When I say "recent" it's actually been several months, but I'm just speaking about my last trip.
I've heard a lot of discussion about what makes for a "true" aya experience. On one end of the spectrum you have those who believe you must go to South America, find yourself a proper shaman, and have the ritual done in very specific ways, including the presence of a shaman and a group setting when drinking. And some say you must have your ayahuasca prepared with only certain ingredients, and no others.
Others have said that you can do it alone, and get your maoi and dmt from any source you wish.
I will speak on my experiences trying it alone, but making the brew using only shredded caapi vine and chacruna leaves.
First, as with all trips, once it starts to set in I get that very familiar sense that "I've been here before." As the world starts to unwind and open up, it feels like conscious entities around me are starting to notice and say to each other "he's back." I always trip in the dark (or with very little light) as that seems the most natural to me. From the darkness colors and shapes start to appear, and then I am overcome with the feeling that I must move my hands around as I trace out the shapes and begin to manipulate the energy. It seems that all of my thoughts and my body itself becomes a visible pattern, and within it I can see the way things truly are, and compare it to the way I want them to be.
To me it seems like the analogy of watching a computer screen (which we think is the real world) as compared to studying the data on the hard drive. While the screen itself might seem real, at its source it is only a projection of information. Drinking ayahuasca lets you move right past the illusion of the material world, and dig right into the informational hard drive of the universe.
My last trip I also spent a lot of time making sounds with my voice, and just like moving my hands around it suddenly seemed like the most natural thing to do in the world. I now understand why icaros were invented, because as I played around with the vibration, I could see subtle differences in shape, pattern, and color... and where I desired to make a change with some pattern that represented a part of my mind or my health, I could just sing until I got the pattern fixed. This went on for several hours, and I knew that what I was doing was a kind of "work" but with the effect of being a doctor or medicine man for myself.
Not long after I started doing this, I was suddenly overcome with the very detailed and real sense that I had attracted a dark-skinned wrinkled old man, with a strong vibe of wisdom and healing coming from him. He spent some time (figuratively speaking) "blowing smoke" over me, and I felt a warm tingling in my lower back. I have had pain here for years. The most interesting thing about it was not the effect it had on my back, but the effect it had on my whole body. I began to feel waves of energy moving out from the sore spot, all throughout my spine, muscles, and nervous system. They were untying knots of stress and anxiety. And every time a knot was untied, it was done by triggering a memory of something painful in my past. Each time the man would blow smoke, I would remember something that hurt psychologically, and then get this tremor through my body that would go in and out of my back.
Eventually he left, and I spent some time just sitting still, feeling a warm and incredibly comfortable glow, just soaking it in.
After the trip was over, I slept. The next morning and ever since, I have notice my back pain incredibly reduced. No drugs or physical therapy has ever been able to do this for me, but one cup of this amazing medicine put me on a journey of exploration that taught me my body's energy flows, and put me in contact with a spirit that showed me how to fix them. Once the energy was fixed, the body was healed.
I did this alone, with no shaman or sitter, so I guess this is evidence to support the idea that it isn't always necessary to have them to have a productive session.
On my own, I somehow learned how to hack into the universe's hard drive, and now what appears on the screen is fixed!