In 1968 a naturalist, Thomas MacDougall, working among the Chontal Indians, reported a "secret" plant that is made into a tea or infusion and consumed in solitude while a cigarette of the same leaves is smoked. This produces a feeling of well-being that continues for one or more days. It is said that Calea promotes a repose and one hears one's own heart and pulse beating. The Chontal Shaman call Calea Zacatechichi "thepelakano" or leaves of god ..

(Wm. Emboden, Narcotic Plants, revised ed., Collier Books, pgs 33-34)

In native folk medicine calea is also used for gastrointestinal disorders, fever and nausea.

A traditional recipe is as follows:
Tea : take about 4-6 grams of Calea leaves and steep them in simmering (not heavily boiling) water for about 15 minutes. Add honey and milk or cream to make the taste better.
Smoking the Calea Zacatechichi leaves can produce a mild cannabis-like euphoria, but without the apathy. Generally a cigarette is rolled and smoked while drinking the tea.
Calea produces a feeling of well-being that can continues for one or more days.

Other techniques are breathing the stream from the boiling tea and placing a little bit of the herb under your bottom lip while you sleep & dream.
The human dose for divinatory purposes reported by the Chontal informant is a handful of the dried plant or approximately 12 grams.

Active Constituents: James Duke reported, in his Handbook of Medicinal Herbs, 0.01% of a crystalline alkaloid, C21H26O8. Psychoactive components uncertain but believed to be in aromatic and bitter principle. Much research is currently being done with this herb.
Known to produce euphoria as well as intense lucid dreaming.. Hence the given name of the herb " Dream Herb "

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