I tried Blue Lotus, the water lily that induces lucid dreams and enhances relaxation and mood
Hey Good Psyche listeners, Trish here. Thanks for tuning in to this month’s edition of TGJ. As a reminder, we drop a Spotify playlist for you each month, and this month in honor of festival season, we dropped Indio, which is like an upbeat mix of…. Idik it’s great go listen to it.
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Guys, I have found THE lavender haze. If you don’t know that reference, I’m not sure we can be friends but keep listening. I’ve never been much of a weed smoker. Personally, I find that it makes me feel either lazy or paranoid, although I will say a nice Indica puts me to sleep, I’m out like a light. I do a lot of research into medicinal plants and herbs for Good Psyche, and in my research I came across the striking Blue Lotus flower. The Blue Lotus is known for providing feelings of euphoria, relaxation, and even trigger lucid dreaming, so of course, I had to give it a try and share my experience.
A little background,
Interestingly, Blue Lotus Flower (Nymphaea caerulea) is not actually a lotus, it’s a lily, going by other names like lily of the Nile and Egyptian lotus. As a water lily it’s a perennial found along the Nile river and various parts of Northern Africa and Asia. It was prominently featured as a ceremonial plant in Egyptian hieroglyphics dating back to the 14th century BC.
So, how do you take it? Blue Lotus can be consumed in a tea, tincture, and it can also be smoked, which is why we’re seeing it crop up across the cannabis industry in smoke shops and online. So I ordered some prerolls of crushed Blue Lotus flower from two companies, shout out to Herbing Legends and Family tree. They both sell packs of 5 prerolls and with shipping they each come out to around $30.
Let’s get into its therapeutic benefits and the chemical properties that support those benefits, and I’ll share my experience with each.
The active ingredients in Blue Lotus are two alkaloids called apomorphine and nuciferine. Apomorphine is a psychoactive alkaloid that interacts with both dopamine and serotonin systems, key neurotransmitters that regulate feelings of pleasure and mood, making it a potential treatment for depression and anxiety.
I hardly ever indulge in smoking weed and I’ve never had a cigarette in my life, so I’m not gonna lie I felt a certain cool factor lighting up my little pre roll. It only took about 10 minutes before I started to feel a sense of contentment and calm, like I had just taken a warm bath.
Many of us associate dopamine with pleasure, however it’s also an important chemical responsible for movement. The Apomorphine alkaloid, derived from the roots and bulbs of the Blue Lotus, is also interesting because of its use in the treatment of Parkinson’s disease, which as it progresses impacts movement and mobility.
Nuciferine is an alkaloid associated with dopamine receptor blockade or a dopamine antagonist, which blocks dopamine receptor activity. Now why is that particularly interesting? Nuciferine’s chemical profile as a dopamine antagonist closely resembles antipsychotics commonly used in the treatment of psychiatric conditions associated with an overactive dopamine system like schizophrenia and bipolar disorder, and addiction. Nuciferine also has anti-obesity, anti-hyperglycemic, anti-inflammatory, and anti-tumor effects, and affinity to neural receptors, and protection against obesity-related diseases..
Now, as someone who has struggled with mild bipolar symptoms, I’m very curious to see how smoking Blue Lotus affects me when I’m feeling particularly elevated and agitated, or down and depressed. I’ll have to report back on that.
Apomorphine and nuciferine alkaloids found in Blue Lotus also have calming, antispasmodic, effects, which explains why it has been used as a sleep aid. And as an antispasmodic it can also help with things like gastrointestinal issues.
Again, I’m going to reach for a preroll the next time I have a stomach ache or muscle tension to see how it impacts the inflammation and spasms. Since I did smoke it close to bedtime, I was able to get the benefit of the sleep aid. I lay down in my bed within 30 minutes of finishing smoking, and my mind seemed to melt easily into sleep.
Two more benefits I want to highlight for you that are a bit more fun and whimsical :)
Because of its classification as a euphoric and a nervine supporting the central nervous system which controls your stress responses, it provides calm and tranquility to both your body and mind Blue Lotus has been used as an aphrodisiac in traditional medicine for thousands of years. If you listen to our article on herbal aphrodisiacs you’ll notice that aphrodisiacs which enhance sex drive and sexual pleasure are linked to your ability to feel calm and relaxed. Being in a state of high stress or fight or flight conflicts with your ability to be turned on. So you’ll see that connection between relaxation and sexual arousal a lot.
And the one I found the most whimsical and intriguing was its ability to potentially induce lucid dreaming. Lucid dreaming for those who aren’t familiar with the term or have never experienced it, is a person’s ability to control the narrative of their dreams while they’re dreaming. I have always been a lucid dreamer, and actually learned to use it as a tool to course-correct the narrative of nightmares into more pleasant dreams. As an example, something scary will be happening, like being chased by a monster or something scary, and a lucid dreamer might say, well I’m just going to fly now, so I’m going to fly away from this scary thing chasing me and while I’m at it, let’s just start a new chapter of this dream with a new narrative. Now I’m back in my childhood home surrounded by puppies. Or whatever.
So I would love for one of our readers who does not have a history of lucid dreaming to try Blue Lotus and let me know if it induced a lucid dream state for you! I have read accounts but it would be awesome to hear from one of you.
My overall conclusion on Blue Lotus is that it’s a remarkably effective, versatile plant remedy that seems to touch on the categories that most of us probably want to touch on… mood, stress, sleep, and sex. So I’m very pleased with the sensations and benefits I experienced and will definitely be finishing these prerolls and sharing some with my friends.
As always, you should consult your doctor before taking any new.
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Thanks for listening, and stay curious.