Ayuhuasca: A Guided Tour Through One Woman’s Trip
Writer Lauren Valencia @poshsquatter
From pop culture to the world of alternative medicine, ayahuasca has been a trending topic lately. Taken as a tea in a ritualistic ceremony,it hasbeen used for centuries in Peru and is associated with intense visions and spiritual exploration. Whether seen on the Netflix series Chelsea Does or in the pages of Vice, stories about people’s experiences with ayahuasca have been capturing the public’s imagination and interest. While individual experiences may vary vastly, there are some common themes, intentions, and outcomes. Like most psychedelic drugs, it has an air of mystery because it can be so difficult to explain to someone who has never tried it. LEFAIR Magazine was fortunate to chat with Anna (pseudonym) and get a first-hand look at the fascinating and occasionally terrifying details of an ayahuasca experience.
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To understand ayahuasca, it helps to set aside what we may know or assume about other mind-altering drugs like acid/LSD, mushrooms/psilocybin, or molly/MDMA. First off, ayahuasca is not considered a recreational drug. Instead, it is taken as part of a spiritual journey where people are often seeking enlightenment on personal, physical, and emotional issues ranging from addiction to relationships. Consequently, there is no party atmosphere, but rather one of ceremony that may include a shaman, music, and singing. Instead of escapism, think self-reflection. First-timers may not know exactly what they’re getting into, but there’s an expectation of a deep personal experience that may include visions, memories, and other sensory hallucinations.
PREPARATION
In episode four of Chelsea Does, Chelsea Handler and two married friends, Dan and Brooke, travel to Peru specifically to try ayahuasca in a private ceremony. Dan and Brooke had planned to do it years before, but postponed the trip due to pregnancy. Similarly, Anna was first invited to do ayahuasca years before she actually decided to go for it:
I first heard about ayahuasca from my trainer. There’s a psychotropic chemical in it that he was very interested in. I wanted to do it and started researching it. I changed my mind over the course of a few years. I kept hearing about it from friends and they’d all say how amazing it was.
Before the ceremony, the shaman tells them to eat less than usual and avoid sexual contact. Like Dan, Anna maintained a healthier diet for weeks before her first experience:
I watched a couple documentaries and read some blogs. I was trying to eat super clean and I didn’t eat a lot the week before. I didn’t want to throw up and now I realize throwing up has absolutely nothing to do with what’s in your stomach
Most people experience some fear beforehand from not knowing exactly what’s going to happen. After arriving in Peru, Chelsea, Dan, and Brooke admit to some level on fear while sitting outside together. Not knowing what to anticipate can cause worry. In the beginning of the episode, Chelsea tells friends at dinner that she’s scared to do ayahuasca, but also intrigued. Anna had heard both great and scary stories of personal experiences and sought a straight answer that she just wasn’t getting:
I showed up with a bunch of strangers. I was pretty freaked out because I didn’t know exactly what ayahuasca was. I was feeling pretty skeptical about it because I thought, How will I know? What happens? What’s the event? They kept describing it as the mother, the mother ayahuasca. Is a woman going to come to me? Nobody would tell me anything.
INTENTIONS
Since ayahuasca is a spiritual journey, people often set intentions of what they hope to explore or find answers to during and after the trip. In fact, Susan Sarandon discussed this with Marc Maron on episode 699 of the WTF Podcast, saying “I’ve done ayahuasca…that’s not a recreational drug…I tend to take it more seriously.” Marc asks if she goes into it with a goal in mind and she says yes, although she didn’t the first time. “The first time was a general seeking. But recently, I was looking for some answers and perspective, so I had that intention when I went in. I wanted to get perspective on a relationship that recently ended.” In the same way, Anna went in hoping to get some clarity on questions about relationships:
Before we went into the ceremony, the shaman wanted us to write down our intentions for the night. Why were we there? I had written down three specific things, all having to do with some troubled relationships in my life. I wanted some insights, some perspective.
Chelsea’s friend Brooke, now a mother, stated that she wanted to “conquer my fears of being a parent.” Conversely, Chelsea said, “my motivation is just to experience it.” Yet she ends up exploring her relationship with her sister and having insights on their dynamic. Aside from relationships, people may intend to resolve issues of addiction, stress, or trauma.
“I had written down three specific things, all having to do with some troubled relationships in my life. I wanted some insights, some perspective.”
THE CEREMONY
The number of attendees and guides may vary, but the ceremony begins by drinking tea together. People take their tea one at a time. There may be several rounds of drinking the tea.
I sat down and drank the tea. In this particular ceremony, we were given three opportunities to drink the tea. The first one, we all drank together. An hour and a half later, there was another opportunity. The shaman wanted me to tell him on a scale of 1 to 10 the intensity of the tea I wanted. I took a 6. An hour and a half went by and I wasn’t feeling shit. I got frustrated. The people around me were throwing up and weeping. I felt super chill, but other than that, nothing.
“They feel extreme temperatures and emotions, often getting overwhelmed at some point. What follows is exhaustion, rest and then clarity.”
Like Anna, Chelsea Handler was less affected by the tea than the people around her were. She smiles and asks her two friends if they feel it. Dan says, “I want it to be over because it just doesn’t feel good.” Brooke cries and goes to the bathroom. She consults with the translator and when she returns to the room, she cuddles with Chelsea. To wrap up Chelsea’s story, she spends that first experience focused on comforting her friends. The next day, she decides to try a higher dosage, this time alone so she can concentrate. She has the more intense trip she wants filled with memories and visions.
Anna also had to look inside to connect with the experience. She asks for help and is told to close her eyes. She goes back for a second and third round of tea, much to the surprise of the shaman as she is one of only a handful of people to take three rounds. Finally, fifteen minutes after the third round of tea, it kicked in:
She came. She came and she took me down, down, down. I remember being very, very scared. I started to feel this very strong female presence. She basically took my wrist…It was very bright, like there was a light show all around me.
Anna describes a “telepathic experience” filled with clear childhood memories and a skewed sense of time. People often experience stomach pain and may vomit. They feel extreme temperatures and emotions, often getting overwhelmed at some point. What follows is exhaustion, rest and then clarity.
REFLECTIONS
In a culture that wants instant gratification, people take drugs and want them to work. But with ayahuasca, it’s less a question of the drug working than if a person is willing to do the work. Anna says “the work begins the day after the ceremony.”
For days afterward, you’re thinking about it. There was a lot of reflection on my responsibility in these relationships in my life. It was like a mirror was being held up to my face. You can deceive a little bit in therapy. With this, there’s no lying or hiding. You have all your baggage. She shows you how to drop it and move forward. Everything really comes down to a lack of self-love. I’m very aware now of how much I’m governed by my head and my ego while my heart is silent. Now I can let that go. How can I better serve the people in my life?
“…the work begins the day after the ceremony.”
Finding beauty even in troubled relationships and feeling an interconnectedness are common realizations. Participants in the MAPS study also reported “subjective feelings of connection with self, others, spirit and nature.” Susan Sarandon, who intended to find closure in a past relationship, came away with a call “to be more open-hearted.” After the “phantasmagoria” of her trip, Chelsea Handler reflected on her relationship with her sister, finding that she been a bully and needed to be less judgmental. Who or what is guiding people through memories and visions on ayahuasca: a plant or animal spirit, a higher power or the subconscious? There are certainly far more questions than answers. For Anna:
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