DOSE:

oral

Desfontainia spinosa

(tea)

BODY WEIGHT:

240 lb

I'm an experienced psychonaut of 30 years. Given that this plant has many warnings but practically zero experience reports I thought I'd give it a very cautious try. Only after my experience did I find exactly one trip report for this plant. Between their experience and mine, it doesn't seem very promising for anyone except the ultimate shamans willing to risk life and limb. Perhaps there are people out there who are able to use plants like Datura in a western, urban setting without slipping away into true delirium, but I am not one of them.

I took a few grams of Desfontainia Spinosa and put it in a stainless steel tea-strainer. I placed the tea-strainer in some water which I then heated to a boil. Upon it boiling I turned off the heat and let it steep an indeterminate amount of time but at least a half hour. I then poured some of it into a typical American size coffee cup.

There are various various warnings about this plant online that suggest it has an alkaloid profile similar to Datura. Based on these warnings I slowly took a few sips, waiting a few minutes after each sip to see if I noticed any effects. Over half an hour of nursing this drink I only consumed maybe 1/3rd of the cup. At this point I started to become aware of the beginnings of some very odd effects.

I started to yawn and exhibit signs of tiredness and dreamlike reverie setting in. My words were becoming ever so slightly slurred, 'around the edges' as it were.

But the slurring had a kind of dissociation to it that only comes from strong deliriants and dissociative states - one of my least favorite kinds of trip. This slurring was at the very edge of my ability to perceive, and yet strong enough that I began to wonder if the slurring was in my speech or in my hearing - a major warning sign right there. The tiredness began to get quite overwhelming. I realized that the 'tiredness' was turning on a dreamlike, dissociated state that felt similar to how psilocybin feels at onset only much, much stronger. This kind of extreme dissociation can often alternate between seeming like a dream-like state, seeming like a very oppressive 'sleepy' or even 'drunk' feeling, and a total blackout where one is aware of neither ones actions nor ones surroundings. Considering this was at roughly T+30 to T+45 after consumption it was clear this experience had the potential to become infinitely stronger than what I was already experiencing.

I felt like I was only a few more sips away from a very strong 'death of ego' state under which it is clearly possible to act without being at all aware of ones actions nor surroundings.

In particular the uncanny inability to determine if the slurring was in my speech or in my hearing indicated to me that the 'death of ego' was already strong enough that I wondered if I might get to the point where I *thought* I was aware of where I was, but in reality I was somewhere else. Just for the record this is an effect that I have only come close to experiencing from larger doses of only the strongest of dissociatives - where the perceptions I think I am having are so far time-delayed and space-delayed from where I actually am in the moment that it would be quite easy to injure myself. Where you think you are still sitting in your chair, but in 'reality' you've already gotten up and walked over to a flight of stairs you climb every day and fallen down it without even noticing. In reality you are lying there injured at the bottom of the stairs, but the combination of shock and dissociation is so complete that all you can do is flash back to the 'beginning' of the incident where you are still sitting in the chair deciding to get up and walk, and think that this is where you still are. So, since I could tell that this degree of dissociation was likely around the corner, I aborted the experiment.

Within a half an hour I was back to baseline.

Total amount consumed: 1/3rd of a small coffee cup of tea.



So, I would say this plant is far too strong.

Exp Year: 2015	ExpID: 106633
Gender: Male
Age at time of experience: 45
Published: Mar 26, 2019	Views: 4,725
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Desfontainia spinosa (538) : Alone (16), First Times (2)