# Sleep and Dreams > Research >  >  African Dream Herb Observations! Also called Xhosa Herb or Silene Capensis

## Carzlebub

*Introduction:*

Hi! This is going to be a log of my experiments with the Xhosa Herb. This is mostly for my own benefit because since all herbs have different effects on different people, this may not have the same effect on you who is reading this. I am going to try to make this as scientific as possible, and unlike the "professionals", I will not, I repeat, I WILL NOT ignore the immeasurable aspects of this experiment. I will try to quantify them as best as I can and not leave them out. This will be as detailed as possible.

This experiment will last exactly 3 months, because it is said that  after 3 months of consistently ingesting this herb, your dreams will  permanently be changed even if you stop taking the herb.

PLEASE PLEASE PLEASE! Comment on my method of experiment and have some suggestions for me!

*Herb Info:*

*Brief History of Herb:* This obscure flowering species is regarded by Xhosa diviners, An African Tribe, as a sacred plant with the ability to induce remarkably vivid and prophetic dreams. Reputed as more powerful than other dream herbs

1) Scientific Name: Silene Capensis
2) Supposed Active Chemical that is causing abnormal dreams: Triterpenoid saponins
3) I obtained my batch from: KT Botanicals. THESE ARE ROOTS, NOT POWDERED

*Side note:* DO NOT GET THE POWDERED FORM AS IT OXIDIZES VERY QUICKLY AND IT WILL LOSE ITS POTENCY OVER TIME! PLUS ITS MORE EXPENSIVE

*Method of Ingestion:* I will use the same method of ingestion throughout the entire experiment. My method is going to be the traditional method. Its the Froth Method.

*Here's what I do in retard-proof form.*
1) measure 1 gram of the root with my handy-dandy scale. 1 gram will last you 3-4 days, making it about 250mg dose a day, the ideal dose. If you don't have a scale, borrow one from one of your drug dealing friends or steal one from the school lab. Or just estimate, its not that big of a deal if your off a bit

*Note:* The root will probably have a lot of dirt on it. Don't wash it off, as I suspect that you may wash away the root hairs which are quite valuable in chemicals. Just grow a pair and use the dirty herb.

2) Crush up the root as best as possible. I use a hammer and a wrench and I just claw at the stuff until it is a nice powder.
3) Dump the contents into a sort of large drinking glass container. Any will do, the bigger the better.
4) Fill the container with water a little less than halfway full.
5) Get a wooden spoon! For an odd reason, the herbs stick to metal and plastic spoons and its annoying. if you don't have a wooden spoon, a metal one will work just fine, its just really annoying.
6) Put the wooden spoon in the cup, and put it between your palms and rub your palms together as if you are trying to start a fire with wood
7)  Keep at it! Stir vigorously
8) Eventually, after about 30 seconds, foam will start to appear.
9) Now use another spoon, it can be metal, and take some of that delicious foam and put it in your mouth!
10) Keep filling your mouth with foam and swallow until you become bloated or burp.
11) Each 1g solution should last 3-4 days. Your best bet is to keep using it until the cup smells or if no more foam is forming. 

**Note: I put a bit of honey in my solution to improve the taste, and its AMAZING!

*AUXILLARY STEP:* If you want to be cost effective, put a few drops of either vodka or hydrogen peroxide into your solution to prevent bacteria from forming. Apparently, Xhosa herb has anti-septic properties, so you probably don't have to do this, but its worth the safety. In this experiment I am putting a few rocks of myrhh or hydrogen peroxide in my solution as it is an anti-septic and shouldnt effect the outcome of this experiment.

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*Basic Info about the Subject, myself*
1) 5 ft 10 white male
2) 130 lbs
3) 18 years old
4) I have taken this dream herb a few times before (around 5 days) with semi-successful results

*OK. The Dream Situation*

It is important to mention my ability to remember dreams and the quality of my dreams before I start this experiment, so we have a control to compare the changes to.

*1) Dream Recall*
My dream recall at this moment is pretty terrible. I barely remember 1 dream a night. This has been so for the past month or two. I used to be able to remember a consistent 2 dreams per night a while back. I hardly ever remember anything about a dream besides the plot and my sense of sight. Sense of smell is virtually non-existent. On rare occasions I hear sounds and have conversations. I have virtually no sense of touch or taste either. I do usually remember my thoughts about dream objects and characters.

To sum it up, Primarily, the plot and my thoughts and my sense of sight is always remembered. Everything else, not. I WILL QUANTIFY RECALL EACH NIGHT BY STATING THE NUMBER OF DREAMS I REMEMBER

*2) Vividness*
My dreams are by no way vivid. On a vividness scale of 1 to 10, 10 being the most vivid, I would rate my vividness a 4. Some dreams are barely colorful. Some even in black and white. I think vividness and recall go hand in hand. If you have a vivid dream it is easier to recall it. The features of objects and characters is barely specfic at times. Occasionally I can see textures quite clearly.

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*Log*
The whole shebang! I will try to do the same thing each day which is, I will consume the foam 30 minutes after waking up in the morning on an empty stomach. It is believed that the herb goes through your bloodstream very slowly and so the morning should be the best time. Then I will try to eat food 30 minutes later, a light breakfast of course. *EACH DAY I WILL LIST:*
1) Amount of Foam consumed (In bottle-fulls)
2) Hours of sleep (NOT FROM LAST NIGHT, since I take it in the morning, it is the night of.
3) How many dreams I had
4) Vividness scale of 1 to 10, 10 being most vivid.
5) Craziness/strangeness of the content of the dream, measured on a  scale of 1 to 10, 10 being the craziest content. I've noticed that when I  have taken this herb before the architecture in my dreams have been  insane

ALSO I WILL LIST ANY OTHER VARIABLES THAT WILL AFFECT THE EXPERIMENT SUCH AS IF I SMOKED MARY J OR DRANK THE NIGHT OF, OR IF I TOOK A MULTIVITAMIN.. ETC.

I will post a log of each night on this thread

If you would like to follow along, check out my dream journal.

THANKS!

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## Dthoughts

Nice approach . It's hard to find such detailed reports of dream herbs. I'll be keeping an eye on this thread. Thanks !

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## Carzlebub

Ok unfortunately im going to have to push back this experiment until june 13 because it is my last week before i am graduating high school and im planning to get wrecked almost every night and i feel that it will interfere with this experiment too much,  so i will start my observations next monday!

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## SystemsLock

I support this project and hope you keep with it.

Out of curiosity, you're in high school so I assume you live at home. How did you convince your parents to let you order psychedelic herbs off the internet?

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## Matt123

Sounds good, keep us posted.

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## Dannon Oneironaut

They are not psychedelic herbs but psycho=active, but so is coffee. Plus, he's 18. He doesn't have to have Daddy's permission.

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## tommo

Cool.  Don't bail out on these things like most people seem to do.  I might to a similar thing with Calea once mine grows big enough.

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## Dannon Oneironaut

You are growing some Calea Zacatechichi?

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## Carzlebub

> I support this project and hope you keep with it.
> 
> Out of curiosity, you're in high school so I assume you live at home. How did you convince your parents to let you order psychedelic herbs off the internet?



hahaha! Actually I've ordered psychoactive herbs when I was 17, but I'm able to convince my parents to let me order these things by.....bum bum bum.....not telling them! =D. Simply purchase a gift card from CVS and use it on the internet, and know exactly when your mailman comes by each day and bam! Its time to get high!!! I promise I will not bail out! Also, if they did find out, my backup plan was to tell them that it was loose tea.  Although there may be some missed days wayyy later on in the experiment since I am going to europe on a cruise in the middle of this summer but I will try to continue my experiment abroad if possible.

Is there any other information that I am possibly missing from the debriefing that you guys are curious about? Like other confounding variables and stuff?

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## tommo

> You are growing some Calea Zacatechichi?



Well, it's growing itself  :smiley: 
Fairly slowly for some reason.
Everyone says it grows fast but mine doesn't for some reason.

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## Dannon Oneironaut

The soil should be slightly acidic: 5.8 ph level is ideal. You can get testing strips and some ph down and ph up solutions at a growing store. Also, how much light is it getting, and what kind? And nutrients?

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## tommo

I've got some of those strips for the pool, so I might use them.

I don't give it any nutrients.  It is in that slow release soil (I know, I know....) at the start but that would have been used up mostly by now, with some perlite in it..  I read that it doesn't need much nutrients, if any, because it is a resilient plant that grows in the desert.
I hardly water it, just let it get rain every now and again mostly.  It is in the shade but it gets sunlight about probably 5-6 hours a day in Summer.  Kind of light is harsh Australian sun hehe

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## dacher2

_this is so cool. I wonder what other rare strange plants increase lucid dreaming skill._

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## Dannon Oneironaut

skill?

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## Dthoughts

> this is so cool. I wonder what other rare strange plants increase lucid dreaming skill.



I'm planning to buy some 5-HTP since some self-proclaimed guru who had been lucid dreaming for 10 years straight said it makes his dreams more vivid and lifelike.
He said it does something to increase the serotin level that ur pineal gland produces and that should result in more vivid dreams.
This in turn might increase ur chances on becoming lucid. Atleast, that's what i'm hoping for.

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## VitaminJ

> I'm planning to buy some 5-HTP since some self-proclaimed guru who had been lucid dreaming for 10 years straight said it makes his dreams more vivid and lifelike.
> He said it does something to increase the serotin level that ur pineal gland produces and that should result in more vivid dreams.
> This in turn might increase ur chances on becoming lucid. Atleast, that's what i'm hoping for.




5-htp is a direct precursor to Serotonin, and should be taken before bed with carbs! (Avoid proteins). It works simply by suppressing REM, which most people don't realize, and in turn forces the body into a deep sleep for the first half. This is why one will dream more frequently, and remember it in the second half of their sleep, as the REM rebound effect will occur. It is important to note that Serotonin is a strong REM suppressant, which is why any serotonin agonist should not be taken at WBTB.

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## Carzlebub

ok i am really sorry i will start this experiment as soon as possible i have finals this week and i have no time in the morning to prepare my concoction, school is over this friday, so i promise i will start on saturday

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## dacher2

_





 Originally Posted by Dannon Oneironaut


skill?



yes, skill._

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## Carzlebub

im trying to edit my post but the website wont let me, someone help! says my editing time has expired?

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## Carzlebub

Day 1:

1) 3 bottle-fulls of foam, taken at NIGHT, stopped after I burped up some foam
2) 9 hours of sleep, from about 3:30 AM to 12:30 PM
3) 1 dream remembered
4) 5 on the vividness scale
5) 4 on the craziness scale; summary: I was trying to hijack yachts from a lake

Other info: I vaporized JWH, which has similar effects to cannabis, a few hours before going to sleep and was mindfucked from it!

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## Aeolar

Jwh?

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## Carzlebub

its a synthetic research chemical that is almost identical to the effects of cannabis. not planning to do it that much ever again

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## Carzlebub

Day 2:

2 bottle-fulls taken at NIGHT, I stopped after I felt bloated
Mon, 20 of June, 12:30 to 7:30ish, 7 hours of sleep
1 dream fragment remembered
4 on the vividness scale
4 on craziness scale/In the bath tub, a yu-gi-oh monster the dark magician came out of nowhere and scared me, ran to my friend, and he didn't care

Other info: Nothing

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## Carzlebub

Day 3:

0 bottle-fulls taken, it was graduation day, I was so tired from partying that I was lazy enough to go to sleep
2:30 AM - 12:00 PMish 9.5 hours of sleep
0 dreams remembered
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Other info: I was high on cannabis, a bit high on tobacco (yes pathetic) and I just graduated high school

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## Aeolar

> its a synthetic research chemical that is almost identical to the effects of cannabis. not planning to do it that much ever again



Have you ever heard of 'spice'?  I think that it's something quite similar. Spice was terrible by the way. Natural herb is much better.

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## KushyBear

JWH is the chemical in spice which gives it that effect. But I've tried Silene before, but only did a few days trials here and there. On those days I didn't remember any dreams, but just knew that they were very vivid. Pretty weird haha. I still have a bunch left, hopefully it doesn't go bad, I think it's been about a year xD I'll try it out again and let you all know.

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## Carzlebub

ya i did it like once it was retarded, pure jwh is a bit different and much more powerful, but still the all natural is the way to go 100%

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## Carzlebub

Day 4:

0 bottle-fulls taken
Slept from 2:30 to 12:00 ish
1 dream remembered
6 on the vividness scale
4 on the craziness scale/I was at a giant lake in the middle of the forest. I was trying to wakeboard but I forgot to bring it. Also interacted with a german girl

Note: I've been practicing All day Awareness

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## Carzlebub

Day 5: 

0 bottle-fulls taken
Slept from 1:30 to 8:45
1 dream remembered
5 on vividness scale
6 on craziness scale/ I was in a warehouse trying to shoot a bunch of bad guys. One drops a nuke and all hell breaks loose

Note: I've been eating only organic fruits and veggies, nuts, wholegrains, and fish for the past 2 days, and was practicing all day awareness
Also vaporized JWH with friends a few hours before bed, it was the leftovers from the other night =)

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## Carzlebub

Ok my computer finally died forever, that is why I have been away for the past week. Now I adopted my sisters computer and hope to continue this!

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## WalkerSens

I praise you for what your doing, but you need to be persistent. While I have not conducted any experiments on dreaming, as of yet, I have with other details of my life. Have you been taking your foam while not having a computer? If so I'm eager to hear if anything has changed.

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## Carzlebub

ive been staying up until like 3 every night partying at my friends house and being completely irresponsible in regards to doing this experiment. Plus with my computer being fucked up I had no tools with me although Im sure i couldve gotten aroudn that. I haven't taken my foam for at least 7 days. Also I am going to be in europe tomorrow for the next 2 weeks without internet so this experiment will have to go on hiatus unfortunately. Since my lifestyle in europe is going to be altered drastically (no computer, high fructose corn syrup, lots of activity, more sleep, more exposure to sunlight) I definitely want to take note of that for everyone here.  Once again I am sorry for letting u down, I promise to continue this experiment after july 23 until way into december.

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## oldbill

I have tried Silene capensis and whilst awake i do feel aspects of awareness become very loose and feel as if they drift. I have not yet been concious inside these drifting aspects though. 

Perhaps the most startling thing i discovered was that someone took a photograph of me whilst in an underground church in France. The photo initially looked blurred or like a double exposure. On closer examination it revealed a somewhat luminous double of myself superimposed. This photo was sent of for analysis to a group of well known Russian school of psychics for assessment. They said they had witnessed this phenomena many times before and that it was evidence of what they referred to as a 'following subject.' The camera was checked, as were all images on the data disk. It seems a genuine psychic photo. Unfortunately i am not willing to show this photo on any public forum. I have a few supersticious beliefs about this sort of thing.

I also experiemented with 'Calea' but found this induced extreme extreme anxiety in me. It is difficult to relay how much this screwed my emotional state for several days. Maybe PMT squared would be close. I tried this with another subject (female psychic) who subsequently experienced intense migraine to the point of vomiting. Curiously i 'saw' huge energy build up inside her which i tried to release via massage. This resulted in her turning nearly scarlet and raising her skin temperature to highly uncomfortable levels. It did help dissipate the headache though. 

Just for general info.

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## divinemission

It's actually quite nice to come across this forum here, because I actually bought an ounce of African Dream Root a week or two ago, but haven't had any yet. I guess the most effective way is to take it is the froth method, so I'll probably follow your directions above. I heard it's best and most effective to do this in the morning before you eat, too, as to avoid nausea. You drink the froth till your bloated, and when that feeling passes it's safe to eat. 

Supposedly this root is more effective than Calea Zacatechichi, which I am very fond of, so I am excited to give this a try.

Keep us updated of your experiment Carzlebub... I LOL'ed at you hiding this from your parents.  ::lol::

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## Carzlebub

Lulz

Attention:

If the circumstances of this experiment cudn't get any worse.... i just got back from europe and then last thursday i had deviated septum surgery and have been drugged out on painkillers and been feeling like total shit for the past week. Until 2 days ago, I couldn't even pick up a computer to log onto. I hope to redo this experiment when i am starting my freshman year of college around august 19ish. 

@divine.

wait so the only reason its better to ingest before breakfast is to reduce nausea? that makes things a lot either i thought it would affect the rate of absorption but since you are doing it so early in the morning the rate doesnt really matter because you have the entire day ahead of you.

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## neurosisfish

Hey at least your sinuses will thank you!

looking forward to seeing the progress of this come late august

i might try and order some as well
but im definitely not going to get high as often as you lol!

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## thespiz

> Have you ever heard of 'spice'?  I think that it's something quite similar. Spice was terrible by the way. Natural herb is much better.



or you could just smoke REAL herb, which is much better than any of that crap.

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## gert

Hi I live in south africa close to the xhosa settlements the herb is readily available here if have used it of and on if you guys need any info on preparation  let me know

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## Carzlebub

hello everybody. I am soon approaching the end of my post operation period from my deviated septum surgery! college is insane, its very tough to keep a stable sleep rhythm here. Anyways, now that I have my classes and my routine organized, I am ready to officially start this experiment again. I have been completely ignorant of my dreams for the past few weeks so I am basically simulating a noob subject in this experiment. I would like to start a fresh new thread because this one is way too jumbled. Its 2 in the morning right now and I have class in 6 hours, so I will resume this tomorrow.


@gert, what preperation do the xhosa do in those specific settlements?

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## whitenight

Hi gert,
l don't know if your still on here, but l'd like to ask you about silene capensis sold in liquid form in south africa.
This shop sells it. l can't post a link yet, but the address is 'medicoherbs.co.za'

l live in the uk and l've never ordered with these ppl before. Can you recommend them??
Any advice much appreciated.

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