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First 4 Ceremonies
Ayahuasca
Citation:   Rayco. "First 4 Ceremonies: An Experience with Ayahuasca (exp97832)". Erowid.org. Jun 28, 2021. erowid.org/exp/97832

 
DOSE:
  repeated oral Ayahuasca (tea)
BODY WEIGHT: 82 kg
1st ceremony: Was beyond my expectations. I was first to be called up and as I stood before the altar with the cup of Aya in my hand I made my intentions of wanting to be shown the way. The taste was foul and difficult to describe. Sweet and sickly with hints of bile. I sat down and washed out my mouth with water several times then waited, while the others took their dose. We were sitting in pitch black and for a while nothing at all happened.

After what I am guessing was 30 mins a creeping elusive, almost fleeting sensation was evident. Its nature was similar to that of a snake as it slithered in and out of my grasp, teasing me with a flash of something here, the sound of something there. I heard what sounded like a bat flying close to me and at one point a loud rumbling which I thought was an aeroplane. I saw fabric. A criss-cross of fine purpled strands going sideways and up and down. There were moments where I wanted to break through and peaks and flashes of what lay behind, but never more. At one point I visited my 8-year-old self and was filled with joy at hugging him. I also felt I was dying which was weirdly a very sad and normal feeling at the same time. I didn’t actually feel death. There were cobwebs on my face and in my mouth, on my tongue. So convincing I couldn't believe they weren't there when I felt for them with my hands. With all the purging going on I kept feeling a pressure to purge. At first I was content that I wasn't purging and I wasn't feeling nauseous. But after a while it became bothersome, I wanted to purge but felt blocked. I realised that there was some pressure in my bladder when I bent down to check my bucket and this made me think that I needed to pee. Soon enough I called and waited for someone to help. It was like learning to walk again! I had very little balance and the floor felt like it was going all over the place. It seemed that if I touched anything it would just turn to sand and crumble. I finally made it there and back and sat down.

Immediately I knew this was it, the walk had been very disorientating and I purged into the bucket several times feeling very relieved afterwards. I then went through waves of happiness and struggle in my mind questioning stuff over and over. During the happy wave I would feel tingling all over and a zipping buzzing feeling whenever I rubbed my face or body that was a lot of fun to play with. I felt like a cat rubbing his face up on stuff. At one point while stretching and arching my back I felt my head turn into a pumas head roaring and it felt great. Towards the end the struggling subsided and I just felt a very strong energy flowing through my body. Elation. It was as if someone was feeding me with Joy, almost more than I could handle. I felt like a kid again. This lasted well into the next day and I was laughing out loud in bed and even when I woke up! The next day my brain felt tired from the unusual overflow of energy but got better towards dinner time.

2nd ceremony started with an uncomfortable feeling from the beginning and the brew tasted worse. I tried to settle in but something was bothering me. The warmth was filtering through my body and the fuzzy feeling. Everything is heightened, if you are cold u freeze, if you are hot you boil. I got the same effects as the 1st ceremony which also annoyed me. The zippiness, the similar visions and waves of good feeling followed by quick chattering in my mind. I purged and felt better. I thought I would relax into it then but the ego chatter continued. Basically worrying about life, the world the universe and suddenly out of no where one thought I had triggered a chain reaction. I doubted something for a second, and it ceased to exist, I cant remember what it was but it just disappeared. This was scary and so I thought of my parents, and just like that they ceased to exist. Its like they had never existed and the memory of them having existed was all that remained. Then panic set in and every single thought I had of anything just ceased to exist. My brother, sister girlfriend, people I knew, London etc etc and this was all happening at an uncontrollable accelerating rate, cascading collapse as if I was falling and everything I reached out for to stop falling would disappear. During this I was also thinking “I'm messing up I'm messing up this is out of control I'm gonna die”. It came to a point when the room I was in stopped existing, my name stopped existing then I stopped existing and finally even the thought of me not existing, the memory of what I thought had once existed, disappeared! I reached complete zero. That was the end of the line and there was nothing left but it felt like an exponential climax and it was all over in 30 seconds.

I snapped out of it completely shocked, it felt like I had been thrown out of it back into the world I knew. My temperature was rising at a very fast level and I was breathing heavily as if I had just escaped death. The relief of everything being normal again washed over me and I thanked God that was all in my mind although a second ago it seemed more real than anything. It took me at least 5 mins to calm down and my adrenaline level to come down a bit. I wanted to leave and go back because I felt completely sober again and because S had started screaming uncontrollably and I felt I had nothing more to gain, but N convinced me to stay. Don R then started their icaros on me and it felt very calming and serene. Then Don C came over at the end and touched my shoulders asking if I was OK, a rush of warm positive energy seemed to wash through me. My mind was still traumatised until lunchtime the next day.

3rd ceremony was very lateral compared to the up of the first and the down of the second and there was no major event, which actually left me feeling sad and lonely at the end. I started seeing visions of entities close to me, just oblong shapes some larger and some smaller which after feeling cautious about felt benevolent. They seemed to touch me on my right knee and it felt nice. I also imagined flying over hills and land for a short while. This was all nice but not strong enough to settle into and my stomach was giving me a lot of discomfort so the visions would keep disappearing. I purged and felt a bit better but knew I hadn't got it all out. After that I seemed to work through many aspects of my character methodically and things that would bother me about myself, namely being unsure about generally being alive and thinking too much, being over controlling, all were being tested. It felt like housekeeping for the mind. If I had a thought that bothered me though instead of rejecting it and ignoring I would face it and show it love, it would then just dissolve but this seemed to go on and on with different variations of thoughts. I once escaped from inside the prison of my mind and connected with the outside expanse of the world and universe suddenly feeling a huge weight coming off but soon enough I was stuck in my thoughts again. I purged again and then felt a terrible stomach feeling, percolating. I needed the toilet but wanted to hold it in, as it was very unpleasant leaving the room before the Aya wore off. The rest of the session was calm contemplating girlfriend, sibling, parents, friends relationships and lightly crying a couple of times thinking I should make more of an effort to treasure these important people in my life. I felt lonely till the next morning.

4th ceremony: I was thinking that I didn’t really wanna do this one, but It was the last one so I just went for it and said I'm here I might as well. I drank from the cup and the taste was as bad as ever. Even washing it out with water didn’t work so well so I smoked a mapacho, the sacred jungle tobacco and that actually helped a bit. After everyone else had drunk and our three teachers had returned to the room I made sure I was comfortable and settled into the night to see what it would bring me. Aya makes me ultra sensitive to anything. If I am very cold and I think “I'm cold”, I freeze. If I think “I'm warm” I boil. This was what I had learnt from the previous ceremonies, that my mind can control what my body feels. I experimented with heat, cold and nausea and each time when I thought “I feel OK”, I did. Aya tests my mind and body in every single way. It really teaches me to control what I think and to respect every thought that enters my mind, and every word that leaves my mouth because it all has an effect. We are constantly sending ourselves messages internally and externally to others. Energies we need to control because they all have some effect.

The room was now pitch dark and warm energy waves started coming on, STRONG. The strongest feeling I had felt since I arrived. I decided to be open to it, and what that means is trust it and not fight it. I had an overwhelming urge to be fidgety and shake it off like a blanket coming over me. I saw some purple fluorescent vines moving, intertwining, then a green leaf which I decided to become one with by allowing it to get bigger and bigger towards me. When this energy wave was covering me any negative thought would be vastly exaggerated and my mind would continue down the path of negative thought. Soon enough the mind was so deep in negativity it was very difficult to get out. This could be triggered by something as simple as worrying about the future, a noise in the room, or someone flashing a light or saying help.

What I learnt to do during this ceremony was to have inner strength and that is really the foundation of the whole experience. A little samurai appeared in the centre of my mind. The samurai was strong, honourable, and his job was to destroy any negative thought that would try and enter my mind. About 30 mins into it I was getting the hand of it and feeling positive vibes coming through me, but it was still a battle to block my mind from dwelling on negative thoughts. At times I had to fight these so hard I almost shouted “Come on!!”. It felt like walking a tightrope. I was doing some epic balancing act to keep from falling into mental oblivion sitting right there in my seat.
It felt like walking a tightrope. I was doing some epic balancing act to keep from falling into mental oblivion sitting right there in my seat.
For the first time I felt like I was actually learning to control my mind. Great feeling. I never realised this but all along I had let my mind wonder, as if it would take care of itself, but my mind was weak! The samurai was now the guardian of mind, strong enough to protect me from negative thoughts coming in and later to make sure I didn’t do or say anything negative, holding guard all the time. The effect worked the same way with positive thoughts, it multiplied them beyond belief. So when I had trained my samurai and was no longer having to spend all my attention from falling off the tightrope I could focus on the positive stuff. I never looked back.

The rest of the ceremony which felt like 80% of it was a story of purity, love, wonder, amazement, learning a thousand lessons. This was the polar opposite to the 2nd ceremony where everything that rushed through my mind ceased to exist. There was life regression where I revisited things people had said to me, how they behaved around me and reacted to me and understood it all when before it was in a negative light. I felt like a father for the first time in my life and understood my father so well. I connected with God and saw the universe and our existence so beautifully and clearly I have no idea how I could have missed it before. I could not deny its Greatness. It was so incredibly amazing that it was enough to just contemplate it for hours on end. At the beginning I literally felt like a new born baby opening his eyes for the first time. Then it was just wave after wave of pure love and wonder for everything in the universe, and in my life. I realised that happiness existed outside of me and was there all the time in front of me! I was part of nature, just like the stars, plants, moon and sun all created by God. Mother Ayahuasca literally embraced me and I felt like a baby being loved resting against her bosom, it was so powerful. After that I thought of my own mother and love overflowed out of me with heavy tears.

I felt that every ceremony had actuality been perfect and had led me to this state of mind, it had all been a lesson, a preparation for me to accept this gift. The teachers had planned it all so well. I had learnt to control my mind, be vigilant with my thoughts, words and actions and to enhance positive thought. I felt liberated, like my ego shrunk and a blanket had lifted off me. It all made sense, when I looked back at my life all the ideas I had tried to reconfirm to myself of being good and of loving that I had understood so well now I KNEW so well. Memories of walking down the street gazing at a tree and appreciating its beauty was a whisper of what I felt now. I would never look at a plant, the sky, sea, mountains, stars the same way again. Ayahuasca is incredibly powerful in that she managed to reveal all this to me. Throughout all this I was laughing at the way I used to see everything in the context that it just doesn’t matter in the light of what I see now! I see everything in a new light. Once you know, you can give.

For about three hours after the experience N, D and I spoke about it. I was behaving like an 8 year old the whole time and couldn’t stop cracking up at everything. Speaking philosophically and laughing hysterically at how to drink chicken soup at the same time. It was pure ecstasy and I wished then that I could be like that all the time.

Exp Year: 2012ExpID: 97832
Gender: Male 
Age at time of experience: 33
Published: Jun 28, 2021Views: 1,496
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Ayahuasca (8) : Entities / Beings (37), Multi-Day Experience (13), Therapeutic Intent or Outcome (49), Glowing Experiences (4), Group Ceremony (21)

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