Group therapy

We did have a group type situation recently with regard to a low dose protocol of iboga.I wanted to continue with the presentation I gave in Cape Town and allow people to experience iboga in a safe way. The group consisted of just over ten people and took place in Pretoria in an informal private setting.

There were several people who had some quite in depth and profound experiences but the general outcome was that I feel its better to deal with people on a one to one basis when it comes to therapy. The reason for this is so that the person can be met on the level they are willing to work on and can be assisted in achieving their own personal goals without conforming to a pre-set standard. This goes hand in hand with the concept that there is no one size fits all policy and that everything should be dealt with on a personal and individual level.

In future I think we will reserve groups for information purposes only and then from there the individual can choose if and how they wish to proceed.

So although I do believe there is always benefit from a low dose protocol of iboga; it still needs to be done with the individual in mind and so limit groups to helping people to understand iboga and how it may apply to them.

While on the topic; if there are any interested parties in attending or organising a presentation and Q&A to do with iboga please feel free to email me. I will then let you know of upcoming events or other areas of interest. Alternately if there are people interested in organising a small group of plus minus 10 people I would be happy to share what I can and wont charge for this as long as my expenses are seen to.

Thanking those with continued interest and support;

Simon Loxton
treatment@iboga.co.za

Iboga and psychothearpy: An account

Pre Treatment Application
I am seeking detoxification of alcohol and the cocktail of drugs that happen to be around me when I am intoxicated. Alcohol is the catalyst for all of the foul play that takes place in the story of my life. I wouldn’t say that I am an alcoholic but once I start, it is difficult to stop. You could call me a binge drinker, I guess. I feel that the constant preoccupation with alcohol is stopping me from doing the things that I truly need to be doing. I feel like I have bigger fish to fry and I want to grow myself better.
My Ibogaine Experience

I took the 17 mg/kg of Ibogaine HCL in a series of 4 doses, half an hour apart. By the third dose, I felt as if I was getting high from ecstasy. My speech was slower and my voice went up an octave. I was also super light on my wobbly feet. By the fourth dose, I was trailing off with my conversations and was confused with what I was talking about as I began to speak. At this point, the nurse advised me to go to my room and lie down. As I lay in the bed, my hearing became magnified. When I touched anything, tin-like sounds echoed. The sounds were reminiscent of racquetballs in a racquetball court. I could also hear my pulse pounding through my head and body. It was like musical beats rummaging around the room. The sound of the fridge’s motor was bassy and provided an interesting eerie backdrop to the pulsating beats in my head. I looked up toward the ceiling and a light stared down into my eyes. Suddenly golden snowflakes started falling down on me. I felt them cool on cheeks. This was pretty cool but strange. I looked around the room to align myself with reality and was confirmed with my whereabouts. And then the spirits started to show up. A wolf dog approached me. The detail was amazing. I could see right into his eyes and his breathing was as if he was alive and well out of breath. To the right of him was a small square tunnel opening which led to open space. Like NASA space. The lights were green instead of white. I went into the tunnel and started moving very fast through the tunnel. It was almost as if I was in a space ship. I started going faster and faster and it got to a point where I couldn’t handle it anymore and then suddenly I landed in a very trippy but detailed scene. I was with my girlfriend and we were so happy and laughing and having a gay old time until my point of view stretched out a bit. Suddenly, we transformed into femo (brightly coloured clay) and began mimicking our real life actions. We were exact replicas of ourselves. The objects in our lives were all replicas made of super detailed femo. As I drew further back, I noticed that we were in a smaller part of a larger picture that was in a larger village of a bigger picture. The details were so cool. I then opened a door in one of the rooms and ended up with my eyes open and staring at the wall in my room. There was a shadow that resembled a film strip and pictures started moving down the wall like a film strip on a reel. There were so many pictures of faces and scenes. I watched them roll down the wall until I realized that I could stop on any of the pictures and either pull them out toward me or I could transfer myself into that particular picture. It was pretty weird. I saw a few scary faces with mean eyes along with smoke and fire around them. I also saw some non detailed rape scenes. I simply blinked them away and they would disappear. They almost seemed like they were the stereotypical fears that you would think of when you thought of fear. It was scary faces with fire and horrible things happening to innocent people.

When I had my eyes open, I looked to my right and I saw my girlfriend’s face. It was as if she was sleeping right next to me. I was so happy to see her as a spirit. She smiled and asked me if I was okay and that she was going to be there the entire time. So anytime throughout my experience I could look to my right on a specific angle, and Amy would be there. My mom was also just a little behind her to watch over me as well. A few times my dad began presenting himself as a spirit but I did not want to see or deal with him. My dad and I are such opposites and we often butt heads. I don’t really like him very much. I blinked him away every chance I got. Toward the end of the treatment, I let him remain as a spirit and he appeared right in front of my face. I barked at him and then he skittishly retreated to a set of steps behind him. He held his baby finger and began whining and weeping like a little child. It was weird. I had always known him to be childish and immature but I actually saw him fully grown but as a child. I felt kind of sorry for him and thought of him as kind of sad and pathetic. And then he was gone and never returned.

The weirdest part was opening and closing my eyes. When my eyes were open, I could see spirits of faces in and out of my life. When I would shut my eyes, they would open again but my eyes were still shut. It was when my eyes were shut; I went to different imaginary worlds. At one point I was in an old rickety boat with a Philipino man and he was telling me stories without speaking to me. He was teaching me about things that I am unsure of. I was getting so much out of our journey at the time but now looking back I have no idea what it was all about. It was like spiritual lessons that can’t be explained or quantified or even made sense of. At one point, he opened up his picnic basket and I went into the basket and transformed into a whole new different world. It was so neat. At one point I was in what seemed like old Paris. There were such vivid and lovely detail of cobble stone streets and random old city life. It was like a Tim Burton movie but 100 times better. There was more than just detail. There were feelings and emotions and heavy nostalgia. I couldn’t get enough of it. And then at a certain point, the visions and scenes would transform into the previous vision and then to the vision before that and then the one before that and so on. They would attach themselves to the vision prior and then flush down some subway-like tunnel and off and away from me. The next night, I realized that this flushing away scenario was caused by the cars driving on the highway throughout the night. Anytime a car would drive by, my visions connected themselves with the previous visions and then they would take off on some tunnel. In retrospect, this was kind of annoying because I could have probably spent much more time in my weird little worlds instead of them getting flushed away. Such is life, I guess.

My favourite part was when I saw myself in terms of what I could be. I have always been pretty hard on myself. I have been pretty deprecating when I look at myself in the mirror. I used to get irritated with all of my random thoughts as well. Anyhow, at one point I was looking at the wall and noticed a heater by the bed and a guy walked in wearing soccer cleats, shin pads and shorts with no top on. He had a nice athletic body and was wearing a t shirt on his head because he had just been playing soccer in sun. I looked at him and smiled and he smiled back. I remember thinking to myself about how he was such a nice looking fellow and overall cute guy. And that is when I realized that he was me. He was me if I was healthy and happy and being completely me. It was so neat. He smiled and pointed at me and then left. I got tears in my eyes at that point. Later on in the treatment, a spirit of myself came toward my face and it was not a normal mirror reflection of myself, it was me staring at me. I put my hand near my spirit face and smiled and it smiled back at me. It was quite a nice moment.

When my eyes were closed I had almost a dashboard viewing station of my brain. I had a few tunnel openings that led to different parts and aspects of images and scenes. I also had a gauge that showed new formulas on a conveyor belt going into my brain and old formulas coming out.

I could also create objects in my head. They would appear in full weight accompanied with their overall tangible properties. At one point I was holding a pink vase and I was unsure how it got in my hand. I thought that the nurse put it in there. I was looking somewhere else and when I went to look back at it, the vase had disappeared. After that I thought of an orchid and suddenly an orchid appeared to the top right of me. I picked it up and swayed it back in forth in my hand. I could even bend the stem. It was fucked. I then chucked it to the corner and it floated away.

By the end of my journey I was super tired and asked the nurse to give me some Gravols to allow me to go to sleep. Oh and in the middle of the treatment, I puked twice. It wasn’t so bad at all.

When I woke up the next day and after a bunch of thought, I realized a few things that had occurred the night before. For starters, my brain was pretty sore. It felt like it had been heavily worked out. I could feel it throbbing but in a good healthy way. For my entire trip, it was as if there was some presence that was supporting me throughout. I was always in complete and utter control but there was a sense of presence that guided me through my head. I felt really thankful and excited after. I felt like Iboga was trying to show me that if I was my true genuine self, the opportunities of the world would be completely endless. As long as I can be myself and not numb my thoughts and ideas with drugs and alcohol and anything else that takes me out of my present moment, I will be happy. I can live a life so full of imagination and trippy alternate universes and anything else my mind will allow. The Iboga taught me the things that I desired to learn via the most interesting medium possible. The neatest part of the experience is the fact that all of the imagery and beautiful settings and everlasting emotion were all concocted in my head.

Since the treatment, I have not had a desire to drink alcohol or smoke cigarettes. Usually if someone is drinking or smoking around me, I will want to indulge but as of yet, I have not a drop of desire. I don’t want to make a sweeping statement and swear off drugs and alcohol because I would hate to set myself up for failure. I just feel like I deserve to give myself a chance. And I feel happy.

ZK