KORN KURATED RESEARCH

How Dream-Inducing Plants Can Help Enhance Your Decision-Making

Calea zacatechichi is a plant with extensive popularity and ritual use to enhance dreaming and the emergence of the unconscious. It induces well-being and tranquility senses and facilitates the superficial stages of sleep. One paper discusses the results of a double-blind study and the 2nd paper discusses how this plant also has anxiolytic and antidepressant effects.

During the first ten years I lived in the jungle, I slept outside overlooking the Pacific Ocean, covered only by a thatched palm roof and some low stone walls that gave an impression of a boundary.  Each night, I listened to the rhythm of ocean waves as they changed with each lunar cycle, falling asleep in sight of the Moon and Venus in communion overhead. Mail might arrive overland and then sea, after a 3-week journey from the United States, with a burro waiting on the beach to carry to Margarito's windowsill. There was no phone service or electricity; thus, the airwaves were unobstructed as telepathic information attempted to reach me. In this setting, I began to experience anomalous cognition by practicing intentionality, lucid dreaming, and simply being receptive.

One night, I dreamed that my grandfather Charles, whom I loved deeply, had died. When I awoke, I knew it was true.  Read more in my blog https://drlesliekorn.com/blog/the-whats-next-ritual/ 

Tags: Oneirogenic plants, dream-inducing plants, Calea zacatechichi, dreams, depression, anxiety

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Referenced Research Publications

Journal of Ethnopharmacology
1986, December 18
DOI: 10.1016/0378-8741(86)90002-4

Psychopharmacologic analysis of an alleged oneirogenic plant: Calea zacatechichi

link: https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/3821139/

Abstract

Calea zacatechichi is a plant used by the Chontal Indians of Mexico to obtain divinatory messages during dreaming. At human doses, organic extracts of the plant produce the EEG and behavioral signs of somnolence and induce light sleep in cats. Large doses elicit salivation, ataxia, retching and occasional vomiting. The effects of the plant upon cingulum discharge frequency were significantly different from hallucinogenic-dissociative drugs (ketamine, quipazine, phencyclidine and SKF-10047). 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.

Reference

Mayagoitia, L., Díaz, J. L., & Contreras, C. M. (1986). Psychopharmacologic analysis of an alleged oneirogenic plant: Calea zacatechichi. Journal of Ethnopharmacology, 18(3), 229–243.
https://doi.org/10.1016/0378-8741(86)90002-4

Journal of Ethnopharmacology
2020, August 28
DOI: 10.1016/j.jep.2020.113316

Calea zacatechichi Schltdl. (Compositae) produces anxiolytic and antidepressant like effects, and increases the hippocampal activity during REM sleep in rodents

link: https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/32866569/

Abstract

Ethnopharmacological relevance: Calea zacatechichi is a plant with an extensive popular and ritual use in Mexico. In healthy volunteers, it induces well-being and tranquility senses, and facilitates superficial stages of sleep. However, anxiolytic, and antidepressant-like effects and changes on the sleep-waking stages have not been explored.

Aim: To determine anxiolytic and antidepressant-like effects of an aqueous extract of C. zacatechichi (CZ) in rodents and to analyze their effects on hippocampal activity in the rat sleep-waking cycle.

Material and methods: CZ anxiolytic- and antidepressant-like effects were evaluated in several mice and rat behavioral paradigms. CZ effects on temporal distribution of sleep were described, and hippocampus EEG frequency patterns were analyzed during the sleep-waking cycle; absolute and relative powers were analyzed during Rapid Eye Movements (REM) and non-REM sleep stages. CZ chemical analysis was performed by UPLC-ESI-MS.

Results: CZ produced specific and robust anxiolytic- and antidepressant-like effects in mice and rats, similar to those of prototypical drugs, at doses ranging from 0.5 to 50 mg/kg. CZ at 100 mg/kg produced visible mild sedative effects in rats, associated with a significant increase in Slow Wave Sleep episodes during a 6 h recording, and enhanced fast frequencies of hippocampus (gamma-band:31-50 Hz) during REM sleep.

Conclusion: Results could support the well-being and tranquility senses reported by healthy consumers, and to explain the oneiric content during dreams and some improvements in cognitive processes described by consumers. Anxiolytic- and antidepressant-like effects of this species, reported for first time in this study could improve some aspects of mental health.

Reference

Martinez-Mota, L., Cruz-Tavera, A., Dorantes-Barrón, A. M., Arrieta-Báez, D., Ramírez-Salado, I., Cruz-Aguilar, M. A., Mayagoitia-Novales, L., Cassani, J., & Estrada-Reyes, R. (2021). Calea zacatechichi Schltdl. (Compositae) produces anxiolytic- and antidepressant-like effects, and increases the hippocampal activity during REM sleep in rodents. Journal of Ethnopharmacology, 265, 113316.
https://doi.org/10.1016/j.jep.2020.113316