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Trauma to Nirvana
Tabernanthe iboga, MDMA, MDA & Ketamine
Citation:   cryptix420. "Trauma to Nirvana: An Experience with Tabernanthe iboga, MDMA, MDA & Ketamine (exp116758)". Erowid.org. Nov 8, 2022. erowid.org/exp/116758

 
DOSE:
T+ 0:00
200 mg oral Tabernanthe iboga (rootbark)
  T+ 24:00 500 mg oral Tabernanthe iboga (rootbark)
  T+ 48:00 125 mg oral MDMA  
  T+ 48:00 30 mg oral MDA  
  T+ 49:00 60 mg oral MDMA  
  T+ 49:00 15 mg oral MDA  
  T+ 54:00   insufflated Ketamine  
BODY WEIGHT: 180 lb
Where to begin?

I’m in excellent physical health, cycling regularly and paying attention to a whole, nutritious diet. I have many blessings, and many curses, but on the good side I am very physically resilient and rarely become ill. I have suffered several circumstances that may well have been fatal for others. I highlight this because iboga is, statistically, dangerous - I believe around 1 in 400 experiences can be fatal. Of course, there is no verifying the integrity of this data, but it makes sense to me logically, given the immensely powerful and unique nature of iboga.

Iboga is some serious shit. The Master Teacher - I hear that’s what it’s called in Africa. An old friend of mine, Madhu, had waxed poetic about the benefits of microdosing iboga while he did a stint in Central America. He talked of how he hadn’t drank alcohol in many weeks, had no interest in it, and had no interest in pursuing women that were drinking. This was remarkable, as Madhu had traditionally been very open to ongoing alcohol consumption in the form of cider, beer, or whatever - he was also a general polydrug user and psychonaut. He attributed this to low doses of iboga.

My interest had been piqued, and I read lore over the years about this elusive, unknown plant as my life generally spiraled out of control. Alcohol wedged a way in, and before I knew it I could look back several years and find no two-week period without alcohol consumption
I could look back several years and find no two-week period without alcohol consumption
(and I drank, like, excessively each time - it wasn’t ‘for fun’).

Somehow I’m here where I managed to abstain from cannabis for over six months (yea yea), another plant I’d become very addicted to. But still, it’s like I’m always taking something to feel ‘different.’

10ug of LSD today, then .2g of a mushroom cap tomorrow, then 10mg of 2C-B the next day, then ketamine and it all starts to blur...

I’m not Van Gogh, but I’m trying to paint a portrait of how insidious the substance use had become in my life - and let us not ignore the chance that the drug abuse may itself point to a very different, deeper issue.

So, here we go.

I get the iboga bark, doesn’t look like much - eat 200mg and call it a day.

Next day, eat 500mg of the root bark. Cool.

And the next day - my partner and I decide to take MDMA together to celebrate 6 months of being in love :-)

Delightful. I take 125mg of MDMA, with about 30mg of MDA. About an hour later, that’s followed by another 60mg of MDMA, and 15mg of MDA.

it’s probably best not to do this combo…

Our experience was highly pleasant [to say the absolute least], as tends to be the case when lovers take MDMA together, but that isn’t quite the point of this story.

When we had both come down from the experience, probably about six hours after our initial ingestion of the MDMA, I thought it might behoove me to take some ketamine. This is ketamine I had taken before, s-isomer, needles, very high quality and psychedelic. I have extensive experience with both ketamine and MDMA/MDA, as well as the combination, but what was to come I could not have imagined.

After I insufflated (or should I say snorted, which is politically correct? I kid.) perhaps ~100mg of ketamine, I went and laid back in bed with my partner. This is when things begin.

—-
Just as if someone had set foot in the bedroom through the bedroom door, I saw (in my mind’s eye I suppose) a cyborg beetle appear. It was markedly different from any other visual I’ve had on any drug (LSD, psilocybin, DMT, you get the picture) in that it felt very real, very present, and it’s a difficult sensation to describe. The cyborg beetle had numerous robotic arms that reminded me of Doctor Octavius from Spiderman, and at first I felt it was an ominous threat to my existence.

I then saw numerous ethereal warriors leaping out to my defense, all to be slaughtered (my partner mentioned this could be a visualization of my ego being killed - I resonate with that).

While this is all happening, I felt a compulsion to begin sharing intimate personal details of a past trauma with my partner. I cannot say why, for it had not been on my mind (consciously) in any recent time - it seemed to burst out me like an alien. Indeed, that visual is very fitting for how I felt this cancerous trauma was ethereally extracted from my chest in some sort of astral surgery.

As I began, for no real reason, jabbering on about this night many years ago, and verbalizing explicit details I’ve never shared with another person, I see these bright lights all around me, and the cyborg beetle is ominously hovering over me, encompassing my entire field of vision. My chest has been cut open with a high powered laser, and the warriors [ego?] are pierced in place against the walls with its robotic tentacles. I felt tingling physical sensations in my chest. I keep talking. Shit was bizarre.

So, after explaining to my partner these things which have haunted me for so many years - like these fears of being hunted or violently killed by this individual I used to associate with - there was an intense feeling of release. It’s like when taking a huge shit, but infinitely more intense. I sat up in bed and told my partner “I feel different.”

I did, though - no, seriously. Something was off. Maybe they [cyborg beetle] had accidentally hit a major vein/energy channel in the surgery [in reflection this is basically what I was thinking on the conscious/subconscious border] and isn’t sure I’m going to make it? But, I reminded myself of the sophistication of the ‘technology’ in use, and think of my faith. I am not religious, per se, but I do feel a sense of connection to…..something beyond ‘here’. Great Spirit feels good to me. Who can know - but I like to ponder sometimes.

I became convinced I was going to die. I knew it. That was the end. I have finally found my partner in life, my beautiful lover, my other half, only to die now to taking a combination of substances known to be fatal. How could I have been so stupid. This is the thinking. Around this time we brought our dog into the bedroom (where she is not allowed - that’s how serious this was…) and onto the bed, and immediately upon touching her/petting her I felt my body surge with warmth. Life support. I don’t know how else to say it, that’s how it felt.

When I would look down at the palms of my hands, I’d swear they were so white, so pale, and I knew that the blood was not flowing to my extremities and therefore my body sensed I was in danger and was doing its best to protect my internal organs. It was about midnight by this time, but I needed to go on a walk lest I die; it seemed that without movement, my heart would stop beating and that would be the end. It was utterly real.

The physical sensations cannot be overstated. Pins and needles - my god, the alteration of how my blood flow felt. So intense. It seemed that my entire body from head to toe had been deadened on the surface, bloodless, lifeless. All my movements felt limp, futile, as if I was trying to keep my heart pumping by kicking my foot out and bringing it back to me, or swinging my arms in, I felt I had to participate and provide support. I had my partner taking my pulse multiple times, because I felt that my heart was beating extremely slow, and reality was disintegrating slowing down, slow….mot…ion

To add merriment to the mix, I recalled a reading I had from a renowned TCM practitioner on my pulse years prior that I not only had some liver damage, but also a heart arrhythmia - and of course I’d just read that people with heart issues should steer clear of iboga.

So I knew I was completely fucked. What do you do? Accept it. I felt grateful for each and every moment I spent with my partner. There was nothing else. She held me as we walked around the neighborhood (I was barefoot) thoroughly convinced these were my last moments on Earth. Going to the hospital felt pointless, as I knew my heart would stop at any moment. I felt my feet plop lifelessly along the asphalt, and cursed myself for being the greatest fool to ever live. Here in my very hands is the most beautiful, loving, caring woman I have ever known - and because I recklessly combined potent drugs, I was leaving her here alone, and trashing my opportunity to spend a lifetime with her - which would be the greatest gift a man could receive.

About two hours after I’d taken the ketamine, I started to regain a sense of normalcy, and slivers of the seeming ridiculous hope that I might actually be allowed to live came to my consciousness.

I felt, light. Like a feather. So delicate. Elf-like, floating on the surface.

I sink into the couch, the authentic joy, the blanket of warmth, it comes over me. I’m going to live. Unreal.

I get to be this, and live.

I looked into my past, my habits, my life, and I’m bewildered. Why would I intoxicate myself on a daily basis? The potency, the pristine power of real, raw life was coursing through my being. I felt me, and that was - for once - enough.
The potency, the pristine power of real, raw life was coursing through my being. I felt me, and that was - for once - enough.


Wow.

Such a beautiful night, it’s quiet, there’s the pasture, can you hear the cows moo? POP. That’s how it felt when the kitchen light was turned on. Everything felt that way; like the vibrations from the crickets massaging my virgin eardrums - it truly felt like a massage. Quick, rapid fire, drrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrr…oh god it felt so good. Trinkets and houseplants burst forth with color onto my eyes, like a pot of ink spilling onto a blank canvass. Somehow, I’d felt as if I’d never truly seen any of it before.

I was scared to go to sleep, but I did.

I am writing this about three weeks since this happened, ergo I am able to perceive some very interesting effects this experience has had on me.

You see, I’ve had this f**** up breathing problem for several years now. It’s this sensation where I inhale normally, but then upon the exhale something horrible happens. Imagine you are about to puke - enact it, in your chest, euuughhk, that tenseness - that is what I have felt for so long when trying to exhale. Instead of being able to simply exhale, my breath would come out in short burst, one after the other, after being held in for a few seconds. It’s torture. Bane of existence sort of issue. I have spent so much time trying to figure out what in God’s name is the cause of this issue, and the only thing I came up with was that it seemed stress related. More stress and it gets worse and more intense, and if I do yoga, it abates for a while. Generally though, it would take my constant focus to breathe normally.

BUT GUESS WHAT? I CAN BREATHE NOW MOTHERFUCKER! Yes that was said in the spirit of the legendary Ice Man, or Wim Hof.

But seriously, the problem has vanished. That’s it. Now, I have had some echoes, as I suppose they’d be called, but for the last three weeks I have breathed normally, without trying, 99.9% of the time. That is fucking incredible.

I feel different. Lighter. Happier. Easier. This is the longest I have gone without consuming alcohol in nearly three years.

This experience changed how I view trauma. I think trauma is literal physical matter that we hold in our bodies. It can be removed, and replaced with goodness. Do I recommend you use iboga to do such a thing? Depends how big your balls are.

I can still barely believe this shit, lol.

Peace

Exp Year: 2022ExpID: 116758
Gender: Male 
Age at time of experience: 32
Published: Nov 8, 2022Views: 578
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Tabernanthe iboga (200) : Difficult Experiences (5), Multi-Day Experience (13), Therapeutic Intent or Outcome (49), Combinations (3), Small Group (2-9) (17)

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