January 2000
I bought 15 grams of Indra’s stuff during November 1999 [Indra, a Danish group, sell an iboga rootbark extract roughly one fifth the strength of pure ibogaine], as soon as discussions about this topic on the list made me think that it was a reliable source and an effective product, whose cheap price seemed to make of it a bargain. My first contacts by mail with Indra were very positive: quick and clear answers, general impression of expertise and seriousness. Then, when I ordered the product, I received this one in a few days, as foreseen. The extract is a brown powder, wrapped in one gram individual plastic sachets, tightly closed, each with two gel caps.
These 15 grams were destined to my third trip and to my girlfriend’s first. Toward half December, she ingested an 1/2 gram test-dose, on early morning, with empty stomach. Three hours later she didn’t feel any effect, so she swallowed 1/2 supplementary gram. Less than one hour later she felt the normal usual mild signs of a moderate ibogaine ingestion: distortion of vision with some peripheral phosphenes and lightnings, locomotion problems that incited her to lie down without moving, then memories, visions and impressions bound to problems that pushed her to take ibogaine (resumed in some words, I would say that problems that she wishes to adjust with ibogaine are psychological order bound to the death of several members of her near family in a very short time, about two years ago. These events seemed to make reappear traumas relating to her childhood and then she became depressive, used to sometimes drink much and to smoke a lot. No other drugs habits). She felt absolutely no worry of uneasiness or vomit. Effects remained very light and lasted until the evening while attenuating themselves progressively. The following day morning they had disappeared, she was all right.
So we decided to plan a full trip as soon as possible, i.e. toward half January. On Sunday 16 January morning, she took four grams in gel caps, with empty stomach. She had not taken anti-nauseating because the first time, for the test, she didn’t feel any uneasiness, no vomiting although she remained physically active until the moment where she was forced to lie down. All was OK in the beginning, the ibogaine began to produce its first effects about three quarters of an hour later, when she began to feel bizarre. An half hour later she began to feel high. At this moment I took an initiative that appeared to me good, but that proved to be in fact a very stupid idea that was going to waste all: I helped her to stand up to go to the toilets, thinking that it was worth to get rid of this kind of chore whereas ibo effects had just started and were therefore still mild, to be later more quiet when she is really “gone”. Unfortunately the fact to rise, even briefly (toilets were just next to the room, there were only some steps to do), triggered a violent uneasiness, a very strong need to vomit against which she should constantly fight. These problems lasted numerous hours, in fact until the evening, and seemed to have prevented the ibogaine to accomplish the least psychological effect, vision or remembering. On the evening she fell asleep, and remained then more or less sleepy or unconscious until on Tuesday morning where she was able to rise. She didn’t remember much things, otherwise to have reconsidered to many episodes of her life, not necessarily bound to her childhood. But according to her nothing determinant seemed to have occurred during these two days, if something had occurred she was not conscious of it, and didn’t notice any considerable change to the exit of the trip. The only thing that really impressed her indeed was these long hours on Sunday when she fought roughly against the uneasiness and the vomit. This was extremely laborious and let her exhausted. In fact, she sometimes could not stop herself from vomiting moderately, and probably rejected 1/2 gram to 1 gram of product, according to my evaluation.
She took the ibogaine three weeks ago, and the only change that she could have noted, in herself or in her habits, is the fact that during the first days of her return, she needed to smoke a lot less and strongly lowered her cigarettes consumption -but it only lasted some days, and she came back very quickly to her normal consumption. Otherwise number of memories and emotions bound to her mother’s death come back to her conscience regularly and destabilizes her. According to the principles of primaltherapy it seems to me rather a progress if she however accepts to correctly manage this stuff, but she doesn’t agree to that point of view.
Thus globally, I believe we can qualify this experience as negative. It seems to me that this negativity is due to the violent uneasiness that prevented all constructive effect during Sunday, and to vomits that probably made insufficient the quantity of ibogaine ingested. As we didn’t know the strength of the extract and my friend’s reactivity precisely to this substance, she had first ingested 4 grams and I had prepared 2 supplementary grams that she could take later if needed, that is if effects of the 4 initial grams were not powerful enough. But in fact, she finally retained 3 to 3,5 grams without being able to take more again thereafter. This quantity was probably very insufficient for her so we plan, for her next trip with ibogaine foreseen during April, that she directly ingests 5 or 6 grams of extract while taking care to swallow an efficient anti-nauseating one hour before.
Regards to all,
Xavier