I had heard a great deal about ayahuasca, how it is a spirit vine that provides life review, spiritual rebirth, and awakening. The indigenous people of the Andean and Amazonian territories devised this slow-brewed concoction of both vine and shrub that ultimately make its psychoactive component, N-N-dimethyltryptamine, orally active. As I took my place for the ceremony of rebirth, the lights were dimmed, and candles lit as illumination. In the sitting position, we each received a short whiff of rapeh, a sharp tobacco powder that burned slightly in the nostrils, and then our portion of the medicine. I knelt down on a small pillow and was instructed to bless it, which in itself lent a bit of focus to the ceremonial aspect of the evening. Aya is a sour, nutty tasting mixture having a distinctly off-putting taste that, while not as noxious as others have suggested, was certainly not a delight to the palate. I swallowed my portion in one quick go and then went to sit on my mattress and meditate in order to release any anxiety and unease and, hopefully, have a beautiful transcendental night held in the arms of mother aya.
Well, it was not to be. The onset of a strong nauseous feeling quickly preceded the psychedelia, which itself took a while to begin relative to the other medicines. It unfolded lowly and led onwards and somewhat upwards, with some quite beautiful, but hard-to-describe imagery rather similar to the psilocybin experience. Yet, as it was not as intense as with the other medicines, I assumed that perhaps my dose was submaximal, although I was told later that it was a standard and sufficiently strong. There was some beautiful plant-like psychedelia, with many patterns and images that I no longer recall and for a while it was nice. However, the nauseous feeling and noxious taste, which had never quite left, began to get worse. I decided it was time to make my way to the bathroom and on the way was handed me a bucket which, as correctly deduced by B, was necessary. The combination of nausea and low blood pressure mated within my gut and made me throw up in several intermittent projectile-like bursts. The act of that alone it made me feel somewhat better, so I went back to the main room still lit only by candles. The problem now was that a very loud, jolly, but essentially obnoxious German woman began to make noises, talk, get up and move around the room non-stop. Moreover, there was a less than inspiring playlist that instead of consisting of icaros, the music of aya, now consisted of Europop-like disco music (including Abba), a bit of new age music with a techno beat, and some rather uninspiring native American chanting. With my potentially submaximal dose, the persistent nausea and exhaustion from the trip, it seemed to me that this ceremony just wasn’t up to what I had hoped. And although I prayed for a quiet that didn’t come, I finally gave up, left the room, and went outside with the effects of Mother Aya wearing off after only two hours or so.
B asked if I wanted more, but truthfully I had no urge to go through that nausea again and with the horrible accompanying music and woman’s cackling I said – thanks, but no. My conclusion was that ayahuasca is at least twice the nausea with half the trip (as compared to mushrooms). So I asked myself – do I want to stay another day and do that again? And the answer was a clear, no. Thus, I planned to leave unfulfilled in the morning. Earlier I had wondered again and again about whether one can ascend to a higher rung on the ladder of consciousness – beyond that of MDMA, beyond mushrooms and now, well beyond that of ayahuasca. It seemed to me that there was no way to experience non-duality and all I could ever do was to touch moments of transcendence through these journeys of the lower scale.