I woke up on Friday morning still feeling an ambiguous anxiety leftover from the previous night. I was ready for some kind of explosion--it just seemed as if something terrible were about to happen. After the experience, I read a lot of personal accounts and watched several videos about ayahuasca, and realized something I had missed in the hundreds of previous readings/viewings: most ayahuasca treatments are a series of experiences, not one isolated experience. One shaman stated that, for some people, nothing happens the first time--no visions, no vomiting. I was one of those people. He explained that sometimes the vine (spirit) has to explore the person and get to know who it is dealing with; it shares lessons only as the person is psychologically capable of handling them. The person has to go into the experience with the appropriate intentions and frame of mind. I thought I had, but his statement made me doubt my intentions: maybe I wasn't as open-minded as I had thought.
So I decided to try it again. I spent the day brewing, boiling, straining, reducing, repeating. I felt a little ridiculous doing this, but I held the cup of the finished product in both of my hands and stared into it, thinking to myself, I am going into this for the right reasons. I am open to whatever it brings me--even if it's panic and nothing else. Please help me. I drank.
This time, the drink was absolutely vile. I gagged a bit because of the taste, and I kind of hoped that nauseousness and purging were on the way. I sat and waited. I felt a little strange, but not nauseated, not at all. My phone chimed. I turned it off. I turned off the music that was playing on my computer. I turned off the computer. I decided to try to meditate, to concentrate on making something happen.
No nausea and no real visions. I kept opening my eyes and saw nothing psychedelic--just the room and the lights of the microwave, the cable box. I closed my eyes again and eventually felt something come over me...just a calm feeling that seemed to be in some way in answer to the panic I had felt before then. Still no visions except that the darkness seemed to become all-consuming, and it seemed to sort of envelop me, as if I were entirely lost in it and although I was still sitting in a chair, I was in a completely antonymous, safe place. I decided to lie down.
In bed, I closed my eyes and there it was--the comforting darkness. It was quiet and calming. I tried hard to make visions typical of ayahuasca depictions I've seen manifest, but they didn't. Instead, I realized at some point that I was asking questions rather than waiting for something to happen. And I wondered who I was asking--because although these questions were internal and not spoken, they were formed in language, and they were asked to someone who was not me. It was a strange moment of recognition. Who was I talking to? Myself? A partial answer was yes, but no, this wasn't just me being introspective. People who've taken ayahuasca often report seeing supernatural creatures, whether they're snakes or imps or elves or demons or angels, that sometimes speak to them, sing to them, or communicate in fractal-type arrangements of shapes. I didn't see anyone; I didn't hear any voices except the interior voice of my own thoughts verbalizing questions; the recognizable language was a one-way thing. And yet, I was asking these questions of someone and I was expecting answers that were not originating entirely within me. Eventually I accepted this; I felt the presence of something physically inside of me and also detached from me as I was detached from myself. I kept talking to it. And after that recognition, it somehow told me or guided me to ask questions that resulted in my understanding that I was completely supported here, and that made me feel completely grateful. I heard myself repeating 'thank you,' and then came my first epiphany.
Now, to explain this experience, I need to use language--but it is important to emphasize that, although I felt I was in conversation with someone, and I was using words to make questions and sentences, the information I was receiving was not coming in any recognizable communicative form--not through words, not pictures, not sounds. But the only way I know to convey this information is through words. What follows is a summary of the 'conversation,' keeping in mind that the italicized text is a translation of the knowledge I was receiving in a way that I cannot explain.
Me: Thank you, thank you, thank you...
Now you understand.
Me: Yes, I understand. Thank you for your generosity and your compassion. I've never felt anything like this before.
That's why it was necessary to terrify you the first time. You had to be afraid, to really feel fear and feel what it is not to be able to trust.
Me: Is that what that was? I've felt that feeling before, but there was no reason to feel that way last night. I didn't see anything that scared me.
There was a reason. Now you understand. You were afraid. Are you afraid now?
Me: No! Thank you!
There is no reason to be afraid. Why were you afraid?
Me: I don't know. I was scared. I didn't know what was going to happen. But I went in trusting...no. No, I told myself I trusted this and went into this experience yielding control of myself to whatever was going to happen.
You couldn't do that, could you?
Me: No. But now--I've never felt anything like this.
Now you understand. You had to feel the shock of not being able to trust so that you could feel what it is to really give up control and trust not to be afraid. You can trust this; there is no reason to be afraid.
Me: I know. Thank you. I know that now. I can feel it. I didn't know.
Now you understand. You are not afraid.
Me: I'm not. Why was I afraid? Because I couldn't let go? Oh my God, I am always afraid, aren't I? I think of myself as a trusting person, but I can't trust anyone or anything, can I? Everything I do is self-protective. This isn't about this, here, right now, is it? This is...my whole life.
Now you understand. Next...
Next? Where are we going next? Who are you? Am I actually asking someone questions? I hear myself asking questions but I don't hear any answers. But I'm getting answers. How is this working? Hello? Are you there? I can feel you there.
[The fear/trust recognition resulted in a lot of crying; after the recognition immediately above, I started to laugh, which made me feel particularly crazy. I felt self-conscious when I was laughing, but there was a really indescribable feeling of humor and it was as if I were being gently poked or something--again, not physically, but psychically--and it was this extreme relief. It was a feeling of someone telling me, basically, that yes, this experience is intense, but don't take it too seriously. You can laugh. Everything is just fine. EVERYTHING is fine. This was a lesson in itself because as soon as I registered that everything was fine in the present moment, that idea expanded to encompass the entire experience that had already come and which would come yet. And then it expanded to include everything in life. And that led to this next exchange.]
People talk about seeing specific things when they do this. A lot of people see snakes that scare them, or they see jaguars. I don't see anything recognizable at all. I barely see moving patterns when I concentrate very hard with my eyes closed, but none of the technicolor stuff that people describe, and no animals. Why do people see snakes and why can't I see them? Is it because I'm not afraid of animals or something?
Are you afraid?
No. I am not afraid at all. But I don't know if I would be afraid of fluorescent snakes that talk by way of shapes flying out of their mouths. I could be. I don't know myself as well as I thought I did. Is that right?
You already understand.
So maybe I don't see these predatory animals because I don't think there's anything terrible about them. I don't think I am afraid of being hunted by animals. I've always said that I have eaten so much meat that I feel like being killed by an animal would only be fair.
That's OK. That would be just fine.
It would be. Rationally, I think it would be. But I feel so guilty about eating creatures. Even...I even boiled the plants that are bringing me this experience. Was that wrong to do? How could I be responsible for killing and eating something and then that something gives me this extraordinarily full and warm feeling. So compassionate.
Because you have to eat. It is a part of who you are. Everyone eats. A jaguar is not a monster because it eats other animals. It is exactly like you. You are like it. So am I. It doesn't matter who eats what or who kills what or what part of yourself you try to kill--you can't kill it. You can feel this, understand it now, can't you?
Yes. Thank you. Everything feels like...just complete. But it's not familiar. I feel like we are moving somehow, and I don't know if you're me or if you're someone else. This doesn't feel like normal introspection. I hear myself asking questions and somehow I am receiving answers, but I don't understand where those answers are coming from. Everything here is dark and I feel like I am moving, being conveyed somehow, and you are that conveyance. But I don't understand the mechanism. How does this work? It's all dark and I feel like I can see without seeing, and I'm not afraid of the dark and there's nothing dangerous here. I could be here forever. And there's a specific way we are moving...it's like...it's like I'm a worm tunneling through the ground. Somehow it's just the natural place to be for who I am now; somehow, I can see without being able to see anything, and this movement is so slow and twisting, but there's a direction to it, too, that I can't understand. The next time I hold a worm in my hand, I know I will look at it and realize that it is its own little intelligent person; it's just like me or...wait. I was about to feel sad for this little worm when I see a bird fly off with a worm in its mouth, but I realized that the bird isn't doing anything bad, and I wonder if the worm knows this. Probably not. It's just in a panic; it is afraid. But we are the same, and so it has this place, too, where there's nothing to be afraid of.
You understand now.
That seems so hard to believe. But...I know it's true. Everything here is true. There is no way to deny it.
You do understand. But it's not like a worm. Don't think that. Don't get stuck there.
Not like a worm? Then...wait, a snake? Is this why people who do this always depict serpents? Because of the way we're moving, because it seems like some kind of serpentine movement? It doesn't feel like that to me. It's a totally gentle, slow, unstoppable movement. It's not animal at all. Wait, people also say the spirit of the vine is the guide here. Yes, that's exactly what this feels like--it's a slow, corkscrewing way of moving. I feel like we are moving together in the way a vine grows...always forward, relentless, persistent, gentle. Is that who you are? Is this the point at which I realize I'm being guided by the spirit of this particular vine?
Is that what you believe?
I don't know. I'm asking you. You seem to have the answers.
Would you understand anything else?
I don't know. This is a hard one. It seems too easy. But this exactly matches up with how people describe this experience, except that I didn't imagine it happening the way it is happening. But I definitely feel that you, whoever you are, whoever is prodding me to ask questions and then provoking the answers without telling me in a voice or in pictures, you are someone, a separate entity from who I am, but you are taking me on a tour through my own psyche. You just told me that, didn't you? You can't answer, can you? You're telling me, but I have to tell myself to hear it. But you are there. Thank you. Thank you.
---
This went on for hours; honestly, it was exhausting. I took several breaks, sitting up and reading online. My eyes worked fine and I was thinking perfectly well...I didn't feel drunk or drugged or anything, didn't see any crazy colors. But as soon as I lay back down and closed my eyes, there it was, waiting to give me the next lesson, to keep traveling.
This was a really challenging experience--not in that it was agonizing or anything; it just took up the whole space of my mind and, although everything about it was gentle, everything revealed was emotionally and intellectually overwhelming. I could not stop saying thank you, and every time I did, I felt gratitude returned to me. Over six hours in, all I wanted to do was go to sleep and when I finally felt like the presence was leaving me, I thanked it over and over and said goodbye to it. That confirmed to me that I was truly interacting with an entity separate from my conscious mind--maybe it was my subconscious, maybe my soul, maybe the spirit of a plant. Whatever it was, it was with me and then it slowly slipped away...although three days later, I still feel like it's inside.
I know how crazy or airy-fairy this all sounds; in my opinion, that's because 1) this requires a more open mind than I have, rationally, even to this day, and because 2) I've had to put this experience and the conversation into words, which do not accurately convene the experience as it happened. I don't have the communications tools to convey it as it happened. But I feel absolutely changed. I was an atheist for most of my life, and then over recent years, I've chosen to believe that all things material are connected and that, probably, all things energetic are connected through one collective consciousness. This was something I never thought I'd believe--there was something, some kind of wonderful being that I couldn't observe but which was observing me, inside of me, and I communicated with it in a way that's indescribable, and it was absolutely separate from me, with its own separate identity. That's a huge challenge to even my most spiritual beliefs because it implies that, no, we are not all simply made of the same source material and possibly will return to it; this experience suggested that we are all made of the same source material and should know one another in that way, but that the collective consciousness really does have room for separate identities and separate entities, and that conscience seems to be a materially based thing because without it--disembodied, in essence--everything is perfectly fine and natural as it is, and so there's no need for mistrust or anger or fear. Everything is wonderful.
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