smooth, practically unnoticeable. I found myself gazing blankly at the screen at 9:35 and realized that I was very much sedated. I felt great – relaxed and pleasantly stoned but still capable of clear thought. I watched the skits for a while longer but eventually they just became annoying and distracting. I was feeling pretty sociable, so decided to go to talk to some friends down the hall (I’m in a university residence). It was difficult to muster up the motivation to get up, but I managed. When I got up I felt pleasantly light-headed and dreamy. My motor skills were more or less unimpaired, though I would definitely refrain from driving in this state.
I chatted with friends for 20 minutes or so, during which slightly unpleasant waves of heat started to pass over my body. I started to feel some mild stomach discomfort as well, so I excused myself and returned to my room. The discomfort worsened for a few minutes until I emitted three inhumanly large belches. This did the trick, the stomach discomfort and hot flashes passed and I felt great once again. I lay down in bed, closed my eyes, and something wonderful began to occur. As I lay there I began to experience two or three second fragments of what I can only describe as dreams. It was like my consciousness would be plopped down into the middle of a dream and a moment later be extracted just as suddenly. I would return to reality only be plopped down into the middle of another completely different dream a few moments later.
At first I found this frustrating because I could not pick up and follow the plotlines of any of these dreams – the second I would think about what was happening the dream would dissipate. Eventually I gave up trying to make sense of them and just went with it. I have very little recollection of the actual content of any of these dreams – I must have experienced well over 100 of them, each one totally random and unique. The most interesting part is that I was totally conscious throughout all of this, I wasn’t sleepy at the time and I am positive that I didn’t drift off. I spent an extremely pleasant 45 minutes in this state.
At around 11:00 I got up and started chatting and listening to music on my computer. I still felt light headed and a bit sedated. By 11:30 I was entirely back to baseline, but my stress was gone and I was totally relaxed.
Kratom met and exceeded the expectations I had of it. The only negative aspects were the mild but short lived body load and the short duration – I expected a 4-6 hour experience but was sober at the 2 hour mark. Both are minor problems – the former could be explained by the fact that I had been experiencing some stomach discomfort on and off throughout the day. As for the latter, I may well have gotten tired of the kratom intoxication after 4-6 hours, so perhaps the short duration was a blessing. I would also like to note that euphoria was neither expected nor experienced at this dosage. I will use the rest of the leaf (~double this dose) next time to see if the body load and/or duration increases significantly with dosage. I’m pretty sure kratom isn’t physically addictive, but I could see how one could easily become psychologically addicted to it. It is almost TOO good of a stress reliever; for some people it could certainly be tempting to use it every day after school or work to unwind.
I am amazed and grateful that such a wonderful herb is still legal. Please use it responsibly so it stays that way.
