November 1999
Subject: Trip Report 3
Date: Thu, 25 Nov 1999 03:24:55 -0800
From: “xavier liberti” [email protected]
Here is the report of the two iboga experiments that I carried out at the beginning of October 99. As I wanted to make a detailed report, this one is quite long so I will post it in two parts. So this is the first part.
First of all I must say that I am French and live in France. Thus, I did not break any law since neither iboga (the plant itself) nor ibogaine are prohibited or restricted in France. Although the conclusions of this report are extremely favorable to ibogaine, I do not encourage anyone to break the laws of their country if they regulate iboga. Besides, my English is quite limited, so I apologize if some points are not expressed very clearly. I did my best within my means. This report was first written in French and then translated into English by me, so if any of you are interested in the French version, please contact me privately by E-mail.
Contrary to what seems to be the interest of many people here, I am not really interested in iboga for its anti-addictive properties. I am not strictly speaking an “addict”, although for some years and particularly in recent months, I have been led to drink alcohol (sometimes in large doses) and to regularly smoke tobacco or cannabis, but I always stayed away from hard drugs because I knew very well that my psychological problems could have made me a drug addict very easily. I am what is called a “self-primaler”, i.e. someone who does primal therapy on my own (if you don’t know what primal therapy is, have a look here: http ://home.att.net/~jspeyrer/ . This is the reference site on the subject. Moreover, this is where I learned of the existence of ibogaine, since its effects meet the objectives of primal therapy).
I went through an extremely traumatic childhood and spent my adult life (I’m 42) trying to heal myself from it. I have worked a lot and progressed a lot, especially in the last few years since I learned about primal therapy. I managed to solve a lot of problems, but by far not all, because I was never able to go back to the source, that is to say my first four or five years where I never managed to bring out the traumatic memories that are there, the emotions that are associated with them, and therefore to repair the damage they have caused me. It was just that those early years gradually appeared to me, as my therapy progressed, like a vast black hole filled with I don’t know what was immensely scary and painful, but I just couldn’t fit into it. I could only sense that there were essential and terrible things there. Also, when I learned of the existence of ibogaine and inquired at length about it on the internet, I quickly understood that this was the tool I needed to progress in my healing. , which is to say that no doubt, at least I hoped, would allow me to dive into the black hole to confront what was there and eliminate it.
Eventually I got hold of 60 grams of grated root bark which, according to my supplier, contained 5% ibogaine, which must correspond to an amount of 3 grams and therefore be more than sufficient for my experiment. My friend and I went to isolate ourselves in a small house near the sea, calm and appropriate for my experience.
My trip was scheduled for Sunday, October 3 in the morning. On Thursday September 30, I tested the root by absorbing about 2 grams. It had almost no effect on me. I just felt a little weird, but barely. Also on Friday morning, I tried again, this time absorbing about four grams. Was it the effect of cumulation with the root of the day before? I don’t know, but as much as the two grams on Thursday had done almost nothing to me, the four grams on Friday had a very powerful effect on me. About an hour and a half after the ingestion, I had to go to bed and lay down. I had a slight urge to vomit, and I felt from this point of view that it was better that I stay still. Also, everything was spinning when I moved my head or tried to get up, my vision and muscle coordination no longer functioned properly, very quickly flashes appeared. So I definitely decided to stay lying still, eyes closed. I began to have colored visions in 2D, then hallucinations without personal content, increasingly rich and varied and in 3D. After a long time I began to have metaphors of personal content related to my philosophical or metaphysical ideas, but nothing about my personal history or the black hole. Apart from this physical discomfort like seasickness, it was quite pleasant and interesting. It all ended in a weird way: so I was lying on my back, on the bed. This one appeared to me little by little like a launching pad, or rather like a flying saucer on a launching pad, about to take off with me on it. I still had my eyes closed, and at that time the visions depicted the room but greatly enlarged and imposing, as if I were inside a cathedral. An opening was created in the ceiling, at the very top of the cathedral, and I felt that I was about to take off to fly away. It was as if, behind my back and under the saucer, reactors were starting up. I felt like the bed was lifting into the air and rising towards the sky which was beyond the ceiling. Then everything stopped, the reactors gradually shut down while the saucer landed again. The visions ceased. I had the very strong feeling at that time that all this had only been a metaphorical preparation for the real trip, a dress rehearsal in a way, intended to check the proper functioning of the machinery until the final moment of departure. All this had lasted between three and four hours. I was certain then that everything was OK, that I was ready for the big start on Sunday. From that moment I no longer had any psychological effect, vision or other, on the other hand the physical effects lasted all day, until the evening, gradually diminishing. I even had some vision problems with flashes the next morning when I woke up, but they disappeared very quickly. intended to check the proper functioning of the machinery until the final moment of departure. All this had lasted between three and four hours. I was certain then that everything was OK, that I was ready for the big start on Sunday. From that moment I no longer had any psychological effect, vision or other, on the other hand the physical effects lasted all day, until the evening, gradually diminishing. I even had some vision problems with flashes the next morning when I woke up, but they disappeared very quickly. intended to check the proper functioning of the machinery until the final moment of departure. All this had lasted between three and four hours. I was certain then that everything was OK, that I was ready for the big start on Sunday. From that moment I no longer had any psychological effect, vision or other, on the other hand the physical effects lasted all day, until the evening, gradually diminishing. I even had some vision problems with flashes the next morning when I woke up, but they disappeared very quickly. on the other hand, the physical effects lasted all day, until the evening, gradually diminishing. I even had some vision problems with flashes the next morning when I woke up, but they disappeared very quickly. on the other hand, the physical effects lasted all day, until the evening, gradually diminishing. I even had some vision problems with flashes the next morning when I woke up, but they disappeared very quickly.
On Sunday morning around nine o’clock, I got up and, with an empty stomach, began to ingest the iboga. It took me about an hour and a half to gain about 35 grams, before the ibogaine started working and I went to lie down. It happened more or less like Friday, with the same progression in the visions, then the impression that I was going to take off and that reactors were ignited in my back, ready to propel me. But this time there was no cathedral: I saw a tunnel open in front of me where I felt myself pushed, gradually, at very high speed. I had in mind since the beginning of my research on ibogaine that it should be used to dive into the black hole, so I had the impression that this tunnel was the airlock that would finally allow me to access it, that I was going to emerge somewhere inside to begin my work there. This moment that I had been waiting for had finally arrived, I felt ready and determined, although understandably frightened by these mysteriously terrifying feelings that had always seemed to me to emerge from it. But suddenly, it was as if an immense iron curtain fell in front of me, against which I came to stumble (something like a metal curtain in front of the window of a closed shop, which prevents any intrusion). Of course that abruptly interrupted my run in the tunnel. Something or someone was taunting me, that something or someone that had brought down the curtain, and told me that I couldn’t go back, that I couldn’t go where I wanted. I thrashed against the curtain trying to find a crack, a loophole, a back door, anything anywhere I could slip through. This was the first phase of my trip which lasted until the next morning, early morning. During this time, I did not sleep at all. I have the memory of an immense fight where, first of all, I fought against the curtain without success. Of course it wasn’t a real curtain, similar to those in real life. It was a complex and changing object that turned out to be animated, alive, accompanied by rhythmic sounds. It was something extremely heavy and massive, metallic, overpowering, evil and merciless.
At first I remained myself and fought against the curtain which was like an external element trying to crush me, crush me, destroy me to prevent me from entering; but little by little he became me and I became him, I was an element of the curtain, it was as if he was trying to melt me into him, to absorb me in order to dissolve me, dragging me along with him in his movement and its fury, in its din.
It’s a very difficult experience to describe in common words, so I’m going to use an image to try to make you understand what I felt: imagine that you are a sailor and that you go to sea. an immense wave arrives, lifts you up and carries you away as if to throw you back on the shore. At first you try to keep your balance while maneuvering your boat and tame the wave to cross it. But let’s imagine that the wave is too strong and makes you fall dragging you into it, crashing down on you, ejecting you from your boat while pushing you towards the depths, imagine a huge wave, several kilometers high, imagine its weight and its force when it falls on you,
At the beginning, therefore, I tried to overcome the obstacle by all means to continue my progress. But after my fall, my only fixed idea or obsession was simply to survive. At the end of that eternity, it was as if the wave that had carried me had finally thrown me back onto the shore, where I found myself in a pitiful state. We were Monday morning, the phenomenon stopped, I found myself in my bed, exhausted and rolled. I felt like I had missed everything, I had failed in my attempt to enter the black hole, I felt like I had been violently pushed back and, despite my best efforts, I had nothing. could do to cross the threshold. In fact it was only a false impression, I was to realize it later, because everything I had experienced since the day before was in reality an essential part of the black hole. But at that moment on Monday morning, I didn’t realize it at all, I was convinced that I had totally failed, convinced that my ibogaine experiment had failed irreparably, that therefore the black hole had still remained with me inaccessible, that it would probably remain so forever, that I could never go further in my therapy or heal myself completely, that all this was hopeless, definitely hopeless. I felt deeply unhappy and hopeless. convinced that my experience with ibogaine was irretrievably failed, that therefore the black hole had still remained inaccessible to me, that no doubt it would remain so forever, that I could never go further in my therapy nor heal myself completely, that all of this was hopeless, definitely hopeless. I felt deeply unhappy and hopeless. convinced that my experience with ibogaine was irretrievably failed, that therefore the black hole had still remained inaccessible to me, that no doubt it would remain so forever, that I could never go further in my therapy nor heal myself completely, that all of this was hopeless, definitely hopeless. I felt deeply unhappy and hopeless.
Thereby I entered the second phase of my journey which was also, again without my knowing it, another important, fundamental part of the content of the black hole. So I felt completely helpless, unhappy, unhappy, unhappy, with a feeling of loneliness and nothingness, of absolute abandonment, of infinite despair, of total and definitive defeat. When my friend came to see me on Monday morning when she woke up, I asked her to stay and sit next to me on the bed. I felt so devastated that I needed to confide in her, to confide my misfortune to her. That’s what I did with difficulty because I had trouble speaking. But very quickly I started to cry, to sob, hugging me to her. I cried for a long time like a child, and I think I cried the same way every time she came to see me that day (she came every hour or so). In the meantime, too, I sobbed often. I no longer had any vision, any memory linked to my childhood, any intellectual reflection, nothing other than this feeling of absolute disaster and this immense pain that made me cry, a need to cry oceans of tears. I was just overwhelmed, engulfed by these feelings and felt sore and extremely tired. I thought my iboga journey was over with this failure, that nothing more could happen. In my mind, it seemed to me that I would just have to wait a day or two for the physical effects of the iboga to wear off and I could get up – but what for? My life seemed to me definitely screwed up.
This second phase lasted until late Monday evening. Finally I fell asleep for part of the night, and this sleep constitutes phase 3 of my experience. I don’t have much to say about it because I was really asleep. I woke up somewhere in the middle of the night, and then I realized that during my sleep important things had happened, but I couldn’t remember exactly which ones. I had had visions, and in those visions I remember there were just two large icons, one light and one dark that seemed to symbolize good (or at least something protective and benevolent) and evil ( or at least something destructive and malicious). It seemed to me that I had come into contact with these two principles, that I had met them and had exchanged with them, perhaps also that they themselves had conferred, as if negotiations had taken place between us, that things had progressed, that decisions had no doubt been taken, I do not know exactly. I’m pretty sure I saw and understood a number of these things just the moment I woke up, but they dissipated very quickly, leaving me with just the image of the two icons and an overall impression. It’s quite exactly the impression we sometimes have on waking up in the morning, coming out of a dream, when we vaguely remember this dream but this memory fades almost immediately, and we arrive more to find it then. as if negotiations had taken place between us, that things had progressed, that decisions no doubt had been taken, I don’t know exactly. I’m pretty sure I saw and understood a number of these things just the moment I woke up, but they dissipated very quickly, leaving me with just the image of the two icons and an overall impression. It’s quite exactly the impression we sometimes have on waking up in the morning, coming out of a dream, when we vaguely remember this dream but this memory fades almost immediately, and we arrive more to find it then. as if negotiations had taken place between us, that things had progressed, that decisions no doubt had been taken, I don’t know exactly. I’m pretty sure I saw and understood a number of these things just the moment I woke up, but they dissipated very quickly, leaving me with just the image of the two icons and an overall impression. It’s quite exactly the impression we sometimes have on waking up in the morning, coming out of a dream, when we vaguely remember this dream but this memory fades almost immediately, and we arrive more to find it then. I’m pretty sure I saw and understood a number of these things just the moment I woke up, but they dissipated very quickly, leaving me with just the image of the two icons and an overall impression. It’s quite exactly the impression we sometimes have on waking up in the morning, coming out of a dream, when we vaguely remember this dream but this memory fades almost immediately, and we arrive more to find it then. I’m pretty sure I saw and understood a number of these things just the moment I woke up, but they dissipated very quickly, leaving me with just the image of the two icons and an overall impression. It’s quite exactly the impression we sometimes have on waking up in the morning, coming out of a dream, when we vaguely remember this dream but this memory fades almost immediately, and we arrive more to find it then.
After that I went back to sleep and then came phase 4 of my journey which is the most intense and significant psychological experience of my life, and which I will never forget. It took place in the form of a conscious dream of extraordinary duration, intensity and reality. I found myself in the shoes of a very young child (I don’t know exactly how old, let’s say between three and five years old). The decor was very much like the house I was in for my eboga trip. Everything happened as if this decor represented my mental universe as a child, my inner universe. So I was that child and I was alone, unhappy and fearful. The scenery around me was dark, the mood of the house, the surrounding atmosphere was unhealthy and seemed dangerous, the outlines of objects were menacing and frightening. What I actually experienced was the staging of this universe where my life as a child took place day after day. This unfriendly universe was inhabited, as if haunted by a multitude of other universes which opened up before me when I approached certain places or objects, or when my gaze encountered certain silhouettes. It was at that moment as if doors were opening in space-time and other universes were revealing themselves to my approach or to my gaze, like hypertext links leading to other realities included in the first. These universes are impossible to describe with human and Cartesian words, they were totally non-Cartesian universes populated by bizarre beings, grotesques which in no way resembled the rational world in which we live, which knew neither the same laws of physics nor those of logic. Totally unbridled universes, populated by creatures each stranger than the next. These creatures and these realities had one thing in common: that of being tortured, morally anxious, sick, evil, frightening, destructive, merciless – there were all the shades, all the tones that one can imagine on the negative side of the spirit and a total absence, everywhere and in everything, of anything that can be attached to a positive, calm, soothing, benefactor side. The decor was thus filled with a multitude of universes, which varied according to the time of day or night. The universes of the night were the most terrible and frightening, the most destructive. At the beginning, I simply found myself successively as if caught up, to live there, in these universes, to participate in them by being an integral part of them. I thus traveled for a long, very long time from one reality to another while obviously being subject to its rules and to all its dark and negative sides. It’s as if there were represented all the facets of hell that I visited one after the other, came back and then came back again, in which I was absorbed and burned, consumed and often physically crushed. It lasted a very, very long time (I will come back later to this notion of time during the different stages of my journey). I thus traveled for a long, very long time from one reality to another while obviously being subject to its rules and to all its dark and negative sides. It’s as if there were represented all the facets of hell that I visited one after the other, came back and then came back again, in which I was absorbed and burned, consumed and often physically crushed. It lasted a very, very long time (I will come back later to this notion of time during the different stages of my journey). I thus traveled for a long, very long time from one reality to another while obviously being subject to its rules and to all its dark and negative sides. It’s as if there were represented all the facets of hell that I visited one after the other, came back and then came back again, in which I was absorbed and burned, consumed and often physically crushed. It lasted a very, very long time (I will come back later to this notion of time during the different stages of my journey). in which I was absorbed and burned, consumed and often physically crushed. It lasted a very, very long time (I will come back later to this notion of time during the different stages of my journey). in which I was absorbed and burned, consumed and often physically crushed. It lasted a very, very long time (I will come back later to this notion of time during the different stages of my journey).
But little by little an important change was taking place. It’s that in the beginning I was caught up in them, was subject to their rules, was only a victim who had no means of fighting or of escaping. Then gradually, I tried and managed to get closer psychologically to all the creatures that inhabited them, they gradually became my relatives, then my confidants, then my friends, and at the same time I too became their relative, then confidant, then friend. It was as if I gradually tamed them while they too tamed me. Day after day they were less afraid of me, I was less afraid of them, we were less afraid of ourselves. I remember long discussions and long confidences, whispered secrets, mutual confessions and so, over time, of mutual appeasement. Each time that peace was definitively established between them and me, that everything had been said and appeased, then one by one each of these universes dissipated, disappeared definitively. At the end of my dream I was still a little boy, I had not aged in age but I had changed internally as my surrounding universe had changed. I looked everywhere, approached everything, but no universe opened up under my gaze or as I approached. There was nothing left but a soft light, a comfortable, calm, reassuring house – and I felt, me little child, calm and reassured, and smiling. I felt liberated. It was like a breaking dawn after the night and its ghosts had gone. My dream thus ended in a last circular gaze where I noticed and above all felt that all these universes and all these ghosts were definitively gone, that nothing was now more haunted. This is when I woke up.
It was early Tuesday morning, still dark, and this was the fifth and final phase of my journey where I reflected on, assessed and understood everything that had happened to me. It lasted a few hours.
What struck me first was how I felt. I felt profoundly changed. I had the impression that my body was thinner and lighter, much less massive, less stiff and better oiled. My head felt incredibly light, calm, and above all without the painful pressure I felt in it before my trip. It seemed to me that my brain occupied only a very small part of the space in my cranial box, as if it were filled with emptiness – not a negative emptiness on the contrary, it was very pleasant and positive, relaxing. I felt marvelously well, and delivered as I was in my dream. And then I understood that in reality everything had worked perfectly well, that Mother Iboga had done a fantastic job.
Here is a summary of everything I understood during this phase 5: When I was a child, I was never loved or respected, protected, pampered. I never knew what tenderness or affection meant. My mother was cold and distant, my father demanding, harsh, violent, sadistic. So little by little I developed a feeling of extreme loneliness, suffering and unhappiness. Psychologically I felt immensely hopeless and torn, filled with cries and tears that I could not express because I was not allowed to cry under any circumstances. My first years were thus for me years of absolute despair, of an inescapable feeling of defeat, of the impossibility of escaping an implacable fate. I believe that it is this psychological crushing which favored the emergence, by the weakening of my immune system, numerous illnesses, some of which were serious (I had parameningitis and polyomyelitis). All these diseases in my early childhood caused many deep fevers accompanied by delirium, where all the characteristics of my real life gradually crystallized. I thus created for myself a whole mental universe where all the suffering and violence of my reality were embodied in an imaginary and symbolic way, and created extremely black and evil “parallel realities” which originated and developed throughout my many fevers, then at night during my countless nightmares, and went so far as to invade my days by distorting the reality of what I saw and heard. I lived in a world where the real and the imaginary merged, but where evil and danger were found little by little everywhere. I lived in perpetual terror and a permanent sense of destruction that I felt in my mind and in my body. This is undoubtedly what men call madness, and this is what I called, without knowing what it was, the black hole. I set out to explore this black hole using the ibogaine, with a certain number of ideas in mind about the work I had to do, a certain type of strategy. I had meticulously prepared my trip with a list of questions, questions to be answered about my father, my mother, my environment; I had previously found a certain number of memories or elements of memories on which I wanted to concentrate, to focus myself in order to be able to find things and to understand them, to resolve them. I had brought with me childhood photos that could have served as a springboard for me to dive into myself. In short, I wanted to go into my unconscious, into the black hole, with a plan of attack that was characterized by the fact that I was focused on personal relationships with those around me, and I thought that the origin of my problems and therefore the solution was there. I was completely wrong. What scared me so much in the black hole,
Ibogaine unearthed it all, brought it all to the surface and finally dealt with it – and all of it in its own way, that is to say symbolic and emotional, completely bypassing the strategy that I had developed. Phase 1 of my trip was only a reproduction, a staging of what my delusions and nightmares really were for many years. Phase 2, this feeling of being so deeply unhappy, alone, hopeless, abandoned by fate, this kind of cosmic despair, that was my daily feeling as a child. These tears and sobs that I was also able to express during this phase 2, they were my childhood tears and sobs that I had never been able to exteriorize until this day and which were therefore still inside me. In fact, phases 1 and 2, that was precisely the black hole, unearthed and staged in a symbolic way appropriate to the circumstances. And this long conscious dream that I carried out during phase 4, it was there also a completely symbolic staging invented and carried out by the ibogaine to treat me, to cure me of these ghosts, this violence and this suffering. .
So it was Tuesday morning, I felt at the same time psychologically liberated and totally physically exhausted. I felt like I had expended tremendous energy on this adventure and was completely discharged, so weak. Physically, the effects of the ibogaine hadn’t quite worn off, I still had flashes and everything was spinning when I tried to get up. So I still stayed in bed all day, reliving in memory all that had happened to engrave it well in my memory. My trip ended like this.
(End of the first part)
(Beginning of the second part)
I spent the next two days recovering my strength. I started to eat again gradually. At first the food or drink seemed cold and metallic to me, not good at all. I went for a walk by the sea, which did me a lot of good. I had trouble walking, my friend had to support me. I was really very weak but it didn’t bother me as I felt both my body and my mind released from the pain and pressure that had filled them before. My head felt incredibly light and airy. It was as if I had been cleared of brush and fresh, healthy soil stood ready to be sown. In two days I seemed to feel new seeds taking root, I began to have desires again, to project myself into the future, to consider concrete projects – all things that no longer existed before ibogaine. I felt really very satisfied with it all and very confident.
It was unfortunately at this time that I had problems with my friend, who for her part, for reasons that I will not develop here, was really not feeling well because my experience had troubled her. So she went away and, from Thursday evening to Sunday evening, I found myself alone. It was very hard for me because his presence by my side helped me a lot, I felt the desire for human warmth on which to lean to really regain a foothold in life, I still felt fragile, as if I were born, and it was as if his departure suddenly made me fall back into the hole from which I had just emerged. I started to feel bad again, I felt like my inner seeds had been trampled on, and they were dying.
So I found myself alone at home in Bordeaux for the week, quite distraught because I had hoped so much in ibogaine, I was waiting for the end of my problems and the opportunity for a new start, I had thought for a moment that I had obtained this objective and I felt that I was losing it. That’s why I decided to take ibogaine again, hoping that this second take would put me back on a good footing. I had about 20 grams of bark left, which I decided to take on Wednesday morning. I knew from reading it here and there on the net that taking ibogaine again soon after a first take was not recommended, as the long term metabolites seemed to block its effects. However, as I was really not feeling well,
This second experience was extremely negative. I had the same physical effects as during the first, or almost: distorted vision, flashes, want to vomit and impossibility to get up on my own. But I had much less psychological effects. Things were brought to my awareness but were not resolved. For example, I felt that an important part of the black hole had been resolved, undoubtedly the most essential and the most painful, but that I still had many problems to solve which had a more “classic” aspect much more in relation to the strategy I had in mind when I embarked on my first trip. On this subject I remembered a certain number of elements from my childhood; I remember meeting my mother in a dream and talking to her, for asking him questions about my early childhood. I remember having felt a very deep feeling of sadness which made me realize that there were still many negative feelings and tears in me, but of a completely different nature from those which had been treated before. It was a feeling of absolute, deep sadness that invaded every part of my body and mind. I felt like I was made, built on sadness. In the same way that everyone’s skeleton is made up largely of calcium, it was as if my “mental skeleton” was made up of sadness. The big difference here with my first experience was that then a lot of material had been brought back to consciousness and then processed, and I had come out of it cleansed, like new from those things. This time those things were only brought to the surface, but not processed. Which means that today they are simply conscious to me and that I have to live with without being able to resolve them. It’s as if the ibogaine just showed me the work that remained to be done, or part of it.
Another important part of this second experience was like a general review of my life as a whole, of who I was and of what I had become, with enormous acuity and precision, without indulgence and even without pity. It was like an X-ray, a scan of my whole life and every facet of myself. I experienced the same thing vis-à-vis the people I met in my life and who took a significant part in it. It was a very important and very striking experience in which I saw, with greater acuteness and lucidity than ever, the futility and smallness of existence, the pitiful and even miserable character of every human being, myself included. It was not really a discovery because it is rather a usual way of seeing on my part. What changed was the intensity, the breadth, the depth of this gaze, as if a multitude of things, of beings, of feelings that I had seen until then separately and chronologically were then brought together “here and now”, were reunited, that I suddenly saw them together and simultaneously. It was a rich and deep but negative and poignant experience. that I suddenly saw them together and simultaneously. It was a rich and deep but negative and poignant experience. that I suddenly saw them together and simultaneously. It was a rich and deep but negative and poignant experience.
This is all that happened during this second dose of ibogaine, during the day on Wednesday and Thursday. My sleep was not affected, I slept normally the first night, then the second and the others. Nothing special happened there except for this dream of the second night where I remember meeting my mother and talking to her, but without it particularly marking me or modifying anything, it seems to me. he. If the psychological effects were much more tempered, on the other hand the physical consequences were even more marked. I felt even more tired, more drained, and took longer to regain my strength (in fact, until Tuesday or Wednesday of the following week when I felt definitely physically recovered).
Today, a fortnight after the end of this second experience, here are my thoughts and comments:
– I think ibogaine is definitely a great healing tool. She did a gigantic job of getting rid of what hurt and handicapped me so much. Do you know this? :
“So runs my dream: but what am I?
An infant crying in the night
An infant crying for the light
And with no language but a cry.”
Alfred Tennyson: In Memoriam
That sums up who I was before ibogaine. Since I no longer cry in the night for the light, my language is finally becoming something other than a cry, and I can change my dream – simply because I am no longer haunted. And I know, and I feel, that this is final.
I am particularly impressed by the symbolic power of ibogaine which has actually allowed me to deal with the most urgent, painful and debilitating part of my problem, in its own way and not at all in the way that I had imagined. I am absolutely amazed by the force of what I experienced – the force of the images, the sensations, the emotions, the universes in which I was immersed, by the creative force at the same time as curative of such a process . That such a gigantic job can be accomplished so drastically and in such a short time is absolutely astounding to me. As a self-primaler for a few years now, I know from experience how long and difficult it is to release and process the emotions and events associated with them.
– But I also understood that ibogaine is not a magic wand – just a tool, a great tool. So she only treated part of my problems. There are still many other things to accomplish before I am completely cleansed of my childhood, and I will thus have to make other eboga journeys – I don’t know exactly how many. I believe that the reason for this fact is due to the amount of trauma that I had to undergo during my early childhood, and therefore the amount of work necessary to solve all these problems. It cannot be done in one trip, especially since it is absolutely exhausting. Our energy reserves, so the amount of work we can do at one time, are limited,
– The fact that I relapsed after my first experience clearly shows that ibogaine is only a tool that must be considered in a whole, as an essential element but only one element of a whole therapy that must take into account the psychological and material preparation for taking ibogaine, the material and psychological environment of the trip itself, then the accompaniment and support after the trip. It is a three-step process where each is equally important, where iboga is only the necessary but not sufficient part of the whole. An eboga journey, from what I understand, must be seen as a global process and not a one-time experience in order to be fully successful. It is a conclusion that joins many of the points of view that I have read here and there on the internet. Ibogaine does not accomplish anything by itself: it makes possible. The success of an experiment depends on everyone’s ability to manage what is possible more or less well. Circumstances, chance, luck or bad luck have an obvious place in it. If I was able to let myself cry, which allowed me to free myself from an enormous weight that had remained confined to me since my childhood and has greatly contributed to my well-being today, it is thanks to my friend who knew how to be there, available and reassuring. I could never have cried alone, or with an unfamiliar. But if I relapsed afterwards, it was because of my friend who couldn’t stay there, available and reassuring. Circumstances… The success or failure of an eboga trip seems to me to depend on the quality of these circumstances, at the center of which is the quality of the human relationships exchanged with the person(s) watching over you. That’s why I doubt, for example, the value of a clinical environment, maybe safe from a medical point of view, but what about human warmth? This is why I also doubt the value of a Bwiti “initiation”, the dubious circumstances of which have recently been reported on this list. of the value of a clinical environment, perhaps safe from a medical point of view, but what about human warmth? This is why I also doubt the value of a Bwiti “initiation”, the dubious circumstances of which have recently been reported on this list. of the value of a clinical environment, perhaps safe from a medical point of view, but what about human warmth? This is why I also doubt the value of a Bwiti “initiation”, the dubious circumstances of which have recently been reported on this list.
– What also strikes me as breathtaking is the distortion of time caused by taking ibogaine. Indeed during my first trip, the ibogaine began to produce its effects around 11 o’clock in the morning on Sunday, to end on Tuesday morning probably around noon, which makes about fifty hours. That’s real, objective time. But in my inner space-time things were very different. Phase 1 seemed to me to last an infinitely long time, but I couldn’t specify because I had no time marker at all – let’s say days or weeks. For phase 2 I have more benchmarks because my friend came to see me almost every hour, and each time I had the impression that several days had passed, so I always asked him what day it was. Of course she always answered me: Monday, so I asked her to tell me the time – and each time I found it incredible that so little time had passed since her last visit, when it seemed to me several days. So Monday as a whole seemed to me to last several weeks. As for phase 3, I cannot say. Phase 4 was the longest, because in fact each time I entered a universe, it was to settle there permanently and spend several weeks or several months there, the time to be adopted and to become intimate with its inhabitants, to make a pact with them and then to see this universe dissipate. As there were several tens or several hundred of these universes, I don’t know anymore, I can say that I lived there the equivalent of a long life in the space of a few hours. I also affirm that this interior life was as real, concrete and palpable materially, sensitively, emotionally as the everyday life that you and I share, including the consciousness of passing time. This time dilation is really a very important and impressive point of the iboga experience. On my second trip, however, this time dilation did not occur. emotionally than the everyday life that you and I share, including the awareness of the passage of time. This time dilation is really a very important and impressive point of the iboga experience. On my second trip, however, this time dilation did not occur. emotionally than the everyday life that you and I share, including the awareness of the passage of time. This time dilation is really a very important and impressive point of the iboga experience. On my second trip, however, this time dilation did not occur.
– If you have read many other eboga travel reports, you will have noticed that my experience is very different in form. An additional detail is also worth noting from this point of view: many people notice a decrease in their need for sleep for several weeks or even months after taking ibogaine. For me so far, it’s the exact opposite. Before I needed 6 hours of sleep on average to be fit. If I indulged in lying around in bed and therefore sleeping more, I felt worse. Now I feel the need for more sleep, seven and a half to eight hours seem necessary to me, seven hours is a minimum below which it is impossible for me to go anyway. Perhaps it is due to the fact that I have the very clear feeling, without however being able to explain it logically and rationally, that my brain is currently rebuilding itself on new bases, that important underground restructurings have place day after day, so my experience with ibogaine has not stopped. Only the visible aspects have ceased, the acute phase is over, but something is still working behind the scenes. If the theories about REM sleep and its role in brain structuring are correct, then the significant changes ibogaine caused in my mind could explain this increased need for sleep. that my brain is currently rebuilding itself on new bases, that major underground restructuring is taking place day after day, and that therefore my experience with ibogaine has not stopped. Only the visible aspects have ceased, the acute phase is over, but something is still working behind the scenes. If the theories about REM sleep and its role in brain structuring are correct, then the significant changes ibogaine caused in my mind could explain this increased need for sleep. that my brain is currently rebuilding itself on new bases, that major underground restructuring is taking place day after day, and that therefore my experience with ibogaine has not stopped. Only the visible aspects have ceased, the acute phase is over, but something is still working behind the scenes. If the theories about REM sleep and its role in brain structuring are correct, then the significant changes ibogaine caused in my mind could explain this increased need for sleep. the acute phase is over, but something is still happening behind the scenes. If the theories about REM sleep and its role in brain structuring are correct, then the significant changes ibogaine caused in my mind could explain this increased need for sleep. the acute phase is over, but something is still happening behind the scenes. If the theories about REM sleep and its role in brain structuring are correct, then the significant changes ibogaine caused in my mind could explain this increased need for sleep.
– One thing that marked me greatly on a physical level is the absolutely disgusting taste of the root, or the extract that I had prepared according to Howard’s recipe. It’s the most terrible piece of shit I’ve ever had to swallow, and I confess that I don’t understand how so many people can bear to swallow tens of grams of it (or whole glasses for the extract) for their trip. Luckily after my first try on Thursday morning, I realized that I could never ingest enough of this barbaric shit and got myself some gel capsules, which allowed me to absorb the necessary amount. Also if I have a piece of advice to give to neophytes from this point of view, it is very simple: do not prepare a liquid extract, don’t plan to swallow the bark as it is, prepare the required amount in large gel capsules – even if it takes a lot, it will be much less painful to swallow anyway. In my opinion, the fact of not smelling this repugnant taste at all also reduces physical discomfort and the risk of vomiting in the first hours. Anyway, that’s what came out of my second experience where I swallowed it all in gel capsules, so I wasn’t bothered by the taste of the root at all and I felt a lot less nauseous After. the fact of not smelling this repugnant taste at all also reduces physical discomfort and the risk of vomiting in the first hours. Anyway, that’s what came out of my second experience where I swallowed it all in gel capsules, so I wasn’t bothered by the taste of the root at all and I felt a lot less nauseous After. the fact of not smelling this repugnant taste at all also reduces physical discomfort and the risk of vomiting in the first hours. Anyway, that’s what came out of my second experience where I swallowed it all in gel capsules, so I wasn’t bothered by the taste of the root at all and I felt a lot less nauseous After.
– About possible discomfort and vomiting during the first hours of taking, I have two very useful tips for those who intend to take iboga. The first is to concentrate, to focus in thought on the visions and all the psychological effects that accompany them. We are very quickly and very easily absorbed by this psychoactive aspect of the trip, we find ourselves quickly immersed in it and then we forget our body and its possible discomforts, we no longer feel sick at all. If one allows oneself to think about one’s body and its bodily impressions, the discomfort and the desire to vomit are amplified. The second is to use a urinal for his needs. This avoids having to get up to go to the toilet, which is a formidable and risky ordeal from the point of view of vomiting. The urinal is very easy to use and risk-free, you can use it almost without moving. It is enough that the person who watches over you empties it regularly. Really simple and practical.
Finally, I would like to ask two questions that are specifically addressed to Howard and all the participants of the upcoming NYC conference – but any answer will be welcome:
– Don’t you believe that ibogaine-induced “visions”, whatever you call them – visions, dreams, hallucinations – and whatever form they take, are an essential part of the treatment process and healing, and that wanting to suppress them is as absurd and dangerous as wanting to suppress the dreams of nocturnal rest? (I ask this question about this posting of Howard on the list, regarding the agenda and goals of the conference:
Discrimination studies: Drug discrimination studies offer a possible approach to the issue of ibogaine’s mechanism of action, and the question of the possible resolution of ibogaines therapeutic from its hallucinogenic effects.)
It seems to me that all these “visions”, just like dreams are, are the natural mode of expression, the language of the unconscious, and trying to silence them is not the best way to hear what they have to tell us… It seems to me that this is also the modus operandi of ibogaine, and that taking away its main tool is not the best way to guarantee its effectiveness… By the way, in what and why do they bother?
– How to determine, after taking an eboga trip, when the supposed long-term metabolites will have disappeared and when it will again be possible for someone to take a new trip again enjoying 100% of the effects of the eboga ibogaine? On the net, one can read here or there that it is advisable to wait a few weeks or a few months. But how can an individual know this time frame precisely for himself? Are there any signs or objective benchmarks of any kind that allow this question to be answered with a modicum of certainty? (I suppose everyone will understand the meaning of this question. Personally, I will have to take ibogaine again at least once, and I want to do it as soon as possible, without waiting any longer than necessary until it has regained its effectiveness. But how do you know when the time is right??)
Well, I hope my testimony will be useful.
Thank you to all those who, here or there, helped me with their information or advice.
Regards to all,
xavier