Taking Ayahuasca for the first time (text version)

Greetings!

Would you like to know what Ayahuasca can do for you? Are you looking for guidelines before taking it for the first time? Do you wish to know if this experience is for you? Are you eager to read another of my posts? 😊

If you answered yes to any of those then keep on reading, I got you covered.

For what it did for me, I must say this has been one of the most useful experiences I have ever had, it gave me perspective and healing.

It was on Saturday October the 27th, unlike most Ayahuasca ceremonies, this took place in the city and not in the jungle of Peru. I cannot stress enough how convenient it was for me since taking days off was not an option at the time, and like many people I wanted to try it, and try it as soon as possible (who needs patience these days right?).

Ayahuasca is legal in Peru, so my first piece of advice is to check if you will not infringe any laws in your country, should you decide to try it. If yes, then help this country’s economy by paying a visit, there are other interesting things to do here, maybe you have heard about a place called Machupicchu? 😉

Moving on shall we? Prior to the ceremony, days in advance when we booked the ceremony – yes, we, I did not go alone, shout out to Anchan, I would not have done this without your support and harassment – we received a list of dos and don’ts, it was more or less something like this:

Three days prior to the event refrain from…

1. Eating pork
2. Drinking alcohol
3. Consuming drugs
4. If you take medicine inquire first, don’t do this without making sure it’s OK
5. Having sex (if you do not know what that is ask your parents, I would hate to deprive them from the fun they will have when breaking the topic down to you)

Recommendations (also 3 days before)…

1. Eat mostly a fruit and plant-based diet
2. Stay hydrated
3. Rest

Well, I only followed the 5th rule of the first list, that last taco had some bacon in it.

After having the experience I do understand the importance of all the rules, if I do this again I’ll be more diligent. I say if because this is not for everyone, I remember a potential father figure from my teen age years telling my mom: “he should get wasted to learn what it is all about”. So, having an experience just for the sake of it is not always the best idea, albeit I must confess that I agree with people saying this should be tried by everyone, why? Keep on reading and you’ll see.

Back to the less distant future. I went to “the place” around 9 pm, I was unsurprisingly surrounded by very nice people, very kind folk. We were given an explanation of how it works. We chose our spot and waited until 10 pm – the official start. At that time each one went to the front to take the plant, the newbies drank a smaller dose. The organizer told us that if nothing happened after 40 minutes we could drink more, up to three times in total, I only drank twice. Side note, the taste is not good, almost like drinking dirt with water, but also not that bad (I was really convinced by other people’s opinion it would be awful).

Let’s talk about expectations: don’t bring any. I watched a loooot of videos about the topic, and overloaded my brain with fairy tales I made up based on what I wanted. I did not get the lotto numbers – plus other “intentions”.

I had to take two glasses of Ayahuasca because I was waiting, impatiently I may add, for the awesome psychedelic color lights, my late relatives greeting me, or perhaps angels flexing their muscles and whatnot. Since nothing was happening I felt bored and frustrated. After one hour of drinking for the second time I decided to not go for a third round, I did not want to push it further. It would have been two hours in when I gave up and decided to lay down and maybe sleep… bingo!!! Once I gave up my expectations and relaxed the experience began. It is important to say that some people will not feel anything, but everyone “gets a benefit” regardless – I was told, I’m not sure how this works.

Back to the mystical part. I felt pressure in my head, nothing painful mind you, just as if someone was putting a hand on my forehead and scalp, it felt good, I would say it was energy flowing. I started seeing things, we were told that some may have visions and those were symbolic and not literal, so meditation about what they meant was paramount.

I want to combine what I saw and felt plus my conclusions for each topic, instead of describing them in order of appearance.

Food: A big leg from a cow showed up, and a piece of it was floating attached to a wooden toothpick. I saw its shape and it was like watching the innards from the animal, meat bones and all. That vision lasted for 10 seconds and then went away, I did not have any thoughts about it other than: is Ayahuasca telling me not to eat meat?

Some time afterwards I felt really hungry, almost to the point of desperation – I had fasted for more than 24 hours as a way to prepare for my big experience, big mistake perhaps, you’ll see what I mean in a moment. I could not stop thinking what I wanted to eat once I would be able to do so: Veggies? Yuck! Meat? Maybe but not too excited about it. Pasta? Mmmm. Dessert? YES!!!

My conclusion about the topic with a little background: I have been “taking care of myself” by being selective about what I eat, plus I do care a lot about animals and sometimes I feel bad for eating meat; I avoid sugar as the plague – although I have a very sweet tooth and having two desserts after lunch is mandatory.

I need to be less stressed out about this in general, when I eat something I should enjoy it and move on, if at some point I decide to become a vegetarian again, I’ll do it, but for the time being will be easy about it. Animals eat animals too – although they don’t cage them or breed them for that purpose in cruel ways.

Relationships: For many years, there has been an emotionally heavy load in my psyche. After many years I gotten so used to it, that I just learned to ignore it. I remember seeing a stressful movie by myself when I was between 3 and 5 years old, there was a scene that caused me a big shock of anxiety. I somehow channeled that feeling towards someone and it remained an unresolved issue. I saw that person in front of me wearing an attire that seemed holy, we hugged peacefully and I was finally able to let go of that feeling.

If you have kids or are in charge of small children, to the best of your possibilities, please keep an eye on what they watch, as you read in my experience, it is easy to have traumas and they can be there for decades.

Non related: at this moment, I was about to take a break from writing because I felt strained, and then I remembered to put on my glasses. All good now, let’s continue…

Now I want to describe the healing process: During the ceremony my eyes started shedding tears, although I was not crying. This has happened to me before so “I know” something harmful is exiting my body. The next sign of release were big yawns, super huge mouth wide open and copious. I felt like a lion about to take a bite out of its prey.

One very common thing is for people to throw up, this may be the ultimate get-rid-of-whatever-harm-you-have-inside method. I really did not want to get there, and at many points it felt like I was going to be spared – but no one outsmarts te plant. Remember I was on an empty stomach? Well, I had several gag reflexes and nothing came out. So frustrating – do eat light on the day you’ll take Ayahuasca. Around 4 am I had a couple of bites and almost immediately wanted to expel them, but I couldn’t.

Finally when it ended, around 7:30 am, I was awake and still felt bad. It was bearable while I was laying down or seated, but I knew I was not OK. I felt the urge to throw up but nothing happened different from before. I decided to go to the bathroom to avoid waking up the ones that were asleep. It was very difficult to remain on my feet and walk straight, I had to grab onto things and I was feeling super bad.

Once in the bathroom I aimed towards the toilet but no luck. I stood up and started feeling bad again, almost as week as to falling to the floor, very dizzy and light headed. I realized that standing up would give my body the “motivation” it needed to finish the job. I was thinking that I have never felt so bad before throwing up, and this was indeed a very different reason. I was not sick.

In a few seconds after, struggling like a Rocky fighting to avoid the canvas of the ring, I succeed, a big rush of heat made me sweat and in seconds, literally, I felt right as rain, the evil was no longer within. I requested an Uber a few minutes later.

That’s all folks!

I highly recommend following the dos and don’ts if you are considering this. I guess I spent too much time in the yucky part, but I wanted to tell it like it felt overall. Now that several days have passed I cherish those hours and am thankful for it.

You can watch my YouTube video about this experience, I’ll leave the link at the bottom of the article.

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Thank you for reading this article and have a wonderful day!

https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PLkIIgaTOVqmeSapN8m_zguEKQ5aPunYMX