Silene capensis (Silene undulata), Undlela Ziimhlophe: the Xhosa dream root

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The last sovereign territory. You enter through the plants, through silence, through a return to the dreams of the elders.

What is Silene capensis, or Undlela Ziimhlophe?

Silene capensis is a small white-flowered perennial of the carnation family whose root is one of the great dream medicines of Xhosa diviners in South Africa. Its accepted name is Silene undulata, described by the botanist William Aiton in 1789; Otth renamed it Silene capensis in the nineteenth century, and both names have circulated ever since. It grows from Zimbabwe to South Africa; ethnography followed its Xhosa uses in the Eastern Cape.

The genus Silene is said to be named after Silenus, the old satyr with a foamy beard who followed Dionysus; others link it to the Greek sialon, saliva, for the sticky sap of some species. INFUSE offers the root on the Undlela Ziimlophe (Silene capensis) page.

What does Undlela Ziimhlophe, "the white paths", mean?

Undlela ziimhlophe means "the white paths" in Xhosa (Hirst, 2005); Hirst also renders it as "the path or way of white things or symbols" (Hirst, 1997, cited by Sobiecki, 2008). It is also written iindlela zimhlophe or undela zimhlope, depending on the transcription: the pronunciation is steady, the spelling has been adapted by different ethnographers. The English trade names, African dream root, Xhosa dream root or white path root, lose the plural. SANBI, the South African botanical institute, links the white to the plant's flowers.

White carries weight in this medicine. In her ethnography of Zulu medicine, Harriet Ngubane (1977) describes a sequence of black, red and then white remedies: black drives out evil, white comes last and restores health and good fortune. For diviners, ubulawu "casts a white light" on the dream, which becomes more vivid and easier to remember (Hirst, 2005). A plant with white paths in its name belongs on that side.

What is ubulawu?

Ubulawu are roots, sometimes stems or bark, that the Bantu peoples of southern Africa beat in water with a stick until a white foam rises. They are classified by where they grow: ubulawu of the river, of the forest, of the grassland (Hirst, 1990, cited by Sobiecki, 2008). The word is said to come from ukulawula, "to control" (Hirst, 2005). The initiate drinks the foam in the morning, fasting, until full and ready to vomit, and washes the body with the rest; the Sotho prefer to eat the foam (Sobiecki, 2012).

For diviners, according to the South African researcher Jean-François Sobiecki, these plants give "true visions", which they set apart from the visions of hallucinogenic plants (Sobiecki, 2008). As one diviner put it: "The plants give you what you are." Ngubane (1977) helps to understand this setting: Zulu medicine separates ordinary ailments, umkhuhlane, from the "diseases of the Africans", ukufa kwabantu, linked to the ancestors, to ritual pollution or to sorcery. Ubulawu belongs to that second world: it restores the bond with the ancestors.

How do Xhosa diviners use the root?

Among the Xhosa, novices drink the Silene foam fasting "to strengthen the dream", until they regurgitate a little, a sign they have taken enough, then wash with the rest; this is done over three days, at the full moon (Hirst, 2005). The root is finely ground, then whisked (ukuphehla) in a cup of water with a forked stick, the ixhayi, until a thick white foam forms.

Hirst recorded other uses, all tied to the ancestors:

• Taken regularly, it gives the sweat a musky smell.
• Chewed and spat on the threshold, it draws clients to the diviner.
• Whisked at the kraal during the umbuyiso, the rite that "brings back" the dead head of the family as an ancestor, its foam is rubbed on the ox before slaughter.
• During initiation, it is offered to the river, to the "River People", the ancestors of the water studied by the anthropologist Penny Bernard (2003).

Only the diviner initiated at the river can identify it, and therefore gather and use it: it is never found in the herbalist's pharmacopoeia (Hirst, 2005). Two diviners, Nontando in September 1974 and Tyota in March 1975, dreamt of the place where it grew; Tyota said that "the whole plant will be surrounded by a white light". Hirst, who drank ubulawu himself, reports "very vivid dreams at night", with no change in waking consciousness.

This is the setting of initiation. The Xhosa and the Zulu speak two closely related Nguni languages, and their diviners share many practices. The Xhosa diviner, igqirha (plural amagqirha), is called by the ancestors: the calling, ukuthwasa, comes through repeated dreams and an illness the Zulu call intwaso (Sobiecki, 2012). Then comes the apprenticeship: the novice, the ithwasa, receives songs, dances, taboos and ubulawu; many diviners are women. Zulu diviners of KwaZulu-Natal, izangoma (sangoma in the singular), follow a neighbouring path, with their own ubulawu.

What does science say about Silene capensis?

No clinical trial has studied Silene or any ubulawu; what is known comes from ethnography. The root contains reputed triterpenoid saponins, toxic, foaming and emetic (Hirst, 1997, cited by Sobiecki, 2008): they explain the foam and the nausea. Hirst considers the mechanism behind the dreams "remains an enigma".

A single chemical study, using chromatography and computer modelling, reports β-carbolines (harmine, harmaline) in the root and predicts their affinity for the serotonin 5-HT2A receptor (Alhawarri and Olimat, 2025, online in 2024). It is a laboratory prediction: no measurement in humans has confirmed it. Sobiecki (2012) also reports that, taken in capsules, at high doses and outside any ritual, Silene and Uvuma gave some people confused, disturbing dreams: the foam, in small amounts, is the way.

Silene, Uvuma, Calea, Entada: what is the difference?

Silene is drunk as foam, in the morning, by Xhosa diviners; here are its neighbours in the dream.

Silene is drunk in the morning and works the following night; Calea is taken in the evening, with a question. Among the Xhosa, Uqume bark goes into an initiation ubulawu with Silene and Rubia petiolaris, for dreams of the ancestors (Broster, 1981). Ubhubhubhu (Helinus integrifolius) is drunk at the initiation of Zulu and Pedi diviners "to strengthen the memory and give keen observation"; Uvuma Omhlope (Synaptolepis kirkii, of the Thymelaeaceae family) contains kirkinine, a compound that makes neurites grow in the lab (He et al., 2000), with no promise for people. Xhosa healers burn imphepho to induce and clarify dreams (Bührmann, 1984).

How is the root prepared?

Tradition whisks the ground root in water with a stick until it foams, and drinks the foam fasting, in the morning, several days in a row (Hirst, 2005). At the House, the foam is prepared this way. You may offer your prayers at all steps of the preparation process below.

• Offer a small amount (250 mg to 1 gram) of powdered Silene capensis root to a large container of cold water. At least 3L of water is recommended, with some extra room left in the container. The root can be ground into powder using a mortar and pestle. If you are unable to powder the root, it may still be effective, though it may produce less foam.
• Following your intuition, you may mix Silene capensis with others of the 5 Ubulawu specimens in the preparation.
• Let the mixture sit for at least 7 hours, mixing gently now and then.
• Churn the mixture with a whisk, electric whisk, or preferably a milk foamer to produce foam.
• Consume as much of the foam as possible, as it will continue to be produced indefinitely.
• Ideally, do this on an empty stomach or without having eaten in the last 2-3 hours.
• Go to sleep, or take a nap if used in the morning, within the next hour after consuming the foam.
• Repeat this process with the same preparation for at least 3 consecutive days.

In the evening, a notebook by the bed. For many, the most potent dreams are gifted only a few days after the diet. Several of our dreamers shake the powder in a jar of water and eat the froth. Amounts and formats: see the Undlela Ziimlophe page.

A root that foams well has kept well: if nothing rises, it has aged. Nausea is part of the traditional preparation, and it signals you have had enough.

Is Silene capensis safe?

The root is emetic: at high doses its saponins cause nausea and vomiting, and tradition drinks precisely until that sign. Outside that setting, in capsules and at high doses, it gave some people confused dreams (Sobiecki, 2012): small amounts, as foam, in short cycles.

• Pregnancy and breastfeeding: avoid.
• Children: no.
• Ongoing treatment, especially an antidepressant (SSRIs, MAOIs), mood stabiliser or migraine medication: medical advice before the plant. As a precaution, during the cycle, also avoid tyramine-rich foods (aged cheese, cured meats, red wine).
• Psychiatric conditions (psychosis, bipolar disorder, schizophrenia): dream plants stay away from such ground.
• Driving: not on waking if the night was heavy.
• The law: the root is sold freely in France and the European Union.

Among the Xhosa, only the initiated diviner gathers this plant, and herbalists never sell it (Hirst, 2005). Selling it online creates a tension we name, and we claim no lineage.

What do diviners and the House say about Silene?

Around Silene live the words of diviners, of gardens and of the House.

• It is also called a plant of the Zulu sangoma.
• The word ubulawu is also read as "telling the dreams in which the ancestors give instructions", with a plural amalawu; Hirst links it to ukulawula, "to control".
• At the House, we read a cosmology in the plural of the paths: the dreamer's soul has several roads to the ancestors.
• "Silene opens the path, kirkii sharpens the message," the sangoma say. The learning order handed down in the name of the sangoma PH Mntshali goes from Ubhubhubhu to Silene, then to Synaptolepis.
• At the Khanyisa Healing Garden in Cape Town, they say that "Silene is the white path, Synaptolepis the white answerer, Mukanya the visibility, Helinus the soft entry".
• Mukanya Kude, the yellow acacia, is "the tree that shines from afar": its Zulu name, umkhanyakude, names the bark you can see from far away.
• It is called the plant of women diviners, gentler than Uvuma.
• It is whisked in cold water, never hot, to keep its saponins; some suck in the foam before swallowing it.
• The stick, so the story goes, is carved from the wood of an ancestor tree and handed down for generations; Hirst describes it as forked, the ixhayi.
• Our dreamers describe an effect that builds up and peaks on the fourth night, and a plant that teaches you to dream for weeks.
• Vusamazulu Credo Mutwa (1921-2020), author of Indaba, My Children (1964), brought sangoma cosmology to the world beyond Africa.

What do dreamers say about Undlela Ziimlophe?

Of the 174 night stories left by our customers, 31 are about Undlela Ziimlophe: 15 describe more vivid dreams, 7 better recall and 6 a lucid dream (count from September 2026). Among our dreamers, it is the plant where lucid dream stories are most frequent.

"After just one use, I remembered four dreams in one night, including a dream within a dream where I met an entity." — Cleo

All the stories, plant by plant: our dreamers' accounts.

Where to find the root?

INFUSE offers the dried root of Undlela Ziimlophe. It comes from Zimbabwe, where small rural communities harvest it from the wild, with respect: often the biggest and oldest roots we have seen. It is available on its own or in the Ubulawu Discovery Pack, which pairs it with Uvuma Omhlope and Mukanya Kude; the advanced pack adds Ubhubhubhu and Uqume. It is also part of the Ubulawu elixir, with Uvuma and Mukanya Kude.

Sources

• Hirst M. (2005). Dreams and medicines: the perspective of Xhosa diviners and novices in the Eastern Cape, South Africa. Indo-Pacific Journal of Phenomenology 5(2):1-22. doi:10.1080/20797222.2005.11433901
• Sobiecki J.F. (2008). A review of plants used in divination in southern Africa and their psychoactive effects. Southern African Humanities 20:333-351. sahumanities.org
• Sobiecki J.F. (2012). Psychoactive ubulawu spiritual medicines and healing dynamics in the initiation process of Southern Bantu diviners. Journal of Psychoactive Drugs 44(3):216-223. doi:10.1080/02791072.2012.703101
• Alhawarri M.B., Olimat S. (2025). Potential serotonin 5-HT2A receptor agonist of psychoactive components of Silene undulata Aiton: LC-MS/MS, ADMET, and molecular docking studies. Current Pharmaceutical Biotechnology 26(2):260-275. PubMed 38561607
• He W. et al. (2000). Kirkinine, a new daphnane orthoester with potent neurotrophic activity from Synaptolepis kirkii. Journal of Natural Products 63:1185-1187. doi:10.1021/np000249u
• Ngubane H. (1977). Body and Mind in Zulu Medicine: An Ethnography of Health and Disease in Nyuswa-Zulu Thought and Practice. Academic Press, London.
• Van Wyk B.-E., Gericke N. (2000). People's Plants: A Guide to Useful Plants of Southern Africa. Briza, Pretoria.
• Broster J.A. (1981). Amagqirha: Religion, Magic and Medicine in Transkei. Via Afrika.
• Bührmann M.V. (1984). Living in Two Worlds. Human & Rousseau.
• Bernard P.S. (2003). Messages from the Deep: Water Divinities, Dreams and Diviners in Southern Africa. PhD thesis, Rhodes University.
• Cumes D.M. (2004). Africa in My Bones: A Surgeon's Odyssey into the Spirit of Healing. Spearhead.
• Mutwa V.C. (1964). Indaba, My Children: African Tribal History, Legends, Customs and Religious Beliefs. Kahn & Averill.
• Watt J.M., Breyer-Brandwijk M.G. (1962). The Medicinal and Poisonous Plants of Southern and Eastern Africa. E. & S. Livingstone.
• Sobiecki J.F. (2002). A preliminary inventory of plants used for psychoactive purposes in southern African healing traditions. Transactions of the Royal Society of South Africa 57(1-2):1-24. doi:10.1080/00359190209520523
• Royal Botanic Gardens, Kew, Plants of the World Online: Silene undulata Aiton (range: Zimbabwe to South Africa). powo.science.kew.org
• Wikipedia, Silene undulata (accepted name, synonyms). en.wikipedia.org

Further reading

• The best herbs for lucid dreaming, the guide to dream plants
• Ubulawu, the African dream roots
• Uvuma Omhlope, the white messenger
• Imphepho, the telephone to the spirits
• Calea zacatechichi, the Chontal herb of dreams
• Entada rheedii, the African dream bean
• Our dreamers' accounts

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