Thanks,

Lee

Here is the Abstract:

Ayahuasca, a South American psychotropic plant tea obtained from Banisteriopsis caapi and Psychotria virids, combines monoamine-oxidas-inhibiting B-carbpline alkaloids with N,N-dimethyltryptamine (DMT), a psychedelic agent showing 5-HT agonist activity. The spatial distribution of ayahuasca-induced changes in brain electrical activity was investigated by means of low resolution electromagnetic tomography (LORETA). Electroencephalography (EEG) recordings were obtained from eighteen volunteers with prior experience in the use of psychedelics after the administration of the 0.85 mg DMT/kg body weight dose of encapsulated freeze-dried ayahuasca and placebo. The intracerebral power density distribution was computed with LORETA from spectrally analyzed data. Statistically significant differences with placebo were observed at 60 and 90 minutes after dosing. Ayahuasca decreased power density in the alpha-2, delta, theta and beta1 frequency bands. This pattern of effects in analogous to that of the classical psychedelics and point out the involvement of 5-HT receptor agonism in the neurochemical effects of ayahuasca. Power decreases in the delta, alpha-2 and beta-1 bands were found predominantly over the temporo-parieto-occipital junction, whereas theta power were reduced in the temporomedial cortex and in frontomedial regions. The present results suggest the involvement of unimodal and heteromodal association cortex and limbic structures in the psychological effects elicited by ayahuasca.

Read the whole article here

Check it out: http://topdocumentaryfilms.com/watch-online/

Psychoactivity The Fountain of Culture

Christian Rätsch at the World Psychedelic Forum 2008

The historic fears of succubi and incubi must be reconsidered in light of contemporary psychology.  As the medical community disregarded the narratives of sleep paralysis until David Hufford’s ground-breaking work in the 1970s, we would be making the same mistake if we chalk up the old tales of sexual demons to “merely legend.”

Read more here

Check this site out here

I was in a room taking a shower and soon enough I said, I must be dreaming. I looked at the water and noticed how real it looked, and how it felt to the touch. I though, well if I am dreaming this is pretty dang real. I verbally said,”STOP” and the water stopped moving. The water was frozen in space and time, as though it was in like the matrix. I could walk over it and move it but it was still frozen from where ever I moved it. I put the water in my hand and played with the droplet. I put my fingers on the side of it and pulled it out, as though I was using a iphone and the water droplet expanded into a larger body of water. I noticed that it has hardened and I tossed it on the floor. The water then bounced down the hall.

At this time I was pretty involved with the water and as I looked up there was some creepy looking creature that looked like a mix of a jack-in-the-box figure clown looking thing, and Bigfoot with a mustache. Knowing that I may experience a dweller during my lucid dream I started to get scared that he may try to scare me more, well with more besides his dashing good looks. This thing looked at me and and rather than try to scare me, gave me a cupcake which tasted wonderful.

The real neat thing about this dream that I found very surprising is how real the water looked, how I could taste it, fill it, smell it and it was water. It made me think inside my dream that if this water looked like it does in real life, then how real is real life? How much is our brains just making up, or is this world mostly just in our heads? Are we just dreaming while we are awake, mixing in reality with fantasy and what we have been taught in order to make up what we all agree is real? I have see how easy the mind is tricked while lucid dreaming, how real things look and are, and I say that I don’t agree that what we experience in life is as real as we think it is.

Now to more dreaming!

The Food of the Gods, by Terence McKenna, is the story of humanities relationship with different plants and how these relationships effect and reflect our cultural values.

By the last page, the book has taken a somewhat discontinuous step into a different territory, with McKenna penning a manifesto of sorts on the integration of psychoactives into our current culture. He calls our culture the Dominator culture, and sees the use of consciousness-expanding plants as part of the Archaic Revival, a reference to the return of a  pre-monotheistic, integrated, “whole” way of living that we as a species once had with our environment and each other.

Read more at Bens blog dreaminglife.org

Ryan Hurd writes a new article called “Taming the Night mare” where he talks about some experiences of dreams where they are terribly fighting but can end out positive. He gives us the example of the visitation of a relative that may have passed away, and other instances much like that. Here is some of what he says:

Most people experience isolated sleep paralysis [ISP] at least once in their lives. This peculiar conscious vision state occurs at the boundaries of sleep, when we feel aware and awake. Sudden feelings of paralysis in bed — can’t move, can’t scream — give way to a terrifying encounter with a shadowy figure in the bedroom. Sometimes the figure materializes — the Stranger — who may sit on the side of the bed or on your chest, and breath its putrid breath into your face as it glares with glowing red eyes. This phenomenon is known around the world by different names. The Hag Effect. Ghost oppression. Supernatural assault. The Succubus.

Read more over here

Conclusions

In suggesting the connections between the symbols in these legends and the Amanita muscaria, it is certainly not my intention to pound a square peg into a round hole. If any of my suggested interpretations can be shown to be incorrect, this will trim the deadwood, and my case will stand on the points that remain. I hope the few loose ends left above will not detract from the fabric of my argument regarding Abhayadatta’s legend of Karnaripa. I hope my efforts to examine every possible clue will not be mistaken for Wassonian ‘monomaniacal… paranoid.., mycocentricity’ (Weil, 1988, pp. 489-490). The suggestion that some Buddhist siddhas used a psychedelic drug will be dismissed out of hand by many. The use of ‘intoxicants’ is against the contemporary orthodox Buddhist ethic. In a footnote to his interpretation of a beer-brewing recipe as a metaphor for the process of enlightenment, Ardussi (1977, n. 37, pp. 123-124) denies ‘that Vasubandhu’s reference to magical powers deriving from the use of herbs (Abhidharmakosa VII. 53) suggests a type of mystical experience comparable to, or contributing to the better understanding of experiences obtained otherwise through meditation’. I believe I have demonstrated that some contemporary nonorthodox Buddhist ‘alchemists’ find precedents in the Mahasiddhas Nagarjuna and Aryadeva, who agreed, ‘We need to eat the alchemical medicine’. Perhaps my analysis of these legends and sym-bols can provide a basis for new research by scholars of Buddhism, Tantra, alchemy, Soma studies, Eddic studies, ethnopharmacology, comparative mythology, transpersonal psychology, shamanism and history of religion. The relationship of a drug-induced psychedelic experience to ‘genuine’ mystical experience or to Buddhist enlightenment is debated today (Ratsch, 1989; Tart, 1991) as earnestly and as inconclusively as it was in the early years of wide-spread use of psychedelic drugs. I believe my identification of Amanita muscaria as the alchemical agent which brought ‘realization’ to these Buddhist adepts can help determine the value of the psychedelic experience in Buddhist tradition. Orthodox scholars may object but they can no longer ‘Just say No’.

You can read the full paper here