15 banana trip report

[MuadDib]

Bananas were notorious during the 1960's for getting high by scraping off the peels and drying/baking the skins and rolling them up to smoke. I have absolutely no idea what chemicals interact with the brain when doing this. Still, I have seen reports of people who eat copious amounts, attesting to the fact that bananas naturally contain serotonin and that if you eat a large quantity, you can get a high similar to MDMA or an antidepressant drug. This makes no sense, however, as regular digestive processes would likely destroy any serotonin in its organic form before it has a chance to enter the bloodstream.

I made 3 smoothies with 5 med/large ripe bananas in each together with a splash of almond milk. 

After ingesting, I didn't feel anything for about 4 hours, until I was kicking back to watch The Endless (10/10 budget horror film btw) when I had full-blown 5-MeO flashbacks, free-falling through infinity, indicating my serotonergic system was definitely being affected. 

Curious if any chem/dietary professionals know anything about this. Bananas can legit take you places.

https://www.instagram.com/reels/DdUNM76tsAN/

[Asayake]

This is kind of the ideas behind certain high carb vegan groups, I used to experiment with this type of eating essentially high amounts of sweet fruits and added table sugar. The absence of protein in bananas and their high sugar content increases your blood brain barriers uptake of tryptophane, which increases serotonine production. So its not only a placebo but an actual mechanism where if you eat really low protein really high carb it has an antidepressant property, although longterm id be a bit cautious of potential nutriotional deficiencies.

if you want to learn more about this you can check Durianriders videos about sugar on YouTube, hes fanatical about this type of eating and talks a lot about the beneficial properties of sugar just beware hes fanatic about it and pushing an ideology to make money but there seems to be some  truth to it.

Edited yesterday at 12:11 PM by Asayake

[Xonas Pitfall]

I'd love for someone to realise alien consciousness with bananas 

[LoneWonderer]

You telling me I can trip by eating a large quantity of bananas? Crazy man! I'll have to give it a try one day

[Psychonaut]

Let's go over-dose on potassium 

[Carl-Richard]

Ready-made serotonin from the diet does not pass the blood brain barrier and any effect would be through the gut.

If you want to increase serotonin in the brain through diet, you should try to eat a tryptophan-rich food (e.g  poultry, which has ~30x more tryptophan per weight than bananas) and combine it with carbohydrates. Carbohydrates release insulin which makes your muscles start absorbing amino acids other than tryoptophan which lets more tryptophan enter the brain due to reduced competition from other amino acids.

So maybe combine poultry and banana, as banana has a lot of carbs and also vitamin B6 which helps to convert trypthophan to serotonin in the brain. Although something like cooked potatoes might produce a similar or even more drastic result (if you want to be really nerdy, try boiling your bananas). Or just freaking buy some tryptophan supplements or 5-HTP (one step closer to serotonin in the conversion process).

My experience with 5-HTP is it made me extremely drowsy and just want to lay on the couch, quite distinct from MDMA. If you want to emulate MDMA, you should try to add an L-dopa and/or L-tyrosine component (for the catecholamine i.e. dopamine and noradrenaline activity). And it does actually produce withdrawal effects. I coincidentally tried the 5-HTP the day before an oral exam and I was so freaking anxious, literally trembling, gasping for air.

Something closer to MDMA I've tried was 2-3 tablespoons of turmeric powder with 2-3 teaspoons of ground black pepper chugged in a horrible mix with orange juice (was simply my drink of choice). It actually gave a distinct bodily high and euphoria. I've heard saffron could be similar.

By the way, I've tried eating 9-10 bananas and nothing else on several occasions (both organic and non-organic) and it generally made me feel really nasty. Eating more than that would also be a serious task.

Edited 9 hours ago by Carl-Richard

[Psychonaut]

What are you trying to achieve? That makes choosing the tool a lot easier.

• More Love => MDMA
• More Clarity => Tryptamines
• More Dissociation => PCP-Analogues
• More Dampness => THC, Benzodiazepines, Opiates 

Edited 9 hours ago by Psychonaut

[Psychonaut]

Research article

Title: Unlocking the potential of banana peel bioactives: extraction methods, benefits, and industrial applications

File: s44187-025-00276-y.pdf (21 pages)

Link: https://link.springer.com/article/10.1007/s44187-025-00276-y

Published In: Discover Food (https://link.springer.com/journal/44187)

Open access

Published: 10 January 2025

Edited 9 hours ago by Psychonaut

[Asayake]

6 hours ago, Carl-Richard said:

Ready-made serotonin from the diet does not pass the blood brain barrier and any effect would be through the gut.

If you want to increase serotonin in the brain through diet, you should try to eat a tryptophan-rich food (e.g  poultry, which has ~30x more tryptophan per weight than bananas) and combine it with carbohydrates. Carbohydrates release insulin which makes your muscles start absorbing amino acids other than tryoptophan which lets more tryptophan enter the brain due to reduced competition from other amino acids.

So maybe combine poultry and banana, as banana has a lot of carbs and also vitamin B6 which helps to convert trypthophan to serotonin in the brain. Although something like cooked potatoes might produce a similar or even more drastic result (if you want to be really nerdy, try boiling your bananas). Or just freaking buy some tryptophan supplements or 5-HTP (one step closer to serotonin in the conversion process).

My experience with 5-HTP is it made me extremely drowsy and just want to lay on the couch, quite distinct from MDMA. If you want to emulate MDMA, you should try to add an L-dopa and/or L-tyrosine component (for the catecholamine i.e. dopamine and noradrenaline activity). And it does actually produce withdrawal effects. I coincidentally tried the 5-HTP the day before an oral exam and I was so freaking anxious, literally trembling, gasping for air.

Something closer to MDMA I've tried was 2-3 tablespoons of turmeric powder with 2-3 teaspoons of ground black pepper chugged in a horrible mix with orange juice (was simply my drink of choice). It actually gave a distinct bodily high and euphoria. I've heard saffron could be similar.

By the way, I've tried eating 9-10 bananas and nothing else on several occasions (both organic and non-organic) and it generally made me feel really nasty. Eating more than that would also be a serious task.

Its the tryptophane uptake to the blood brain barrier not serotonine

[Carl-Richard]

7 minutes ago, Asayake said:

Its the tryptophane uptake to the blood brain barrier not serotonine

Did you read?

[Asayake]

42 minutes ago, Carl-Richard said:

Did you read?

Mb i was being lazy and jumped to a conclusion, regarding your poultry idea though this ignores my point about low protein being the key that increases tryptophane uptake, if you eat any high protein foods the other amino acids will block the tryptophane uptake which is the idea behind a high carb low protein diet from a serotonine perspective, possibly theres some threshold where your idea works though, im not certain at what amount of protein the uptake is inhibited. The insulin & muscles taking up other amino acids idea doesnt seem to hold up, in studies where they showed the uptake increase of tryptophane the key was almost zero protein

[PsychedelicEagle]

Bro... I've been eating 5 bananas daily for years. Still waiting for any effects...

[Carl-Richard]

3 hours ago, Asayake said:

Mb i was being lazy and jumped to a conclusion, regarding your poultry idea though this ignores my point about low protein being the key that increases tryptophane uptake, if you eat any high protein foods the other amino acids will block the tryptophane uptake which is the idea behind a high carb low protein diet from a serotonine perspective, possibly theres some threshold where your idea works though, im not certain at what amount of protein the uptake is inhibited. The insulin & muscles taking up other amino acids idea doesnt seem to hold up, in studies where they showed the uptake increase of tryptophane the key was almost zero protein

I mean it makes sense that if the more insulin, the more amino acids are taken up by muscles, if you then have a super big insulin spike relative to the overall protein load (and you manage to remove almost all free non-tryptophan amino acids from the blood), perhaps more tryptophan gets in even if it's an overall lower load. In other words, the competition off-set by the insulin could be the rate-limiting factor at a certain baseline level of protein (because of course you need atleast some protein to have tryptophan in the first place). So maybe banana or other mainly-carb sources is the way to go.

On the other hand, carbohydrates and adrenaline are metabolic buddies and that could offset some downstream serotonergic effects from increase in tryptophan in the brain. I certainly don't feel very "chill" if I eat many carbohydrates. One of the ways I feel most calm is if I eat a lot of beef steak (like 400g or more) and only some carbohydrates (e.g. potato) and a lot of vegetables. Also a hard muscle workout puts you in a very serotonergic state.

Edited 6 minutes ago by Carl-Richard