Psychedelic Alpha’s Josh Hardman searches online message boards and chat rooms to hear from those who claim to have tried Tabernanthalog (TBG), a ‘non-hallucinogenic’ ibogaine analog.
Like many of you I am oh-so eager to learn whether non-hallucinogenic psychedelicsâor, âpsychoplastogensââare safe and efficacious (for anything, really).
Itâs a tantalising prospect thatâs⊠tantalised⊠funders, with hundreds of millions of dollars boosting the mission of skipping the trip but maintaining efficacy: from DARPA to Delix.
But itâs going to take some time before we learn much about this class of drugs from clinical trials, which are only now getting started with low doses.
As weâve discussed in earlier reporting, some researchers are using clever study designs to try to get at this question of whether we can parse out the trip from the âfixâ earlier. For example, Boris Heifets et al. administered ketamine to patients undergoing surgical anaesthesia and University of Wisconsin researchers co-administered memory-precluding midazolam and psilocybin.
See our Skipping the Trip section of our 2022 Year in Review for a write-up of these efforts plus the state of the broader psychoplastogen research effort.
However, whether these new drug candidates might prove non-hallucinogenic and/or efficacious in humans is still going to take some time to figure out. Last month Delix Therapeutics announced it had completed dosing the first cohort in its dose escalation trial of its DLX-001 (AAZ-A-154) candidate.
While I have a hunch that some non-murine lab rats at these psychoplastogen drug development outfits have tasted their wares, youâd be hard-pressed to find one that will spill the beans publicly.
So, I went sleuthing and ended up in the only natural place: research chemical and nootropics forums, chat boards and discussion servers.
Choosing Tabernanthalog
I decided to hone in on tabernanthalog (TBG), an analog of ibogaine created by David Olsonâs lab (which supplies pipeline candidates to Delix, of which Olson is a co-founder). Researchers have reported that, in rodents, the analog âwas found to promote structural neural plasticity, reduce alcohol- and heroin-seeking behaviour, and produce antidepressant-like effectsâ (Cameron et al., 2021).
Tabernanthalog is particularly interesting because it builds off of ibogaine, which is known anecdotally to have anti-addictive properties. The subjective experience occasioned by ibogaine is intense and long-lasting: to some this would be considered as central to its apparent efficacy, while to others it might be considered a bug or flaw. While categorising this long-lasting oneiric state as a âside effectâ or âadverse eventâ might be subject to debate, itâs harder to find someone who would take umbrage with attempts to minimise the known cardiac risks of ibogaine.
As such, Olson et al. sought to iterate on ibogaine by developing tabernanthalog with the aim to make a safer, non-hallucinogenic psychedelic that maintained at least some of ibogaineâs efficacy.
Again: tantalising. And, tantalising enough that I was able to find at least a dozen individuals who claim to have tried the drug after purportedly sourcing it from research chemical outfits and underground chemists. Kyiv-based PGL Chemie is a popular purveyor of such substances, while other online communities pool funds to commission synthesis of drugs like TBG directly.

While attempts have been made to verify that the substance ingested by these pseudonymous message board posters was, indeed, TBG, true verification was not possible. As such, all reports should be taken with a grain of salt (or, Imodium⊠as you will hear).
Tasting TBG: Reddit Reports
The search starts in the low-hanging places, such as Reddit. Iâm rewarded with a quick and easy win in the form of a July 2021 post on r/NootropicsFrontline.
âWe have synthesized 15 grams of Tabernanthalog at 98.4% purity [and are] looking for enthusiasts who would want to order someâ, explains gintrux. The user shares mass spectrometry characterisation of what is claimed to be their TBG.

gintrux claims to have tried low doses up to 20mg, but reported being âtoo anxiousâ to try larger doses due to âa very strong experience with iboga 1.5 years agoâ.
Despite plenty of volunteers in the comments (âAnybody is ok, dm meâ, gintrux replied to a commenter who asked if there were any particular traits sought in volunteers), no further trip reports were disclosed here.Â
A year later, in July 2022, a post from FreshFrozenLux on r/NooTopics [sic] asked whether anyone had had any experiences with TBG. âGoing to post my review on it soonâ, replied sirsadalot. âIt was very interesting of an experienceâ.
âIt didnât help much for meâ, FreshFrozenLux reported back in the comments, â[at least] not for the physical symptomsâ. But it âdid take away cravings and alleviate some mental symptomsâ, they added. They had been hoping that it may help with kratom dependency, which appeared as a recurrent topic among these communities.
dso333777, meanwhile, âpersonally wasnât a fan but everyoneâs body is differentâ. They were trying to offload their remaining 490mg stash: âI paid 140 plus tax ⊠Iâll let it go for 100â.
A few months later, over on r/researchchemicals, a discussion arose around which benzodiazepine would be most sustainable for opioid withdrawal. The poster, Tryptameenz, disclosed in the comments that they had tried Tabernanthalog, but that âit did not work outside of cravingsâ.
In November 2022 we get one of the first more fleshed out trip reports on Reddit, again on r/NooTopics. abe2600 provides a short, 120-word description of their experience taking 52mg of whatâs presumed to be tabernanthalog:
âTook 52 mg in the morning after a good night’s sleep. ROA sublingual/oral: some grains are slightly larger though soft. Didn’t take anything else or eat anything. Just coffee and water. Within about 15 minutes felt an energized, “coming up” feeling, though possibly placebo it was very strong, but never transformed into anything too unusual. Thinking was normal, perhaps a bit more articulate than normal. Did some reading and had no difficulty with processing ideas. Went outside several hours later and colors did seem brighter, trees and houses seemed more interesting and patterns more noticeable, but nothing dramatic and again very subjective. Conversation with companion was also normal. Finally ate about 9 hours later. Still felt bright energetic feeling.â
Well, thatâs certainly sounding quite non-hallucinogenic. However, allometric scaling of doses used in animal studies might call for a larger dose than abe2600 ingested. I certainly wouldnât want to speculate there, but some have tried much larger doses…
I donât care what the rats said... itâs a psychedelic and feels far more tryptamine than phenethylamine.
Just as this sleuther was growing bored of Reddit threads, having exhausted most hits for tabernanthalog, he came across a much more substantive trip report posted last month on r/researchchemicals. MRSAMinor shares a 400-word dispatch describing a 1 gram dose of tabernanthalog he purportedly ingested. Iâve chosen not to reproduce it in its entirety here, mainly owing to the fact that it includes some decidedly personal details with regards to his fiance.
âI donât care what the rats saidâ, he begins, âitâs a psychedelic and feels far more tryptamine than phenethylamine.â After starting with 50 mg âas an allergy testâ, he added 450 mg. At this point, with 500 mg ingested, he says that it resembles a DXM/LSD onset. (Note: itâs not clear when the remaining 500 mg dose was taken.)
âThe whole thing was very oddâ, he continued. His motivation for trying TBG appears to be related to kratom dependence. âI wanted to help with my kratom dependence but getting a doc to do a half shot of sublocade and walk away has been challenging.âÂ
He describes throwing up for half an hour but says that his mind âwent to very practical, emotional placesâ before falling asleep âtrippingâ at 1:30am.
âAs for cravings, I tossed my cigarettesâ, he reported, but âKratom tolerance is same as ever.â âMaybe this isnât meant for flood dosingâ, he speculated.
âAnyone here have a contact with Hamilton Morris?â, he asked, hoping to verify whether he was the first human subject. (As far as my sleuthing goes, he most certainly isnât.)
The verdict:
â7/10 – very few visuals, relaxing, lucid ; same aMT queasy and duration without feeling loved up. Seemed to oppose the ketamine. 20 hours long, napped a ton the next day. Wish I’d had company, but this shit cost me like $400. Would love to try lower doses; I assume they’re more like euphoria and stimulation like ibogaine, which I’ve never tried because I hate retreats and heart attacks in equal measure.â
âGoes to show how inadequate the rat behaviour tests can beâ, one commenter chimed in. âShulgin said it himselfâ, another added.
As aforementioned, itâs difficult to verify what these pseudonymous users have taken: both in terms of content and strength. Itâs also difficult to know whether MRSAMinorâs experience was due to the seemingly whopping dose of TBG he ate.
Interviewing a TBG Taster on Discord
With Reddit exhausted, I next turned to a number of Discord servers and chat boards in search for more detailed and numerous reports.
We begin on a Discord server that has around 1,500 members, a couple hundred of which are online at any given time. Reports of TBG ingestion start appearing in earnest in Spring 2022.
One user, who has since deleted their account, said in April 2022 that response to tabernanthalog was âpretty variableâ, with most people experiencing âlittle to no effectsâ. But, no one tried a full converted dose, they added. The poster said that another user had experienced âa mood boostâ when they tried it intranasally.
Another poster said that they âdo believe it has potentialâ in treating compulsive disorders and addictions. âIt broke my wifeâs treatment resistant depression and anxiety ⊠for a couple of weeks at a timeâ, they explained (though, they didnât have anecdotal evidence re: addictions or compulsive disorders). The user said that they saw âlong lasting effects ⊠but in a good wayâ, having taken up to 140 mg. â50 mg is my go to dose.â
A separate participant claims that TBG makes their legs tingle âand just feel niceâ, which is âpretty much the same sensationâ they report getting on âany psychedelicâ. But, âunlike shrooms it doesnât make my legs restlessâ, they report. They said that they, along with others, âfind it essentially a âchill pillâ, âbasically the body high of psychedelics without the visuals.â
âIn high doses itâs hard to get upâ, they added. âI got bed locked a few times when I took 150mg+â. The experience lasts around 9 hours, according to this poster.
Later, in 2023, the same user commented âTBG is fucking amazing. Just expensive.â They added that they âhave taken mini doses of shrooms and TBG beats it with easeâ
In April 2023, another member of the chat server contributed their âfinal thoughts on TBGâ after sharing a number of comments throughout an experience. âItâs been about 11h and I still feel it, and the more time passes by the better the quality the effect getsâ, they said. âItâs almost âon a parâ with mdma for me, in terms of motivation and just open mindedness, mental-clarity etc. but without those nasty sides and crazy stimulation, just zen.â
Pre-empting a common question, the poster explains that TBG didnât make them âhighâ âto the extent that youâre probably concerned aboutâ. âIt does alter you[r] perception of reality and you canât, for ex[ample], drive a car on 200mgâ.
The most substantive trip report came from the user Sirsadalot in Summer 2022, who you might remember from the earlier Reddit posts. He was the only person who agreed to speak to me regarding his tabernanthalog experience.
Yeah 200mg tabernanthalog is a dose that will put you in the bed... I feel like I just unintentionally made my day all about tabernanthalog
His Discord bio âPioneering the evolution of intelligence through pharmacological means.â
In his Discord posts he documented his experience on TBG in almost real-time. The journey started with apparent panic: â200mg tabernanthalog was too much I think ⊠Idk why everyone was saying it needed to be like 700mg ⊠almost just threw up ⊠Iâm mildly disoriented at this dose.â
âYeah I donât like tabernanthalogâ, he exclaimed to the channel, âat least not at 200mgâ. Responding to questions, he added: âitâs psychoactive yesâ, and explained that he was experiencing âa lot of peripheral side effectsâ such as ânausea, dizzinessâ. No hallucinations, though.
âYeah 200mg tabernanthalog is a dose that will put you in the bedâ, he went on. âI feel like I just unintentionally made my day all about tabernanthalogâ
A few hours later, Sirsadalot returned with some more sober reflections. Tabernanthalog is âvery potent and psychoactiveâ, he said, adding that âit feels a lot like other psychedelicsâ. âItâs not a crazy trip ⊠but itâs an altered state of mind and sensationâ. âSo far it feels like shrooms minus the visuals, also some similarity to DXMâ.
âTabernanthalog is an interesting nootropicâ, he proclaimed. â I feel like some abilities may be impaired, but the ability to empathize and conceptualize is enhanced.â
At what appears to be around seven hours post-ingestion, Sirsadalot updates the group. âTabernanthalog is fucking awesomeâ, he says, appearing to become more emphatic about the substance with every hour that passes. âAs long as you didnât have something else planned for the dayâ, he then qualifies, âbecause Iâve been so high I havenât been able to do anything but text on my phoneâ.
He claims that he staved off the early anxiety, nausea and dizziness with Tropisetron, after which âeverything got betterâ and it âbecame more therapeuticâ.
âIt increases empathyâ, he added, speculating clumsily that âthis may be good for autistic kidsâ.
Summing up the experience, he said:
âI was underwhelmed by the tabernanthalog anecdotes, with most people saying 500-1000mg was an active dose. So I did 200mg expecting a mild nootropic effect. In reality, I have been in a hypnotic, introspective, and overall altered head space even with an accompanying body high.â
As mentioned above, Sirsadalot spoke with me about this experience. I first sought to understand how he acquired the TBG and how he was confident in its chemical fidelity. âI received it from a friend who works with labsâ, he told me. âHe showed me the testing.â That was around a year ago, he said, adding that TBG has been hard to come by for quite some time since then.
I wondered why Sirsadalot, who told me he doesnât normally like psychedelics, was interested in TBG. âI wanted to take it for the novel experienceâ, he told me, explaining that he tried it âonly on 2 occasionsâ.
He told me that when he took the âproperâ dose of 200mg (âa guess based on the rodent dosesâ, he added when I asked him how he arrived at this) he felt nauseous and dizzy along with some come-up anxiety, as described above. I asked him to explain how TBG felt. While what he told me largely matches his messages in the chat server, I have reproduced some of his comments here:
â… when it kicked in I felt the urge to lay in bed, almost like a feeling of physical laziness but my mind was very active. It amplified the sensation of music, and made it special. Everything had a deeper layer of thinking, almost like I had unlocked a childish part of my mind that I had long forgotten of. I was mesmerized, talking to people felt amazing, my empathy was enhanced greatly. It was very physically euphoric and I felt the sensation of my body on the sheets, like a warm hug. It lasted for a very long time, close to 9 hours. I also commonly get this iron-y/ saline taste (surely a hallucination) from DXM, and I experienced it with TBG as well […] All in all, it felt like a weak psychedelic and serotonin releasing agent. Physically euphoric and sedating, mentally stimulating and welcoming. I talked for hours with people, completely stable yet altered in a unique way.â
I asked him if he had tried ibogaine. He hasnât, and doesnât plan on it. âIn all honesty, I haven’t used drugs recreationally in probably 6 months. In general I stick to cognition enhancement, general health and other related things.â
(Note: the incongruence of the term âtrip reportâ for so-called non-hallucinogenic psychedelics is not lost on me. But, in at least one case a trip was certainly involved: a trip to the bathroom. âTBG makes u shit and fart violentlyâ, said one chat server member in April 2023.)
A TBG Retreat? Discussions on Rocket Chat
My last port of call was a Rocket Chat server populated by biohackers and nootropics enthusiasts.
One of the earliest TBG-related messages I found exclaimed: âTBG is amazing indeed!â. A day later, a moderator asked that people âstop recommending dosages over 100mgâ, adding that âwe had one too many bad experiencesâ. They continued, âI think for the majority over 100 [mg] generally gives a bad experience ⊠sometimes really bad like what randy experienced.â (Itâs not clear who ârandyâ is, or what their experience was.)
âI think 200mg could be goodâ, replied a user named bitchyblond who claimed to have taken 150 mg the prior day. âNo trippy effects whatsoeverâ, they reported, adding that they âwent on Instagramâ and watched a movie. Testament to how many in these communities seek to root their experimentation in scientific discourse and literature, bitchyblond reported that her âdefault mode network got reset for a few daysâ.
Another user, who was also a participant in the chat server and claimed TBG helped his wife with her treatment-resistant depression, was making similar claims in this server. âThe wife felt a mood boost and we had a good day outsideâ on a 28 mg dose, he said.
Then, in May 2022, one of the more active members of the chat server posted a screenshot of an email they received. âI believe I am the first person to have used for research purposes a full flood dose of tbg, which in fact is actually 600-800 mgâ, the email begins. They continue, âI believe you have something here that the world needs access to almost immediatelyâ, adding that TBG âdid for my research project in 3 days where [ibogaine hydrochloride] took 3 weeks to show results.â

In further Signal conversations posted to the chat, it appears that the person sending the emails and messages is a retreat owner who has tried âheroic dosesâ of TBG on himself and his customers, but âalways with a benzoâ according to one chat participant.
âWith my current experienceâ, the supposed retreat owner appears to have said via a Signal message posted in the chat, âas an addiction interruptor, tbg blows ibogaine out of the water in every way, safety profile and Efficacy being the two areas it excels in. The introspective aspect even seems to be more clear for people because the self awareness of what led them here isnt muddied by terrifying visions. Itâs just clear messages from the heart.â
Itâs psychedelic at higher doses, a moderator added. âVisions happen at high doses but they pale in comparison to ibogaâ, the purported retreat owner said.
Closing Thoughts
These reports are a mixed bag, and itâs not apparent whether thereâs much utility in analysing them more closely. These âundergroundâ discussions arenât free of conflicts of interest, either. For example, the original posters of a number of the threads are purveyors of research chemicals including TBG, or are hoping to re-sell their own stock.
At face value, however, they might suggest that TBG is not quite as non-hallucinogenic as it may have presented in mice, at least at larger doses.
Itâs also worth noting that companies like Delix may have iterated further upon early candidates like TBG, too. TBG is not the subject of Delixâs ongoing Phase 1 trial, after all.
Even some of the nootropics enthusiasts and biohackers appear to have moved on from TBG, too. One user suggested that the member responsible for coordinating the synthesis of TBG focus instead on âMolecule 8219â, adding that it appears to be âvery potentâ and âcould replace TBG completelyâ. Theyâre referring to one of the molecules discussed in Singh et al. (2023), ZINC000443438219.