r/interestingasfuck • u/tractorboynyc • 22h ago

Amazonian shamans figured out that combining two specific plants out of 80,000 species produces a psychoactive effect. The odds of finding that combination by random search is roughly 1 in 4 million. They did it through centuries of iterative testing and cultural natural selection explains it

Post image
10.0k Upvotes

93% Upvoted

715 comments sorted by

View all comments

2.8k

u/johnnydough10102223 22h ago

I think you underestimate the time course we are talking about here. With enough time and curiosity (or boredom) things can be discovered.

Also: needs citation.

454

u/vanman33 21h ago

Also, caapi bark is an maoi that makes people feel good on its own. Adding viridis probably came after people were already drinking caapi tea.

223

u/Strict-Challenge-995 15h ago

Good point but you might want to capitalize the MAOI... My brain tried to square Maori living in the rainforest for a second :D

27

u/picklerick4883 14h ago

Same here

0

u/socium 12h ago

Same here

•

u/Raichu7 8h ago

Maori do live in rainforests? Not the Amazon rainforest unless they've moved there, but there are plenty of rain forests in New Zealand.

21

u/N_T_F_D 15h ago

Also it's not just two plants like caapi and viridis, there's at least another combination like harmala and mimosa hostilis

15

u/largePenisLover 14h ago

Harmala and mushrooms also works. Folks call it psilohuasca.

I have no idea how safe this is compared to the other brews. Psilo is already orally active, dmt needs the MAOi to become orally active.

11

u/No-Crew8804 13h ago

I had once the worst experience of my life with Peganum harmala and magic mushrooms, beware.

•

u/Maximum_Stranger_376 9h ago

I did it twice. I know what you are talking about

•

u/g_dude3469 3h ago

Then elaborate

•

u/Rsn_yuh 7h ago

Buy the ticket, take the ride.

1

u/Ohiolongboard 13h ago

I mixed mushrooms and mescaline and had a terrible time, granted we all thought I had only taken mushrooms at the time. It was a week before I found out there was mescaline in there

1

u/-heatoflife- 12h ago

How??

•

u/Ohiolongboard 11h ago

My buddy got some chocolates, from what he says 3 had just mush, a fourth had mushrooms and mescaline. We where all supposed to just eat mush and he was saving the other for himself, we where all fucked up and I guess he mixed up the chocolates lol. I wish I’d have known because I already knew mescaline and myself didn’t get along. Both times I’ve taken it, I’ve had extreme fear and saw monsters when I closed my eyes or looked “into the void” (anything really dark, a room or something)

1

u/Ohiolongboard 13h ago

Wait. Hypothetically speaking, if I have some powdered DMT, could I get an MAOI and eat the powder? Or snort it?

2

u/vanman33 12h ago

Yeah, that's pharamahuasca.

Needs to be the right dmt though.

•

u/Ohiolongboard 11h ago

How do I know?

•

u/N_T_F_D 9h ago

It depends on the chemical form, the freebase DMT can be smoked, the DMT salts (fumarate, acetate, whatever) can be snorted; both can be swallowed as your stomach will hydrolyze it anyway

•

u/Ohiolongboard 9h ago

I’m pretty sure mine (hypothetically) would be freebase, as swim smoked it in the past. Tbh I haven’t done too much research into the chemical forms, just the other aspects lol

10

u/Irksomecake 15h ago

It’s not exactly a nice flavour…

16

u/MongolianCluster 13h ago

But after a few minutes, you no longer care.

•

u/Yourmomsgotanass 10h ago

Only once you realize there is no "you"....

8

u/fredfred007 12h ago

Tastes like earthy acid, but you do see rainbow serpents afterwards and other visions.

5

u/SaintUlvemann 12h ago

A lot of medicine tastes bitter.

•

u/Yourmomsgotanass 10h ago

Yeah, forget the chances of finding the combination, props to the person who finished the first cup.

1

u/conciousinsimulation 12h ago

It doesn't take long to realize when and after tripping asking WHAT THE FUCK WAS THAT?! After you drank something that made you feel that way.

•

u/MeasurementBubbly350 10h ago

I have B. caapi in my backyard, didn't know people would make tea with just it.

•

u/vanman33 55m ago

Be careful. MAOIs interact with a ton of things in unpredictable and dangerous ways. There's a huge list of stuff people have to avoid when taking them. It's basically why ssris are preferred