I'm new to ayahuasca (haven't smoked DMT yet either) and my experiences so far have been difficult, I struggled a lot of the way through them. I'm thinking I need to break through. How intense does the struggle get before you reach the threshold? In my first ceremony, I didn't feel too much after the first cup, but once the second cup took effect I felt the effects ramp up rapidly and I felt like something massive was about to happen in a bad way. My ability to feel fear seemed to be switched off but I was in a bit of a state of despair. If I were to drink a third cup, would I be able to pass through this state of despair? I think the suffering might have been my ego panicking, trying to anchor me down and stop me from detaching from it. I haven't yet smoked DMT, so I have no idea what to expect. I've broken through on salvia a couple of times but I'm guessing thats since with salvia you're half way out the door of this dimension by the time put down the pipe.

I don't understand why you're struggling, I feel like that's the root cause of your suffering itself is the resistance. You want to be conscious, and accepting of whatsoever happens, then there is no struggle.

This may help shed some light;
https://www.dmt-nexus.me...aspx?g=posts&t=50863

will also help you better understand how to approach the fear and the despar, conscious confrontation, acceptance, and understanding are key to dealing with these reactions/energies/emotions

also no need to fight with your ego, be grateful to it, and be conscious of it, and just allow it to be how it is while you consciously confront the experience... in other words, just watch it, that's all

I think it was reading one of David Ickes books that started my psychedelic struggles. Since I read that book I've been having trips that revolve around the idea of us all being trapped in a matrix and we're being herded like cattle by hyperdimensional entities which we aren't conscious enough to even perceive. In my last ceremony, that saying "as above, so below" kept popping into my head, I was thinking that we do this to animals, why couldn't something of vastly superior intelligence do the same to us. We wouldn't understand that we're ensnared in this thing. What we do to animals, ensnaring them and controlling their environment so we can eat them even though we've evolved well past the point where we need to do that, theres something not right there but most people don't think much of it since its the norm. The visions I get is more like fish in a bowl, even if the fish gets out of the bowl it can't survive in that environment. It needs help. This scene from a movie kept coming into my head:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hh8bCLDKKYY
like its a spiritual metaphor for this matrix thing. The cop comes in and says "you're crazy" and wants him off the streets because he sees it for what it is. Hes colour blind so he has less distractions to keep him focussed on the illusion, so he sees right through it. We can't help ourselves, but we can help the fish. Just a thought, I don't know what this reality thing is, but this stuck in the matrix idea seems to have gotten lodged in my subsconcious somehow. I need to break out of it.

Please understand that if you read, for a lack of a better term, bullshit, written by someone else regarding their own degraded state related to conscious trip "interpretations" and you pick that crap up in your own consciousness, it will color your own trips; it's bound to.

Just about every (if not every) psychoactive substance simply gives you the expression of your own consciousness, so if your own consciousness is troubled, it will be expressed in the trip.

To what extent you choose to color your own trips, by reading from sub-standard material about someone else's mental problems is entirely up to you, but I would recommend dropping the stuff you picked up along the way out of your mind.

Every conscious journey is a mystery, and if used rightly can be an exploration of personal consciousness. There is no one "out there" pulling the strings, outside of the crap that you've read which negatively influenced your own conscious expression.

I hope that makes sense; it's all in your own mind, simple as that. Drop the nonsense, and enjoy the journey.

you don't know how it'll be, or how it will turn out; no one does, that's part of the mystery. All you can ever really do is be consciously present in it, and enjoy the ride, and be open to receive anything it is capable of revealing to you about your own self and your own conscious expression; at least that's my take on it from all of my own extensive experience with every psychoactive substance I have ever tried

^^just to expand on that further



^^absolutely true story, very useful bit of info, if interested to learn more here's the link to the rest

https://www.dmt-nexus.me...&m=501573#post501573

Yeah I agree with all that brokenChild. Thanks for sharing your perspective. I let this conspiracy theory crap in because I found it novel and interesting at the time. Another mental virus that psychedelics exhume from my subconscious is the idea of hell which my great granny used to go on about when I was a kid. I don't believe in hell, but the belief got lodged in there when I was a kid so its still in there.

I've had plenty of bad trips over the years, its the bad ones that benefit me most, its all for the better. Suffering is a catalyst for spiritual evolution, theres no doubt about that. Had so many visions which explain this clearly. I find it near impossible to translate what I've learned into words adequately but doing it with metaphors is easier. Lets say one were in a prison, the only way out is guarded by pitbulls. If the inside of the prison is warm and comfortable, theres a whole lot less incentive for one to decide face the pain of being mauled by pitbulls in an attempt to escape. One might opt to stay imprisoned indefinitely. If on the other hand conditions become harsh and unbearable in the prison, then one is gonna decide they're either gonna break free and find a better place or die trying, so will just go for it and face whatever hardships lie ahead. It goes way further than that, salvia showed me how to break out of a snare even when I have no recollection or awareness that there even exists anything beyond the trap I found myself in. God works in mysterious ways

If you want to get rid of hell, then get rid of heaven too; both are fundamental expressions of the same thing, and are part of one "teaching" or ideology. The ideas have value to them, but not as practical and direct facts of life like they are propogated; they exist only in imagination. At least I have never been able to varify personally of anything like an external heaven.

People live in their own personal little hells; drug addicts (I've been addicted myself before), criminals, the kids in Somalia that have no food to eat.
And others live in their own personal heaven; artists, musicians, in other words creators of all kinds. Its up to us to transform our personal little hell into a heavenly expression of our beings, but not because you'll meet Jesus after you die; the benefits will be evident and intrinsic in your actions, not in your afterlife; theres a billion theories about the afterlife and no one yet knows which one is true... but this life, I can tell you for sure has intrinsic value to it. So I personally like to focus on and enjoy this life, when the afterlife comes then I'll be ready for it at that time, but I'm not going to waste this life preparing for some "other" life, seems stupid to me.


thanks for that metaphor, I see exactly what you're saying, and you have a point. The thing is, bad/good are generally tied into unity in the same expression; so it's a matter of perspective, you can choose to look at only the bad, or you can choose to look at only the good, or you can choose to see both. It's like this; you can focus on the rose, or you can focus on the thorns, but the flower is both; in order for the rose to be the thorns must be there as protection; its intrinsic quality of the thing itself, one supports the other.

I've found the applications of ayahuasca to far outreach those of salvia, for me personally at least, I never got anything coherent from a salvia trip, so I stopped trying.

Breaking through on Ayahuasca is not only about dosage, but about whether you let yourself pass that inter-dimensional barrier, which means sacrificing your poor, terrified ego. It will be very chaotic initially, but you need to focus and let go at the same time.

I think its a matter of getting comfortable with Ayahuasca, and gradually working up the dosage and readjusting to the intensity. Eventually you'll reach a point where everything that defines you slips away- you want to blast past this point.

Easier said than done. It takes incredible courage and grounding.

You don't have to try and breakthrough on ayahuasca everytime btw...It can be a very traumatic thing and not something to be aimed for constantly IME.

If your experiences so far have been difficult then i would continue getting more comfortable with the experience since a very intense dose might be exponentially more difficult. Also what amounts of what plants are you drinking?

Remember the harmalas in caapi add their own psychedelic affects into the equation and you can have all kinds of life changing journeys (including intense visionary travel to other realms and merging with the godhead or what have you) without getting to the point where its like a full on smoked dmt breakthrough. Breakthrough is sort of a misleading term, since there may never be a distinct point where you breakthrough that chrysanthemum as with smoked dmt, and what you encounter can be quite different to. Aya can be very trancey and dreamlike. It helps me to do yoga and meditate before dosing, and then lay in silent darkness while doing deep slow breathing. The more relaxed the better.

Also i think its misleading to suggest that all traumatic ayahuasca/psychedelic experiences are simply due to the person resisting/struggling, or that they all have to do with subconscious aspects of their mind or consciousness that they haven't balanced out yet. That may be an applicable model to describe some peoples experiences, but it is not a model that fits every single experience that everyone has, and its misleading to suggest so. It fits mine in a lot of ways, since a lot of it does involve myself and my subconscious or unconscious, and inner learning etc. But there is also a lot of experiences that model doesn't explain. There is an infinite of things that can be experienced in these realms, many far beyond anything even remotely resembling my self, that could possibly lead to a traumatic experience. And if you've ever drank some of the more traditional brews with close to 200g caapi or more, difficult experiences are often more like a guarantee and to say that this is because of struggling or mental imbalance is very misguided IMO. Its really not like these doses of aya where people are just focused on the dmt aspect and aren't taking psychedelic amounts of caapi with it.

Yes, except the OP is clearly referring to his struggling to break through. Which negates any and all possibility of his struggles being connected to integrating experiences of a higher order due to intense dosage and trauma related to intensity of experience.

I agree with you that trauma itself can be caused by a number of variable causes, but if you read the original OP it's clear that in this case DogMonkey is having trouble successfully entering into an experience, not getting traumatized by the overwhelmingness of one (trauma of which would be related to excessive dosage, just FYI, in other words dosing more than one can comfortably handle, which I would not advise doing under any circumstance)

Ayahuasca experiences should be challenging and insightful, but not recklessly overdosed, otherwise it leads to all kinds of decoherent states and stressful experiences

My point was not to say that this is what is going on with the OP. To me it does sound like he just needs to relax into it more and calm his mind, but who knows.

There i was simply elaborating on just one reason why i think in general it is misleading to imply that a difficult experience is virtually always do to struggling or subconscious issues (as infectedstyle's quote said in your post). Also I didn't mean to imply that a breakthrough dose is the only time that this happens (i'm not just talking about "recklessly overdosing" either), because its not.

I see what you're saying. I guess if it needs clarification, the reason I posted infectedstyle's quote in the first place was mainly for this tid-bit;
"It is my understanding that psychedelics can reveal what is normally hidden in subconscious activity."

And the associated links to proper understanding of trauma, if necessary. So, if anything it was simply giving the OP more than plenty of information to work with if he needed it. I know I certainly had a whole bucketlist of past traumas to go through when I first started my aya journeys a couple of months ago, so ultimately you never know; better to have it and not need it than need it and not have it was my logic.

Also traumas can be all kinds of things that are stored in your energetic field; everything from a childhood scare that never got properly processed, to some kind of accidents, to a whole number of things big or small, so I think it's always useful to at least have the information on hand to know how to properly integrate those energetic blocks, especially for first-timers

I think this point shouldn't be understated. If it is the case that psychedelics can present material to consciousness that is typically subconscious, then I don't believe it is certainly all they do, or that they necessarily do it each time. I don't find it personally to be the basis for the experience either, so if anything I see it as a potential consequence for interacting with DMT. I suppose it's kind of like when people say it's all about archetypes as well. I suppose the concept of archetypes can fit into and/or coincide with certain experiences, but claiming that these things that we're experiencing are archetypes still offers no substantial explanatory model as to how or why we behold the specific things that we do.

Many of these phenomena that are witnessed I think should be extended from being classified to subconscious to unconscious (especially in the case of non-repetitive experiences). We may have "subconscious knowledge" of archetypes, but many of the things that DMT has to show us we are virtually unconscious of. We have no knowledge of anything remotely analogous to some of these things and kinds of activity when they are presented to consciousness.

That's fine but all of this information can be relayed to him without suggesting or implying that all of these ayahuasca experiences are primarily of "X" nature, even though his may be...

It seems we are running into this sort of thing over and over again in threads lately. I think you might benefit from doing some reading into E-Prime , and Robert Anton Wilson in general. He really helps in seeing how our use of language can constrict and narrow the realities we inhabit, or attempt to convey.

Hmm, I don't understand how more broad, general, and all-encompassing I could possibly be




Please explain to me where you perceive the constriction to be, because I'm not seeing your basic point whatsoever. So one of two things is the case; either I'm not understanding what you're saying, or you're not understanding what you're saying. One of us is clearly confused, and I'm willing to approach this confusion for the sake of proper understanding so I can learn from it. Thanks

You said "Just about every (if not every) psychoactive substance simply gives you the expression of your own consciousness, so if your own consciousness is troubled, it will be expressed in the trip."

And to further this line of thinking.....infectedstyle's words you quoted implied that most difficult aya experiences were simply due to subconscious content or mental imbalances- to which you replied "^ absolutely true". Do you see now how this may give someone the impression that their difficult experiences are all simply due to these factors?

You might not have meant it that way, but that's how it can be interpreted to onlookers. I'm merely pointing out how I think we should avoid discussing the experience in terms of anything even approaching absolute truths. Since sometimes an explanation is applicable, but other times it clearly is not. You might understand what i mean after reading that link. If not, thats fine. I really don't want to get into it anymore on yet another thread.

You're absolutely right, I think infectedstyle's words are absolutely true. Granted, their application is limited only to the extent of those particular experiences. Is this one of those cases? Maybe, I felt it was worth mentioning, since the OP clearly had some subconscious imprint (the one outlined in red in my above post) which needed addressing so he can see it himself, and the impact of what someone else's ideology can have on our consciousness.

So, in closing, I never said that "difficult expreiences are all simply due to these factors", so I don't understand where you can possibly get that impression from. Something can be true, and can be true absolutely, but that particular truth can have limited applications. If you need an example, can simply reference this specific one that we're discussing.

Also,

Please do The thing is, somewhere within you seems to be some sort of confusion about my statements, or the way that I'm expressing them. I would like to clear up this confusion once and for all, but of course would need you relative interaction for you to express your honest and sincere perspective from which this confusion stems from. So, it's entirely up to you, but if you would like to clear it up I don't mind taking the extra time for what could quite possibly grow into an interesting discussion

I don't think you get it. I'm not confused, and from global's reply you can see that he isn't confused about my post either.

The point was not about whether i thought you were literally saying "all difficult experiences are simply due to these factors", my point was that *some people* reading this thread who are unfamiliar with ayahuasca could very easily have interpreted your posts as conveying a message that message. I'm not sure why this is so difficult for you to understand.

I don't disagree with this statement, I'm simply suggesting that it too is a piece of the puzzle.

The whole truth is that all of these perspectives are valid, and it's necessary to understand that. In some cases the problem IS subconscious/unconscious, in other cases there is no problem whatsoever and the experience is just a fruitful journey and exploration into personal consciousness (tho, in all reality I think it's a fruitful journey/exploration even when there are problems ingrained in the consciousness, because the simple insight of them allows you to properly understand them and integrate them)

So, again, back to the foundational statement which I made in the very beginning, highlighted in yellow a few posts above, covers ALL of these angles. Unless I'm missing something, in which case I would truly appreciate it if someone pointed it out

You mean this statement? "Just about every (if not every) psychoactive substance simply gives you the expression of your own consciousness,"

I don't to see how that sentence "covers all of the angles"...not even close...It seems more like it neglects to account for many other angles. As i said, it is this sort of thing that might give people the impression that all these psychedelics are doing is showing you an expression of your consciousness, which implies that any difficulties that arise would be from within you and having to do with personal issues/struggles/subconscious/unconscious content.

If you don't get it at this point then there really is no reason to continue trying to have a conversation.