HERB - plants and prescriptions and dreams

Gaylin Walli gwalli at infoengine.com
Wed Jul 28 09:17:18 PDT 1999


Caro asked:
>Just a curious question (no, I am certainly not planning any
>experiments!!): are they vivid in a "hard to separate from reality" way,
>or vivid in a "I just lived through this again" way, or in a "hey, I
>dreamed this two weeks ago, and now it's happened" way, or in a "sideways
>reality" way, or a "hallucinatory" way?  I know others have different
>definitions, so I was just curious as to which was meant.

When I was little, I used to suffer substantially from very bad
nightmares. My parents, forward thinking folks that they were
(prior to my mother getting all weird on me) had the sense to
send me to a guided imagery specialist who taught me to train
my dreams. Or, rather, to be conscious enough in my dreams
that I could wake myself up when I got too uncomfortable with
what was going on. He also taught me to learn to experience my
dreams with curiosity, rather than with fear.

Now, certain plants and substance will affect this in different
ways. Melatonin is one of them. Melatonin gives me the same
vivid, dark, incredibly realistitc, I can't escape, and I can't
wake up dreams that I had as a child.

Valarian gives me the vividness of dreams that are...uhm...not
dark. I can wake up. But the dreams are detailed. Very very
detailed. Very easy to remember. Typically about things that
happen in every day life with no evidence of the supernatural
or the fantastic (unless of course something like that really
happened to me during the day, in which case, of course i'm
going to dream about it that way).

Marijuana gives me very colorful dreams. Bright. Rich and thick,
but lacking the detail of Valarian dreams. Also lacking the darkness
of Melatonin dreams. Lush is a good word to describe them. I
guess I don't classify these as hallucinatory. They seem...normal,
but more sensuous.

Catnip and lavender relax me if used in tea form and drunk
1/2 hour before bed. My dreams seem normal and I believe
I go to sleep faster, but I don't sleep as deeply or as completely
as when I take Valarian. My husband confirms this.

Chamomile tea. Can't use it. Makes me lightly snotty and chesty.

Warm milk. Works well, but gives me the hiccups, same as
thanksgiving turkey and also mashed potatos. No changes in
dreams with this (or from turkey and mashed potatos). *grin*

Alcohol, or rather, overindulgence in alcohol, usually supresses
my dreams entirely. Or, if I do dream, I don't remember them.
I do, however, sleep like the dead. I can be woken up. And I can
wake up. But it difficult. I sleep extremely deeply.

Sleeping medications, well, they keep me awake or so close to
being awake as to not have slept at all. Like I said in a previous
message...I'm just weird that way.

>Feel free to contact me privately if you don't want this on the list.

I don't mind. If other people can learn or be more aware or more
comfy about their lives from what I have to say or report
about mine, then I've done something good or put a little love into
the world. Can't complain about that, eh?

Jasmine
Iasmin de Cordoba
gwalli at infoengine.com

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