Pods from Outer Space?

Or maybe they're from inner space, IDK.  Maybe they are from the plant itself?  Before theorizing on origins, let me provide two descriptions for your review and ask the question:  "Have you or anyone you know seen anything similar while under the influence of iboga?"

My attention was first caught by what  I thought was a large, long legged spider that was walking across the ceiling a couple of feet past the foot of my bed.  Upon closer inspection it was seen to be not a spider but a visionary stick figure that was sliding across the ceiling.  It looked somewhat like a 3-D line drawing and I could see the white ceiling between the black lines.  It further resolved into a round object that looked somewhat like an upside-down lotus pad.  It glided randomly around the ceiling down past the foot of the bed for a couple of minutes.

Then, it started moving purposefully across the ceiling toward my head, staying about one foot from my right side as I lay in bed.  As it was getting close to my feet, I noticed a pendulous shape drop down that looked like a small, straight chili pepper hanging from a stem.  It seemed like a fruit hanging from the middle of a circular flower similar to a sunflower that was attached to the ceiling.

When it was approximately even with my feet, the pod opened up by dividing into ~5 sections that curled back about 1/3 of its length, similar to peeling the skin off of a banana.  At that time, a stream of what appeared to be tiny silver bubbles began to flow out from the pod.  At first the stream only went about a foot before disappearing, but the volume of the stream and the distance it traveled both increased as the pod and its base slid across the ceiling toward my head. 

By the time the pod had reached the top of my legs (the bottom of my torso), the stream had extended to reach me.  The resolution of the color and shape of the 'bubbles' increased as they got nearer.  While the predominant color was silver, the objects were seen to have several pastel colored highlights and to be translucent and glowing, as if they were particles of light.   While they acted like a stream of bubbles, as their resolution increased, they appeared not spherical but to be three dimensional, somewhat oblong and had several flat-ish surfaces (polyhedra) connected by rounded edges.

As the pod reached my solar plexus, the stream had increased to a torrent and was making a hollow whooshing sound.  It was if I was being spray-painted, but when I looked down where they were landing on me, they did not form a covering and were not bouncing off.  It looked as though they were going into my body.  Because the bubbles were luminous and beautiful, streaming down upon me so gently, I was not afraid in the least.  Anything that gorgeous and peaceful just had to be a good thing.

When the flow of bubbles reached my head, it obscured everything else in my central field of vision  --  I was looking right into the center of the glowing, silvery stream as the bubbles poured over me.  I had strong feelings of peace, happiness and awe.  It was beautiful!  And then, like a baby investigating a new thing, I raised my hand and reached into the center of the stream.

And boy-oh-boy did I get a surprise!  The stream abruptly stopped, the pod closed, and the whole thing raced back the way it had come like I had frightened it.  I have had many psychedelic experiences, but never anything like that!  It really did seem like the flower and pod existed independently of me and had reacted to my probing.  I made the resolution to be gentle and never scare it again.

As if that wasn't strange enough, what happened next was REALLY interesting and is the reason for the telling of my tale.  After a few minutes, another flower and pod appeared where the first one had.  It, too, began to move up toward my head.  And like the one before, there was a stream of bubbles reaching down to my body.  But this time it was different...

This time the stream had less volume and the bubbles were darker, sort of brownish.  When the pod and the stream of bubbles got closer, I was able to see that instead of coming toward me, the bubbles were now going from me into the pod.  It was as though the pod was vacuuming the bubbles back up into itself.

It wasn't until the day after that it occurred to me that the bright shiny bubbles absorbed what was unclean/unhealthy in me.  The best analogy I can think of is spray-on carpet cleaner.  The cleaning solution foam is first sprayed on the dirty carpet.  Then, after several minutes, it is vacuumed up  --  bringing the dirt and stains with it.  Except, in this case, I was the rug.

Several days later, something went 'clunk' inside my head as recognition arrived.  I raced to my bedroom and found the botanical line drawing of T. iboga I was looking for.  Yup!  'My' pods looked just like the fruits and the 'bubbles' looked just like the seeds of T. iboga.  My, my  --  did all that come out of my head or from somewhere else?  If I were a gambler, I would have to bet it was somewhere else.

Below is a similar description of the phenomena I read in Lee Albert's book "Amazing Grace."  I had read the description before my experience.  Was Mr. Albert's description the source of my vision?  Or did it just open me up and enable me to see it?

I am very interested in hearing if anyone else has had a similar experience.

Excelsior!

guenevere_walks

From "Amazing Grace" by Lee Albert, pages 221 - 222

"I have never, to my mind, experienced such panic before.  Then, while in this state, I saw small, soft, pastel-colored bubbles oozing from the ceiling, falling down on me...  Soon this panic subsided as I realized I was looking at small gentle and soft, pastel-colored bubbles falling down on me and I felt the presence of powerful and helpful forces.  I also realized that any image I saw was not physically real and so was not too worried if I would see rats or not.  It was a delightful and relaxing experience."

Perhaps they were real, just not physical as we usually use the term ? ? ?    ~e

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💬 7 comments

7 Comments

wolfmoon· 09 Jun 2026

I think Mr. Albert's story may have had some influence. I watched a special on Saddam Hussein not long before my first iboga experience, and I saw middle eastern people the whole time. Muslims shooting off heavy artillery, and Iraqis or middle eastern people living in elaborate halls like Saddam had. I think watching the show a week or so before my journey played somewhat of a role in my visions. I also found hidden meaning in the visions, kind of like symbolism, but it took a bit to fully grasp the subliminal message in the visions..

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guenevere_walks· 10 Jun 2026

Thanks for your reply, GD! If I had the visions first and then read Albert's description, there would be a much stronger case for thinking that they were archetypal or came from the iboga itself. In my experience, there are three classes of visions: I. Amplification of the underlying structure and/or chemical processes of the brain. This class includes kaleidoscopic colors, glowing edges, trails and the like. I believe these are due to the stimulation of visual and other areas of the brain. While they may be pretty, even awesomely beautiful, they bring little useful information. II. Personal, often symbolic, representations of internal psychological phenomena. These are images from one's own psyche that can be represented as animals, other people or sometimes bizarre fusions of several things. These are generated in one's own conscious/subconscious mind and are helpful in terms of self-knowledge. III. Representations of actual, objective reality, sometimes symbolic, other times not. These are the types of visions that healers use to diagnose illness in others and that clairvoyants use to help people with difficult/important aspects of their lives. These visions are of true external reality. An example would be a healer seeing spots on someone's liver that indicate sickness there. Another example would be prescient dreams. I also include seeing auras in this category. While some are content to spend an entire visionary experience just watching the pretty colors, I am drawn to the other two types. For visions to be helpful to others, visions of the third class are necessary. It is my understanding that the ability to see real/true visions can be cultivated -- that one can learn to see reality more clearly and in better detail in one's visions with practice. Given my categorization of visions, Albert's and my perception of healing bubbles could fall into either Class II or Class III. When I have a possible Class III vision, I try to validate it with objective data. If people who never read Albert's book or my description report having the same experience, it would support categorization as Class III. ~eon

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brightwillow· 10 Jun 2026

Great stuff, McKnight! I like your classification 'system' concerning visions, I think it is right on. Very good analysis man. about these 'bubbles' I seem to remember several different people's experiences involving these visions, and (If I am not mistaken) even a 'warning' by one person to be wary of them - for some reason. I know that's vague but I just wanted to illustrate the similarities in many iboga visionary states. GD saw 'global, geo-political' type things....so did I. I was very surprised by this. I had a vision of president Obama, and I didn't even vote for the guy lol...(so what, I'm a Republican!) I am including an excerpt from 'Holy Fire 2' the notes we took on my brother's TA flood last year. He seems to have had some similar visions too.: " VISIONS I REMEMBER " ~Early : First - 'buzzing sound' & music? Light (like stars?) appear and reappear ~Later : Humans in silhouette. @ some point my brother walked by foot of bed and crouched down and crawled thru wall (?) wtf ~ A PRIDE OF LIONS and some trees...stars still "bubbling" then descended into a vortex in the thousands - spiraled at my third-eye and spiraled back up. ~Craziest : A HORSE in FULL COLOR, wind in mane, walking into stable.... Many of the aspects you describe are outlined here. The animals, the abstract constructs etc. He had some sleep paralysis after iboga (he is sensitive to these phenomena and has sleep paralysis fairly regularly) where he again 'saw' a horse. I told him I thought it may be what some people call their 'power animal'? A spirit guide, etc. Not sure. This is where the indigenous peoples have us Westerners beat hands down - interpretations of visions are done almost exclusively by a shaman...the years and generations of expertise they bring with them are the keys to deciphering what can be very blurry grounds for many of us. We can learn much from them. Thanks for sharing dude, I like the way you think.

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guenevere_walks· 10 Jun 2026

That does sound like my experience. Albert never mentioned the 'bubbles' going back up, and I'm guessing your Bro never read his book, right? THANKS ! ! ! This is exactly the kind of thing I was a-fishin' for. ~et

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brightwillow· 10 Jun 2026

Nope - brother never read the book man. In fact I hadn't heard of it until you mentioned it in an email, and brother isn't usually up for reading stuff like that. He's more of a history buff, etc. It sure is an interesting similarity though. Magic medicine man, just plain magic!

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wolfmoon· 10 Jun 2026

I too can agree with the assessment of different visions, and the latter two are my favorites. All I have had on LSD and even some other entheogens..

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guenevere_walks· 10 Jun 2026

My eyes were open on a dose of 2g TA. ~eon

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