Well, I've been asked many times what ayahuasca is like, and like most people in my position, I've found it difficult to fully explain the experience without the ability to impose immediate direct experience on someone. Below is a reply I sent to a friend, who happens to be an amazing drummer (and who has been a great help and inspiration in writing songs in the past), which I figured I would share with you, the unknown reader.

We are not just individual beings, randomly created, lonely and lost. Our existence is dualistic in nature, both separate and connected with each other. I hope the below provides a glimpse of light on a subject clouded in unfortunate obscurity. While I do not believe that aya is the sole way to Truth, I do believe in the power of experience of Truth and the doorway that aya allows us to openly walkthrough to experience Truth in an experiential and obvious way. Nature is God's great gift to us, necessary to sustain life....there is much to be learned from nature in general and plants specifically. Fear of those lessons has more to do with control and less to do with danger, though it is critical that people retain a massive amount of respect for plants as teachers. These things can and will kill you if you do not adhere to the lessons of our ancestors and posses/maintain respect for those lessons learned.

Love always,

~j

In a message dated 3/14/2007 1:57:04 P.M. Eastern Daylight Time, TheDrummerMan@x.com writes:

So what happened during your ayahuasca experience(s)?

That's honestly very tough to explain. I've been trying to write up about my experience to post because I've been asked about it quite a bit. It's pretty damn intense. The experience is also just as real as me typing this email; you're literally on another plane of existence that is just as real as our materialistic experience (cells, matter, etc).

I wrote a little bit about my experience, which is below. It's been sitting in my email box for about 4 months now partially finished. It's kind of daunting because there's a lot of topic/experience I still haven't even scratched really. Also, part of me just wants to let the experience be since it really has to be experienced to be understood.

One of the parts I haven't gotten a chance to write about (occurring during/after the support from Hamilton and his apprentice's) was where I was at this beautiful place, at night, where there was a building/home in the middle of this forest. The lights were a brilliant yet very soft yellow, and there were all of these beautiful flowers which were vine like, drooping from the ceiling above. There was a stairwell type of structure that wound around, and there was a door at the top of the stairwell. I was just kind of floating/walking through it. Then I'd feel this wrack and I'd be back in my body, in the ayahuasca session, puking or sweating and just feeling miserable. Then I'd get yanked into another plane, like another landscape where there was a rock pedestal/totem thing with a book on top. There were just a few trees, kind of bonsai like, and a pathway that went around it in a circle. From the four directions (n, e, s, w) the path went into the distance...all the way to the horizon. The sky was an orange yellow, as if the sun had just set over the horizon. I was there with the presence of God, and I was asking questions related to Christ, the devil, and the meaning/combination of the two (another really difficult discussion to put on paper).

I just realized how long this is getting; sorry for the rant. There really is a lot to describe and discuss. It was amazing, beautiful, and horrible haha.

Anyway...I'll stop here for now. Below is what I've written up for myself regarding the experience so far.

~j
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So I've been asked on many occasions what my experience was like with ayahuacsa in the jungle's of Peru from 5 months ago. Believe me when I say that I wanted to post about it, but that the grand consciousness kept telling me to put it off, that words were not necessary and that reflection was.

Well, I'm here now to write about it some as the time for reflection, while ongoing and infinite in pursuit and action, has eased. First off, let me just send out a gigantic thank you to Blue Morhpo Tours, specifically Ayahuasquero's Hamilton and Don Alberto, for the community and guidance they offer. They truly made the experience worthwhile by accounting for everything both during and outside of the ceremony. I know prices have been consistently/steadily going up, and this will eliminate most from ever having the opportunity to go there (sadly...), but if your life is pulling you in this direction and you feel it important to experience this, I urge you to check them out. The materialistic cost really is insignificant in the grand scheme of things.

Most of the folks that were traveling there were of different backgrounds and personalities. From a multi-millionaire who decided to forgo the entire experience after one session because it did not resonate (actually it seemed to somewhat terrify) with him ("time for hookers and coke" as he said...) to a wonderful couple who was traveling Peru literally with nothing monetarily/materialistically, the people brought much perspective regarding humanity as a whole.

On that note, it was also apparent after two ceremonies that much of the world, and humanity in general, is not ready for an experience with aya as we lost approximately half of the group. They gave up not only the experience of chilling in the jungle without drinking aya, but also the money associated with getting out there; all because the experience needed to be over for them (whether it be spiritual awareness or they didn't like what they saw). Some claimed they attained great bliss and it was time for them to go, but their inability to look anyone in the eyes seemed to elude to something else.

I'll focus mostly on the second ceremony of four for myself and a friend I'll refer to as Drum Bum, which was particularly intense and amazing...frightening and comforting. First off, the first Aya ceremony was pure bliss. I spent the entire time sitting up, enjoying the icaro's that were sung. Falling into them and feeling the icaro's washing over me like a gentle breeze. The third and fourth were spent processing what I learned and experienced in the second session. I did request less for the last two sessions as I was physcially and mentally reeling from the second session. This leads me to write about the second ceremony, the apex of my trip there.

It began with a full cup of Aya, dished out to me by Don Alberto (which he served with a twinkle in his eye; I think he knew exactly what was about to happen with me haha). I was the only one to have that much that night. Other's had significantly more relative to their first dose, all the way up to 3/4 cup, and later ceremonies they would drink a full cup. But seemingly solo I was for a very intense experience.

The aya went down fairly easy, though the brew certainly makes the body want to throw it up after just a few minutes of sitting in the stomach. I had requested to sit in a chair with the other apprentices/maestro's per discussion with a friend who frequently goes out there. Hamilton was all for it with the caveat that "if I hit the floor, I don't get a bed." I completely agreed up front (and already requested this pact when discussing with apprentice Dan beforehand), and already thought and knew this a likely possibility.

The first thing that took me by surprise was the speed at which the brew kicked in. The maestro's were still serving the brew to everyone with the lights on when I already began "seeing" things. The light began to hurt the eyes, patterns like snakes or dragons began flowing across my field of vision (they were fractals, moving like snakes or dragons would but without the definition of them, if that makes sense). When the lights went out and the icaro's (shaman songs played to the rhythm of dried leaf rattles called chakapas) started, time had already begun to slow down. Every moment felt like an eternity, my body began to go into both sweats and chills, and my body wanted to purge but couldn't find the right mechanism of release.

My head felt very light, my eyes could not focus, and I could feel every beat of my heart drumming in my chest. I felt very light headed and the experience washed over me so intensely and so quickly that the next thing I knew I was on the floor...which was very comforting. I also thought it would ground me, which it did for a couple of minutes until the next wave hit.

The sound of the chakapas twisted and turned, the rhythm slowly being sped up. I wanted the sound to crescendo, but it kept going faster and faster. The songs getting louder and louder, in unison with the increased tempo. I desperatly wanted a crescendo that never came. I could hear the pace of the music synching up with the insects making noise outside, and they all sped up their rhythm again. I began to envision the beetles beating their wings to the sound of the icaro's, a symphony of man and nature blending together. The colors were strong yellow's and red's at this point...I felt like all I could see was sound, and the vision of this synchronization between nature and man. The red's and yellow's dominate through this part were the most brilliant color I had ever seen. The fractal images, moving like a giant machine-like mechanism, were amazing.

Then things escalated again. This time it was the feeling that my body was experiencing death. Not a figment of my imagination, but death for real. I was losing the ability to distinguish between this materialistic plane of existence and the planes of the spirit. I couldn't focus on the room around me, and I was coming in and out of a reality that exists just on the fringes; one that we tend to ignore but visit when we day dream or sleep. It was similar to being in a daydream, but more "real."

My body wanted to purge but I couldn't, my body didn't want to work, the chills/sweats were extremely intense. A voice in my head, clearly my ego, began to scream for help. It was terrified, and my "self" began to have dialogue with it. "Why are you scared" and "don't give in to the fear" were constantly explained to my ego by my "self", which made it freak out more considering I was able to find myself separate of the things we usually consider our "self." The ego was clear, I was going to die there in the jungle, from drinking this brew, with these crazy shaman. What the hell was I doing. Screw thousands of years of spiritual and quasi-scientific experience with the brew handed to these maestro's, they had to of screwed this particular batch up somehow! My self was thrilled at the notion; here it is...this is what you wanted. My ego was seriously struggling for assurance.

The physical and mental stress of the body/ego at this point encouraged me to seek solstice. I asked for help, even though I didn't understand exactly what help I was looking for or how someone external of me could even provide help in this state. I called for the deity I know exists, who was guiding me through this and all journeys, who I know of and love...and received no consolation in a form I was looking for. My selfishness for a specific form of comfort from God did not help my situation.

No answer, no spirit, no divine intervention. Instead, things ratcheted up yet another level, I began shaking from my body sweating out the impurities of western culture. The chemical based disconnection from nature that capitalism had served me my whole life, and which we make a part of our lives, was being purged through every gland in my body. Then a voice, or a thought, somehow external of my ego and myself, suggested I speak up and ask for help. I tried to say help and all that came out was a whisper, a grunt. I had to try a total of 3 times before I could physically form the words and pull together the energy to ask for help.

Hamilton was there quickly. "What's up brother" was what I heard. "It's very intense, things are all jumbled, and I can't focus" I replied. "You're in an ayahuasca ceremony" he said. "I know. I know where I'm at, but disconnecting like this is a shock to the system." He talked to me some more, repeating where I was, and at some point Dan, one of the apprentices there, sat down with me. He grounded my by pouring water over my head, helped me with purging, and was patient as I kept asking "am I peaking yet?" and "how much longer will this last?" repeatedly. Both of them were of great help during this time, which I was both there and not there for.

Self eventually had dissolved to the purest state, separate of Ego, and only when the "I" tried to impose itself on the ayahuasca visions did things become difficult and umanageable. It was an amazing experience, and one that was well worth the suffering endured. Like all things in life, the best gifts are earned.

Copyright 2007 Justin Gleaves. All Rights Reserved. Please do not do reproduce or publish in hard or electronic form without written authorization