Okay so this was WAY more effective than the Blue Lotus. I mean I took it for dreams not ritual work but it was such a noticeable effect
I will talk about the effects of African Dream Root by itself further down, but the most effective version I tried was "Ultimate Dream Blend" from an Australian online store called Druid Alchemy - they give the exact ingredients though, and I will give the recipe below. It's just ground-up herbs that you stir into water and drink immediately, so doesn't require specialist knowledge/equipment to recreate
Effects
The main effect was to make my dreams have a much longer, coherent narrative, and much more real-feeling and memorable. The "extended narrative" is a big deal because it gives it much more meaning. I've done no lucid dreaming training but I imagine it would also give you much more opportunities to notice something is impossible, and become lucid
Normally dreams are like "so we were doing a heist on a bank but my high school English teacher worked there and then somehow I was back in high school but I haven't studied for the exam and then the exam turned out to be a foot race but across lava but I'd forgotten my lava boots" - it shifts scenarios without resolving the previous plot problem
When I took this blend, it was like "we were doing a heist on a bank but my English teacher worked there" but then the whole dream is an extended narrative attempting to pull off the heist, things going wrong, trying to fix them - much more like a proper story, and much much longer in the one scenario. The dreams may be more memorable just because they fit more into waking-life memory style (coherent story structure). And just like, more fun!
I will note here that I typically have fairly weak dreams and don't remember them that often unless I'm actively keeping a dream diary (which I'm not at the moment), so this was a dramatic effect for me
My partner tried the blend and had the same effect: vivid, extended, coherent narrative
I was a bit sleepier the next day, but my partner wasn't. It could be just the melatonin in the blend, or it could be that it works by keeping you in REM sleep longer (which is not the most restful phase of sleep)
African Dream Root by itself
After a washout period, I also took African Dream Root (about 250g of one with 20% Saponins). It had the same effect of a longer, more coherent narrative, however the dream was less vivid, more ephemeral. I remember my Blend dreams without having to try that hard, but the African Dream Root dreams fade quickly without the usual memory solidifying you have to do. Still worth doing, and if I hadn't previously had the Blend, I'd have been delighted by results. I'm still delighted tbh.
Unlike Dream Blend (which you shouldn't take daily), African Dream Root becomes more effective if you take it a few days in a row. I still plan on taking days off though.
It was in the form of a resin and I just broke it into small pieces and swallowed it like tablets - that's probably not the recommended way
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Neither of these caused "teaching dreams", they were just random but I haven't taken it a tonne. I can imagine you would get way more out of a teaching dream when it did arrive - but this doesn't trigger them as far as I can tell. I would ABSOLUTELY make a policy of taking this the night of any major ritual
Ultimate Dream Blend recipe
The list below is for 500mg - the standard dose is 250-500mg. (I took 250)
- African Dream Root – Triterpenoid Saponins 98% 50mg
- Mugwort – Thujone 45% 5mg
- Passionflower – Chrysin 98% 50mg
- Passionflower – GABA 99% 100mg
- Mexican Dream Herb – Germacranolides 99% 5mg
- Griffonia Simplicifolia – 5-HTP 98% 100mg
- Melatonin 100% 10mg
- Blue Lotus Extract – Nuciferine 10% 180mg
I think it's important to note that these are all high quality extracts with guaranteed amount of relevant active ingredient.
However, since I found just African Dream Root alone to have effects albeit less so, I think putting together even half of these ingredients, or with an imperfect ratio etc, would be worth experimenting with.
My dosage hasn't been precise because I'm just using a scoop, not weighing on a herb scale
The half-life of the Blend is longer than 24 hours so if you take it two days in a row, the second dose should be halved. Then you should take a break for a few days.