My crazy experience with Ayahuasca
In some of my previous articles, I briefly talked about Peru and how my life changed after that trip. What I didn’t say is that there was a special event that occurred in the Amazon that made me see life with “new eyes”.
To better contextualise what my life looked like at that moment, I have to go back in time to when my mother got sick. Diagnosed with a brain tumour, she was operated twice which left her without talking, reading, writing and very limited motion. This went on for an entire year that never seemed to come to an end. When she died, I “ran away” from Portugal (my country) and settled down in Amsterdam with my boyfriend at the time. After a couple of unfulfilling jobs, unsuccessful attempts to change my career and now a broken relationship, here I was with a plane ticket to Peru.
Immersed in the Amazon rainforest, I was fortunate enough to learn about plants with an instructor and a Shaman. One day, we went on a hike and passed by some Psychotria Viridis trees (a.k.a. Chocruna) and start picking some leaves. Later on, we mixed them up with Banisteriopsis Caapi(a.k.a. Ayahuasca) vine and other herbs and brewed it all for about eight hours straight. This remedy, most known as Ayahuasca in the ancient language of Quechua, translates to something like “vine with a soul”, has been used by indigenous people in ceremonies for thousands of years.
What happens on a chemistry level is that Chocruna contains a very high amount of DMT — a neurotransmitter found in the human body as well but broken down by enzymes. On the other hand, Ayahuasca has the capacity to inhibit those enzymes from breaking down the DMT, allowing access to altered states of consciousness.
Ayahuasca was “calling me” for a couple years at this point. I had watched documentaries, read about the plants and knew that one day I would be taking it. Perhaps I was manifesting it all along.
At nightfall, the Shaman got dressed up with his special garment, gathered some members of the community and four “gringos” (including myself) and the ceremony began. Facing the sunrise side, with a small glass in my hand containing the drink, I was encouraged to think about some insights I was looking for with this experience as well as giving thanks to the plants. However, as I had read before, I knew that the things plants show us are what we need and not what we want. I focused mainly in two things: connect to my mother & know the reason behind my low tolerance to pain issues and passing out quite a lot. *
I drank the shot, sat down and waited for the effect with a peaceful mindset. When the Ayahuasca kicked in, I started seeing neon lines that formed strange shapes. These images in my mind were quite exhausting to look at and I was getting tired of it. Suddenly, I fainted and could see myself and all the others from above, as if I was out of my body. I knew that I was in another dimension. The same place that I normally go when I pass out. It is like being in a dream but with a special frequency, where I can only go when passing out. At that moment I got a download of information (very difficult to explain but something that occurs in many Ayahuasca or magic mushrooms experiences) and I simply knew that passing out was a reminder of a parallel/ passed life I had. In other words, I wasn’t supposed to forget the other life, during this lifetime and fainting was a way of being connected and reminded of that.
I then “woke up” from passing out and sat down again. I started thinking about my mother and all the pain that came with her disease and passing away — “Why did she leave us so soon? Why her? What was she going through and could not share with us? Was she mad at me for some reason?”. I felt her presence. I couldn’t see her but I knew she was around. She told me that nothing we had done differently could have stopped her from leaving us. From leaving this dimension. She had to go through everything during that year in order to learn her lessons. I couldn’t stop crying. It’s like I was crying the tears that I couldn’t cry during that year because I had to be strong. My experience went for about six hours and I saw many more things.
Ayahuasca is considered a drug in Western culture because on this side of the world most people are not as connected to plants. We are used to “put all drugs in the same bag” as if they are all addictive, damaging and disgraceful. I could not disagree more. The synthetic substances, made in labs, toxic, using specific parts of plants rather than the whole plant, alcohol etc. — those are the dangerous drugs.
Ayahuasca, Peyote, San Pedro and many more plants can be used as medicine. They have been used for thousands of years and have numerous benefits, without causing addiction. In fact some of these remedies help people with addictions, depression, anxiety and so on. Plants should be handled by those that deeply know them and can conduct ceremonies in order to help others.
Drugs on the other side, are those things we get prescribed every time we go to the doctor and complain of something. Drugs that we can get addicted to, drugs that are far more dangerous than we think, drugs that only mask the root causes of our problems. Drugs that many of us drink on a daily basis and are packed in cans or in bottles. But those drugs no one question about because they are socially acceptable.
This special event that happened in the Amazon was an Ayahuasca ceremony and it helped me tremendously with those questions I had always on my mind regarding my mother’s sickness and death. It made me accept better my issue with fainting. It changed my habit of thinking way too much about the past and brought me peace.
* All my life I have had this undiagnosed condition, which is to faint for anything and everything. Whereas is for seeing blood, getting hurt, falling, being scared, having pain, feeling weak, draw blood, receiving bad news etc. At some point in my life I would faint a couple times a week, then it got better but never stopped happening.
