DOSE:

oral

Ayahuasca

(tea)

BODY WEIGHT:

154 lb

During my teenage years I developed various problems with drugs. This led me to become straight edge for nearly six years up until my wedding day in October 2006. As a part of my interest in magic I rediscovered an interest in entheogens. It was decided that Ayahuasca was to be the first entheogen I’d try after my period of being straight edge and last Friday was to be the day.

My wife began making the brew on Thursday night. It was to be for three of us so we had two packets of each ingredient. The ingredients were brewed on a low heat in bottled spring water with some added lemon. The smell from the kitchen was a lovely earthy plant smell. The brew was eventually reduced down to 2 ½ litres at which point we had to go around to our friend’s place, which is where we would be doing the Ayahuasca.

Going into this experience I had wanted to do it in quite a ritual fashion and use this entheogen as a tool for exploration. It did not turn out this way as we did it in a more social and recreational manner with us sitting around talking and drinking the brew. I was also incredibly nervous about what might happen as my years of being straight edge had resulted in me being somewhat of a control freak and this would be my first ever experience with Ayahuasca.

The effects of the brew crept on me slowly. I had an effect of the room “softening” but I wasn’t sure if that was due to tiredness or not. There was also a noticeable sway to my moving about as if I was mildly drunk. The greater effects didn’t kick in until one time that I went to the bathroom. Due to the noise of the extractor fan we decided we wouldn’t use the bathroom light all night so every so often I would be plunged into darkness to relieve myself. Part way through the night I went to the bathroom and the darkness suddenly became filled with glowing shifting shapes and lines of glowing blobs that looked like cells in a body or bloodstream.

My sense of distance was massively distorted too, as it seemed to be miles from the door of the bathroom to the toilet seat. When I emerged from the bathroom the accelerated visual effects continued with parts of my body seeming to stretch away from me and then retract. I also experienced fits of hysterical laughter like when I used to get stoned. These experiences weren’t unpleasant but I did get a little paranoid that I was much “further in” than my wife and our friend so I tried to hold back the effects. This was unfortunate as I would have liked to have been comfortable enough to just go with it. Eventually I came down. It was quite an interesting process, as it seemed that everything just snapped back to “normal” with no negative effects.

Nearly a week later and I feel quite positive about my experience. I learned a little about Ayahuasca, a little about how I would like to experiment with entheogens in the future, and a lot about my control-freakery. I plan to do Ayahuasca again but this time do it alone so that I feel less restricted by others. As a first time I think the relative gentleness of my experience was a good thing.

Exp Year: 2006	ExpID: 53014
Gender: Male
Age at time of experience: Not Given
Published: Mar 6, 2009	Views: 11,102
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Huasca Brew (268) : Small Group (2-9) (17), First Times (2)