Do Fish Dream Of Psychedelic Frogs?
(Originally published in Fringe! Do Fish Dream Of Psychedelic Frogs?)
“About a minute after I exhaled, I had the feeling of being surrounded by large invisible things studying me.”
This is from part of a report by a user of bufo, slang for the 5-HO-DMT, which is found in the toxin cocktail of the Colorado River Toad. Huffing the secretions of terrified amphibians is just one of the many ways man has sought to achieve an altered state of consciousness. However, hallucinogenic compounds are not often produced in the animal kingdom. So besides smoking toads, there are few known psychedelic animals.
Before diving into the others, let's give the river toad its due. Also called the Sonoran Desert Toad, the Colorado River Toad is native to a relatively small swath of North America, with a habitat spanning from the deserts of Arizona to the grasslands of Mexico. It lives most of its life underground in a protective mucus burrow to escape the heat of the day. Depending on the area and season, the toads can stay underground in hibernation until the sound of rain awakens them. From there, it is a mad scramble to eat, mate and suck up as much water as possible before the sun drives them back underground.
During this time, they are easy prey for toad milkers. The underground market for bufo, illegal in all 50 US states, has been booming since the release of a pamphlet back in 1983. BUFO ALVARIUS: THE PSYCHEDELIC TOAD OF THE SONORAN DESERT, written and published by Ken Nelson, writing as Albert Most, hit the psychedelic scene of the 80s harder than a civil rights protestor getting thrown to the pavement.
Ken had uncovered that Incilius Alvarius (Bufo Alvarius) was one of few fauna to produce 5-HO-DMT, so he went down to the banks of the Colorado and caught a fat toad. He then proceeded to harass the poor thing until it felt threatened enough to shoot out a jet of milky white toxin from glands behind its fearful eyes. Ken dried the slime overnight and then smoked it. His trip was transcendent; he would go on to say it was one of the most profound experiences of his life.
From that point on, he dedicated his life to spreading awareness of the drug's healing potential and advocating for the conservation of the special creature. That last bit of his message has largely gone unheeded, as the river toad population has declined steadily over the years. This is partly due to pollution and human expansion into its already small habitat, but also from the black market, where the animal’s milky juice can fetch a high price. To understand what could draw people to smoke the dried, poisonous tears of a toad, we must look at just what DMT does to the user.
Dimethyltryptamine (DMT), also called the “Spirit Molecule,” is a powerful psychedelic that humans have used for centuries. It also may be naturally produced by our brains to aid in dreaming. It has been found in both brain tissue and cerebral fluid, and many speculate that it plays a significant role in near-death experiences.
“I'm still tripping even though I am back in the room. I can hear conversations now (but it sounds foreign), and a wash of euphoria engulfs me. All I can do is smile. I felt like nothing but part of everything. This was happiness I had never experienced before, to be truly connected and accepted.”
One of the hallmarks of a DMT trip—well, a positive one—is the euphoria accompanying the comedown. This sense of joy and overall well being can last from a few days to months after a single dose. Dosage is vital as DMT requires a certain threshold before a “breakthrough” can occur, and a person’s mental state enters fully into the hallucination.
Many report it is here that they experience communication with entities that exist on the other side of our awareness. They are often shown visions that attempt to convey feelings of joy and acceptance or impart some much-needed knowledge. Whatever messages and finer details of the trip are often forgotten after they come down, the same way a dream fades from the waking mind. Wild fractals and strange geometry make up this space; users feel outside their bodies but can still move through the hallucination. The 5-HO-DMT produced by the toad is a variant that many claim provides extended visuals.
The Salema Porgy
Sarpa salpa, also known as the salema porgy, has been used for its hallucinogenic properties as far back as ancient Greece. Called the dream fish, eating this fish has caused extremely pronounced hallucinations that can last for several days. Despite its ancient use, there are few reports, partly due to the negative effects that have prevented it from gaining recreational popularity. The dream this fish gives you is, more often than not, a nightmare. One man who accidentally ate the fish at a local restaurant descended into a three-day hellscape—populated with screaming human faces everywhere and towering crab-like creatures that blotted out the sun.
Its mind-altering properties are complex, and many speculate it is due to the creature's diet of kelps and other sea plants that contain a cocktail of toxins and alkaloids. Once ingested by the fish, these compounds cause Ichthyoallyeinotoxism, or hallucinogenic fish inebriation, when that fish goes on to be eaten by some unsuspecting tourist. The experience is so profound that the person will completely believe what they see is real, the hallmark of a deliriant.
Deliriants are different from hallucinogens in a number of ways. Chief among these is the experience itself. While on a DMT trip, the person is aware that they are hallucinating. They know that their reality is altered, and experienced psychonauts (people who explore altered states of consciousness) can use that to help manage if a trip turns bad.
To someone under the effects of a deliriant, there is no difference between the seven-foot cockroach eating spaghetti at your table and the barista who serves you coffee. The hallucination becomes your reality. While reports of experiences on the dream fish are few, deliriant reports are numerous and horrifying—another difference between them and other hallucinogens, such as LSD.
Datura stramonium, known as Jimson weed in some areas and devil’s trumpet in others, is a flowering nightshade found worldwide. Some grow the plant for its large, drooping flowers, and it can be found in many gardens and roadsides. It is also a well-known and powerful psychedelic thanks to a potent mix of the deliriants Atropine and Scopolamine, which it contains in deadly levels. That is the thing with using datura; every part of the plant is poisonous because there is no way to know the amount of alkaloids it contains. Something as small as four or five seeds could contain enough chemicals to kill a user.
A death that would come after hours of hellish dry mouth from dehydration, painful chest constriction, and delusions so maddening that many suffer a psychotic break and fly into violent outbursts before finally succumbing to the paralysis of their smooth muscle system. A truly horrible way to go.
While smoking toad squeezins and eating enough fish heads to see Poseidon doesn’t sound appealing to many, they are a bit more appetizing than going through the “ant ordeal” of the Luiseno tribe of California. Members of the tribe would go on a three-day fast, with no food and little to no water, before eating large balls of feathers. These little balls would contain a handful of red harvester ants, and the men would consume dozens.
The ants would then begin to bite and sting them from the inside. Once the men became catatonic from the painful stings, starvation, and dehydration, they would be granted visions from the spirit world. None of the chemicals found in the sting of the red harvester ant have been shown to have any hallucinogenic properties.
It would seem that in the end, there is very little man won’t do to have a damn good time.
(Set and setting are essential for any attempt with psychoactive substances, as are dosage and potency. This is in no way an endorsement to use an illegal substance; it is more of a plea to be smart and responsible. We only get one trip around this rock.)
Sources
[UC Berkeley Center for the Science of Psychedelics/UC Regents-DMT Models the Near-Death Experience; “Neuropharmacology of N, N-Dimethyltryptamine”-Theresa M. Carbonaro, Michael B. Gatch; “An Encounter With the Other: A Thematic and Content Analysis of DMT Experiences From a Naturalistic Field Study”-Pascal Michael, David Luke, Oliver Robinson; Erowid- “The First One Is Always Free,” SF88E; Youtube: Vivec; “Psychedelic Fauna for Psychonaut Hunters: A Mini-Review”-Laura Orsolini, Michela Ciccarese, Duccio Papanti, Domenico De Berardis, Amira Guirguis, John M. Corkery, Fabrizio Schifano; “Meet the Hallucinogenic Fish That Can Give You LSD-Esque Nightmares”-David Doochin]
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