DOSE:

3.5 seeds

insufflated

Anadenanthera peregrina

(ground / crushed)

BODY WEIGHT:

126 lb

N.B. It should possibly be noted that I had been having a very lovely partying weekend, and during the previous two days had taken varying amounts of cocaine, ketamine, ecstasy, amphetamines, cannabis and alcohol. I have no idea how this affected my trip, but I was not feeling any noticeable effects from any of the other drugs when I chose to do the yopo.

I had been on a quest to find genuine DMT for approximately 9 years (to no avail) when I stumbled into a head-shop in Bath (UK), chatted to the owner and found that he sold yopo seeds – a natural and legal alternative to synthetic DMT. I bought two ‘doses’ (7 seeds each) for me and my friend. The owner warned me that some people had been sick, wet themselves or had lost control of their bowels whilst high on the yopo. Though I laughed about this, the thought of crapping myself whilst tripping did worry me somewhat, (and made finding the appropriate moment to do them a bit of challenge) and my friend and I have had these seeds in our possession for a number of years before actually doing them. I do not know anyone else personally who has done yopo seeds, and was a little nervous about being a pioneer. With experience reports I was able to find online, I swallowed my fears and adventured on into the relatively unknown!

N.B: I have finally achieved my quest for DMT after 12 long years, and managed to buy one dose of synthetic DMT which I did (method: smoked in a small pipe) about a month before this yopo experience. It was everything I had hoped it would be, and has left me with a beautiful sense of well-being and utter lack of the irrational fears which I had previously regarding this drug. I would highly recommend it to any curious individual who is in a good state of mind at the time.

The owner of the shop told me to bake the seeds, crush them and smoke them. I was given no details of how long to bake them for, and he said nothing about mixing the yopo with other substances. However, a little research online informed me of a number of different ways of taking the seeds. I chose to ignore the new online advice about adding a lime substance to the mixture (as I didn’t have any). My preparation method simply consisted of baking the seeds in the oven on a high temperature for a few minutes (until I heard one pop, and hurriedly took them out), peeling the thin brown skin off and crushing the flat, tan coloured nut inside them to a reasonably fine dust.

From the 7 seeds I had, the nutty substance amounted to about 3 grams. The smell was really quite nice, and although I had been advised by the shop owner to smoke the yopo, I chose to split the sawdust-looking yopo with my boyfriend and snort the very large lines which we had, as I believed I only had one dose of the yopo and my research had told me that we would have a much longer trip if we snorted it. We both sniffed a tiny bit before attempting the big lines (as I had read that it was intensely painful to snort), but neither of us found it painful. However, we did both immediately have a long sneezing fit (about 10 sneezes), which was quite funny. Interestingly, the large line which we did a minute or two later didn’t make either of us sneeze again. I would recommend that you perhaps do the same thing, or otherwise risk sneezing out much of your yopo hit.

The come-up was very quick. My muscles started to feel heavy and beautifully relaxed after just a minute or two, but I was prepared for this (from the DMT trip) and was comfortable in my colourful, dimly lit living room, feeling safe and happy with the circumstances in which I was experience the yopo. We chose to have Shpongle playing throughout our trip. This worked really well and enhanced the trip greatly.

The visuals started kicking in after about 5 minutes, becoming more and more intense for possibly the next 30 minutes after that. The colours were absolutely beautiful, with their hues deepening and intensifying and later, a beautiful geometric pattern of lines and swirls covering and filling everything, including the air around us. I cannot stress enough how pretty this trip was – I have done very large amounts of acid and psilocybin magic mushrooms before, but this was so much more beautiful. Alongside the colours, everything sparkled, as if thousands of well-drawn and precise twinkling stars were filling the room. One other noticeable effect that was similar to high dosages of LSD was the way that everything seemed rounded, curvy with straight edges and corners taken away to create a very comfy and cosy visual phenomenon.

We both got a great deal of enjoyment out of waving our hands around (which looked big and strange, like cartoon hands) and looking at each others faces. I did look into a mirror at one point, and I looked very flat-faced, almost two dimensional, but very pretty, colourful and childlike. When I closed my eyes, the colours were lessened, but the geometric, kaleidoscopic line patterns were very vivid, creating some very abstract patterns but also some with greater form and recognisable imagery. One I particularly remember was of looking at some kind of harbour with galleon-shaped boats diving up and down like dolphins through the sea. It was nice to close my eyes and see what happened, but I enjoyed keeping my eyes open more as it was so colourful and swirly.

During the peak (30 minutesish), I began to have rushes. These rushes were comparable only to feelings I have had years ago when ecstasy tablets were much stronger and I was much less tolerant to their effects than I am now. I had to control my breathing, and felt some anxiety at the speed which my heart was racing. I noticed that these rushes were very strongly connected to raises in temp and intensity of the music which was playing. Perhaps if I do yopo again, I will choose a very ambient, slow selection of music with no intense beats or rhythm. After approximately an hour, these rushes were very strong and I felt quite anxious. However, then I felt my mouth fill with saliva, went to the sink and was sick quite violently, three times. This was not at all unpleasant for me (though I worried that my boyfriend would be brought down from his trip by this) and I felt almost instantly ‘in-control’ of the rushes and trip again. The visuals had started to wane anyway by this point, and after about another 30-45 minutes, I had come down from the trip. The only effect which remained after this point was the feeling of having tranquilised and relaxed muscles.

However, there was one really strange, funny but ever-so slightly worrying element to this trip which I became aware of after being sick. I suddenly felt that I had physically and literally swelled up. My dress felt like it was clinging to my curves more, and my legs in particular seemed similar to being on a long-haul flight and having water retention. My boyfriend noticed the same thing, and we both had a good laugh whilst squishing various bits of my arms and legs (which felt nice and spongy, definitely different to normal.) The thumb ring which I wear all of the time ceased to spin easily on my thumb and felt tighter than normal, which in my drugged-up state I took as evidence that some bizarre physical change had actually happened. My boyfriend too looked and felt more rounded and squashy than normal, but it seemed more pronounced a change on me, which we theorised may be due to come kind of change in the fat cells (he is thinner than me and obviously men in general have less body fat than women). I found this perceived change absolutely fascinating (no drug as ever had a physical effect on me like that before) and really quite funny, but I must admit that it crossed my mind that perhaps I had been a bit reckless in doing this drug and would have to cope with being two dress-sizes bigger as a result! As the come-down progressed, I felt and even ‘saw’ my body shape return to normal.

I have since done a little checking on this, and have found that a common reaction to yopo and other psychotropics in this family of ayahuasca, DMT type-drugs is an effect called ‘macroscopia’ or perceiving things changing their size. Despite the fact that both my boyfriend and I both seemed to see and feel a change in our body sizes, I think now that this was an effect of the trip. The curvaceous appearance which the visuals gave everything around us accounts for my appearance, and I think that the feeling of sponginess which my flesh acquired was a result of the tranquilising effect of the yopo on our muscles. My best friend told me that she felt something very similar when under the effects of morphine whilst in hospital once. However, I would be really interested to see whether anyone else has ever had a similar experience or has any information about this.

Overall, yopo was BEAUTIFUL. I have read many negative reports about people’s experiences on it, and also read that the seeds alone do not work very well without mixing with a lime substance, but both my boyfriend and I had a wicked time and are looking forward to doing it again. Next time I will try smoking it, as I have read that though the effects are shorter, they are more euphoric. There is a fantastic report online somewhere (though relating specifically to DMT) giving general good advice about doing drugs such as this. The writer repeats over and over again about the impact of smiling, and one phrase will always stick in my mind: just before you are about to do yopo / DMT / whatever, SMILE! YOU’RE ABOUT TO DO DMT! It is a fantastic drug, with the most beautiful visuals I have ever experienced, a sense of childlike playfulness, loved-up closeness to my tripping partner and a wonderful sense of physical relaxation. Enjoy!

Exp Year: 2008	ExpID: 75046
Gender: Female
Age at time of experience: Not Given
Published: Sep 27, 2009	Views: 40,101
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Anadenanthera peregrina (285) : Small Group (2-9) (17), Music Discussion (22), Glowing Experiences (4), Preparation / Recipes (30), First Times (2)