I. Introduction
I slept this morning. It was a sleep full of uncontrolled dreams. I woke up this morning, and the first thing I said was “I Slept!”, it was that much of an accomplishment for me. I am hungry, haven’t eaten much in five days. And the vertigo. I can still feel the effects of the ibogaine: a sound at the tip of my unconscious, the clear taste in my mouth, the persistent vertigo, as if my energy field were not keeping up with my body movements. (Typing is a bit of a chore.) I smell like onions and need a bath. It is Monday morning; I took ibogaine Saturday afternoon.
This has been quite a trip. It started decades ago, when I first learned of eboga, the plant form, as part of an African rite of passage to adulthood in an Anthropology course. At the time I thought that this is something I needed to do, that is to undergo some initiation ritual to become an adult. I didn’t pursue it then. Ibogaine has since become known in the underground heroin world for its remarkable ability to interrupt the addictive response. This is where I learned most of my information about it. It has been summarily declared illegal by a decades-old corrupt lying drug-smuggling hypocritical United States governmental crime regime, though thankfully it is perfectly legal in most other countries. Ironically, the criteria the US has for illegalizing ibogaine are that it has no medical or intrinsic value, is addictive, and is dangerous. Only the last criterion is true. It has also shown effect on long-term psychological blocks. That was my excuse for pursuing ibogaine.
I am an avowed spiritual tourist and occasional psychonaut, though not a very practiced one. I had heard that ibogaine is the trip of a lifetime, and I wanted to give it a whirl. I thought I was desperate. After experiencing ibogaine I can promise you that it is no toy, not at all. I went into this experience with the intention for life-review and self-directed change. Instead, much more happened. I don’t know how to place the experience; it will take some more time to digest.
II. Pre-experience trials
After the decision was made to take ibogaine, it was a bit of a torturous path to procure it. I made the decision, decided it was now or never, sold some investment gold, and joined an ibogaine group email thingy. The people on the list were generally very patient with me. I contacted a church in Slovenia, the Sacrament of transition; who helped me acquire what was needed.
By all accounts I was in need of a sitter, someone to watch over me during the experience. About a month later I finally convinced my wife to take on this role. As a clinical psychologist, she was skeptical of its psychological effects, and concerned about safety, mostly. I had to figure out how to take it. It came in the form of dusty light-weight white powder, almost ephemeral, 98% pure ibogaine hydrochloride. I bought a mechanical scale that can measure to thousandths of a gram, and when that wasn’t accurate enough, an electronic one of similar caliper. I decided to take it as a suppository in two doses, .97g and .375g. Making a proper suppository can be quite a chore. I finally mixed the ibogaine hydrochloride powder into frozen coconut oil, and then stuffed this into some gel capsules. My wife watched with some amusement as I spent an evening trying various ways to prepare it.
(The vertigo is still pretty disruptive; I feel as if I am floating out of my body again, so lightly do I float. I focused on the ceiling with my eyes closed, looking at the patterns in the stucco, and then opened my eyes and saw the ceiling as eight feet above from my head. It is disconcerting to write in this state.)
At about the same time I ceased my one addiction, Dr. Pepper. I wanted to go into this experience with pure intention, and I felt that caffeine addiction would be a hamperence. I started taking a vitamin horse pill, eating abit less, and going for somewhat strenuous walks, subsequently losing about eight pounds. Another month or so went by. Then a few days before the experience I started fasting in earnest, drinking a cleansing admixture several times daily that proved effective enough.
Impromptu cleansing drink recipe
2 cups carrot juice
1+ tablespoon powdered green drink
2-4 grams MSM
1-2 grams oral calcium EDTA
2-5 grams of L-glutamine
2 grams of powdered milk thistle seed
I also made a one-time saltwater concoction from some dried herbs lying around the kitchen that almost caused me to purge. Thankfully, I survived that.
Do Not Try This At Home
saltwater
a judicious handful of basil
some echinacea augustifolia
a handful of nettles
some ginkgo biloba
a palms worth of chaparral
triphala powder
and a bunch of lavender flowers and catnip for fun
Additionally I started drinking up to 5 grams of straight ascorbic acid in water to flush out my system, and in conjunction took enemas until my stool was relatively clear water.
Suffice it to say that by the time it came time for the experience, I was already in an altered state of being. However, the weekend slated for this experience just never quite manifested. Things came up, dinner parties, shopping; there just wasn’t time for a life-altering experience. I decided that this wasn’t the appropriate way to approach ibogaine, and put it away, perhaps to keep as a trophy of sorts - never tried, but always available to me. The empty residual ibogaine packaging sat on my desk as a constant reminder of what I wanted to do. About a month later I approached my wife with the idea again, and we scheduled a weekend. I think she was ready just to get my silly obsession done and over with. I prepared myself in the same manner as before. I ate half an avocado for strength the day before taking it.
III. The initial experience
Saturday afternoon, about 5 p.m. I downed a couple of Dramamine for nausea, then waited an hour. At 6:15 I pulled the gel capsules out of the freezer. I was somewhat hesitant, toying with the idea of backing out at this late hour, but pushed through that. I removed the make-shift suppositories from their gel caps and stuffed .97g up my arse, a mildly messy proposition, and laid down on my ceremonial bed and waited remarkably patiently. I had converted our home-office into a meditation chamber. Three layers of blankets were hung over the windows in order to get the room dark enough, and towels covered light gaps in the main doorway. Furniture was moved around for safety, and a large crawlway leading to the adjacent bathroom was kept free of clutter. I had a large stainless-steel barf-bowl handy, my water bottle, a hand mirror, and a small red lava lamp all arranged within easy reach on the floor. I also had music available, but it seemed to be antithetical to my truly self-inquiring spiritual yearnings.
I think the first effect of the ibogaine was a simple reflection. Lying on my bed, trying not to move about for fear of nausea, I decided my arrangement of floor articles would make an appropriate painting: “Still Life with Ibogaine”. After about two hours of lying like that I became concerned that I was feeling the full effects of the drug already, and it simply was not having much of an effect, reasoning that because of my fast perhaps my colon had ceased to absorb things very quickly leading me to metabolize the ibogaine into nor-ibogaine before it really affected me. I got up and walked downstairs to discuss this with my wife. There was some slight vertigo and no nausea present. So I pulled my remaining .375g gel caps out of the freezer, swallowed them and waited some more.
About 9:30 p.m. it started to kick in. My goodness, the buzz was a clear feeling, very clear. I could hear a sound, similar to my ever-present tinnitus but at a different pitch, kind of an electric buzzing, but not unpleasant. The effects came on so slowly and smoothly, not like other spiritual drugs I have tried. The predictability of the effect was a huge relief. Occasional nausea was only minimal, usually related to movement. My wife came into the room and asked if I was bored, and we struck up a heartfelt conversation for about three hours, myself doing most of the talking. I described to her the effects of my experience, and decided to lighten up and just say openly and honestly whatever came across my mind. The nearest feeling I had previously experienced in college was not with LSD, sacred Peyote, or shrooms, but with a really good sativa high, only about a thousand times stronger and more clear. There was zero diminution in my cognitive faculties, and I was insightful, although I did have a hard time articulating at times.
(Most of Monday has passed with me documenting this experience, and yet, now almost 48 hours since I first took it, I can feel its pleasant buzz coming back to me, not as a memory, but here and now. Writing is a challenge.)
It seemed to me as I talked with my wife, she mostly listening, that she was previously unaware of my inner workings, how I thought about things that I thought were obvious. I talked about mostly positive things, oddly enough. I had expected this to be a life review clearing out all the negative things that had happened to me, but instead I found that with ibogaine I emphasized the positive. In fact that was one of the aphorisms I deduced: “Emphasize the positive!”, this being something I decided I needed to do in my life.
I talked about my fear of being publicly recognized as respectable, wise, or knowledgeable, which had happened on some occasions: my reluctant messiah complex. I was presented with two pictures of myself in adjacent frames. On one side was me, underneath was written ‘Michael’, while the other frame presented an older me, a white haired man, underneath was written ‘Our Savior’. This latter picture was about half-way covered up by something. I am still trying to figure out the purpose behind that image. I thought I could use this time to update my own self-created Religion of Love, which I started to write publicly about almost a decade ago, but stopped when I was threatened with physical harm (our tax dollars at work.)
I talked of good friends and good times, again not what I was expecting, but I was going with the flow of the experience. I tried peering into my hand mirror, but found no immediate insights there. Now, having almost completely metabolized the ibogaine, I think the mirror is an interesting tool. I reached out to my wife alot, holding her hand or just touching her. I could feel the love we shared, and it helped our time together just simply talking. A couple of times she gently rubbed my body, which felt really, really nice. I so appreciated her presence.
At one point I was talking about who I was, and what past lives I might have had. I asked within myself how many lives I had lived on earth, and received a visual answer. I saw a lineup of three adult lives, one child life, and two or three short or aborted lives as babies. The adults were all handsome males, strong looking, each with its own strong personality. They were from several different races: the first one looked Italian, the second looked Indian, and the most recent one looked German. I opened my eyes and excitedly exclaimed “I am a new soul!” When my wife looked at me skeptically, I added, “Or at least new to this Earth.” I was so happy to finally know this about myself.
I was thirsty at times, but drank only sips. My body was nervous most of the time. At one point my whole being shook uncontrollably for several seconds as energy patterns shifted around. It felt similar to some previous meditation-derived kundalini experiences. The red light from the lava lamp was a quiet distraction in conversational lulls. As the experience progressed I started explaining my insights in terms of thoughtfields, drifting into and back out of my much anticipated proverbial ‘dream-like state’. By 12:30 the ibogaine was going pretty much full force, and my wife turned off the lava lamp and crawled into my bed beside me. I could somehow see her intention field around her in the darkness. I spoke at about fifteen minutes intervals with some new piece of information about myself or some interesting thought, and she sometimes responded.
IV. Going within
I was going deep within, meditating, searching for the root of my block in life, the one prevents me from doing the things that I want to do. At one point I felt overwhelmed with the ibogaine, feeling that it could potentially kill me. I mentally appealed to Jesus and Sathya Sai Baba, my gurus, for guidance. I heard Baba/myself’s voice in my head quite clearly say “You are on your own path now”. I understood the meaning to be two-fold:
1.) that I am adult now who is self-directed and self-responsible, and
2.) that Sai Baba’s reality line was somewhat different from the one that I was currently experiencing.
The upshot of this was that I determined to maneuver my way through this realm carefully. I took my own mantra to heart (Love is the way) and followed my sense of divine love as my inner guide. The presence of my wife beside me only slightly impacted this sense. Mostly I was using a meditative sense honed with many years of soul searching, mantras, chanting, etc.
As I went deeper into myself I found myself in another completely different realm. I lost the use of my five senses, and felt the need to somehow orient myself spatially. Through me, a disembodied voice uttered “Use your sense of imagination to see”. In thoughtful reflection, my wife repeated the command, which I then heard and repeated. It was an awesome insight for me. I could see around me by peering into my sense of imagination. Initially I saw residual images from my waking life, but slowly these dissipated as I peered into the haze of my own imagination. I saw disembodied spirit balls, and thought of Michael Newton’s books, and this, no doubt, influenced how I perceived. I was floating as a light ball in heaven. I had had an NDE as teenager, but this was different: my vision was neither as clear nor as accurate, and I was intent upon staying clear, seeing things as they were presented to me, with little influence from my own mind.
I saw myself as a small ball of light drunkenly rolling around a hazy heavenly landscape. There were large spirits, seen as balls of light, all around me doing various things. They were perhaps 20 or 30 times as tall as I was. They seemed to be tolerant of me, kindly thinking of me as child playing at their feet, as someone to watch over. They seemed to be powerful and wise beyond measure. I was embarrassed at how I drunkenly navigated my way about the landscape, thinking that this was a pretty poor presentation of myself in heaven, but no one else seemed to give my embarrassment much attention.
But I was determined that this would not just be a pleasure cruise. I focused myself again, looking into the heart of myself for the root of my own internal blocks. Some spirits got in my face and shouted at me, saying to the effect of “Pay attention!” and “Watch out!” I looked about myself and realized that I was in front of the gates of heaven, beyond which there was no return. I resolved not to go through the gate, and then returned to self-inquiry looking for the root of my block, when again some spirits jolted me out of my meditational trespass. My body was sweating profusely at this time, and my wife soaked a towel just drying me off.
Using my imaginative sense, I was amused by how I perceived heaven’s gate. It was a well worn dirt path through a rickety wooden gate. The associated fence line was made of rusted old wire. There was an oak tree just on the other side of the gate, and the landscape reminded me of both the Edwards Plateau in Texas, and the Tuscany region of Italy. There were a couple of hand-painted signs on wooden shingles with malleable words written on to the effect of “Michael, stop, you can’t go past this gate or you will die”. I decided that it was thoughtful of these spirits to produce a sign for me. One spirit sat on an old wooden stool at the entrance to this deeper level of heaven, peacefully watching me. Although I felt free to move deeper into heaven if I chose, I decided I was not yet ready to die. I had been deeply suicidal since my mid-twenties, but no longer do I follow this intention, and now that I have faced this choice so directly in this experience, I feel more at peace with myself.
Anyway, onward through the fog: with the gate of heaven in front of me, I turned right and lazily floated down the fence line. I passed another couple of gates, and always they were attractive to me. Oh, the heaven-scent loving vibe was so very attractive. Spirits were posted at these junctures who warned me away. I was intent upon looking for the source of my own internal block. It feels like a dark spike in my energy field, immovable and deeply rooted, and I imagined it as a tall black column of stone hundreds of feet high jutting out in a beautiful valley surrounded by a range of majestic mountains, somewhere beyond this fence line I could not cross. Again I was faced with a decision, to address this aspect of myself and risk that the heavenly fence line was an imagining of my own making, or to respect the imaginary reflection of what I saw and act more prudently. I exclaimed to myself “I do not want to die”, and let go of my endeavor to face myself so deeply.
After this I was mostly a heavenly tourist, pleasantly but somewhat drunkenly lollygagging around in a directionless manner. At one point I was confronted with another spirit, a serious one, who asked me if I really wanted to change. I thought about it, and for just an instant vacillated. Immediately the experience of heaven ceased.
V. Post-heavenly meanderings
After this heavenly experience, everything else seemed extraneous. I decided that I had taken an unnecessary amount of ibogaine; ibo overkill. The drug is only a potentiator. It is neither bad nor good, but an extremely clear psychic tool to be used in any direction. I had gravitated towards the spiritual realms because that was where my sense of divine love and selfdom led me. In total, the full dosage I took was approximately 1.3g. Were I to take it again, I would take perhaps half or two-thirds of what I did, and still expect to meditate myself to death if I so chose. Anyway, I had dropped out of the heavenly realm somehow, and although I contemplated trying to get back into it, I decided that I had had enough for now. Still however, the ibogaine buzz was strongly ringing, I was seeing a raging storm of images, and I knew I had many hours of this to go.
By the time my heavenly experience was over it was about 2 a.m. and my wife was solidly asleep. When I looked with my eyes I could see the room clearly enough, then I would open my eyelids and realize that the room was completely dark. This happened many times and always was fascinating. I kept seeing reflections of light around the room, and when I would look for the source of the light, invariably I found it in my own heart: the heart area of my chest seemed to be glowing, at times rather brightly. This sense of vision has stayed with me even today. I don’t know if I will be able to perceive in this manner as I go back to sleep tonight.
I thought about various things that had bothered me in my life, trying to clear them from my personality. A woman I fell in love with in college was in the recesses of my mind, and I still sensed the ties that we share. I attempted to cut those ties, but sensed that she would be hurt by this, so I let it be. We will meet again somewhere, no doubt, and figure out how to mend our hearts then. Various other personages and happenings were examined, and for the most part dealt with. I spent a fair amount of time attempting to rewrite my personality to some degree.
However, I could only do so much. I grew weary, and wanted to sleep. I imagined an opaque blue screen that came down in front of my eyes to block the persistent wild visions of all sorts of things. It had such a calming effect that I was able to catch a series of cat-naps each about fifteen minutes long, with part of my mind maintaining this screen. I slept like this until perhaps 6 a.m.
VI. Sunday morning
Yesterday morning is only vaguely recollected. I was pretty tired. When I awoke for the last time, and shifted gears into a more waking state, I was surprised that I retained some of the visual capabilities of the previous night. It was still completely dark in the room, yet I could still see with my eyes through my eyelids. I still saw reflections from the glowing light in my chest quite clearly, which brought me amazement and a slightly cocky joy. It was as if I had proof that I knew how to emanate true divine love.
At another point I grew curious about the limits of the reality I was experiencing, I absentmindedly dug a hole in it with mind and found myself looking back into heaven. I decided not to go thru my hole and back in, for I didn’t know if I would expire from crossing barrier. While I was looking into this hole, someone came and filled it with a mirror, reflecting back at me my own face peering into this hole into heaven. At about that time my wife started waking up, so I again shifted gears to better relate to her.
My wife slowly woke up with the dawn barely glowing through the window. I had to pee, so once she had showered and what-not, we got me to crawl towards the bathroom. I asked her to turn on the lights to help bring me back to the consensual world. Moving my body created occasional nausea, but nothing more than a few small gastric burps. The whole process of movement was almost a new thing for me. In some ways I felt I had to relearn how to move. The vertigo seemed to result from my energetic body moving more fluidly than my physical body. I found it interesting to try to keep my body and my energies aligned. I think it took about two minutes to crawl twenty feet and prop myself up on the toilet. I was too outa wack to be embarrassed by the need for help. The slow flow of my piddle took about a minute, indicating to me that my kidneys were impacted somehow, hopefully not overly stressed.
Once back in my bed I rested for awhile, calming my stomach back down, and falling back into occasional trance. I spent about half the day lying in my ceremonial bed drifting in and out of dreams, and cogitating on improving myself. I didn’t understand why I had vacillated when asked if I really wanted to change. I attempted to recreate the situation at a less deep level, and to offer myself openly to the being, saying “search me, and see where I may not want to change, that I can address this”.
At another point I noticed some colored lights, and followed them into a tunnel. I followed then tunnel for awhile, traversing great distance at high speed. At the end of the tunnel was a completely new and open-ended universe, free of any stars. I drifted from the tunnel’s edge into the darkness, expanding my awareness and feeling no limits. When I turned around to find my way back the tunnels entrance, and return myself to this world, the tunnel was starting to disappear. I opened eyes then, and was back in the room.
I also went to other places. I felt no fear in my travels, but I attempted to be cautious.
VII. End of the main experience
Around noon my wife invited me downstairs to hang out in the living room. The offer was tempting. I craved new experiences, and felt that I had worked through my inner psyche as much as I was gonna. So she helped me to stand up. I was still having a hard time figuring out which way whence gravity, so I put myself in a supra-conscious state and navigated my body quickly and easily around displaced furniture, through several rooms, down a flight of stairs and plopped myself on the couch. I relaxed my control of my consciousness as I fell onto the couch which resulted in a rather strange feeling of falling with a soft landing. It was like several of my bodies were falling at the same time, connected but not necessarily in sync.
I spent much of yesterday attempting to release my ties to the various events of the past. I would develop a visualization of them, and then release them in appropriate ways. I lay on the couch until the evening. I talked more with my wife, who was still patiently interested in what I had to say. Mostly I talked about my life. She took some notes - she is good about that sorta thing. By the evening I was able to sit up and then to slowly walk upstairs, back to bed. I hoped that I would sleep. I think I fell asleep after midnight or so.
VIII. Post experience musings
Circuitously, this leads me back to the point of documenting my ibo experience in this letter. Typing it has taken me all day. I have not included everything I remember, and much more happened than I remember. It about 11:30 Monday evening now. I am tired of typing and would like to eat something more than just another avocado, but I do relish the clear taste in my mouth, my saliva tastes something like distilled water to me, and I want to get this documented before I forget anymore.
Snippets of what I experienced have come back to me yesterday and today. For instance, I woke this morning deeply impressed with what I had experienced, and how close I had come to death. Ibogaine is no toy, not at all. If you are just a spiritual tourist, don’t consider using higher doses of ibogaine. It is a strong medicine, and it should be used with a strong sense of purpose. There are other less dangerous medicines that can be used to explore the spiritual landscape, for instance, mescaline is a wonderful and gentle plant teacher, well understood by the NAC. Additionally, the internal knowledge gained from many years of meditation was fundamental in guiding me. Although I can clearly describe the things I experienced, it would have served me naught had I not had a strong reason to use the experience. As it was, my reason was not strong and focused enough. That said, I feel I gained genuine gifts from the experience, if I can put the things I learned into practice. Another for instance, sometime early in the experience, perhaps drifting in and out of heaven, Someone was helping me remove some unnecessary armoring, which has helped my demeanor, methinks.
I learned many things from this experience.
1.) I learned that I needed to do things, not to just think about doing them. I seem to have come from a place where it is easy to manifest things just by thinking about them. The process of developing things is abit more difficult for me, but it is something upon which I should focus.
2.) I learned again not to lie. Never misrepresent the truth, not even in jest. It confuses the thoughtfields, making our understanding of reality that much less clear, serving no one.
3.) I learned of the effect of self-criticism, and the importance of staying positive.
4.) I learned that I need to be easier with myself, more self-forgiving.
5.) I was again impressed with the importance of self-discipline, self-responsibility, self-reliability.
6.) I learned that I truly love my wife.
Finally, one last comment that I have been holding out until the end of this document. At some point early on in this experience, when was still holding audience with my wife, I realized that I have a fastidious soul purposefully coupled to a lacksidasical personality. I blurted this out to her, and then reflected that the descriptors were provided by my soul. After much contemplation yesterday, I made the association between my energy field’s dark spike, immovable, critical, and unforgiving, and the fastidiousness of my soul. Perhaps this ibogaine experience wasn’t so fruitless after all.
IX. Epilogue
Well, it is almost time for bed now, so I am gonna close this doc out. Finis. I hope that this has provided you with some insight into the power of ibogaine. I went into the experience expecting something completely different from what I got. I had read extensively about what other people had experienced, and expected something similar. Instead I learned the inclinations of my own soul.
Even now, when I turn my head, vertigo. Maybe it’ll wear off by the morning… So, there it is, then.
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