Three days ago, on Thursday, I took Ayahuasca in a group with nine strangers and a shaman.
I had heard more and more about it in the press – Marie Claire, the NY Times – but I always assumed it was something that would I wouldn't come across. I had already gone to Peru and other parts of South America, and was clueless that it even existed. I certainly wasn't going to go back down to South America to trip, and I was OK with that. Then, a friend who was doing his own personal journey throughout the continent emailed that he did it, and loved it, and I got the very first twinge of envy.
My biggest weakness is envy. I am constantly afraid of missing out on something, and it has led me to some reckless and impulsive decisions. But that envy can also be helpful, because it builds and drives me to focus, something that is usually fairly difficult for me, so that when the opportunity arises I'm ready to jump on it. When that same friend returned home and texted me last week that he knew a shaman visiting who had some open spots, I was ready.
I felt a little nervous when I received The Diet email, which forbade meat, any dairy or other animal products, fruit, caffeine, salt, sugar, or anything preserved. It also forbade alcohol and sex. The point, the email explained, is to experience this ascetic deprivation in order to prepare you to commune with The Plant Teacher. I did my best (with a couple of slip ups) for the days leading up to it, feeling buzzier and more alert than I have in months. I was hungry all the time, but it was easy to keep my ultimate goal in mind.
I felt slightly more regret, walking into a small, hot apartment in a faraway (by New York standards) neighborhood, and while meeting the shaman and his wife, who looked like what an inexperienced casting agent would cast as hippie-types. I felt even more when I realized that every other person in the group was a man. They were all ages and types, the only common theme being their open, easy friendliness. But I still wondered what I had got myself into.
The shaman walked us through what felt like a long, boring botany class. His wife saged us individually as we prepared to drink the small shot glasses. The first was like a strong, medicinal Chinese tea. The second was what I imagine eating silica gel would be like. (When I drank it, I turned to my friend and said "It's like drinking silica gel!" and he laughed at me and asked how I knew what silica gel tastes like.) It felt like someone had stuck an industrial strength vacuum tube inside of my mouth, and I was grateful for the glass of water the shaman's wife provided us with.
I was told it takes about an hour to kick in, but if I had to estimate it was less than fifteen minutes before I got sick. I felt an incredible heaviness on my chest and the uncontrollable urge to throw up. I tried to breathe deeply and meditate but I couldn't overcome it, so I grabbed my bucket (we were asked to bring our own puke buckets!) and I threw up. I remember being surprised how much you could throw up when you've fasted for ten hours. I wondered if this was a mistake – I didn't feel cleansed, I just felt nauseous, achey and sick, as if I had food poisoning.
There was a fan in the room, and the low click-click-click as it oscillated started to do something to my vision. When I closed my eyes, I saw a glowing, grid-like net that jerked along with the fan's sound. Things began animating out of the grid, which quickly escalated to the most visual experience of my life – scenes upon scenes seemed to be happening all over the insides of my eyelids, which had suddenly become like an infinite iMax screen. Animals, violence, laughter, families. I felt like someone was pulling my eyelids shut when I tried to open them, and I felt the first sense of The Other: "LOOK AT ALL OF THIS!" it seemed to be shouting. "Do you see??"
I want to be able to explain it better but I don't think it's possible. I will say there were definitely three distinct phases: The first was the visions. Not to be hyperbolic, but I felt as if I saw millions of visions. There was so much to see, and none of it was scary at all – I felt an incredible sense of calmness, and more curiosity and fascination, with what I was seeing. I saw a lot of hands. The hands spoke in a type of sign language, and I understood them all. I scratched my shoulder at one point, and the hands pointed at my shoulder. It felt like I was being shouted at by millions of voices. They were so excited I was there and were all desperate to show me things.
Then, out of this cacophony came the sense of another being, an important one. It felt like a woman. I didn't see her, or hear her voice, but I felt her, and I heard her. "Do you want me to show you something?" she seemed to ask, over and over again.
At first I was nervous. I opened my eyes, and I saw the room I was in, and the visions stopped. She didn't like this, and before long, this method stopped working. I saw the visions whether my eyes were opened or closed. Finally I gave in, and she began showing me the things, many things that I don't even feel comfortable talking about yet.
This began the second phase, where I regressed into a whiny baby. I had had questions prepared to meditate on: "What should I do with my life? What's next for me?" but in the actual moment, where she was there to answer me, all of my questions seemed so silly. The questions got simpler. "Who am I?" I whined. "What comes after life?" I asked and asked and asked, more questions than I even knew I had, and she answered. I asked what my spirit animal was, and she laughed at me. I asked what color my aura was, she showed me. It was purple.
This Q&A session was intermittently interrupted by a particular vision she would show me to make her points. At one point I had had enough. It was too much. I wasn't ready for all of this, I couldn't process it. I felt like I had been there for days, I was exhausted, and I had to work the next day. I opened my eyes and saw the room, came back to reality, and checked my phone. Forty minutes had passed, and ayahuasca usually lasts 4-8 hours. I was in it. It was too late.
When I ran out of questions, she and everyone else continued to show me things. I understand now why they call it the Plant Teacher. It felt as if I was being taught by millions of souls desperate to show me something. They were competing with each other, but I could understand all of them at the same time. I wasn't me anymore. I tried to take notes and she blurred out my writing and then my pens ran out of ink.
The third phase was the quietest. I suppose it would be the come-down, but I was still learning. The visions had subsided, but I still felt the presence of the Others. They were all still talking to me, comforting me, embracing me. We're all in this together, they seemed to say. You are not alone.
It was, without a doubt, the hardest, most powerful, and most meaningful night of my life. I slept three hours that night and woke up feeling like how a sick person who was suddenly cured must feel the first morning. I felt healed and new and perfect. Something had happened to me, and I did not ever want to go through that again.
It's only been three days now, but that's worn off. I want to learn more.
