aural effects of good kava: "flanging"

[Dan]

Usually within five or ten minutes of drinking a more serious brew I will begin to notice a very distinct aural "flanging" effect upon sound - whether it's ambient white noise or actual music playing, or both.  It grows fairly quickly, even - depending on how much I've drunk - becoming sort of deafening (or deafening-feeling) for a few minutes.  And then it tapers off again, like fifteen or so minutes later.  (This is accompanied by mild spatial alteration of music, as well.)  I haven't smoked marijuana in probably ten or twelve years, but kava reminds me vaguely of some of its aural effects, though never as trippy, synaesthetic or long-lasting.
Others might describe this as a ringing in their ears, though it's actually quite pleasant, and is part of a good kava's brief "electric" head buzz for me.  Moreover, it tends to be one of the primary indicators by which I gauge a variety's effectiveness.  In my experience it is most pronounced with more potent Vanuatu varieties like Wow! and V3.  Though, with more and more experience and the right setting (e.g., alone in a quiet room), I notice it to a certain degree with all varieties. 
Anyway, just curious if anyone has noticed this effect, especially alone in a quiet setting.  It's nice.

 

[Vekta]

I never get "flanging" effect on sound but I do find that it's easier for me to notice details in my surroundings. Sometimes I get the illusion that time is going faster or slower and light will look brighter to me than it normally is.



I don't know how true it is but supposedly the Fijian military used it to help it's troops to be more vigilant and less anxious. From experience I see why they tried that. The Boroguru kava I got from BKH certainly makes everything pop. I drank some while walking to dog. Trees looked amazing. Ha.

 

[kavalover]

I've never had that either but that sounds cool. The main effect I get from kava that I use to determine differences in varieties is that strange euphoric sensation. It's hard to describe but it feels like I've falling, like the butterflies that you get when you suddenly fall on a roller coaster but the feeling is all over my skin, digging into my skin and it just feels amazing. Can you guys relate to this at all? Kava truly is an individual experience eh?

 

[kl.iliketofrolic]

I've never had that either but that sounds cool. The main effect I get from kava that I use to determine differences in varieties is that strange euphoric sensation. It's hard to describe but it feels like I've falling, like the butterflies that you get when you suddenly fall on a roller coaster but the feeling is all over my skin, digging into my skin and it just feels amazing. Can you guys relate to this at all? Kava truly is an individual experience eh?

lol if that's what kava does for you then I'm jealous, but I have tried 4 tablespoons of vanuatu 3 which is twice what kavaseur recommends to get intoxicated and I got a noticeable but short lived mood lift and a desire to talk but that is it. Dubstep and any kind of mellow music definitely sounds better to me when I am drinking Kava too.

 

[kavalover]

lol if that's what kava does for you then I'm jealous, but I have tried 4
tablespoons of vanuatu 3 which is twice what kavaseur recommends to get
intoxicated and I got a noticeable but short lived mood lift and a
desire to talk but that is it. Dubstep and any kind of mellow music
definitely sounds better to me when I am drinking Kava too.

I will admit I typically mix a lot more kava than I should for how often I drink it. Usually 2 tbsp of kava for each cup but recently it has been 1 cup or a cup and a half kava and 4 cups water. The effects are truly amazingly intoxicating but that is likely directly related to how often I drink and how much I drink. I find the reverse tolerance effect has very well diminished on me and I actually have quite a tolerance to kava now.

That will likely subside though as I'll be taking a few months off of kava due to some semi-major surgery I'm having soon.

I didn't used to get intoxicated from kava, it was as most people describe for me with the slight mood lift and euphoria. It was a few months in where I started to stumble when walking under the influence of kavas and ramble my thoughts and truly be not-fit to operate a pencil while drinking a hearty PNG strain or such. But now even kavain rich strains get me foggy like I never thought possible with kava. Not sure if anyone else can relate.

 

[kl.Gray Owl]

I have had tinnitus more or less permanently for more than 20 years, most of the time I don't notice it anymore it's just in the background. A lot of drugs especially NSAIDs tend to increase the volume of the tinnitus. Kava also increases the volume of the tinnitus, but it doesn't really bother me. As for the flanger effect, I haven't experienced that yet with kava but with other substances, I think what you are talking about sort of sounds like if you submerge under water and the high frequencies drop out, then emerge from the water and they kick back in, or it can be more like a sweeping band pass filter where a range of frequencies becomes more acute while others are dampened and that oscillates over different frequencies. I do notice some auditory hallucinations from kava similar to hypnogogic auditory hallucinations especially like those I have had from tricyclic antidepressants, usually they emerge from white noise i.e. there is a fan producing white noise and I start to hear a pattern in the noise that sounds like music or people talking in another room. I haven't tried journeying or drumming on kava yet, but I think some of the kavas put me on the cusp of a hypnotic state, that it would be very easy to trance if I decided to do that.