DHM isn't entirely undesirable, it depends on the individuals reasons for drinking kava and what they are hoping to get from it.
I didn't state that it's
entirely undesirable: just that it is, again, predominately preferred to be in third position or lower. Or, more accurately, a K/DHM ratio of 1 (i.e., at the very least) "should" really be present... but preferably above that.
There may well be outliers (e.g., you it'd appear), and that's fine, but this is generally the collegiate/scholastic/erudition-based understanding.
So for some people, DHM-type effects are exactly what they need to achieve the desired effect. Which in the case of DHM would usually be something like a higher anxiolytic effect throughout the entire body/mind and a more potent longer lasting hypnotic/anti-insomnia effect.
Hypnotic? It is my understanding that kava isn't "hypnotic" in any way.
(Also, I think it's pretty clear that other SCs lower in DHM can still have very great/superlative anxiolytic effects, and the same goes for anti-insomnia effects. Sure, DHM has "staying power," but not often in a very desirable way...)
Sure, it comes with a higher likelihood of nausea and I wish that weren't the case, but I deal with it for the specific medicinal benefits it offers.
"Medicinal..." interesting choice word there. Do you mean medicinal as in, plain ol' "modifying physiological functions," or perhaps something else?
I can totally understand though, how a relatively normal mentally healthy person who drinks kava mostly for recreational value wouldn't necessarily find DHM desirable most of the time...or even someone who drinks kava medicinally, but for reasons that don't have much to do with DHM effects.
Could you please crystallize to me exactly what these "reasons" are?
Again, higher than third position (or more accurately, a K/DHM ratio below 1) is usually said to be quite dicey... but I'd be interested in knowing other "reasons" for avoidance beyond just, well, the effects.
I think Kavain is the most selected for because it's a fast acting, safe, pleasant, enjoyable high (which also has some medicinal value) ... and humans like that. So when I say I like high K/high DHM kava, it's because I'm trying to get the best of both worlds for my specific issues, I want the recreational value (K) along with my medicine (DHM).
Again, I'd appreciate you making it luculent what you mean by "medicine" and "medicinal."
My dislike of Yangonin is anecdotal and personal to my genetic make up. I have a susceptibility to varying degrees of anxiety/depression/derealization and I've learned through experience that psychedelic drugs, even as mild as Marijuana, can trigger those horrible mental illnesses to flare up to terrifying nearly unlivable levels. I've personally found, through many years of kava drinking, that kavas with high-yangonin levels seem to play with that area of this genetic flaw of mine a little bit and it's enough to scare me away from it most of the time. The effect while drinking seems fine, even somewhat remarkably good at making kava feel like a "high"...but the feeling it leaves with me afterwards is too close to something that I desperately try to avoid.
Seems a bit anomalous to me that you find Y to have a "psychedelic" edge, if I'm reading/interpreting your paragraph here correctly: I have yet to really come across anyone positing kava as having any such side to it, high-in-yangonin or otherwise.
And yes, I have some knowledge re yangonin, but it never occurred to me that it (ostensibly) has some sort of "psychedelic" or "hypnotic" edge (i.e., at least in your eyes, of course), if this is really what you're trying to get across?
Just a bit out of left field for me.
What I like about desmethoxyyangonin is the unknown. I simply have an interest in it because it rarely shows up to any significant degree in kava. It might be terrible, it might be nearly inert, it might be great, it might be bad for me but good for you. I'm interested in it's rareness and curious about it's effects...so I've always wanted to try a chemotype like: 142653
Ehh... it is certainty less known than, e.g., DHK & K, but we do have at least some understanding of it (granted, mostly in the non-recreational sense).
