Hi travelers,

I hope I'm posting this in the right place >.>.
Anyways, I'm planning to do Ayahuasca next year in a group with my brother.
About five years ago my life turned around in a not so good way. I had my first psychosis.
Voices in my head, delusions of grandeur and isolation.
Recently (past few years) I've been recovering, and the symptoms are almost completely gone by now.
I feel a lot better, stable-minded.
I still feel a bit aimless in life, and really am looking for a positive and stimulating experience. I used to be afraid of what might happen, but recently I've been feeling like it would be the right thing to do and I'm not afraid anymore of what it might bring.
I'm completely open to the experience.

Even though my history of mental illness I have the courage and confidence to go through with it, I strongly feel like it is going to bring me good things.
I've heard stories about Ayahuasca curing people, but also that it might push you over the wrong edge. There doesn't seem to be a consensus.
I've also heard you shouldn't take it purely recreationally, that it is a medicine. At the same time I read that you should avoid it if you have mental issues. This seems a bit contradictory, although it's probably just a delicate subject.

Ideally you have experience with mental health issues and Ayahuasca or DMT, and can share your experiences on how the two might interact. If you don't you're still welcome to post your opinion on the subject, of course !

Greetings,

Lucinate

Before going to Peru last year, I had a period of trouble (I don't what was responsible for that, too much anxiety from the studies, too much mushrooms...).
I almost stopped sleeping, the train of thought was considerably accelerated among other things. My psychiatrist thaught I was suffering a bipolar disorder and put me under cyamemazine. I couldn't handle the medication, it transformed me very quickly in some kind of vegetable.
During ayahuasca ceremony, a voice repeated in my head strongly "you are not bipolar", with some imagery to illustrate why. I never took the medication again, the hypomania vanished.

Now, from what I understand of your story, the disorder is more in the category of dissociative disorders, isn't it ?
In medicine, we consider that 1 to 2% of the population is going to do a acute delirium at a point of the life. 1/3 will never do another again, 1/3 will make another delirium and 1/3 will chronicize this delirium into chronic schizophrenia. The reasons of that are still quite mysterious.

It's hard for people not knowing you in real life to say you if it is safe or not for you to undergo such a profound and relieving experience. As you said there seems to be no consensus about the way people with mental issue apprehend the travel into theses realms.
Are you stil on treatment ?

Shulgin reports in the TIHKAL that :
" In the early clinical studies of DMT and DET, frequent use was made of schizophrenic patients, in the belief that if these drugs imitate the mental disorder in normal subjects, the use of schizophrenic population might be especially informative, either through some enhanced response or a loss of effect. One clinical study with a group of female patients (with 1.0 or 1.5 mg/Kg DMT being administered, presumably by intramuscular injection) showed a delayed onset (doubling of time), a relative freedom from autonomic effects, and an absence of hallucinations. I truly admire the logic patterns that allow the construction of a research study that will have it either way. Positive effects, our hypothesis is supported. Negative effects, out hypothesis is supported. Do schitzys get better or do they get worse? See? We were right. "

Ayahuasca is a medicine for both body and mind, but as any psychedelic, it's a trigger, what's behind is the unknown...

Thanks for your response.
I was diagnosed with a psychotic disorder NOS. They can't quite figure out what I have.
I seem to be almost cured by now though, so I hope I'm part of that 0.333%.

Interesting to read you had some kind of trouble before going into it, but not a specific kind of disorder, although there was some speculation about bipolar.
I assume you did aya in Peru, and you were at some point in your life where it was 'calling out to you'.
I feel the same by now, but my mental health problems complicate things.

There is this big grey area where you have problems in life but it's not easily identifiable where they come from. This is where a lot of psychiatrists miss the point I think.
I've read lots of stories about people with problems in life that touch on mental health issues looking for answers in aya. These stories, though, are rarely being told by people who have a definite diagnosis. It's like their problems stem from something that is not really a chemical imbalance like with bpd or a disturbed dopaminergic signal transduction (according to the dopamine hypothesis of schizophrenia) like with schizophrenia. Hard to define.

My psychiatrist says I have schizophrenia ...
I disagree even though I have many of the symtoms , I personally think it's a spiritual problem .

Like literally I got sleep paralysis & a demonic figure pinned me down & pulled my life force out if my spinal chord & after that I lost lots of memories , my whole personality changed , I lost all my emotions , I became slightly retarded compared to my usual genius self 😟 so I feel my soul has been taken or something ..

I'm going to Peru next some to do aya in a soul retrieval ceremony ..

I just hope I can prove that asshole psychiatrist wrong
But mainly I just want my quality of consiousness to go back to the way it was before 😟

Why not try a small amount of dmt in the meantime? Perhaps just 10mg in the right setting and maybe with someone supportive there with you. Just check out what you get back from it and see if you want to wait for aya next year or experiment with dmt a bit more. It has an amazing way of telling you what's right if you listen to it.

Good luck with it all

Sounds like a plan. I'll propose it to my brother. To test the waters a bit before I dive in.

You've summed it up right here. It's 100% your call. No one can tell you one way or the other, even if they've had 1,000,000 experiences, simply because they're not you.

I'm someone who has hallucinated (without chemical aid) on infrequent occasions, and I've suffered from panic disorder for a little while before it went into remission. This isn't popular to say, but I feel pretty confident that my use of LSD precipitated my two-month bout of panic attacks. (Of course, it's something that's in my family history and was probably going to come out one way or another, anyway.) And the other side of the coin is that LSD helped me learn how to manage my social anxiety.

My point is, it might make things more difficult or it might make things easier. There's risk involved. I don't see anyone doing this here, but too often I've heard people preaching for the psychedelic cause. I love these plants, they're an important part of my life, but I would never, ever pretend to know enough to recommend them to someone else. I would say the people who do that have never seen or experienced a psychotic break before. If they had, they'd think twice.

If you decide to go ahead with your journey, I'll be interested to hear what you have to say. It takes real courage to work with these plants.

If I read that right, scizophrenics drop their disorder while on DMT and do not hallucinate at all either from their disorder or from the DMT? Wow!

I agree with Beelzebozo completely but I think possibly going to Peru to take ayahuasca has its own intrinsic risks. There can be a fair bit of peer pressure to go ahead, even when some part of you is saying I don't think this is right, and of course you've spent all that money in getting there.

Secondly there's the issue of the environment you find yourself in. If it's shaman controlled and they're telling you your problems result from possession by evil spirits, for some people at least that might not be the best approach.

Small doses of dmt, vaped in your own controlled setting, give you a chance to edge your way in with little risk and with the option to back out at any point should you realise it's not the right way to go. Take lots of time after the first vape to grok what happened even if it seemed a bit of an anticlimax, learn any lessons that need to be learned.

The money spent allows to spend a great time in a great country. Changing air can be therapeutic itself.
However, I wouldn't advocate to go there for a ceremony without knowing psychedelics at all, especially if there is the fear to go through a decompensation. The pressure of beeing abroad may be hard to endure in this situation, for both of you.
As I said on another post (or the chat, don't remember), even if the shaman seems serious and you prepared your travel correctly, it can be very disappointing and quite dangerous !

I'm one of the people you previously mentioned who's had some psychological issues although never went far in trying to have it treated due to bad experiences with doctors early on.

Since I was young I would hallucinate from time to time and after experiencing some pretty terrifying fever deliriums when I was young I would get Flash backs to on occasion when things were very quiet and that would lead to panic attacks. as I got older this lead to more regular feelings of dissociation and anxiety. Never had a psychotic break though although have seen one and I know that's very different than what I went though I thought I'd just mention all this as when I got into psychs I was far from stable and I attribute my recovery entirely to my approach to it. I too felt like my problems were of a spiritual nature and felt doomed, I went far into these problems before I made it out the other side but I feel that's what really allowed me to get past it rather than just learn to cope with it or mask it with medication.

I eventually had an experience which directly targeted that fever dream and forced me to face it for what it was so my mind could be at rest

Thing is though, I was barely functional through a lot of this and I did have a lot of erratic behaviour before going through this, I was kind of lucky to live quite isolated and I could have potentially never have made it through out to the other side of my problem. Also everyone problem is unique to themselves so my story isn't a go ahead but just maybe a source of some thoughts.

If you do decide to go ahead with it, I'd personally recommend getting started at home with very light doses and just listen to the experience in regards to how you should be moving forwards. take it very slow.

Does that mean though that DMT or Ayahuasca is unlikely to help people with disturbed dopaminergic signal transduction? Could that be more dangerous?

I have a scizophrenic friend (disturbed dopaminergic signal transduction) who tried DMT the other day and the scizophrenic symptoms seemed to dissapate whilest on the DMT and relief and enjoyment was had. This leads me to wonder whether the anti-psychotics are of any use at all and perhaps DMT could be more helpful?

I wonder though how much safer DMT is than LSD or Marijuana? There forums threads seem to indicate a larger amount of reports of psychotic episodes in LSD than DMT (infact I havn't seen a DMT psychosis report yet) but perhaps that is because one is more frequently taken than the other, perhaps not though. I always thought DMT was well tolerated, at least more than LSD/LSA Marijuana, perhaps it is natural because our bodies are already accustomed to having it in our system or perhaps because the pathways it works on are more prone to psychotic states than others (ie. dopaminergic)

Where you taking DMT at the time? Did taking DMT make your hallucinations worse? What led to the experience that made your mind be at rest?

Thanks, you're the second one recommending me to take it slow. I will take it slow.
Lots of helpful things itt. Thanks guys. Now to figure out for myself how to get a very light dose. I'll probably be making it myself. Kinda looking forward to the whole process.

After my psychosis my personality changed a lot too. I became a lot more introverted and slightly retarded compared to my usual bright self. I feel your pain, but try to take it easy and not let anger and frustration guide you, maybe. You know what I mean?

I don't know if it is unlikely it will help people with a psychotic disorder like schizophrenia. I don't know if it could be more dangerous. I've read (few) stories about people being hospitalized in a psychiatric clinic after they took aya. I've read (more) stories about people being helped by it, especially with problems like depression, PTSD and anxiety. I haven't found many stories yet about its effect on people with a psychotic disorder. Not enough to come to any conclusion. So far I feel like it can go both ways.
(btw, the disturbed dopaminergic signal transduction is just a hypothesis, see: https://en.wikipedia.org...thesis_of_schizophrenia, excuse me for stating it as a fact )

Did the symptoms stay gone (for a while)with your friend?
I myself am also wondering if anti-psychotics are of any use at all, for myself at least.
They kind of mask the symptoms as long as you keep taking them. It's like ignoring the problem instead of dealing with it. But for now there are no sound cures yet for depression, psychosis and lots of mental illnesses. For me, so far, the the best treatment has been cognitive behavioral therapy. Too bad there is so little serious research about how psychedelics effect mental illnesses of different kinds.

Who knows if DMT could be more helpful. The origin and workings of psychotic disorders are still kind of a mistery, as is the brain as a whole.