I've taken my first ceremonial ayahuasca ceremony recently. I've experienced high dose LSD, and high dose psilocybin, but nothing I've ever experienced has been like a high dose of acacia confusa combined with a small amount of syrian rue. My emotional journey brought ayahuasca into my life, and it has been changed forever. I asked it questions, and it told me all I needed to know. I pushed very hard to remain introspective, to avoid being drawn into the bewildering beauty of the experience, and I have been cleansed of all that has held me down, crippled me, and caused me pain. It has empowered me. Ayahuasca told me I am an unusually brave warrior of this realm. It shed me of my primate ego, and showed me my inner strength.

I work in basic neurobiology research. I love math and computer science. I love working with my hands. I love nature. I love to explore and to seek adventure. I have been blessed with a rewarding life, but emotionally, I have been lost for a long, long time. It never made rational sense. I have never experienced a continued stream of joy for more than a few days in my entire life before ayahuasca.

Several years ago I survived a very serious, non-violent suicide attempt. My mother has suffered from bipolar disorder since I was a child. I have always known I take after her, but I never knew to what extent. I was born a hypersensitive individual. I have an unusually strong tuning to empathy for all living things. Ayahuasca taught me how to surrender to, and accept suffering along my journey, and it taught me that compassionate giving and acceptance through acts of love are the key to stabilizing mood, and channeling this powerful emotional energy.

Ayahuasca showed me the path to 'wake up', so as to understand the unity of the human condition that is obfuscated by our material world, and our culture that lacks in knowledge of mindfulness--a culture that fears that which it does not understand. Ayahuasca showed me how my ego has acted as a strange attractor, causing me to collect bad memories and unprocessed emotions like a net catches fish. Ayahuasca forced me to break through the ego, the emotionally-guarded self, and told me to follow the path of light, and to fear nothing. It told me to use my heart chakra to see through our societal BS in order to cut straight to the heart of every flowing twist and turn my life will face. The love I feel for the world is what gives me strength, and provides me a clear path. It showed me that my third eye chakra is another powerful strength I have in this world--an existence we do not understand. It proved to me that it is my cognitive faculties, flexibility, and discipline that separate me from others in this realm. It told me very few have voyaged where I have been on my individual emotional journey. It told me my inner strength empowered me at my weakest points, rather than stifled, confused, or caused me to suffer post-traumatic stress.

I believe in plants as teachers. I believe in the Gaia Hypothesis, although to what extent I do not know yet. I believe my purpose is to be pragmatic leader that can comfortably cross between the physical world, and the spirit world. I have only recently begun to work on releasing my fears, opening my throat chakra, and learning to speak about my experiences and feelings in a way that I have been told all my life is very dangerous. It is dangerous to speak of spirituality within the household I grew up in, within science, and worst of all, within the world of psychiatry. But I understand my place in the world now. I avoid danger and build, never destroy. My path has been shown to me, and that path is to spread the wisdom I can bring back from my extreme states of consciousness. I believe this genetic predisposition and heritable condition I was born with is that of shaman lineage, corrupted in form by Western materialism, greed, and fear. I belong to the 2% of the population that has suffered from this mental 'disorder', but I believe I belong to an even smaller sliver of that population that has been shown the path to peace, love, and joy. In the sciences, this behavioral archetype could be argued to be adapted/evolved for the purposes of group selection. I know in my heart I am here to benefit all.

Thank you for accepting me into your forum! I am happy to have found this place.

Welcome,
thank you for your thoughtful essay. Have you any plans to work with smoked dmt or more ayahausca?

I believe you may have misunderstood what I wrote.

If you are asking for absolute specifics, could you clarify the question further please? Thank you.

More ayahuasca in the near future, yes. I have more unanswered questions already. After I typed all the above up, I heard in a youtube video by Dennis McKenna in which he described coming out of a state of psychosis after tripping on psilocybin for weeks on end, and he believed it was a shamanic initiation. I've read up some more on this (I didn't know anything about it before), and I am convinced I have undergone the same, (or am in the process of it).

But first I have been working hard to study more and integrate what I have learned. I have taken steps to improve the strength and integrity of my body and mind. I have worked to maintain a mental state of compassionate openness. And so far, the proof is in the pudding. People in my life are responding more positively to me now than I have ever experienced before. I am lucky enough to be surrounded by supportive people. My life partner's family are all Sufi teachers, and they believe in me. I feel like a baby in ways--waking up for the first time, and learning how to navigate the world from scratch, but this time tuning into the parts of life that are most meaningful, and learning to avoid needless distraction, wasted energy, and reactionary emotional responses. I feel safe to finally be my own true self. I may have called myself Warrior upon registering on this forum, but I am a mere humble primate like everyone else. I know this. Don't let my metaphysical experiences fool you.

I think I was expecting a little more in the way of discussion. Anyone have any comments they are holding back? I want to hear criticism from the ground up.

Perhaps it would help to ask any specific questions you might have or anything you specifically want to discuss.

Welcome to the dmt-nexus my friend, i hope you find what your looking for!

You could also try forums.ayahuasca.com for more information on ayahuasca, and perhaps spiritually a little more oriented with the direction you are going.

Cheers and best of luck

Thanks for the information!

As I shed these accumulated layers of my psyche off, I feel like the clarity between health and illness resolves to precision resolution. Do I feel like I've instantly defeated my underlying primate biology, untangled the webs, and rid myself from the torment of a mood disorder? Close, but not exactly. But I do believe this in a way. Aya provided the clarity, and I chose to face it head on, using the medicine as a tool to shed myself of the accumulated traumatic memories that come with 31 years of this suffering. To see how these accumulated emotional memories have led me astray so clearly is a blessing in of itself.

I've been chasing technology all my life, and I'm a classically trained scientist; never in my life have I felt so good, so comfortable with myself--as I am, flaws and all. Never. And I've never felt comfort being present for myself like I do now. I've sought flow experiences OR distraction all of my life (one or the other). That is how I survived until now. I've been off all medications for 14 years straight and I've suffered the entire time. I have truly suffered in paradox to building what is otherwise considered a socially rewarding life. I've just been muscling through the best I can. But now I've woken up from a place of torment.

The torment may return, but today I am free. And I have learned more about how to deal with this than decades of therapy could possibly do for me. In the simplest sense, it is a spiritual awakening. We're all born different. I believe, for whatever reason, and by whatever means (spiritual, evolutionary, quantum whatever, hyper-dimensional transcendence, anything is possible)--I understand now that to keep a population healthy, some of the people must endure great suffering AND survive it to share what lies at the extremes of comprehension. Communication of wisdom is the name of the game here. The only way to do that without setting off alarm bells with loved ones, friends, psychiatrists, and so on, is to 1) remain humble, and 2) always remain open and generous, but to stay a step ahead of your personal best interests (staying under the weirdness radar is important for a guy like myself). That means keep your life in balance and harmony. Seriously. Fast, loose, and sloppy does not attune one to their higher calling.

Too much attention is a bad thing, but within reason, there is infinite room for compassion, speaking from the heart, remaining true to yourself, and most importantly, to giving back to the world with embrace and love. I realize that my tremendously large heart makes me not only sensitive, but also prone to neglect of giving. I need to exercise and stretch and be present to the needs of my overly large and sensitive heart. My social interactions and ability to closely bond with genuine people has been capped arbitrarily for fear related reasons, and a direct result of not using discipline to exercise my skills of social bonding. The path is clear. I feel free to live now. I have more work to do, and more studying to do, but I have been freed from my shackles by learning new tricks that have been buried deep within. I was shown the doorway and how to follow the light. The rest was my fortitude and tenacity. Logic and reason have told me all my life that torment from your own moods isn't normal. Now I understand. I stayed the journey and now I am free.

Happy Saturday evening in the Universe, everybody!

I'd like to share my thoughts on this whole spiritual purging thing.

First off, I felt like the first experience was powerful, and major mental blocks were released during the 'giving in and accepting all' part of the journey. But after you metaphorically 'get it', why should it take 2 hours of nausea to reach peak experience again? Why not no nausea? How about that? First you learn to respect this form of journey. Second, avoid messing with normal bodily functions for each trip. Why the heck bother with this bodily fluid mess nonsense? It certainly has a way of grounding you if you get lost, but really? I think part of it as also psychosomatic. How many times around does it take before the basic skills of navigation set in as second nature, and you can overcome psychosomatic-induced nausea? Is it still important after a certain level of wisdom in voyaging? Why or why not? That is my question. I feel I can argue in both directions, but honestly, the nausea to begin the voyage, and peeing out your butt to end it all... Seriously? Is that necessary? I can think of far better things to do with my time, like feeling comfortable to voyage into a deeper trance/meditation. That would be a better use of the first two hours. Nausea interferes with that tremendously. Thoughts or opinions anyone?