Methods of Taking Calea Zacatechichi, the Dream Herb
More Dreaming Herbs at I Am Shaman
This page documents the most popular ways of taking Calea Zacatechichi, also called Dream Herb, for the purposes of its effects on dreaming.
The following methods will be discussed:
- Smoking
- Tea
- Capsules / Pills
- Resin
- Chewing raw leaves
- Do-It-Your-Self Extraction
- Enhanced Leaf / Calea Z extracts
Smoking Calea Zacatechichi
There are 3 popular ways of smoking dream herb:
- Smoking Calea Z in A Bong
Using a bong is the easiest method to smoke generous amounts of the dream herb in the shortest amount of time. The water in the chamber will make the smoke less harsh. This is especially true if you use chilled water.
- Smoking Calea Z in a Joint
From the messages on forums and from the websites that sell Calea Z, smoking it in a joint is a highly touted method of using Calea Zacatechichi. Most places that sell this herb include a brief description pointing to its history with shamanic and tribal groups, who would “smoke a joint of it while drinking the tea before bed.” While the joint does have a certain aesthetic pleasure to it, the biggest drawback is preparing the Calea Z for rolling requires you to pick out all the many stems. Some people enjoy mixing the joint with tobacco, too.
- Smoking Calea Z in A Bowl
Using a bowl is a quick and easy method to smoke Calea Z. If you find it takes many grams to be beneficial for you, then you may prefer to use a bong, as you will be packing many bowls. This can also lead to sore lungs. Some users also note that a dozen or two bowl packs is enough to clog the bowl pretty badly.
Calea Zacatechichi Tea
Brewing a tea out of the leaves and steams of the plant is a very popular method of taking dream herb.
How to Prepare Calea Zacatechichi Tea
Making Calea T tea is pretty straightforward:
- boil the leaves for about 15 minutes (How much do I use? See Dosage Guidelines)
- drain the water
- let it cool down and then drink it.
Its effects are most beneficial if the tea is consumed shortly before going to sleep.
Ways to Make The Tea Taste Better
Making the tea is the easy part – it’s the drinking that most find hard. The leaves create an incredibly bitter taste and except for a few lucky souls, the great majority of users find this taste not just bitter but revoltingly bitter.
- Add honey or agave nectar
- Add milk or soy milk
- Boil it with packs of other strong-tasting tea such as mint tea
- Mix with Kool Aid
Suggestions are very much needed!
Please leave a comment with ways you’ve make Calea Z tea taste better.
Making Calea Z Capsules
While you can always purchase Calea Z pills/capsules, it’s also relatively easy to make them yourself.
What you’ll need:
- Calea Z
- Empty capsules
It’s also very helpful to have:
- a grinder
- a scale
- lots of time
Instructions:
Grind and then fill with capsules with Calea Z.
Notes:
- It’s possible to buy empty capsules at health food stores such as Whole Foods Market in the USA. As of 2007, 50 vegetarian capsules sold for around $5 US.
- Crushing the leaves is greatly improved if you have a grinder. (Grinders are available from IamShaman Shop from $12-18 dollars. Click on this link and in the search box type in grinders.)
- It is very nice knowing exactly what dosage you are working with – the easiest way to do this is to simply weigh your herb or filled-up capsules with a small scale.
What it comes down to is simply crushing the leaves and filling the capsules. Having a grinder will make crushing much easier and having a scale will let you know exactly how much you’re creating and then consuming.
Resin
Some vendors sell Calea Zacatechichi resin. If you have information on how this is made or how to make it yourself, please leave a comment and share.
Click here to see a list of Calea Z vendors who sell resin.
Chewing
Another method of ingesting Calea Zacatechichi is to chew on its raw leaves.
Note: If you have information or experience on this method, please submit an experience report or simply leave a comment on this post.
Do It Yourself Extraction Method
One user has documented how to make a Calea Zacatechich extraction.
Click here to view the report on Erowid.
Enhanced Leaf / Calea Zacatechichi Extract
Many vendors also sell higher-potency dream herb in the form of extracts or enhanced leaves, pills, or resins.
These products often use the notation of 10x Extract or 20x Enhanced Leaf. This is supposed to mean the product is 10 times or 20 times more potent than the unenhanced natural leaf.
To purchase 20x resin, 10x or 20x leaf, see the list of Calea Z vendors.
August 11th, 2008 at 5:40 am
Apparently adding any kind of citrus/citric fruit (lemon/lime, orange etc.) is the worst possible thing to add to a calea z tea. I can’t say so myself, because i’ve never tried it because of hearing this. I have used calea in tea form before, and knowing the taste and the bitterness of it, I can easily imagine how even more horrible it would taste.
December 13th, 2008 at 8:35 pm
Drink the tea while chewing a piece or two of mint gum…you barely notice the bitterness.
March 26th, 2009 at 10:08 pm
mead wine is great for extracting calea, its kills the bitterness and the extraction also excellent
1 hour extraction required with 20-30ml of wine per 2 grams of calea
May 3rd, 2009 at 5:11 am
I think if an individual were to put a reasonable amount in a coffee grinder and reduce the dream herb to a relatively fine powder, it might be easier to mix it into something like aloe vera juice, which is fairly sweet, pulpy and somewhat viscous; it will hold the finely chopped calea in suspension. Therefore, easier to go down and easier to digest. I am wondering if anyone has tried to bake calea into oatmeal muffins before. If it can stand the heat of being burned in a bong and burned in a joint, then it seems reasonable to assume that it could be baked into a granola type muffin and consumed prior to bedtime. In that way, it would be possible to have a dozen doses lined up at once without having to prepare each individually.
May 10th, 2009 at 6:34 pm
On chewing the raw leaves: a few friends and myself put the tea together in a really poor, DIY way that leaked a lot of raw leaves into the water, so when there was nothing left to drink, we just had these warm, soaked leaves at the bottom.
Kind of like bland spinach, and maybe it was coincidence of the tea catching up with us, but we started to feel much more mellow and a vaguely levitation-like high after chewing on them for a while.
Long story short, afterwards, there were five of us, and we had a blunt’s worth. Only one of us dreamed, but his experience was enough to confirm it worked one way or the other, even if it was only one out of five.
September 17th, 2011 at 5:01 am
Right now I’m trying it like dip except sucking and swallowing it. Hopefully I will achieve lucidity!!!
October 7th, 2011 at 5:22 am
Is it possible to make the tea, then enema it? I used so much sugar and honey in the tea and it was still so bad I could not finish it. So I was wondering if it was possible to make the tea then enema it…Thanks.