[Trigger warning: brain damage anxiety triggering stuff] Perhaps hallucinogens can help some people (Sananga's effects are based on ibogain, which is a hallucinogen. Hapeh contains nicotine, which isn't).There are a lot of reports saying that some hallucinogens can help with addictions or depression. In the 70's, they said that LSD could be used to trigger a kind of "spiritual awakening", to reorganize a person's mind, and free them from different problems. And perhaps it is true. Recently I wanted to try and bought some legal alternative to LSD, I think two years ago to try micro-dosing, but finally I didn't do it, and I think the samples have expired by now. I was too afraid for my own mind and it does seem that there are some risks, mainly for a certain category of people.
In my case, one psychiatrist thought for a while that I could have schizoaffective disorder, but I don't know if he just misunderstood my DPDR symptoms. Anyway, my DPDR symtoms did evolve in a weird way some years ago, and DP as well as these things (which were maybe part of DP) stabilized when I started a treatment. I don't know if I am at risk for psychosis, perhaps it is just DP, but I have been very afraid of falling into psychosis in the past. It really did not happen, but after considering it seriously, I know that doing some permanent damage to my brain is really the last thing I want to do. My train of thoughts when I started to have DPDR symptoms was that maybe I had caused some "permanent damage to my brain" by smoking weed and just that idea felt like a nightmare. And apparently hallucinogens can trigger psychosis for a few sensitive people, and psychosis can in fact cause permanent damage to your brain (It was observed that people with schizophrenia can lose a significant part of their brain volume during their very first episode, mainly a reduction in pre-frontal cortex thickness).
Some years after my DPDR had started I thought I might have triggered schizophrenia by smoking weed. Even if this wasn't true I realized something. I had always been told that weed was safe for almost everybody, except for people who had a so called "fragile mind" (at least this is what they said) or people who had predisposition for schizophrenia, from which I concluded I was safe and could smoke freely. But later on, as my DPDR symptoms grew stronger, I realized how weird my thinking had been. I had naturally thought that I was not part of the "fragile minds", and that I had no predisposition without even investigating what it meant to have a fragile mind or to have predispositions. If I have no clue if I have predispositions, I might as well conclude that I have a probability to be at risk like anybody else.
Anyway, right now, after having had DPDR for some time, I do consider myself as having a mind that needs to be preserved. I didn't always think this way, and about 15 years ago, I did try some legal version of LSA as well as salvia. Although the experience was pleasant and interesting it did do some weird things to my sense of identity at the time that don't want to live again, now that I know DP better. Also I had some weird dreams for a few days after, like crazy dreams without concepts with thoughts that were not even thoughts and I was a bit afraid this would last longer. And the dose doesn't matter much, because even micro-dosing is strongly discouraged for people who are at risk of psychosis. But again, the problem is that almost no one who tries knows whether or not they are at risk.
The other thing I wanted to say is that we have to be careful about claims around shamanic traditions. It is often said that shamanic rituals are thousands of years old, and come from very old wisdom and tradition. I have no idea about sananga and hapeh, so this is not directly answering to this post, but I do want to share something that I found interesting and that might be useful. I listened to a podcast around this topic, unfortunately it's in french, but if you do understand french it's very interesting (It's in 9 episodes: S2 EP2 - Ayahuasca : Nelson ). Their investigation starts from the death of a westerner in Peru, around Ayahuasca ceremonies. They use this investigation to discuss the history of the use of hallucinogens in Peru. The podcast is well made and has a lot of suspense, and I am going to spoil it, so if you want to please listen to it before reading. But if you want to try some hallucinogens in the near future, maybe it's worth reading the spoiler. Peru is known to westerners for its ayahuasca ceremonies, which involve taking a large amount of the hallucinogen, often for several nights in a row. And it is presented as a very old tradition, usually more than 3000 years. They explain that westerners have a very idealistic view of exotic traditions, thinking they do the same thing for centuries. But it's quite the contrary, shamans travel and have a lot of exchanges with other shamans, and their tradition is in constant evolution. They are not so keen on keeping their tradition static as in monotheists religions based on a book. And even if they do, word of mouth causes lots of transformations, you can already see how much a story can be deformed between two generations in your family, and you can imagine what can happen during 1000 years of perpetuating a "tradition". And as a matter of fact, they show that ayahuasca, which is often presented as part of a very old tradition, was found 1000 years ago on dead bodies, but just in very small quantities that are not enough for a hallucinogen use. Evidence of the use of ayahuasca as a hallucinogen only dates back to the 17 hundreds, and it was used only near one single city called Iquitos. Only when western missionaries arrived did it start to spread in the rest of the country, because westerners were interested in it. It looks almost like an opportunistic tradition that is tailored for westerners. Even today it is a huge source of income for such a poor country (average salary is about 400 $/month and that's for the whole country, not for people living far from large cities, when a ceremony costs from $500 to $2000 and there can be like 15 participants in a ceremony). Peruvians are not saints and you can imagine that if there is so much money to make, tradition can evolve very quickly in that direction.
Anyway, all this long story just to share something that I find very interesting, and to say that we should be careful about things that are presented as very old traditions. I don't know anything about hapeh and sananga though as I said, I just wanted to share that about exotic traditions in general.
But back to the podcast, they explain that we often hear about people dying in Peru as a result of these ceremonies, and it seems that one possible cause of death is a psychotic breakout. There is an instance of a guy having such a breakout and trying to kill another person and that person killing him in self defense. (I have a friend who did have a good experience in such a ceremony (ayahuasca), but I also have an acquaintance who lost a friend there in a ceremony as well). The other guy they talk about in the podcast did die during a retreat involving sananga, by the way, but I know they take massive amounts of hallucinogens, so it's very different from what you are talking about. What you are talking about here, I guess, is rather micro-dosing compared to that I am sure. If it is the case it is very very different. It's like it's possible to get high with nutmeg with something like 10 to 20 g of freshly ground nutmeg, which is very close to the lethal dose (which varies a lot depending on the plant and on conservation, so please don't try), but that doesn't mean that sprinkling some nutmeg over your food presents the slightest danger. I do think that hallucinogens present some danger even in small doses, but all of this last part was not to equal small dose with these ceremonies but rather to talk about the fact that traditions are sometimes not so traditional and it also doesn't mean they are safe, even accompanied by someone.
In my case, one psychiatrist thought for a while that I could have schizoaffective disorder, but I don't know if he just misunderstood my DPDR symptoms. Anyway, my DPDR symtoms did evolve in a weird way some years ago, and DP as well as these things (which were maybe part of DP) stabilized when I started a treatment. I don't know if I am at risk for psychosis, perhaps it is just DP, but I have been very afraid of falling into psychosis in the past. It really did not happen, but after considering it seriously, I know that doing some permanent damage to my brain is really the last thing I want to do. My train of thoughts when I started to have DPDR symptoms was that maybe I had caused some "permanent damage to my brain" by smoking weed and just that idea felt like a nightmare. And apparently hallucinogens can trigger psychosis for a few sensitive people, and psychosis can in fact cause permanent damage to your brain (It was observed that people with schizophrenia can lose a significant part of their brain volume during their very first episode, mainly a reduction in pre-frontal cortex thickness).
Some years after my DPDR had started I thought I might have triggered schizophrenia by smoking weed. Even if this wasn't true I realized something. I had always been told that weed was safe for almost everybody, except for people who had a so called "fragile mind" (at least this is what they said) or people who had predisposition for schizophrenia, from which I concluded I was safe and could smoke freely. But later on, as my DPDR symptoms grew stronger, I realized how weird my thinking had been. I had naturally thought that I was not part of the "fragile minds", and that I had no predisposition without even investigating what it meant to have a fragile mind or to have predispositions. If I have no clue if I have predispositions, I might as well conclude that I have a probability to be at risk like anybody else.
Anyway, right now, after having had DPDR for some time, I do consider myself as having a mind that needs to be preserved. I didn't always think this way, and about 15 years ago, I did try some legal version of LSA as well as salvia. Although the experience was pleasant and interesting it did do some weird things to my sense of identity at the time that don't want to live again, now that I know DP better. Also I had some weird dreams for a few days after, like crazy dreams without concepts with thoughts that were not even thoughts and I was a bit afraid this would last longer. And the dose doesn't matter much, because even micro-dosing is strongly discouraged for people who are at risk of psychosis. But again, the problem is that almost no one who tries knows whether or not they are at risk.
The other thing I wanted to say is that we have to be careful about claims around shamanic traditions. It is often said that shamanic rituals are thousands of years old, and come from very old wisdom and tradition. I have no idea about sananga and hapeh, so this is not directly answering to this post, but I do want to share something that I found interesting and that might be useful. I listened to a podcast around this topic, unfortunately it's in french, but if you do understand french it's very interesting (It's in 9 episodes: S2 EP2 - Ayahuasca : Nelson ). Their investigation starts from the death of a westerner in Peru, around Ayahuasca ceremonies. They use this investigation to discuss the history of the use of hallucinogens in Peru. The podcast is well made and has a lot of suspense, and I am going to spoil it, so if you want to please listen to it before reading. But if you want to try some hallucinogens in the near future, maybe it's worth reading the spoiler. Peru is known to westerners for its ayahuasca ceremonies, which involve taking a large amount of the hallucinogen, often for several nights in a row. And it is presented as a very old tradition, usually more than 3000 years. They explain that westerners have a very idealistic view of exotic traditions, thinking they do the same thing for centuries. But it's quite the contrary, shamans travel and have a lot of exchanges with other shamans, and their tradition is in constant evolution. They are not so keen on keeping their tradition static as in monotheists religions based on a book. And even if they do, word of mouth causes lots of transformations, you can already see how much a story can be deformed between two generations in your family, and you can imagine what can happen during 1000 years of perpetuating a "tradition". And as a matter of fact, they show that ayahuasca, which is often presented as part of a very old tradition, was found 1000 years ago on dead bodies, but just in very small quantities that are not enough for a hallucinogen use. Evidence of the use of ayahuasca as a hallucinogen only dates back to the 17 hundreds, and it was used only near one single city called Iquitos. Only when western missionaries arrived did it start to spread in the rest of the country, because westerners were interested in it. It looks almost like an opportunistic tradition that is tailored for westerners. Even today it is a huge source of income for such a poor country (average salary is about 400 $/month and that's for the whole country, not for people living far from large cities, when a ceremony costs from $500 to $2000 and there can be like 15 participants in a ceremony). Peruvians are not saints and you can imagine that if there is so much money to make, tradition can evolve very quickly in that direction.
Anyway, all this long story just to share something that I find very interesting, and to say that we should be careful about things that are presented as very old traditions. I don't know anything about hapeh and sananga though as I said, I just wanted to share that about exotic traditions in general.
But back to the podcast, they explain that we often hear about people dying in Peru as a result of these ceremonies, and it seems that one possible cause of death is a psychotic breakout. There is an instance of a guy having such a breakout and trying to kill another person and that person killing him in self defense. (I have a friend who did have a good experience in such a ceremony (ayahuasca), but I also have an acquaintance who lost a friend there in a ceremony as well). The other guy they talk about in the podcast did die during a retreat involving sananga, by the way, but I know they take massive amounts of hallucinogens, so it's very different from what you are talking about. What you are talking about here, I guess, is rather micro-dosing compared to that I am sure. If it is the case it is very very different. It's like it's possible to get high with nutmeg with something like 10 to 20 g of freshly ground nutmeg, which is very close to the lethal dose (which varies a lot depending on the plant and on conservation, so please don't try), but that doesn't mean that sprinkling some nutmeg over your food presents the slightest danger. I do think that hallucinogens present some danger even in small doses, but all of this last part was not to equal small dose with these ceremonies but rather to talk about the fact that traditions are sometimes not so traditional and it also doesn't mean they are safe, even accompanied by someone.
