Thread: Pennyroyal's workbook

Originally Posted by Sibyline

Shamelessly lurking here. I was wondering if the menthol has to be absorbed through the mucous membrane of your mouth to be effective, or if it would work to swallow smallish (!) lozenges, because I'm interested but really don't like the taste of menthol.

I've never seen a lozenge small enough that I wouldn't be frightened to swallow it. I imagine that the cough drop would be dissolved just fine in the stomach and then the menthol absorbed via the gut. I'm not sure how much difference that would make in getting the menthol to the brain, but it's not the kind of thing I'd worry too much about.

You might like peppermint tea a bit better. I get good results from 3 bags (increased dream vividness/quantity) to 6 bags (increased dream vividness/craziness/friskiness.) I've found that it stains whatever glass it's in so my approach now is to drink it through a straw now that I'm paranoid about staining my teeth.

Originally Posted by PennyRoyal

Finally broke my spell of zero recall last night and snagged a Lucid as a result of my first 'proper' WILD.

I woke up after 5 hours of sleep and did a 10-15 minutes wbtb. Took about 32mg of menthol in the form of some lozenges. Extremely promising results from my first night of experimentation. Looking forward to see how it goes next time around. Surprisingly, I did get an 'amorous' quality in the beginning. Which I didn't really expect to effect me lol.

Congratulations again on the excellent WILD! I'm definitely going to be employing some low-dose menthol tonight for a little extra kick of dream vividness. I'm glad that everything worked so well for you last night!

Edit: Oh yeah, and on the question of menthol content per bag... the studies I looked up for this basically showed huge variance in how much menthol different brands contain. So I'm forced to just go with how many bags my brand uses. This is something that I dislike about using tea and why I'll probably go to using diluted essential oil. (Something that should be done with care, btw.)

Originally Posted by CanisLucidus

I've never seen a lozenge small enough that I wouldn't be frightened to swallow it. I imagine that the cough drop would be dissolved just fine in the stomach and then the menthol absorbed via the gut. I'm not sure how much difference that would make in getting the menthol to the brain, but it's not the kind of thing I'd worry too much about.

Hm. I see your point. I'm not quite ready to die for my art.

Originally Posted by CanisLucidus

You might like peppermint tea a bit better. I get good results from 3 bags (increased dream vividness/quantity) to 6 bags (increased dream vividness/craziness/friskiness.)

3 to 6 bags?!? During a WBTB or before bed?

Originally Posted by CanisLucidus

I've found that it stains whatever glass it's in so my approach now is to drink it through a straw now that I'm paranoid about staining my teeth.

Thank you. I like to keep these little neurotic tidbits in my insanity file for subsequent mocking/blackmail purposes. "Big bad wolf folds clothes daintily, drinks through straw to avoid staining fangs." Gotcha!

Originally Posted by Sibyline

3 to 6 bags?!? During a WBTB or before bed?

I prefer to drink this at WBTB. It's about 2 cups of water, room temperature by the time I get to it. Very strong! I wish I could tell you that the same amounts will work for you but there's no consistency in menthol content between brands of peppermint tea. This is the thing that bothers me the most with the tea and is pushing me toward the peppermint oil option.

Some people use peppermint oil capsules and do very well with that. I didn't find a brand in the United States that seemed suitable, but Highlander uses the Hollander & Barett brand. (Surely I've misspelled that.)

Originally Posted by Sibyline

Thank you. I like to keep these little neurotic tidbits in my insanity file for subsequent mocking/blackmail purposes. "Big bad wolf folds clothes daintily, drinks through straw to avoid staining fangs." Gotcha!

LOL. Enjoy the leverage. You know, in spite of my slow, dainty clothes folding, I get the clothes-folding outcomes of a careless 3rd grade boy.