# Lucid Dreaming > Attaining Lucidity > Lucid Aids >  >  Calea Zacatechichi (Dream Herb)

## lucidpersian

Will it work? 
I'm thinking of ordering some as soon as i get enough money in my paypal account. 

Anybody have experiences to share? 
Do you smoke it, ingest it, drink it, stare at it until you lucid dream...? 

Any feedback is helpful  ::D:

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## LikesToTrip

It tastes.... AWFUL. Like worse than awful. I knew it tasted bad when I bought it, but DAMN. It's the worst thing I've ever tasted, I was barely able to drink a cup of tea and adding a shit ton of sugar/honey didn't help at all. It was bad. And it didn't seem to have any effect on my  dreams. I hadn't been practicing lucids at the time though. Maybe if I had been actively practicing lucids it might have helped more. Smoking it isn't too bad if you've smoked anything before. It tastes a little bitter, but it is somewhat relaxing. I smoked like 4-5bowls once and felt slightly relaxed.  It didn't help with dreams though...

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## Euler

> It tastes.... AWFUL. Like worse than awful. I knew it tasted bad when I bought it, but DAMN. It's the worst thing I've ever tasted, I was barely able to drink a cup of tea and adding a shit ton of sugar/honey didn't help at all. It was bad.



Haha I had to laugh when I read this. Yeah the flavor of that stuff is no joke. I've eaten moldy bread before (unknowingly), and that was like a snickers compared to a tea of Calea Z. I too put a huge amount of sugar, honey, and mixed it with other teas and it was barely drinkable. It truly is the most horrible flavor I've ever tasted. I had incredibly vivid dreams that night, several that I could recall with high detail accuracy. My wife smoked some of the leaves and also reported vivid dreams that same night. It might all be placebo effect though. I'm still working on experimenting with creating capsules of it to ingest.

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## Rozollo

> Haha I had to laugh when I read this. Yeah the flavor of that stuff is no joke. I've eaten moldy bread before (unknowingly), and that was like a snickers compared to a tea of Calea Z. I too put a huge amount of sugar, honey, and mixed it with other teas and it was barely drinkable. It truly is the most horrible flavor I've ever tasted. I had incredibly vivid dreams that night, several that I could recall with high detail accuracy. My wife smoked some of the leaves and also reported vivid dreams that same night. It might all be placebo effect though. I'm still working on experimenting with creating capsules of it to ingest.



Do you grow your own or did you buy it?  I bought 12 pills from IAmShaman, but for the cost, I was hoping to go a different route.  It was like $15 or 18 with shipping.  That adds up.  Getting the dried leaves for smoking would be okay, but I hear that the smoking effects aren't as good as drinking/pills.

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## Euler

I found a place that would send the dried leaves and a lot of seeds happened to be included. They don't sell the seeds separately but I had a LOT, at least fifty to try to plant. I haven't gotten around to it, I hear their germination rate is very low but I'm going to give it a shot anyway. The site I ordered from was called Bouncing Bear Botanicals and a ziploc baggie of 28g cost me about $14 with shipping.

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## Rozollo

You said you drank it, but did you smoke it?  Was one more powerful than the other?  That's a good price.

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## Euler

Unfortunately I only drank it. My wife did smoke it however, and she reported having vivid dreams. She doesn't know much about lucid dreaming nor does she attempt any of the methods. I'm going to give it a try though, I'll report back my personal findings.

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## tommo

I don't know why people complain about the taste.
Maybe it's because they buy old dried herb.
I picked mine straight off the plant and it taste quite good, not even really bitter at all.

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## Matte87

It's said to be extremely bitter, not only is this reported by most people who has had it, but also wikipedia! :O Anyways I'm going to start growing a few plants soon, and I had some Calea before. It wasn't bitter at all either, so I wonder if what I had was really the real deal.

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## Andy2014

I just smoked some and I feel all tingly

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## tommo

> It's said to be extremely bitter, not only is this reported by most people who has had it, but also wikipedia! :O Anyways I'm going to start growing a few plants soon, and I had some Calea before. It wasn't bitter at all either, so I wonder if what I had was really the real deal.



Missed this.  Be sure to update after you've had it fresh from the plant.

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## EmoScreamo

I remember a discussion I read anywhere in the internet about socalled 'fake caleas'. 
I have a lot of Calea plants of which I am not entirely sure if they are real Caleas or fake Caleas. 

Erowid says something about sweet Caleas and the photos resemble my plants, so I hope they work. 

Growing seems difficult for me: I have been growing Caleas for 3 Years now and I have never harvested 50 gramms, because I had to throw my harvest to the garbage can because of different reasons.

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## DaTechnoKing

The following is not written by me





> Disclaimer: I'm not a medical doctor. Consult your doctor, lawyer, mother, personal psychic, healer, and your local congressman/woman before ingesting this stuff. In fact, just don't ingest it at all.
> 
> But since you aren't going to take my advice....
> 
> WORDS OF CAUTION
> Safety is always my first consideration when preparing herbs. It should be yours, too. So I'll break down the safety considerations for our friend, Mr. (or Mrs.) Calea Zacatechichi.
> 
> 1.) Allergic Reactions
> It's possible to have an allergic reaction to Calea. It's usually minor, but can be painful, and I wouldn't be suprised if it could be serious for some people. Symptoms include (but might not be limited to) lack of physical stamina, swelling in the extremeties with rash on the feet, between toes. Swelling in the hands, with redness on the fingers, mild nausea, drowsiness, very mild vertigo.
> ...

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## tommo

> I remember a discussion I read anywhere in the internet about socalled 'fake caleas'. 
> I have a lot of Calea plants of which I am not entirely sure if they are real Caleas or fake Caleas. 
> 
> Erowid says something about sweet Caleas and the photos resemble my plants, so I hope they work. 
> 
> Growing seems difficult for me: I have been growing Caleas for 3 Years now and I have never harvested 50 gramms, because I had to throw my harvest to the garbage can because of different reasons.



Mine's growing pretty slow too.
It doesn't look at all like the fake one though.  Which has GIGANTIC leaves.

I think it's just less bitter when it's fresh.  I'll try drying some and see what happens I guess.

The website owner assured me it's real too.  Reputable site.

Post some pics of yours and we could maybe figure it out?

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## Matte87

Didn't get my ordered seeds, because I had ordered melatonin aswell, which requires a prescription in Sweden. They didn't even bother to reply to my email. What a bunch of douches.

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## Codename

> Didn't get my ordered seeds, because I had ordered melatonin aswell, which requires a prescription in Sweden. They didn't even bother to reply to my email. What a bunch of douches.



What website?

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## tommo

Did the website not respond or customs?

If customs took it all, that's shit.  They could have at least left
the seeds there.

Don't worry though, seeds basically never sprout.
I tried them once before.  I had 50-100 of em and none sprouted.
I did everything I could.

Much better to get a cutting.

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## nrg

Can You imagine that Calea is illegal here in Poland - LOL! Lucky (or not) I had a chance to test it while it was still legal. Sure the taste was bitter as hell  ::D:  
Smoke or to drink ? Thats the question  :smiley:  
Smoking:
pros: you need less of the material - about 0.5g, less bitter than drinking
cons: not too good for lungs 

Drinking:
pros: saving your lungs  :smiley: 
cons: more material needed , terrible taste.

Well for me it didn't work. I didnt notice any difference, and yes Im pretty potent to all kinds of oneirogens :smiley: 
I heard that if you want to really try CZ its best to buy extract. 

In my opinion the best oneirogen i have tried is Silene Capensis - African Dreem Root - Very powerfull! at least for me  :smiley:   ( luckly still legal  ::D:  )
SC tastes uncomperably better than CZ and also works great. Before you try this do a research and its recomended to have some lucids before ( in order to have some expirience )

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## Matte87

Well, the package got sent back to where it was sent from. They haven't replied to any of my emails so I don't really care anymore. Not sure I should say which site it was though, might be against the rules.

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## tommo

It's not against the rules to say.

nrg - Calea was extremely potent for me.
I didn't need anywhere near a handful (recommended dose) to feel it's effects while awake.
Relaxed me really quickly.

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## nrg

hmm maybe my weed was weak or something  :smiley:  or maybe it was a placebo for you  :smiley:

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## tommo

haha, nah definitely wasn't placebo.
Well, I'm fairly certain anyway.

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## tulamidan

How do you guys smoke it? Do you roll a cigarette (with or without tabacco?), do you use a pipe, a bong, a shisha? I have some here right now and consider the best ways to consume it. At the minute my shisha seems to be the best idea but also filling the powder in caps and swallow the whole stuff seems interesting....

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## EmoScreamo

I heared a Vaporizer at 190°C is best. 
I tried it once in cigarette paper and either I burned my tongue or the cig stopped burning.

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## Depth08

*Didn't work for me in any way!*

First I used a bulb to vaporize, simply burns the herbs, you need a real vaporizer for that.

I rolled a cig, first with some tobacco, then without. Here I had some emediate effect!
Both with and without tobacco all my senses felt sharper. I heard more crisp, things looked sharper.
But the effect wears off easily, a shower destroys it (+ you smell bad after smoking it).

TEA WAS NOT PLEASANT, I won't go into details!

No significant change in my dreams.

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## Pierrot

whats the color of its tea?

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## Depth08

It was yellowish, & I had to squeeze a whole lemon in because that bitter taste was better than the deeper bitter taste that tea gave me  :Eek: 

Doesn't have any effect at all!

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## CliffDreamer

I just wanted to add, me and a few other people I know got no effects from Calea tea or smoking it. I am quite sure it was legitimate, as it was from a reputable vendor. Oh and to add, this tea is INCREDIBLY bitter. If anyone here uses/has used MDMA; the tastes are incomparable. MDMA is almost like candy compared to this stuff.

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## darklight101

try to melt with chocolate or pills.

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## Mud

Ordered an ounce. Curious about the taste. Will report back any results soon.

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## hassman789

Cool! I started about 20 seeds on 1-1-12. I heard a lot about how they are near impossible to germinate, but I got probably over 75% to germinate. They are growing very slow, but making progress! I think I'm going to make pills when I do this.

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## tommo

Can you post some pictures of the plants?

I must've planted around 30 seeds and none germinated.

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## hassman789

Sure I'll put pictures on this and I'll say how I germinated them. It may have just been a good batch of seeds, I hear they need to be really fresh. I took the seed pod I ordered and soaked it in water for a good part of the day. Then I opened the seed pod and took all the seeds out. I used a "Hot House Seed Starter" thing. It consists of a heat pad on bottom and a plastic setup for drainage and one with compartments for the dirt and seeds to go and a clear plastic cover to keep humidity in (probably easy to diy). I filled the little compartments with eco earth coco fiber and dampened it. Then Placed the seeds on the eco earth, just lightly pressing them in (most of them were not under the substrate at all). Then left a cheap florescent grow light on top and misted every day. When they started to grow I stitched them into a real soil because coco fiber doesn't have any real nutrition. I think my success probably had a lot to do with the seeds themselves. here is a picture of one at 2 months and 19 days old (the present).

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## tommo

Nice work man!  Maybe you are right, they just need to be really fresh.
The ones I got weren't even in a seed pod.

Well, I guess you have successfully debunked the myth that they are almost impossible to grow from seed! lol

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## lucidboy

i got a tincture from Iamshaman, and this too tastes terrible. Now i just put a few drops in a pill capsule and take that.

The first time i used it, i had one of the most vivid lucid dreams of my life. i also remembered every bit of it from start to finish, when i normally have little gaps in my memory. However, i have not yet had another lucid dream from the tincture since the first (ive used it maybe 2 or 3 times since then) so it might be a placebo effect... But it definitely caused some sort of change. 
I think im going to try it again tonight hah

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## Mrharddriven

I read somewhere that the mexican medicine men would drink the tea while they were smoking some of the herbs before they went to sleep  to find a long lost person or to find a cure for a sickness I think im gonna try this when i get mine.

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## Borislav

Through my work, I am able to access some research files on tests that have been done with test subjects in regards to the effects of the species Calea zacatechichi (ternifolia)
(I am a biochemist working with plant genetics and have good relationship with universities)

Anyways, as a lucid dreamer, I was of course interested in the calea, so I read over the reports. The plant's foliage proved to be effective over placebo tests at enhancing dream vividness and recall, but no accounts of lucidity. Still these are good results. Another key point that was mention is that the supplement was most effective when taken regularly and had time to build up in the system. 

Hope I could help you guys out. Remember, be responsible. Don't smoke it, just pack capsules. As well as getting inferior results, you will be harming your lungs. If you don't want to shell out the money, powder the foliage and roll the powder into balls with honey as the medium. This is what the chinese did. 

Good luck, I will try to post an edit with a picture of one of my plants for you to get an idea of what the real deal looks like. 

-Borislav

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## LucidiTEA

I make a WBTB tea blend using this but don't offer it in my shop since FDA has the plant listed as toxic and not fit for human consumption. I only sell my before bed blend which uses Mugwort and Wormwood along with other herbs. 

The effects of the Calea Zacatechichi plant are almost instant which is why it works well for WBTB but not as well before bed when most of the effects have worn off by the time you get to sleep and reach REM. It is possible those that did not notice the effects was because they wore off before they could be beneficial.

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## Borislav

As an addition to my previous post, in the test, the subjects were administered calea in capsules. I am not allowed to disclose the dose that was given, but it was probably about three leaves. 

I am not going to post a picture because I have noticed that the leaves on the plant change so much. The leaves start off as a more rounded, serrated, yet still triangular shape, and then as they get older take on a more triangular shape. The difference between this one and the "non-bitter" as is commonly referenced, is that the true calea had red hues and light pigments of green.

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## Mud

I while ago, i made a herbal mixture and was able to fly through walls. Like smash through cement walls where i'd normally bounce through them.

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