The Oneirogenic (Dream-Inducing) Herb
Used by the Chontal
Indians of Oaxaca as a tea, believed to
clarify the senses.
Emboden says they roll cigarettes from the
leaves, lie down
to smoke quietly, drinking the tea as well. The
feeling of well-being
is said to persist for a day or more with
no unpleasant
side effects. Leaves show some experimental
antiatherogenic
and CNS depression activity. The plant contains
0.01% of a crystalline
alkaloid, C21H26O8.
(James Duke, Handbook
of Medicinal Herbs, CRC Press, page 86)
In 1968 a naturalist,
Thomas MacDougall, working among the
Chontal Indians,
reported a "secret" plant that is made into a
tea or infusion
and consumed in solitude while a cigarette of the
same leaves is
smoked. This produces a feeling of well-being
that continues
for one or more days. It is said that Calea
promote a repose
and one hears one's own heart and pulse beating.
(Wm. Emboden,
Narcotic Plants, revised ed., Collier Books, pgs
33-34)
MacDougall has
recently reported that the Chontal Indians of
Oaxaca, who "believe
in visions seen in dreams," employ this
sacred plant to
induce hallucinations. Crushed dried leaves are
infused in water,
and the resulting tea is imbibed slowly, after
which the native
lies down in a quiet place and smokes a
cigarette of the
dried leaves of the same plant. The Indian
knows that he
has taken a large enough dose when a sense of
repose and drowsiness
is experienced and when he hears his own
heart and pulse
beats. The Chontal medicine men, who assert that
this plant is
capable of "clarifying the senses," call it
thlepelakano or
"leaf of god."
(Schultes &
Hofmann, Botany & Chemistry of Hallucinogens, page
313)
Calea zacatechichi
is a plant used by the Chontal Indians of
Mexico to obtain
divinatory messages during dreaming. In human
healthy volunteers,
low doses of the extracts administered in a
double-blind design
against placebo increased reaction time and
time-lapse estimation.
A controlled nap sleep study in the same
volunteers showed
that Calea extracts increased the superficial
stages of sleep
and the number of spontaneous awakenings. The
subjective reports
of dreams were significantly higher than both
placebo and diazepam,
indicating an increase in hypnagogic
imagery occurring
during superficial sleep stages. The use of
plant preparations
in order to produce or enhance dreams of a
divinatory nature
constitutes an ethnopharmacological category
that can be called
"oneiromancy" and which justifies rigorous
neuropharmacological
research.
Whenever it is
desired to know the cause of an illness of the
location of a
distant or lost person, dry leaves of the plant are
smoked, drunk
and put under the pillow before going to sleep.
Reportedly, the
answer to the question comes in a dream. The
human dose for
divinatory purposes reported by the Chontal
informant is a
handful of the dried plant.
A collection of
interviews and written reports concerning the
psychotropic effects
of these preparations on 12 volunteers has
been published.
Free reports and direct questioning disclosed a
discrete enhancement
of all sensorial perceptions, an increase in
imagery, mind
thought discontinuity, void flux of ideas, and
difficulties in
retrieval. These effects were followed by
somnolence and
a short sleep during which lively dreams were
reported by the
majority of the volunteers.
These results show
that zacatechichi administrations appears to
enhance the number
and/or recollection of dreams during sleeping
periods. The data
are in agreement with the oneirogenic
reputation of
the plant among the Chontal Indians. all this
suggests that
Calea zacatechichi induces episodes of lively
hypnagogic imagery
during SWS stage 1 of sleep, a
psychophysiological
effect that would be the basis of the
ethnobotanical
use of the plant as an oneirogenic and
oneiromantic agent.
(Jose L. Diaz,
et al, Psychopharmacologic Analysis of an Alleged
Oneirogenic Plant:
Calea zacatechichi, J. Ethnopharmacology,
1986, v.18, pgs
229-243)