I wanted to share an experience I was both a participant and an observer in earlier this year. In May I flew to Portugal with my girlfriend at the time. I got a random email from Spain, on behalf of a shaman. Now, I know this shaman, he was Ecuadorian guy with much integrity and experience, and he was the first person I ever drank with in the UK, and I had done so twice previous to this meeting. The email was concerning a weekend ayahuasca and temazcal retreat happening in the mountains in west-central Spain. We were flying to Lisbon, and it was a six hour drive, and it just so happened to be taking place the day after we arrived. There was no possible way we could have planned it any better, so we took this as a sign that we should be a part of this.

Regrettably, my girlfriend and I managed to miss our plane! But we departed the next day. This made getting there more stressful time wise, and we had to head straight there with no rest and we got lost a few times. By the time we arrived we were stressed, my girlfriend in particular. Now, at the last minute, my sister had come out and joined us there. My mum had booked her a flight last minute, and I was encouraging of her coming if sh wanted to. My sister was not in a good place...a few months previous she had lost her beloved dog, severed ties to her father, lost her flat, her job and her car and she was in a dark place, and using both mephedrone and cannabis excessively, and she was on quite a self destructive path. She had come off SSRI antidepressants around Christmas, and had also been feeling the long term withdrawal side effects of these which was exacerbating her symptoms. We had shared many psychedelic experiences together and I've always had a great relationship with her, which has strengthened greatly as we've gotten older. I'd always been open with her about ayahuasca and iboga and my experiences with these, as I had the view that these could help her, but I didn't wish to force anything on her and wanted her to seek them out if and when she thought she was ready.

We finally arrived at this place in the mountains in Spain after night fall, we were a bit late and everyone was already settled. My girlfriend was stressed and nearly walked out, after learning that we were going to be drinking ayahuasca, prior to have a session in the temazcal. My sister and I settled her mind, and everyone relaxed a bit. We drank aya, which for me was interesting..I was highly sleep deprived, and found I was slipping into dream scenes, that I would keep snapping out of. I had not experienced this with aya before. After this ceremony, at around three in the morn, we went down to the Temezcal. It was an amazing place to be, to be out in nature, the stars were incredible out there. I thought the temazcal would be a half hour affair for some reason, and something like a sauna. I was wrong! What proceeded was an incredibly intense experience. Rocks had been put on a fire outside, and in the temazcal, a pit had been dug. Even when the rocks were put in there, I was really feeling the heat. Then the opening was closed, and it was pitch black, and we were all sitting around in a circle, there was very little room to move. The shaman and his helpers sung and drummed, and at intervals water was poured onto these hot rocks. Every time this happened, it got more intense, and more oppressive. I grew to be pretty uncomfortable, but just concentrated on my breath. We had a few intervals were water was passed around, along with tobacco juice we could snort. Afterwards, on exiting the temazcal, I finally purged, and felt good. We batched with a large tub of water and a bucket, and then walked back up to the ceremony room, to go to sleep. It was hard, but nothing on the next night. After a good and much needed sleep, we had some wholesome food and met the people. We were the only English people there, but we felt very welcome and at peace there, everyone was very warm and welcoming.

That second evening, we did some body work, working on stretching and posture, and some group exercises, often in pairs. Prior to drinking the ayahuasca, psilocybe mushroom chocolates or a little pinch of San Pedro cactus powder was offered to different people, according the shaman and their helper's views. I had a mushroom chocolate. We drank the aya, and after this went straight down the temazcal. Same routine as the night before, but longer and more intensive. We were in there for 4-5 hours. I found this very hard...this was by far the hardest physical and mental experience of my life. My flight or fight system was screaming at me, telling me to get the hell out of there, and a few times I felt close to losing it. It was definitely a case of mind over matter, using the power of the mind to keep charge over the more primal levels of mind and body which wanted to get the hell out of there. Having everyone there going through that together, and my sister and girlfriend, kept me strong. A few people let out animal like howls or screams. If anyone complained, the shaman would put more water on the hot rocks, and do another round of singing and drumming. One Spanish guy was losing it, he was crying and calling out to the shaman and his helper..."por favor...porrr faaaavor!!"...they had no sympathy. He said he was dying and the shaman's helper said "Well die then.". My sister and I did our best to comfort him, but it meant we had both given up our already very limited space, and this made me more uncomfortable. Time seemed to stand still, and this was absolutely like some kind of voluntary torture. I was impressed with everyone to be able to withstand that, I was impressed with myself, and my sister and girlfriend. If one can get through something like that, it made you realise you could likely withstand mos things life had to throw at you.

After we were finally free of the temazcal, some people were unable to move much. Many of the others bathed, and we all drank lots of water and sat and stood by the fire outside. Eventually we turned in for the night, and the next morning I had incredibly vivid lucid dream, and I meditated in the dream, which was the first time I tried this, and it was a very interesting experience.

We all felt really good the next day. However the transformation in my sister was incredible. She looked healthier than I'd seen her look, and she had this vivid glow about her, you could see it in her face. My girlfriend and my mum and people back home noticed it too; my mum could not believe the transformation in her, after dropping her off at the weekend. She described this weekend as a major turning point for her. She stopped taking mephedrone, and cut down substantially on cannabis. She rethought some of her choices of friends. She started taking up yoga and meditation, and is now passionately into her yoga, and she has a vegan diet. She seems to have been empowered, and has much more self worth, and is much more positive in her thinking and her approach to life. Interesting to note the ayahuasca was gentle with her this weekend, but it would put her on the path of plant medicines, and our next shared ayahuasca encounter would be an amazing experience for her, where she connected with the ayahuasca in in a very deep and profound way, encountering it as a beautiful jaguar entity. I had heard of such experiences before, but never fro someone I knew so well. Her transformation was a really amazing and inspiring thing to witness, it was greater than I could have hoped for, and it has forever changed my view of ayahuasca and how I wish to approach it in the future.

Oh man that is so beautiful

(The sweat lodge ordeals, I know of it too.)

I hope you don't mind placing some text wall here, it's all very relevant though.

A bit more about the ordeal of sweat lodges:

To picture my coming from: it’s hard to estimate, but I think to have like 50 of them under the belt, of different kind lineage / conductors. Some were near dud, some were exhilarating and everything in between.

This note is about the sweats that became serious ordeals to come through, just like BancoP described earlier. One really goes into physically limitations and psychological madness to endure such, as BP says kind of “torture”.

I also go like once a month to a regular sauna center, and there one can freely choose where to sit, with more room, upper or lower level for temperature choice, so much more control, but it implies the possibility to go for the hard experience too, be it in a complete other set-setting. Well there too I was able to have fairly same endurance problem, the feeling to have to get out of the hell, now!

So in both cases, sweat lodge and sauna, same “problem” was identified. The fight, the pain, the resistance, the feeling of choking, no air, all whilst the very knowing that you actually are safe. The problem of the ordeal is not real, it’s only in the experience and therefore it feels real. One is not threatened for real yet it feels very much like that and all responses/reactions are as.

Then there was that sweat lodge that made the turning point.
The heat was on, the “problem” was pounding hard, so there I was facing it again. That time, I made a decision, I was so fed up with the fight-flight situation again. I said clearly as an intention, look this is me and this is the fight-flight and none of them can finally win, this situation is stagnant and self-sustaining. There is only one solution, to kill both in one move. So something in me had to die as a price to pay and with that same "money" coming around I’d buy freedom from the ordeal.

It was very clear how to do that in practical terms, I said to the pain: okay you may consume me, you may have me and you may eat me and leave nothing but bones. But as a backside of this I will have you instead in return, I will consume you dear Mr pain and as a result there will be nothing left of you either. We will both die in one move, we will both be sort of neutralized.

It was very odd to eat pain while it ate me. The process evolved fairly quickly toward a very profound spiritual experience where pain was the entheogen consumed but that was not so important. The important thing was the hardcore trip that deployed. I’ve seldom felt in my life extreme tripping while not on a plant or lab like substance. The pain ordeal became a door to step through, to enter there in that realm, it was not like a realm I knew, very intense and powerful. I cannot remember factual things able to cite, it was all about a feeling, an experience unable to put in words, but hardcore intense, and it was not me nor the pain, it was if as we (me and pain) went hand in hand toward something that was beyond ....

If it was only then, one could say it was temporary biological effects playing. But since that particular sweat lodge, the fight-flight reaction was gone in every following sweat lodge or hard sauna experience till today and hopefully forever. Something really transformed.

Wow dude thanks for sharing! You are definitely the Jedi master to my padawan when it comes to sweat lodges!!

Amazing to hear of your transcendental experience of pain. It's funny, as despite having drunk the aya, I felt really present, like forcefully present because of the heat and suffering my body was going through. Also interesting to hear that your experience affected all subsequent sweat lodge experiences.

Thank you both so much for sharing your experiences! I have all ways been quite curious about sweat lodges. I can only imagine how testing it must be on the body and mind, as well as unforgiving in a sense. However, coming out the other end must also feel like an amazing achievement!

I have no idea how I would respond to that environment under the influence of psychedelics. Banco, I can only imagine how incredible it would be to share something like that with a family member, as well as making it slightly easier to handle (maybe) due to people close to you going through the same ordeal. That's cool that your sis overcame the drone intake... good ol' aya worked its magic it seems

Jees, did the sweat lodge experiences get any easier after going through quite a few? I love your logic in response to the "fight or flight" scenario you were faced with.

Thanks again you guys!

Sorry to come back this late, lost track of the topic


About the question:
I know everything is related to each other, but still make some difference for the sake of it:

* the thermostat mechanism, the degree of the blood flow trough the skin (freeking very narrow veins there), the flexibility of the pores to secrete, ... , well yes exercising the hot and cold does pay of there. All hail to bringing blood and oxygen at the extremities. So yes exercising makes it easier on that part.

* besides the former point, does it becomes easier by granted? I feel no. I kept bumping at that hot-choking fight-flight no matter repetition. I realized, 1. to settle with that, or 2. to get involved to work on it. This scenario involves the idea that it was not a given fact but rather just a stalemate to overcome. You know, it's always heading the embrace. With this I can't place it directly in hedonic pain cultivation. Coming to terms with the stalemate is just another trajectory IMHO.

Absolutely, til now it has never returned to it's former settings . Not much into sweat lodges as of late, but the evidence shows at the regular sauna visits.

Thank you guys for all the sharing!!