The 4th session was by far the most intense and "scary" I had encountered compared to the others previously . Not scary like monster scary, but in a sense of loss of self and trapped in the endless speed of the unknown dimensions that exist beyond our physical mind and bodies. I believe I went to a place where no human should step foot in and because of this, i felt frightened and completely overwhelmed.
On the way to the ceremony a series of negative stuff happened to me which in hindsight I believe contributed to the unfortunate experience of this session. To start off, I had some friction with the Shaman's girlfriend who I was certain was jealous of me and harboring ill feelings against me. The fact that the shaman used his girlfriend often times to help out in ceremonies or lead when he was too far in had made me uncomfortable. I felt annoyed for example, at the previous session where the guy next to me was harboring that negative spirit, that she never came to me to see if I was ok when I was clearly bugging out. On top of this she threw some underhanded comments my way and often times spoke to me patronizingly. I was afraid at a session I may need her and she would not be fit to assist me, and felt my fears were confirmed in this 4th session. It definitely didn't help going in feeling vulnerable to that feeling to start with/
I made up to travel with some other women from my city but they weren't very nice and left me by the train and went themselves. We had arranged a connecting ride to take us the duration of the trip. These mean women had gotten off at a wrong stop on the train, The driver-lets call him Juan, decided with me we would go and fetch them. On the way to pick them up he and i got into an exciting conversation about our past ceremonies and reflections. when the women were picked up they seemed almost hostile; right before we got to the place for the ceremony, one of them rudely told me to be quiet and it made me very sad. by the time i walked into the ceremonial area i was already feeling very bad about myself and ashamed. but on a very deep level. I cried in front of everyone, like a small child. I felt possessed the minute I walked through out the door afraid and mistrusting of everyone around me-the girl who spoke against me, the shamans girlfriend, and her friend who was also there.I started to feel like I was not in a safe setting.
I drank an extra potion of some other plant medicine before the aya, i dont know what it was but was told it was supposed to vastly enhance my experience. I thought whatever comes my way, I will take it, because what else am I doing there but to work? (found out later this was accacia, the tree Noah built the ark from. It also contains DMT)
I remember when i first went under i laughed familiarly. my spirit knew where it was. it had been there many times before and it was like coming home.
Most familiar were these shapes like "birds" formations flying in the distance, crescent symmetry echoing around me, and i recognized these shapes also from previous sessions . they echoed in their permeation on a grey background. I laughed. good to be home.good to be back. I knew where I was .
i hoped this time i would see and realize things and find out the answers to some questions i meditated on before.
But careful what you wish for.
After I saw the familiar realm and shapes of silhouettes of birds in flight I went to another dimension, another world. tall bubble like building crumbling in grey rubble. Everything seemed futuristic and grey. then things started to lose human form or reference. more symmetry and shapes, tunnels of shapes I started to go to another realm entirely. it actually reminded me of this account from a near death experience I saw months later :http://www.near-death.com/experiences/research20.html
Lost in a realm. no way out
realm within a realm within a realm of these familiar places and sites, kaleidoscope reality. endless layers of props and dimensions "worlds upon worlds" ENDLESS EYES ALL ON ME. a bit smothering.
felt a loss of everything i knew -even forgetting to breathe overwhelmed by visions. i had no body. no mind. did i even have a soul? WHO WAS I? would i return? what if my soul never returned to my body? my soul seemed so insignificant. no more pride left in me. i experienced something familiar when i died from fright seeing the shayd the second session but this now was more frightening for a longer period; endless back and forth for hours. coming back to earth and then back "up there". dying over and over again. feeling my spirit enter and leave. so painful. kept trying to find a point of vision on the wall to lead me home back to earth to my body-like a painting or shadow-hard to do in the dark- and it kept disappearing. kept losing my grounding.
This specific point reminded me of a story a woman told in the movie "The Ayahuasca Project"..she said she didnt know who she was,,,she couldnt even identify herself in a photograph. Interestingly enough she was the only one shown in the movie doing the medicine who was not an addict herself, although she said she seemed to identify with what the other addicts were feeling. I wonder what this common experience means and what my purpose is to fix it? Do I feel loneliness? mistrust? loss of confidence and self in general in life? I also noticed in the movie there were those who did not come to any epiphany but instead identified their painful experiences as a child to the visions with the medicine..they said that the medicine allows you to access your most first hidden painful memories and allows you to re-experience them again as the medicine works thus giving the opportunity to resolve those issues as a stronger more adult person.
I remember so badly wanting the visions to stop, kept crying out in my mind ENOUGH!. sometimes sinister, the dragon went in but as i told it not to enter, but maybe it was just too late. i couldnt voice myself . sometimes my mouth wired shut with shock and detatchment from body and other times afraid to disturb the room.
there were times i felt i would die. other times big shame. feeling a soul alone lost in these dimensions no one to help me. other times felt claustrophobic, the eyes surrounding me, i was in a endless dimension in a dimension within within a dimension a pool of eyes all on me and i just couldn't bear it. INTENSITY. no escape.
This is how the dimensions looked, this is what I saw:
i felt people in the ceremony must be looking at me laughing at me. I felt so insecure and shameful.the shamans girlfriend came to calm me, blew smoke on me, and at that moment she did save me. just holding her hand gave me a semblance of earth and being in reality, i lay my head on her shoulder and chest and felt like i searched for the feminine love in her my mother never gave me. but then, the guy next to me started shoving me, he was lost in his own visions. i asked her to try to help me, talk to him, get him to move . in the middle of everything the shaman changed the words of his song and made us all laugh. i could hear my own laughter echoing in the place where there is no time. i accidentally rocked my head back and forth into the shamans gf water bowl instrument and it spilled all over us. more shame. I could not see at all-from dark, and from visions. i then asked her to help me to the bathroom. again, more shame. i tried to explain to her as she led me to the bathroom that the guy next to me, he was really in my face and scaring me, but then she blamed me for wanting to sit in the corner. I went to the bathroom and that was hard to do. because i was so disembodied. I sat on the toilet floor staring at the candle, hoping the light would bring me back to earth but i still kept falling into a hole of self doubt and fear of death and neglect.the toilet bowl and the room became an endless abyss which i kept disappearing into again and again into self destruction. i thought, who will find me if i die and will they care. and if someone will need the toilet and finds me how embarrassing, they will never let me back here! i peered outside the door . the shamans gf was gone. she didn't make sure i was OK. this brought me even more down. i left the bathroom hugging the wall for safety..sat down by the wall between the hallway to the bathroom and the living room and cradled my head in my hands. i didnt have the courage or the sight to get back into the room. i felt like they were on planet earth and i was still in another dimension.
so i returned to the bathroom. i thought , this is it, i should just run away if i ever wake from this nightmare within a nightmare. Ill just hide here.I thought very harshly, as if it defined me and there was no other thought -it was just me, who i was, that "no one cares. you are a prideful shameful nothing. you are not special. you are connected to no one and nothing and serve no merit ". how to define a soul without a human brain? there are no parameters. no description because everything descriptive or expressive is within human parameters, basically all ego . what do we experience as a soul if we have no mind or space and time to define it? its all nothing but yet still something- i thought certainly nothing I could be prideful of. if anything, ashamed.. just then i heard a knock at the door. I ran to my feet and saw juan. he told me he could see me through the door and sense I needed help. (he drank another brew, not the aya, and he said it allowed him to see through walls! devils shade?). Thank God he found me. He took me to my mattress. When I got back I swore to the eyes I would go back to life, to my earth world, and never return. i tried to placate them, i pleaded with them, let me return to earth I will have a child. and i saw myself with a child.
Really, the spirits, the eyes, the realm , it was not scary it was just too full on, and i felt drastically uncomfortable as I did not belong there. I felt I did not merit in life to carry on being there at this time and I felt shamed at trying to go where I shouldnt be. i promised them i would stop asking questions and live this blessing we call life. I dont know if this is what they wanted from me or this was my panicked bribe to get them to let me go. at some point i even tried to promise them I would be a better orthodox jew but in this place you cannot lie, so I accepted my truths and said, ok maybe I cannot be more religious, but I can have children. I asked the eyes if my current BF was the one..i asked why do we love as humans and why do we have kids? No answer. I was too busy trying to run back to earth to "hear" the response
Back on my mattress i continued to freak out, not breathe well. i had drank all my water. i had to cry to the shamens girlfriend for more. she gave me more and i was grateful. even more shamed to be at her mercy again. thought, she must think im pitiful.
i could not lie down because the visions kept turning into other worlds. i would immediately disconnect the moment i hit the pillow. i tried to sit up to enable breathing and looking at the walls shadows to keep me grounded. i still would slip and and out. it took every ounce or stamina to go back and forth and return to earth each time. I felt as if i was in an ocean being dunked in and out endlessly . at times you feel, ok , ill just drown, give up, and other times you fight for the light, to swim to safety. i felt i died and was resurrected a hundred times.
the shamans gf told me, show love to the fear and it will disappear. I never understood why we have love but i do realize it is ALL we have and nothing much more will help or "save" us when we feel so helpless in this world. I started to wonder if love too was an illusion since I felt I was " no one" in that realm or nothing..like what IS love? How can someone really selflessly love another ? and how can we love if we are these undefinable souls? still wondering WHAT the soul is or if perhaps we are all fragments of one big soul.
I had never been so confused about the purpose of love and family more than I was at that moment. it has caused me to question love, when its something I feel so programmed to give. at the time then, just wondered why, why do we need it? as a soul, why do we need children?
I could see slivers of light in the endless abyss. shadows. I wanted to jam the light switch on in the room and scream out to everyone ENOUGH!! and instead I just whimpered a meek "enough! Make it stop!"
after we came down the guy next to me, Lee says , ignore labels people put on you, dont care what people say about you, accept you and be you. Really rang true. he told me he saw me crying before the session and wanted to help but didnt know how. I needed that reassurance at the time. especially because i went into the trip so insecure from that nasty woman's words on the car ride in.
I felt in my trip I head a voice (was it my own?) saying stop asking questions. live life. give and receive love to family " still confused by all this. Lee, although a very nice man , during the ceremony was very vocal ..he sounded like a monster breathing. at some point it became shrill and the shamans gf had to calm him.
every time i heard instruments and singing and couldnt find the shamans voice it sent me into a fearful panic. Maybe because his girlfriend was running the show and i didnt feel she really cared enough about me. I felt alone and lost and apart from the group.
.
As I was coming down i thought, the body does not need food. just water.
The shaman came to see how I was. he was so upbeat and positive. i thought it was weird. didnt he see me making a mess and freaking out the whole session? I found out later he had been very deeply involved in his trip and had been cognitive of the room..which explains why his gf took so much control of the session and icaros. he had no clue what I had been through . he asked me if I would come to the next session at breakfast and I told him reluctantly I did not know.
i realized also in those realms at the closing that my bf was right in a way, he said dont go there, dont do aya, don't ask. just live. and it seemed like maybe he knew all along more than me. its as if he knew but refused to communicate openly about it.. So then I realized do not judge the intelligence of others, some have intuitive knowledge of deeper things.
I was told in my mind not to speak of anything after just listen to others and look for their source from where they come from. do not judge, be humble. have patience. we are all in this for good or for bad and we need the love to spread the light.
Felt enormously blessed to be in this world, this world is an ESCAPE-an escape from the intensity of justice that I had seen in the other realms. so blessed with cognitive dissonance. to live with no "real" cares. most live life easy and lovingly not reactive just supportive. I told myself, not to care what people think because we are all just human and trying our best.
I thought, the real reality is too much for the brain to comprehend. don't go there. I wonder if that was the fear or the plant talking? or truth?
I realize my goal in life is am looking for love & happiness. Seems simplistic..but this was the thought.
during my visions I looked at reality from the side, just like in my previous ceremony ( except then I didnt understand what I was seeing)! it was like looking at the side of a sheet of paper. layers of realities and dimensions/ i also saw the world like on a cockpit simulator. coordinates for planet earth, looking at the side as if in a plane on a tilt, viewing this dimension on its side.
the woman who hurt my feelings before the ceremony apologized to me on the way home. still in a state of shock I told her it was ok and hugged her. I dont know how I feel about that.
after the ceremony i went home and got ready for shabbat. I had a revelation while lighting shabbat candles: remembered how overtaken i was with pleading to the angels/entities and the thousands of eyes. i understood how easy it could have been to fall into idol worship. to be in a dimension of no excuses, only truth. judaism commands us to look at only one God, and that's a freeing thought,to have only one God. to have one power. to believe in angels as god is to be imprisoned and to be a victim to those limited facets. perhaps we dont have the capability to understand, but they are holy messengers. greater than us perhaps but still under the auspices of God. He controls everything and anything and beyond of what is.
after coming home, feelings of shame fear to die, feeling to run and never speak of it. I called the shaman a few days later and it was obvious his gf had filled him in on my experiences in the session. he sounded very defensive telling me nothing bad of spirit was in the room. i explained that i was not frightened because I saw something scary per se but only because I couldnt handle myself in the realm I was in. He mentioned my repetitive feelings of going back and forth like death could signify trauma of previous deaths in other lifetimes. he also suggested I maybe wait to do aya again. I wasnt sure what to think. was he speaking from the perspective of his jealous girlfriend or just concerned I was not mentally prepared? I found it hard to believe because the 3 previous sessions I handled well. was it the potion I drank before that made it so intense or was it something he saw intuitively as a healer? I am inclined to believe it was from his girlfriend because when I was at the ceremony, after, he was urging me very much to come back soon. After discussing these events with my friend, who is a psychotherapist, she insisted that I had these negative feelings during the session because the shamans girlfriend made me feel scared and vulnerable, plus that nasty woman's comments before the session and merely didnt feel comfortable enough in my surroundings to be able to let go properly. Ayahuasca is a medicine you must do in a safe and conducive setting. surroundings are very influential to experience. I wondered if I shoulfdcome again to do another session to confront the fear. truth is i was terrified. I decided i would force myself to go back because the next session would be the last for a very long time. I did my dieting, and lo and behold hours before the ceremony i got my period and couldn't join. you should know usually my time of month comes like clockwork, every month on time. the month before my period came a week late and i couldn't understand why. now I have my answer. The plant did not want me to come to this last ceremony.
All in all I feel like I had a very positive turn around in my temperament, perspective, health and outlook after the first 3 ceremonies (even if session #2 had me in tears for a few days till i worked it out and i was left happier than ever)/ yet after session 4 I feel like I was left feeling sad and a bit confused. I still carry the lessons I have learned and have evolved and changed to whole nother person.
*update...given this last experience more thought. it made me flash back to the place where I felt alone a soul adrift in those circular fractal dimensions. Could it be i felt alone and lonely and nothing and void because i was at that point part of the one? Exploring the idea that each one of us is part of a ONE and we are all interacting together as people but really part of the ONE. we are the ONE reflecting on itself.
This beautiful documentary talks about this concept:
