DOSE:

200 mg

oral

Harmine

(capsule)

BODY WEIGHT:

195 lb

I’ve used Peganum harmala tea many times as an MAOI to make DMT orally active and to improve the effects of psilocybin mushrooms. I haven’t much enjoyed the effects of Peganum harmala on it’s own, but I’ve read that pure harmine is far superior to Peganum harmala and some people actually prefer harmine to other psychedelics. I often wondered what pure harmine was like, but I wasn’t interested enough to pay the high price it often sells for at various chemical supply companies. Also, I value my health and would not ingest anything made in a laboratory with toxic chemicals.

One day I saw an ad for harmine from an on-line vendor. It was really cheap. The ad said it was extracted using a non-toxic food grade extraction procedure. It was being sold as a black light paint ingredient. Apparently harmine glows in black light when diluted. I’ve seen harmine sold before but what got my attention was that this particular vendor’s ad stated that it was extracted with an all natural food grade procedure and the price was really cheap. So I ordered 3 200 mg doses.

When it arrived I was very excited to try it. Each 200 mg dose came in its own very tiny amber bottle. I placed all 200 mg of one bottle in a size 0 capsule, which it nicely fit into. I took it on an empty stomach at about 10:30 pm, several hours after eating dinner. After about 30 minutes, I didn’t feel anything. I started to wonder if I needed to take more. I went off to do some things and forget about it. At about 11:30 pm, I started noticing how happy I felt. I felt as if all my stress of the day was gone. I started smiling really big. Shortly after that my body started feeling very different, sort of light and soft, as if all my muscle tension was gone. I also noticed that my sense of touch was altered. Everything felt really smooth to the touch. At about 12:00 midnight, the effects were very noticeable. There were mild open eye visuals. Things looked more dreamy. It’s hard to explain exactly. The visuals are nothing like other psychedelics. They are soft and a little wavy, but very mild. There’s sort of a ripple effect, almost like you’re looking at reality reflected in a pond. My body felt so relaxed, my mind felt completely at ease with everything. I felt so peaceful. It was an extremely pleasurable mental and physical state. With my eyes opened I could see very faint objects moving in my peripheral vision. Whenever I closed my eyes I almost immediately started drifting away into dream sequences. I decided to take advantage of this and laid down on my bed, closed my eyes, and I immediately started dreaming. I was able to open my eyes and stop dreaming at will. Eventually I drifted so deeply into a dream that I fell asleep. The next day I woke up feeling fantastic! I had not had such a restful sleep in ages. For the rest of the day I felt at ease with everything. Even very stressful situations were a breeze to deal with.

I have to say that my experience with pure harmine in a capsule differs quite a lot from my experiences with Peganum harmala tea. During the entire time I didn’t feel any negative body effects or mental cloudiness whatsoever.

Four grams of Peganum harmala made into tea is roughly as potent as 200 mg of harmine. When making Peganum harmala tea, straining out all the solids greatly reduces the nausea it normally causes (I still get a little nausea from it though, but only for the first 30 minutes into the effects). With the four gram tea, the effects come on faster and are noticed within 30 minutes. For me, it always starts with a caffeine like nervous stimulated feeling. And then after about an hour the relaxed harmine dreamy state kicks in. After a few more hours, the relaxed harmine effect is again replaced by a caffeine like effect. At 200 mg, I found that pure harmine alone doesn’t have this caffeine like effect nor does it produce any nausea. Those effects are apparently caused by other compounds in Peganum harmala (harmaline, harmalol, etc.). The tea also makes my mind feel less focused, sort of foggy and a little more forgetful. The tea is not nearly as smooth and dreamy as pure harmine is. The negative effects on the mind and caffeine like effects are apparently caused by the high amount of harmaline present in the tea. With the tea there’s a feeling that your body is slightly poisoned throughout the whole experience.

Harmine is more like a true psychedelic than Peganum harmala is. The other toxic compounds in Peganum harmala negatively affect the experience to the point of making Peganum harmala a waste of one’s time as a psychedelic herb. Psychedelic doses of Peganum harmala, are pretty toxic feeling, tend to cause lots of nausea, confusion, numbness, and other unpleasant effects. For this reason Peganum harmala is pretty much only useful in small doses as a cheap MAOI.

Harmine’s effects are more similar to the effects of Passion Flower flowering tops (the flowers specifically, not the leaves) than to the effects of Peganum harmala or any other psychedelic. One could easily mistake the overall effects of a low dose of harmine for the effects Passion Flower flowering tops. The only difference I’ve noticed is that harmine produces much stronger visual and mental effects. The effects on the body, muscles, nerves, mood, etc., are nearly identical.

Harmine alone is quite a nice psychedelic. I was pleasantly surprised and have since used it many times, up to 400 mg at once. In my opinion it is on par with LSD, mushrooms, smoked freebase bufotenine and of course pharmahuasca (oral DMT and harmine). It’s got it’s very own distinctive character. The visual effects are somewhat similar to LSD and bufotenine, but more wavy and milder. The dreamy effects and auditory effects are very much like bufotenine, but the dreamy aspect is much stronger. The feeling tone is a little bit similar to psilocybe cyanescens mushrooms, relaxed and smooth. It has the mood enhancement of LSD, but none of the edginess or bazaar mental madness it can cause. There’s also a similarity with bufotenine in its effects on the mind. With freebase bufotenine, you can smoke a really big hit of it, keep in the dose, exhale, and the effect gradually rises and at the peak even though it’s really super strong, like the most intense LSD trip possible, you feel mentally at ease, mentally calm. Harmine is like that, even when really intense, you feel mentally calm. I imagine that harmine together with smoked freebase bufotenine would probably be a great combination. I’ve read about people trying this combination with good results.

One thing that’s important to take note of is that harmine is a short acting MAOI. You should not take it with certain herbs, drugs, and foods known to interact negatively with MAOIs. However, I’ve had it with aged cheese, and many things you’re not supposed to have with an MAOI and I never noticed any interactions. It seems that it’s not nearly as dangerous as most other MAOIs available at pharmacies. But still, you should be cautious.

Exp Year: 2008	ExpID: 70617
Gender: Male
Age at time of experience: Not Given
Published: Sep 11, 2008	Views: 29,793
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Harmine (315) : Not Applicable (38), Retrospective / Summary (11), General (1)