My shaman tells me "letting go" during an Ayahuasca ceremony is the key; however, I am unable to do so. I am usually gripped by terror as the intoxication takes place.

How does one let go during an Ayahuasca journey? I fear for my life, so I feel I must resist and keep strong.
What is the benefit of letting go?

What is the benefit of letting go? Well for one you aren't letting fear control you. Regardless of the trip it is a great technique to learn for everyday life. Your also letting go of control which has obvious benefits in your life.

Trip wise, letting go allows the trip to wash over you with out you fighting it. Usually allowing it to take its coarse fluidly. With vaped dmt if your not letting go your not able to be consumed by the experience in its entirety. This is often required in order to fully breakthrough. Letting go is essentially putting trust in the experience but there are also some things about it that I find difficult to put into words.

Like how does one let go?

Imo letting go is basically doing nothing, you are without action.

letting go is imperative to good times

in order to let go i try to do what a rain drop does when it hits the ocean.

First thing you should always remind yourself is that you're physically safe so death of your body isn't a legitimate worry. I tend to find that the onset of the ayahuasca can be very turbulent and I can also be filled with fears, this often feels like some sort of a test or part of the purge. Diverting all attention to being present by looking into the blackness of your mind expecting to see something and then using up the rest of your attention to focus on your breathing. When things get really tough to cope with a mantra pretty much always centres me again. then when you're focused just allow yourself to slip away as you would when going to sleep.

I still consider myself a novice and have yet to try Aya ,although I've done Pharma.
My best Changa experiences have come when the effects are strong and i know this is gonna be some thing special.
At that point I say mentally, "I completely give in to this" and relax my mind. At that point some thing special happens.
Pure relaxation and acceptance is letting go.
If your gripped by fear, I can only tell you what works for me.
That is : knowing , this cannot hurt me and that I will regret this moment if I don't get passed it.
The fear then passes and bliss ensues.
Good luck.

So was your fear justified?
You survived the journey, did you not?

Let go of thoughts of control. Don't act upon impulses of fear. Just accept them. Observe the experience, observe yourself, your emotions etc. but stay deattached. Just stay attached to your breathing and nothing else.

Normally you are driving your vehicle of mind, down the highway stream of consciouscness, observing the advertising billboards of thoughts at the sideline of the street.

Ignore the billboards, you want to observe the invisible landscape inbetween the signs.

Probably by just doing it. A low dose, comforting environment and a good mindset may help as well. Get accustomed to the medicine and don't rush things.


Having a pleasant, healing trip instead of a terrorizing one.

Knowing you are in no actual danger is good to know, also knowing that even if it feels like hell that it's actually good for you in the long run, of course when in the deep end in the grips of fear that knowledge may go out the window... i feel it's an opportunity to learn about how powerful fear is, not just during a psychedelic experience but in our everyday lives, and more importantly how powerful transcending fear and opening up to Love is

It's a bit ironic as anything you 'do' isn't really going to help letting go as that could just be more resistance, in my experience it's not that you need to do something it's more that you need to do less, so rather than do anything about it simply stop doing certain things - don't react, don't panic, just be aware as you are always, also understand that resistance is futile, that there is nothing you can really do but give up, surrender to yourself

Also i consider meditation to go hand in hand with entheogens

I have spent a lot of time thinking about fear. Fear is my greatest fear, and I wish to overcome it.

I think the practice of meditation can help, I feel they are related principles. The ability to "let go", simply do nothing, purely observe. Go in with the mindset that you are offering your self to the experience, submitting your self to it. To become your own master, you must first learn to submit.

Know this.


This is a beautiful description. If there were a sentence that I would use to fully encapsulate the concept, I think I would go with this one.

Are you in general afraid of stepping out of your comfort zone? Traveling alone, trying new things out, etc?


I speculate that the two are related. At some point you have to trust the process and make the resolve to try and stop to control the situation and just see how it unfolds. To take a leap into the unknown.

To give you a travel analogy, once you've done your research and the place you're going to seems reasonably safe, millions of other people have been there, etc etc, there comes a time when it is counterproductive to worry about the stuff. You cannot predict what will happen in any more detail (and that is part of the fun!).. at some point you have to say, "ok, I've got the tickets, I have emergency money if things go south and I'll have accomodation", and just go for it.

How does this relate to your ayahuasca terror? Simple - You've made the decision to be there, presumably you want to explore these realms .. just accept that you may be a bit scared, for most people (yours truly included) going into the unknown can be a source of anxiety and uncertainty, but presumably the benefits far outweight the risks, or there would be little point to it.. so if you get yourself in that situation, there comes this point as said above, where you have to just let go.


It will seem weird because it's new and you couldn't imagine it. You may feel threatened because you can no longer predict your environment. That is all normal and even optimal (it's a survival thing).

Where this process stops being your friend is when you let yourself freeze with fear, and to add insult to the injury the analogy with traveling breaks down at this point, since under normal circumstances you cannot abort the trip.



There has to come a time when things are just getting very weird where you tell yourself, "It's ok. I've come here to explore, lets see where this ends up". Most likely you'll find there was nothing substantial to fear in the first place.

Good luck with your travels

Letting go lets the medicine work and show you how to heal yourself. Clinging and trying to control the experiences stops most of the insight and healing from ever taking place.

Letting go makes the experience easy and enjoyable. Controlling the experience makes it difficult and painful.

Example: if you need to puke and you resist it, you will have the most painful purge ever. Your whole body clenches and you are trying to hold down nasty bile and sickness that needs to come out, and at the same time your body is trying to push it out.... So you are basically fighting yourself. If you embrace the puke and let go it comes out easy and feels great and you watch all that pain leave you for good.... Which sounds better to you?

How do you let go? Trust Ayahuasca and remember why you are taking it in the first place. Ayahuasca is completely safe, and if you dont believe me you should do some research. As long as you arent on contraindicated meds, dont have sever mental illness like schizo, and there is no toe' added there is really no danger with Ayahuasca. Your fear for your life is completely unreasonable.

Controlling something doesnt make you strong. It actually weakens you when you resist, because your whole body goes into a sympathetic nervous response (usually called "fight or flight" and you start stressing yourself out and you start closing down your mind instead of expanding your mind. Resisting makes you weak and stops all the things you are asking for when you drink.

When you resist something you decided to do you are really resisting yourself. Most likely the reason you are drinking in the first place is to learn how to stop resisting yourself in some way.... Resisting yourself is like battling yourself - you are trying to do 2 opposing things at once so neither one of them gets done well.

Change is scary.... But if you let that fear control you and you resist the change, then the change wont come. Are you ready to change? If you are not ready to change, then why are you drinking Ayahuasca?

With just 3 easy payments of 39.95, I can walk you through and teach you step by step on how to fully Let Go!















Im just joking, but asking on 'how' to let go is kind of teetering on the law of parsimony imo.

No need to over complicate or have specific instructions. Just do it. The more you attempt to come up with specific ways, especially during the throws of a heavy experience, ime, just lends to more entanglement.

Start working with some simple yoga postures learning to be completely still in uncomfortable positions; breath meditation etc. Those can aid.

No matter what you do though - it comes down to that crucial factor - YOU .... let go.

You mean you bounce off due to the surface tension multiple times while splitting into smaller and smaller pieces of yourself before finally reaching a point where your finally small enough to be absorbed by the whole?

seriously though, that is a great way to put it. Always love your quotes 3rdI

Haha, oh geeze that's one way to let go.

Letting go is acceptance.
You know full well when you take dmt or aya, that nothing is certain & you are going on a ride.
In order to let go, you have to accept whatever is coming whole heartedly, whatever that may be, & simply be present through it & one with it as it occurs.

My deepest trips have always started with death & once it is accepted, things get truly beautiful.
I think that with powerful psychedellics like this when you begin to experience fear of death, it is a lesson. Death seems in that case to be the ultimate fear & in order to progress, you must face it head on.

Maybe aya is relaying a message, do not let fear dominAte your life or hold you back.

Remember, the magic happens just outside your comfort zone

just saw this.

this is gold.

I know this is a serious thread but ^^^ this made me laugh!

But back to the main topic:

“Some people believe holding on and hanging in there are signs of great strength. However, there are times when it takes much more strength to know when to let go and then do it.”
– Ann Lander

I do still feel that focusing on taking deep slow breaths is valid, I feel that sometimes in those incredibly intense moments where my automatic reflex is to start breathing a bit panicky is to just focus on slow breaths and when I'm focused letting go is easy

Slow deep breathing may help but i've found that harsh deep breathing can actually exacerbate things, sometimes by breathing deeply it can be like your trying to bring yourself back to your body when really you should let go, i find rather than focus on the breath it's best to just remain deeply aware. In my deepest experiences sometimes the breath slows to the point it's like letting go of breathing altogther... although for the sake of health & safety i recommend people keep breathing.


Fear of death, this is what it come down to i feel, as if you are ok with dying then you have absolutely nothing to fear.

As the old saying goes - you have nothing to fear except fear itself

pretty much sums it up