Dear DMT-Nexus members,

as a beginner on this journey I want to ask you experienced psychonauts, if I just been scammed on my Ayahuasca retreat. I would like to hear your opinion before I jump to conclusions what happened there.

I did quite a long research about treatment of depression and anxieties with help of Ayahuasca. I was reading this forum, but also many articles and sources around to whole web for almost 1 year. I treated this subject(and still I am) with huge respect.

So I saved money (1500$) and booked one week (3 ceremonies) retreat in Peru, inside jungle, with only 5 participants, good feedbacks at ayaadvisors and certified wester shaman. Everything as I should be. I prepared my mindset well and I guess did everything correct on my side.

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So my first ceremony I felt no stress at all, have my head completely calm, focused and treated our shaman with huge respect and trust. I walked into ceremony, and drink my first cup. Is surprised me a little bit that taste was quite fine, i drank more horrible stuff in my life. It was dark wattery liquid, I had no problem to swalow it at all. Before I was reading that it should taste horrible and had bad smell and be oily liquid, it was not this case. I went to my place and stay focused in lotus siting. I focused on icaros which sounds magical. after like hour my hand started to moving in rhythm of icaros, later on I felt a pressure in my head. Something opened my jaw and mouth and I had feel that something like energy snake is entering my mouth and also nose. Voice around sounds like vibration ls what cat is doind when you cuddle her. I felt these snake-like energies and doing something in my nose/forehead and my stomach for hours. So thats about it, no purging and no visuals. I was all the time present in hut and sound of icaros was moving around me. It felt magical.

2nd ceremony I was prepared to go deeper, so after 1st cup, after 1 hour I asked for 2nd cup. During this ceremony, again nobody from our group was purging(puke or poo), there were no visuals, no voices, I was all the time present in hut. I just felt like something is puting crown on my head, I felt presure in my head/brain area and thats about it.

after 2nd ceremony I confronted shaman, which brings Ayahuasca to ceremonies in plastic bottles, that maybe its a weak stuff, because nobody is purging or have some life changing experiences, and also its not oily and it taste fine. I suggested, that maybe we should cook our Ayahuasca together in retreat. I had been given defensive answer, that there is nothing wrong with Ayahuasca, that we can not cook it there, because there is no vine growing around retreat and that I should be more open in ceremkny and that maybe problem is me.

on 3rd ceremony I walked in pissed off, I knew that nothing is going to happen, so again no stress. I didnt trust shaman anymore and I feel scammed. I drunk my cup and ... surprise ... nothing happened, I had been all the time sober during whole ceremony, icaros doesnt sounds magical at all and in the middle of ceremony I just walked out to walk iside the forest. I didnt even felt presure in my head.

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Shaman told me, that somebody doesnt feel any effect from Ayahuasca first 5-10-30 times. I was thinking, that I dont even need to focus or meditate to have some at least visual effect. I was thinking that we should see some snakes, forests, cities, other dimensions, insects, big cats, whatever in our trips, but nobody see them. I was thinking that if Ayahuasca is good prepared, after drinking it everybody should have some experience, been transformed to these magical caleidoscope tunnels etc.

So please tell me, what happened during that retreat ? Is there something wrong with me ? I dedicated so much time, trust and energy to it, and then I am back from retreat and I learned nothing and had no experiences at all

Thank you for your insights

Also i should add that I had no previous psychedelic experiences before. I wanted to be that way, that Ayahuasca will start my journey, I felt thats the right way to do. And I followed my ayahuasca diet as well.

Sounds to me like they dosed you up on some extremely weak tea.
I highly suggest you extract your own spirit molecule; If you decide to go again extract it there and be to yourself or find a trusted Shaman. Subjectively I find it better to be alone and meditate before hand. I say the tea was just weak, maybe they feared people would freak out?
If you do go this route and successfully travel, taking the content of your experience seriously is imperative if you want to learn and gain knowledge; I am very sorry this experience happened to you.
I would be glad to assist you in anyway I can, I have my own tek; however it is against the guidelines of the TOS, so I am limiting how much I will say. Feel free to message me or something and I would be happy to help in any way I can.
~Cheers

Banisteriopsis caapi and chacruna are completely unreliable. Thats why a lot of people use mimosa and rue in the states. Regardless of what you have heard aya is no more powerful than mushrooms or lsd. If i was you i would grow some mushrooms and get some mimosa root bark. This shaman stuff needs to end..

I concur as far as the herbs and reliability. Subjectively I feel you should be extracting your own.
However dependent on dosages I would not say psilocin and dmt are on the same level.
I feel that if he decides to do this again, going to peru and extracting from mhrb would be the best outcome; not saying he could not do it in his country of origin, I'm just not going to recommend such an activity if something were to go horribly wrong; all on his discretion.

That kind of sucks :/ $1,500 is a lot of money to some people.. like myself. Whether you got ripped off or not is really for you to decide. It sounds like you definitely didn't get what you were hoping for or expecting. Maybe you could try and ask for another ceremony or a portion of the money back :/

I too think you should cultivate mushrooms and perform your own extraction.

Mushrooms can be very beneficial for depression and anxiety.

I have no personal experience with ayahuasca.

My experiences with DMT have been much much different than my numerous experiences with LSD and mushrooms.

Dmt is far more powerful IMO in terms of what you experience. Mushrooms can be very powerful, LSD too, but DMT is far more intense IMO, though I must admit my experience with DMT has been brief. I don't think I have even begun to see its true potential, though I have seen much of what mushrooms and LSD can offer.

I personally feel mushrooms are a better starting point on the path of healing.... But maybe that's just me.

If you believe ayahuasca is more powerful than mushrooms it shows your lack of experience Astonish . Dmt freebase and mushrooms are not on the same level though. You people do understand that smoking dmt is far different than taking it orally don't you? Im going to let Mr Dennis McKenna explain this to you kids ..

Yeah I do understand that.

I guess you did specifically say aya is similar and didn't say DMT.

I was referring to the experience specifically, and not the chemical structure. The chemical structure may be similar, the experience I find is far from it. And that is comparing smoking free base DMT to mushrooms, not ayahuasca. I have heard mushrooms at high doses can be similar to DMT, I would like to try ayahuasca but have not made the opportunity yet.

This is common....

They serve very weak tea to tourists.... for several reason.

1. There is truth in what many shamans say, in that a lot of the really deep emotional healing comes from the sub-visionary space on Aya and the "visuals" can take away from the healing. I believe there is some truth to this, but the visuals IME lead to an overall my profound experience which IME leads to greater healing afterward.

2. They don't want to have to deal with people who freak out and potentially need personal treatment and\or need to be restrained.

THAT BEING SAID

It is absolutely NOT true that you "don't feel it" the first 20-30 times... In huge groups, I've seen the first 1-2 times people may not feel it as much, but not 20-30... Their brew was just weak.

IT IS PRETTY MUCH THE WAY...

...that retreats offer a traditional setting, traditional teachings, etc but offer NOTORIOUSLY weak brews...

It's just the way it is. If you want it stronger, brew your own...

RunningBear had a good experience at ayaquest in KY united states. He said they dose you low then 30 minutes later you can take as many cups as you want throughout the night . It would be hocus pocus free lol. I would go there once just to see how you do with the medicine then i would start making your own. RB is a good guy, He's always on chat at https://psychedelia.space ..

I never said aya is more powerful.. But I'm very familiar with mushies as I eat 6gs once a week, for the last two years With T breaks . I have dosed equivalent of 25gs 15 in a gallon of tea and 10 dried.
Ive also only smoked dmt about 5 times.
Comparing the two is subjective at best.
For everyone experiences are different. Mushrooms are very powerful yes, but a .2 smoked is
More intense or rather more of a vehicle than 10gs of mushrooms and I'm only speaking for my own Experiences. Apologies if my statement previously was misconstrued.
I do not think one is more powerful than the other because its different person to person.
One person can handle weed while aome think its too intense. Its all subjective.

Most people are afraid to take a proper mushrooms dose of 7g+++

Do You think you got ripped off??

Just do the right thing and warn people on review's of the place so that they don't go through the same thing. Put the name of the place in the title of this post so people see it on google.

There's nothing to "warn" people about. And recommending the disclosure of real life information is against the rules so i'd advise against doing so.

These things are so common today, the OP just made a novice mistake... But, after all, you had a trip to the south-american jungle, mate, hadn't you? Or has the lack of a much visual experience made you forget all about your actual trip? I think i missed the part where these things are a commodity nowerdaze... or how can one take these things for granted, i don't get it.. frankly.

What have you learned? Thought about that?

Then the greater question would be what do you expect to gain from this type of experience. Cause if you want to get blown away by visual experiences upon ingesting quality hallucinogens, then, by all means... as all the others pointed out, you might as well stay at home and hallucinate. The jungle is not the place for that... or it could be, but you won't find a sweetspot or the medicine man to take you there in 7 days... takes time, trial and error.

I think you're good. You just don't know what exactly is that you want and maybe you need more information to help you make up your mind.

I would agree with what others have said about about mushrooms, LSD and DMT.

Personally, I started working seriously (and also joyously and lovingly) with mushrooms last summer, mostly by myself. I've also been working with LSD and DMT and 6-apb, always alone.

When I went into this phase of my life, I did not have a very precise idea of what I wanted to fix, I kind of just felt like I wanted to work on my psychoemotional baggage basically, healing my psyche. This has happened but I've also gone on a journey of discovery and adventure. I have been able to learn things and implement behaviours which have, so far - and it's been 9 months now -
eliminated my bouts of depression, which had been so severe that whenever I could I would stay in bed and not respond to anyone's messages etc - now I pretty much always wake up immediately and jump out of bed when I need to, and on my days off, while I do relax in bed for a bit, I then get up and make things and do stuff, full of fun generally and listening to interesting podcasts.
significantly reduced my social anxieties, for example only having 1 panic attack because of some social activity I need to participate in since the beginning of this period, where before they used to happen at least every few weeks if not more frequently in cycles. I have gained many, many other benefits from these experiences as well, but I just wanted to share what I have experienced regarding depression and anxiety since this is what you mention above.

I'm sure that working with the right shaman is an absolutely divine experience, but so can just about anything you do on your own on LSD be (just as an example). When you are under the influence of anything - even a weak Aya tea, as people have suggested above - you are more open, susceptible, malleable, vulnerable. this includes to the vibes of the people around you. They're clearly protecting themselves by serving a weak brew, but is it any wonder? A shaman's role is traditionally as the healer of their community, as well as psychologist, futurologist, herbalist, etc, all of these things being the one person's tools in their discipline of community troubleshooter and mystic. When we come from the Western world to an indigenous shaman, we are coming as an outsider, they can have no idea if we are trustworthy in the first place. So we are already at a disadvantage, in a way, with regard to forming that relationship, and when there is fear of any kind in the mix... I think you'd have to be a real hard-head and the tea completely bunk for you not to feel that. It is logical enough for shamans to serve a weak brew in case people can't handle it. And even with the right brew and a good shaman, has anyone ever tried a few psychotherapists? the varieties in rapport you can have with these people is immense, and no doubt a similar thing occurs with shamans. Just my two cents, anyway. I hope I don't come across as critical of your choices, just trying to add some ideas from a perspective you may not have thought of.

Ah, your money didn't buy you light? What!?!

I am sorry that you felt that is what you had to do and had so many expectations that dissapointed you.

Yes, it sounds like you were served some brew of low potency, as far as kicking your ass with psychedelic visions goes, BUT...

There is most definitely a psychedelic renaissance going on, and more and more people who are naive to the psychedelic experience are buying into it for many reasons. Unfortunately, with all of the hype and commercialization, the container is mistaken for the experience. There is no need to do what you did other than for the experience of international travel. You could take aya at home, in ceremony in the city you live in (there are tons in every city, just look).

It is impressive that more and more people are going to great lengths to interact with these things, but it is sad that many feel that is the only effort they need to put into it. Its like those cartoons where the guy climbs a mountain to see a guru at the top and is told some silly mundane cliche.

Maybe if you spent some time really looking into what you want out of these things, you could have stayed home, brewed some tea with trusted loved ones or found a local ceremony. Then maybe you could've put some work into integrating an open heart into your life and spent that $1500 on feeding hungry people or something.

So you did not see "a bunch of cool shit, man". What did you see?

Been to nothing but peruvian shamans. It is common for someone new to psychedelics to get a low dose. However, that would have been the first night only. If "no one" felt it, then I would leave the review as such. At proper dosages, Aya can be debilitating and scary.

If you know anyone who has had a real journey and knows to leave you be and they are only around to clean up or major medical emergencies, then I would ask them to sit for you. This isn't a medicine you want a chatty cathy to watch you on, you go into an influenceable state. Also if you want to go on a journey you should forget the "bad ones", don't go in mad, there is a lot of love in there.

I'd get the word out too.. make sure no one else has that kind of experience.

Null24 said it better than I could... Like with many other things these days, the container is mistaken for the experience..

Anyways, as people have said, you can access this kind of stuff for much less money without leaving the country (if you look around this website you are on right now, do you see all of the extraction methods and brewing techniques etc.?? This is not to brew coffee or extract honey..)

If you do this on your own, not only will you save money (which could be used to help people in need, or just kept to be spent on something more useful) but you will also have more "control" over things such as the size of the dose you take, when you decide to dose, who you decide to dose with or without, where you decide to dose etc. Also you should have a better idea of what it is you are taking. You can work up small, taking a little at a time, or just jump in; it's up to you. Also , if you are involved in procuring the materials yourself and preparing them, you will realize the responsibility is on you.

Another point is that you won't be contributing money to these groups of morons.

I hope all is well with you and you check back in with us.

Wow so many replies to my first post, I didn't expect that. Thank you guys, you just confirmed my idea with which I was playing around for some time. Now I know what to do next. I will go on mushrooms solitary expedition just myself.

To be honest, I wanted to be a careful with my brain, as I had some drug inducted anxiety before and was taking xanax and SSRIs for one year. Also weed is causing anxiety to me. So I was hoping, that Ayahuasca drank in the middle of jungle with proper experienced shaman will help me kick start my brain, and later I can do my progress alone myself with mushrooms, but well... seems it's all on my shoulders again and nor shaman will help me. Classic...

Also I want to point out, that I was not going to retreat for entertainment, I was going there to heal myself from anxiety as a last resort, it was very hard decision. I walked on the first ceremony with thoughts like : If I will die today, I did everything right and my life was good, when I will look back from "heaven" on my life, i will be satisfied. Yes I know, that there is no risk of death with drinking aya, but still... it was not easy for first timer.

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@Astonish ,thank you very much, but don't I need shaman singing icaros when drinking Ayahuasca ? Can I just take it alone in comfy place just as mushrooms ?



@Soaring Eagle , yes, I will get some mushrooms, there are plenty of them in location where I'm living. I just want to be safe on my starting point and did this with shaman first, but well...



@Astonish , maybe I will go there again next year, but I will look for doing ceremony with União do Vegetal, they at least have a Aya recipe which they need to follow inside theirs church, so it can not be tourist weak tea... i hope



@Enkidu.uzt , yeah like all these retreats on ayaadvisor are around 1000$ per 1 week. Imagine that somebody need to save these kind of money maybe 1 year, add also flight ticket, days off from work... then he/she go there to heal as a last resort and will get no results. Going back home sick and sad. Actually all people from retreat seemed to be more f*cked up after retreat. So far from "you will absolutely feel better after retreat". If for somebody last hope die like this, he/she can consider suicide... not fun, what these shamans are doing there. Looks a bit irresponsible to me. I am handling it quite fine, but others barely spoke last day.



@CosmicLion , you're absolutely right. Weird, that I was not aware nor see this opinion nowhere during my 1 year online research. And now, it's like in every reply in this thread.



@spractral , after few days when I look back now, I think yes we got ripped off





@Soaring Eagle , @Metashaman I don't know guys, I've seen some magic going on there and I think that shaman is a quite powerful with years of experience. Also he/she many times during retreat said, that there must be balance in nature and that these stuff is also being used for bad things, not just all good things and love. I am afraid that he/she will put some black magic on me if I expose him/her. I have already quite a lot of my problems to dealing with, don't need to put more wood into fire, you know what I mean.



@Nereus & @null24 I wonder how many novice mistakes I will do next... yes, I had a trip to south america jungle, but I was not going there for that you know, I went there for healing and I was really dedicated to it and treated it with respect. Did my research 1 year, following diet, taking almost one month of my life just to go there, accommodate time zone difference, have one week before and one week after reserved for integration, put all my trust into shaman, I dont trust people, so it was also the hard part... I was not going there for entertaiment and for visuals.



@spractral , thank you, I am fine ... I will just try to continue my journey alone with mushrooms, now I am thinking microdosing LSD and mushrooms with one time per week or month(depends on mindset) higher dose of mushrooms. That's the way I decided to go for next 1 year, so see you around with another trip reports guys.