This Sunday I finally got a chance to try the teas I'd so carefully been brewing. B Caapi as the MAOI, and MHRB provided the "light". It was exactly what I expected and not at all what I expected. Amounts consumed were roughly 80g worth of Caapi vine and roughly 8g MHRB (in tea form).
The caapi went down first, with my nose plugged, and I must say it didn't taste as terrible as I thought it would, though it was quite bitter. I decided to wait ~20 mins before drinking the MHRB portion, and even in that short span of time I could feel myself growing slightly light-headed... it was quite nice. Next came the "light" and god was it acrid. I almost definitely used too much vinegar... but I gulped it down quickly and surprisingly my stomach felt pretty OK. I ate a piece and bread and drank a bit of water to settle it further.
I proceeded to sit on the couch and have a conversation with my good friend, whom I'll refer to as Tim. Tim was playing piano, and as I watched I started to notice the growing buzz and audio distortions I'd come to know during my DMT smoking experiments. In a way it was beautiful. Every now and then, I would write in my computer one liners.
"the more you try to wring it out, the more out-of-the-final-context you are thinking about it
life spurts - it stops and it starts
and always, quick bursts of flashing light in the periphery"
All the while I kept feeling stranger but also more light headed and disconnected, which I can only assume was from the vine. I went upstairs to listen to music in the dark. It was quite an experience. Each song I heard in a new light. "Tomorrow Never Knows" was amazing. The audio distortion was still strong.
After a while I went back downstairs to talk to Tim again about some of the ideas that kept taking me by surprise. Pondering facial expressions and tones of voice, I wondered if one could unlock the musical aspect of human interaction. Tim smiled and kept playing Piano. I flipped through some images on my laptop and each one affected me deeply.
During all this, a knock on the door. A neighbor's friend was asking if one of us could move the suburu blocking her in. She was very pretty and very stoned :] The suburu wasn't ours, but we walked out and helped guide her around it... after this, my friend and I realized we hadn't talked to the neighbors in a while, so we went to go say hi. We went over to find them watching TV quietly. We conversed about various topics... schools, semesters abroad, books, pets, and the whole time I was entirely myself and entirely cognizant of myself. Finally, I thought, I'm getting unfiltered truth... and yet with this information I didn't act any differently. At the same time, I was strongly aware of the moods of my friends... especially when talking about something that annoyed them, they would get agitated and their voice would start to sound like a swarm of flies. With this awareness, I would guide the conversation, and the words themselves seemed entirely arbitrary. We were talking based on feeling, the words just placeholders. After a while it was time to go, and when I stood up to walk out I burped up a bit of vomit (!). We walked outside, and almost immediately thereafter I became aware of a stream of vomit cascading from my mouth. It happened before I knew it was happening. I shuffled inside into the bathroom, threw up a bit more and as quick as it had started it was over. "The purge". Tim asked if I was OK, and I told him yeah. I told him, it's all out now. And I stared into the toilet.
The feeling of that moment was terribly familiar. Everything was entirely new. It slowly dawned on me, every facet of every consequence of what I had just done. I didn't mean to throw up outside. I hoped no one was watching, but at the same time I understood my body has to do what it has to do. I thought about binge drinkers. The types of drugs that cause this type of sickness. And still my mind felt disconnected yet clear. I walked out and Tim looked at me and almost laughed. I thanked him for guiding me - had he not been there I would have felt terribly vulnerable. He gently offered that I'd probably want to take a shower. I looked down and all of a sudden remembered I had drops of puke on myself. What a revelation. It was the first time, and not the last of that night, I became startlingly aware of my lack of self-awareness. I thanked him and headed to the shower.
The shower... what a strange and powerful experience! I don't know how or why it happened, but that shower was the most empathetic experience of my life. I felt the mirror was watching me, yet I didn't change my actions at all in light of this - no, I smiled and consciously acted as I felt I should act. Throughout it all the common thread was that no matter how scared or disconnected I was, I had to act in the way I knew was right. I stepped into the shower, and immediately turned away from the shower head. It was watching me too, but not like the mirror - more like a snake. A judgemental snake. I washed myself as the priest washes himself. I was still seeing in unfiltered and unforgiving truth, and it was terribly clear that I do bad things. I puked in public. I made a mess. So I washed myself, intentionally and deliberately. I shuddered to think of the ways in which the shower itself has been used for horrible things (concentration camps)... I shuddered to think that people can be unforgiving. "Turn the other cheek... always turn the other cheek" soared in my mind, and I lamented. It seemed the arc of humanity moved from religion, to beyond religion, and then back. The beautiful freedom that is atheism is only a temporary gift. Eventually everyone reaches a point where they need religion to protect them, to guide them, to make them keep washing themselves. I stepped out of the shower. Suddenly I realized I had forgotten to bring a towel into the bathroom - the second shock of forgetfulness. I opened the drier and lo and behold, my roommates towel . I uttered the most sincere thanks of my life, bowed my head, and then dried myself off. I put my clothes back on, and with each article of clothing I was absolutely amazed - "oh, right, this is who I am. This is the form I assume." My father's boxers - too big for me. Tight black jeans - not quite right, and yet...
I stepped outside, and spoke to Tim again. I had no shirt on. We were in front of an open window, the outside world at his back. I felt sexy. I smiled.
"How do you feel?"
"Better now... what a crazy night... yet not crazy"
We chit chatted.
Eventually: "Would you recommend it?" he asks, referring to Ayahuasca
I paused.
"Overall?" I said, slowly, deliberately. "I don't think I would recommend it to anyone, even myself. I've got half a mind to pour it out. But only half a mind."
"But if you want to you should definitely try it. It's an amazing insight, with a serious physical toll. And I supposed I wouldn't have it any other way." He asked if everyone throws up, and I smile. "People talk about it like a... like an inside joke, I guess. It's part of the package."
I tried to sleep - 10:30 pm, and it obviously wasn't going to happen. My mind was still buzzing. In bed I talked to myself. Literally. Out loud. I couldn't help it. I kept thinking of various friends whom I truly loved and all the beautifully sweet things that have been done to me over the years. I smiled. "Mmhmm" I repeated probably 100 times that night in contentment as visions of my life forced themselves into my focus. I heard every car go by outside, the sound of wheels on gravel, and I smiled, but I was also slightly scared. I rarely moved, until much later...
As I lay there in the darkness, everything would slow down until - I stirred and realized I had been ever so gradually been coiling up. Now I was the snake. I stretched out, more stretched out and than I thought was possible.
I got up to write - the world is seen in two hemispheres because the brain is made in two hemispheres. On the other side, it is dark when here it is light. Only half the world shares my horizon.
Back in bed, and finally: sleep. When I awoke, I felt ever so subtly reborn. Maybe, just maybe I grew a little?
note: none of this happened. This is all fiction, of the sort where "I" does not refer to any real person.