In the July, 1986 issue of High Times magazine, writer Spencer Rumsey investigated ibogaine as an emerging therapy for a variety of conditions. In an accompanying piece in the same issue, Dean Latimer took a closer look at what it’s like to trip on the drug.
Ibogaine is not a euphoric hallucinogen, which helps explain why Timothy Leary doesn’t like the drug. The first noticeable effects are a numbing sensation and a feeling of weariness. Typically, a subject lies down to rest. Without warning, the fireworks begin. “It’s like watching a motion picture,” Howard Lotsof, founder of the Dora Weiner Foundation, told Sandy McCroskey of Overthrow magazine. “I don’t mean a vision here or there. It’s more like going to the movies for three or four hours, only in this case the ‘movies’ is your subconscious. The first hallucination I went through was an Oedipal one. The first thing I saw was a pulsating yellow screwdriver, which disappeared abruptly. The next thing I knew I was walking up a ladder leading to a ten-foot diving board over a pool. As I was walking up the diving board, my bathing suit disappeared and I was naked. As I dived into the pool, my mother appeared beneath me with her legs open and I was diving into her vagina. As I got closer she changed into my sister, who changed into an infant. I went into the water and that was it. The vision changed to a new one.” Visions come in seemingly unrelated waves, each one lasting several minutes. After this initial hallucinatory phase is over, things get even more dramatic. “The first reaction generally is, what happened? I thought this was supposed to last for 36 hours,” says Lotsof. “Then all of a sudden you realize that …
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Author: High Times / High Times
