Fractalhead

Gnomes have been simply scraping non-woody stuff off the outside of the darkish brown woody seed coat and chewing thoroughly, leaving paste under tongue for 5-10 min and then swallowing (spitting results in next to no effects). Drinking some nice strong ginger tea or taking ginger tablets prior to this process usually eliminates nausea though nausea free trips have been experienced without this. The lack of effects from the water extract are probably the result of degradation of the LSA during the 24 h soaking period. If you properly powder the seeds and use only a shotty of room temp distilled water for each 10 seeds, half an hour with swirling is probably more than sufficient to extract the goodies. Once extracted into water, the activity of the extract rapidly declines over the space of minutes to hours depending on the temperature, pH and other solutes in the water. The failproof method however is the chew, suck, swallow method. If that method fails to produce effects on four seeds, you know you are either very tolerant/insensitive or the seeds are a crap strain or past their use-by date. WARNING: GNOMES ARE ADVISED TO ABSTAIN FROM ALCOHOL FOR A GOOD DAY OR TWO BEFOREHAND OR RISK HORRIFIC NAUSEA. Rest assured, any seed purchased from SAB since at least August last year is top quality. Good luck and tell those gnomes they are lucky to live in gnomeland and not oz. The vine found in fruit recently was in north queensland where the summers are usually hot and wet and winters warmish and dry. [ 22. July 2003, 16:09: Message edited by: Fractalhead ]

Hi, I dreamt the other night that a 70kg gnome tried two seeds of what was rumoured to be the new SAB stock and was overcome for at least 6 hours by surprisingly vivid phosphine imagery (complete with snail shell spirals). Also, in waking hours i saw a vine grown from a cutting of the Fractal 1 strain that was planted in a garden in late 2001 and it had set seed (that's just over 1.5 years).

I think I know the feeling, gom. You want to do something but everything seems like a big drag. Wouldn't it make you feel GOOD if you did do what you know you should do? Sport/Physical exercise has got to be the best starting point for working all those depressive toxins out of you and a good chance to meet other healthy people. How about a bush-walking club or the society for growing australian plants (SGAP)? They often go hiking and looking for cool new plants to grow. How about going for a swim at the pool or beach? I'm sure you can think of something that suits you. Even if it does take a strong cup of coffee to break the downward spiral, just count 1,2,3 and jump up off your arse and do something because you really do 'want' to! . The positive upward spiral is just as easy to sucked into as the negative downward spiral.

Hmmmm... well said Salvinorin. I can't understand why you seem to come under fire so frequently Salvinorin. To me, the thoroughness of your work and your effort in getting the findings/information out there partiularly admirable especially despite your intentions to 'leave' the entheogenic community anyway. BTW, I can confirm the effect of low dose Salvia on orgasm. Actually, it felt more like the effects of orgasm on low dose Salvia. A borderline subthreshold sublingual dose of salvia was brought right into the superthreshold range at orgasm. I put this down to some sort of synergy between endogenous opiates and salvinorins. Cya round

Hi SW, I've just found the image on my hard drive and worked out how to upload it. Here you go. As they say, a picture tells a thousand words... So are you in Duboisia country now? IMAGE Ahhh... i uploaded the image but it wouldn't come up in this message for some reason. I'll jusat email it to you. [ 13. June 2004, 12:30: Message edited by: Fractalhead ]

I'm surprised noone has tried the extraction method described in the article on Claudes's website. I was planning to try this but will have to wait since spider mites have all but destroyed my once lush calea plants while i've been busy off trying to cram my head full of scientific info for exams.

So have any genetic analyses been done?

I tracked this tree down a few years ago. While prowling the web for references to it, i found some details of a botanical survey of a certain property in the Atherton Tablelands out of Cairns. My wife and I teamed up with Gem and drove out to the place and asked the owners if they could point us in the direction of this species on their property. They were very helpful and even gave us a map with X marking a few spots. After a while of scanning the bush we eventually found a huge specimen about 15-20m tall. The trunk was about a metre in diametre and there were no branches anywhere near the ground for climbing so a positive ID was obtained by finding flowers on the ground. The flowers are unique and quite characteristic. I collected a small chunk of bark, several flowers and some old leaves that looked like they were covered on the underside with light-brown peltate scales. unfortunately, no fruit were found. Fruiting season is july-november (from memory), so i'm hoping to get some fruit this july. I thought about grabbing enough bark for a bioassay, but didn't want to endanger the health of this specimen. Rev is right. They are hard to spot in bush since the branches are usually high up in the canopy out of sight, the trees usually occur only at a rate of one every square kilometre or so (at least in North Queensland - in PNG they occur in much denser populations) when they do occur, and they occur in quite unfriendly forest. I got covered in ticks looking for more specimens but could only find a stinging tree (which stung the crap out of my arm). I am busting to get my (and the communities) hands on this species but have very limited time and resources to go and organise a tree climber or rifle-owner to bring down some propagation material. Will hopefully be doing it this july however if all goes to plan... you up for it rev? Good to see the interest is there.

I've heard of gnomes gnomioassaying Tabernaemontana orientalis bark and getting strong effects, along with temporary blindness during the trip. I'd really like to know what this blindness causing stuff is, and how feasible it might be to separate it from the iboga alkaloids...

a photo would tell a thousand words... there are tonnes of ipomoeas fitting that description

mmmmm.... eyegasm

Presuming it were legal to do so, I would recommend a good strong dose of HBWR and then during peak, long continuous salvia session in comfortable bedding at night under stars. Make sure there are no mosquitos or dangerous objects around (like fire, cliffs, glass etc) during salvia in case you have the desire to get up and walk around. And always have a sober sitter nearby otherwise, if you suddenly get the urge to run randomly deep into the dark jungle you'll probably get totally lost in the darkness. This combo is failproof

Hi people, After being asked by a friend to find out the solubility profile of nuciferine, i hunted down the paper describing its original isolation. Here it gives details about the extraction process so anyone interested in extracting this from sacred lotus leaves should listen up as it shows some interesting solubility characteristics... Here is an extract from the paper: "Leaves of Hong Kong origin gave 0.02% alkaloid. The HCl salt of nuciferine was more soluble in chloroform than in dilute HCl or H2O which provided a simple method of isolation... ... Isolation: Fresh leaves (6kg) of Nelumbo nucifera were extracted with cold ethanol (14 L) for 4 days. The solvent was removed from the green extract under reduced pressure. The black residue was distributed between chloroform (3L) and 5% aqueous ammonia (1L). The chloroform layer was washed with water and shaken several times with 2N-HCl. From the acid extract (4L) a brown basic oil was obtained (this did NOT yield nuciferine). The residue obtained on removal of teh chloroform under reduced pressure was triturated with warm water (2L). The aqeuous solution was basified with ammonia and then extracted with chloroform (2L) from which, on distillation, the crude base was obtained (1.2g) Recrystallisation from ethanol gave nuciferine (m.p. 165.5). Dry HCl was passed into a solution of nuciferine (0.5 g) in dry ether. The white gel formed was collected. Crystallisation from ether-methanol gave needles of nuciferine HCl (m.p. 241)" From: Arthur, HR, et al., Journal of the Chemical Society. 1959, 2306 See also: Phytochemistry, 1971, 10, 1963 for details on isolation, IR, pmr, and MS). Some other info: * Apparently nuciferine emits toxic NOx fumes when heated to decomposition. (I read this as don't smoke the pure stuff). * Nuciferine also occurs in, among lots of other things, Colubrina faralaotra (Rhamnaceae) * Nuciferine is an adenylate cyclase inhibitor(hmmm perhaps will counteract caffeine effects when its sleepy time), and a strong sedative.

Well they definitely sound like a member of the Boletales group. Have you broken any of them open to look for a colour change? There are some Boletes that grow around conifers (pine trees etc) down there and have yellow pores and pale yellowish marshmellow like flesh inside. They are related and look similar to the blue-staining ones so they might be useful for something. You can eat some Boletus spp. (including the famous Boletus edulis). I'm interested in any fungi growing down there. There are some mycology books at the Denmark library. If you learn how to collect proper specimens, I would seriously be willing to trade plants and seed for all the species you can find, collect and preserve. I've been wanting to seriously collect fungi down there for ages but never get a chance. Cheers, Fractal

LOL. Well how about that. I haven't been to monkey rock for a good 4~5 yrs but they are still there! I've always been meaning to go back and grab some. The Leucopogon verticillatus that grows around there used to remind me of pot once. Not sure why. They don't look anything like it. Hey, if you get a chance, explore the heritage trail that runs along the inlet starting from the bridge at the Rivermouth Caravan Park. If you are at the caravan park, head away from town across the bridge and keep walking. It is approaching prime mushy time (no Psilocybes) at the moment and that walk trail is usually loaded with all kinds of funky fungi when there is a bit of rain around in autumn. If you can find any blue-staining bolete mushrooms on the path please pick and save some for me so i can eventually run some chemical analyses on them. I've had some weird experiences on that trail (naively) munching any old (non-Amanita, non-Russula) fungus. Tried some weird slimey golden blue coloured Cortinarius sp. after being told stories by locals. Definitely did something (probably including liver damage). Also the blue-staining bolete might have similar chemistry to the Boletus manicus and Phaeogyroporous sp. that are used as hallucinogens in various parts of the world. The blue staining bolete is a big chunky smooth light brown mushroom with a big fat stem (forget the proper terminology) and pores instead of gills - the main determining feature apart from this is the fact that when you break it open, the off-white flesh changes colour almost instantaneously to bright blue. Its worth finding just for the colour change.

Hmmm... yeah i think i might know the ones you mean. Down near the carpark at the base of the Monkey Rock (a big granite outcrop) walk trail in Denmark SW WA, there are along the walk trail, these plants that at first glance look remarkably similar. The colour, shape, texture, and serration of the leaves make them a good lookalike. Unfortunately, i couldn't smell anything interesting about them. Still, would probably make a nice 'decoy' patch. How a garden bed full of these things with marigolds, leonurus, cassava, and lupins thrown in for extra confusion.

Just for people's interest, I found this: "The chemical concepts of psychosis were partly derived from the stories of "pink adrenaline" in the war. Pink adrenalin is epinephrine which has been oxidised by the oxygen in the air, especially at a pH higher than 6. The resultant compound, known as adrenochrome, has been claimed (27) to produce mild to moderate psychic reactions. However, the effects of these "chromes", including noradrenochrome, serotoninochrome, dopachrome, adrenolutin, etc. either have been rejected or yet to be confirmed." From: Sankar, D.V.S, 1975. LSD: A Total Study, PJD Publications, NY The reference (27) is: Hoffer, A., and Osmond, H. In: Hoffer, A., The Hallucinogens, New York, Academic Press, 267 (1967) Haven't read (27) myself. Sankar's book is a wealth of info, however

Wait... More research needed... [ 24. April 2003, 22:54: Message edited by: Fractalhead ]

Every chromatogram of I. alba I've seen came up with bugger-all ergine (even compared to other Ipomoeas). I can dig up some references if you want.

LOL You're lucky. At least you get 'some' sex dreams. All i have are chemistry dreams.

Nah 50 Torr is still too high. Need to get close to or under 1

Don't think I've been told off for having Alch in her presence (or any other substance for that matter). In fact, some of the most beneficial sally experiences have been with alcohol. However, I did go through a phase of thinking that i'd been told never to come back for some reason which was not clear, but eventually i got the calling again and figured it was probably just me in the first place thinking i should stop, not sally. I think the response you get has a lot to do with your brain chemistry at the time, and whether you are really letting your guard down, letting yourself be vulnerable. I think that's where a bit of dutch courage comes in handy at times for some people. I've had numerous times where I've gone marching into it like, "yeah, i'm going to go here, then there, then over there and be in control of this... only to march straight face first into a big locked door and get 'pressed'. So i think it pays to only do it when you can really let go. In my opinion, if you get told you aren't wanted, chances are you just need some more (sally) to dissolve and overpower your inhibitions and defences more fully Good luck, Fractal [ 07. May 2003, 22:53: Message edited by: Fractalhead ]

Re extraction method: not sure yet. Will check the literature before trying anything. Will post results when available.

I can confirm that bunnings in WA, at least, have 'Diggers' 100% Isopropyl Alcohol. NOTE: Always take claims of 100% purity with a pinch of salt. Its not cheap though. 125ml for ~$8.50. Still, it works wonders on those grubby computers etc i suppose Have been thinking about the acetone impurity, T. I'm assuming that you meant to say that it did NOT evaporate easily, otherwise i don't see how you would have noticed it. My guess is that the impurity is 4-methyl-3-penten-2-one, the aldol condensation product of acetone with itself. I'm not sure how soluble this stuff is in moist acetone, but provided its solubility is low enough, its conceivable that it could be formed 'very' slowly in moist acetone, by aldol condensation of acetone with itself catalysed by H+ and OH- ions present as a result of the autoionisation of water. Here is an MSDS: MSDS for 4-methyl-3-penten-2-one Doesn't sound like the sort of stuff you'd want to be ingesting. Then again, you should see the MSDS for table salt The bp of this stuff is 130 C, so that might help explain any dampness left in the extract residue. According to the MSDS, it has a characteristic smell, so you might be able to do a little test to confirm what's going on. If you get some of the good, clean acetone, and add a little conc. NaOH (aq), let it sit for a few hours, and then evaporate this reaction mixture, some of the good stuff, and some of the original bad stuff, compare the smells and if you notice the same residual smells in the reaction mixture and the original dud acetone, you might conclude that you are on the right track. Of course, one might say, 'why bother when you can just buy the good stuff'.

i assume you are talking about Salvia splendens! Those red flowers are beautiful aren't they Perhaps laying a clear polythene plastic sheet housing over it (supported by sticks) to act as a hot house will help keep the humidity and temps up.