Effects - Effects from smelling datura flowers?

[rxbandit]

Last night my SO and I took a walk to the local datura plant, which is hidden in an otherwise innocent garden. We had seen it first during the day, and had examined the seedpods to make sure it really was datura, etc, as well as smelling the flowers. During the day there was no scent.

So last night we were there after dark and the flowers were completely open. Each of us smelled a flower, taking a fairly deep inhalation of the scent. During the night there was a strong, almost intoxicating smell. We independantly began to feel a strange, almost faintly narcotic effect from the plant, and my SO mentioned a piece of folklore about how people falling asleep next to datura plants would have terrible dreams. We were a bit creeped out by this, and still felt weird, but we decided to ignore it, concluding it might be in our imagination.

About an hour later, we went to sleep, and both of us had extremely vivid, unpleasant dreams in which drugs played a prominent role. It's uncommon for us to dream, and these were strange dreams as compared to normal dreams or nightmares.

So here's the question. Can deep inhalation of the flowers' scent at night cause any effects, or is this completely in our heads? We are trying not to jump to conclusions, but find these strange dreams and potential physical effects (at least right after inhaling the scent) to be an odd coincidence. Has anyone else experienced this? Can this be proven or disproven, and is there any truth to the myth about sleeping near a datura plant?

The above was written and should be credited to perception addict, she wanted me to read over her post and i did after signing out of her account and the accidently posted it under my name. I could not figure out how to delete the thread so she could post her thread... Sorry for the logistical trouble. If anyone knows how to delete a thread, let me know.

[Nagognog2]

The level of alkaloids that are airborne from those pretty trumpet-shaped flowers is far less than the power of suggestion. BUT Southwestern (US) and Mexican Natives are known to take a flower and place it under their heads before retiring for the night/day.

Maybe a more positive suggestion is in order? Sounds to me like someone scared themselves into a nightmare.

[genaro]

effect from smelling datura flower? ->no effect.

However, the smell can be described as 'heady', flowers have a very intense smell in the evening...powerful & bewitching odour that feels almost heavy inside one's head, but this is true for any strong perfume, not only for datura.

Perfumes are known to cause slight psycho/hormonal reactions in people. That's all.
Nothing to do with a high.

[rxbandit]

interesting. I took a whiff of the datura again a few nights ago. No strange dreams although a slight invigorating pressure was noticed throughout my head.

I am starting to think it was mostly a psychosomatic effect.

I have read of hops pillows having powerful sedative effects, could it be possible if one was sleeping by a datura plant like in the folk lore one may inhale enough alkaloids to experience a distortion in dreaming?

[JaWill88]

swim highly, highly doubts anyone could get enough alkaloids to feel anything from being near a plant, if any alkaloids at all. most likely zero. even if someone did get some alkalods from staying by it a verrrrry long time, they wouldnt get enough at once. one again, if any at all.