Basic Ayahuasca questions:
Some positive effects of Ayahuasca can be curing of addictions such as alcoholism as well as depression and anxiety. Some people experience spiritual progression and yet others experience ego dissolution and psychological healing from trauma. You can read more about the ego dissolution as a positive effect and how Ayahuasca helped with my anxiety in this article.
On the mild end of the spectrum the negative effectives of Ayahuasca could be throwing up, having a ‘bad trip’ or ‘dark night of the soul’ and in rare cases Serotonin Syndrome if you drink Ayahuasca while using some medications such as anti-depressant medication. You can read more about the potential negative effects of Ayahuasca in our guide here.
Yes Ayahuasca can change you psychologically in a positive manner. Many people report reduced or cured depression, anxiety, PTSD and addictive behaviours like alcoholism. This is likely linked to the ‘ego dissolution’ that psychedelics provide and the opportunity for new neurological pathways (healthy ones) to be created which allow us a literal new way of thinking. Research has been conducted on this topic which you can read more about in our article on the symptoms of ego death (dissolution really – the ‘death’ part is figurative).
Most commonly these are SSRI’s and other medications used for depression but can be anything else which is contraindicated with the MAOI’s contained in Ayahuasca. You should consult your doctor to see if there are any medications you are on which cannot be taken safely in combination with Ayahuasca.
Here is some more information about what medications are contraindicated with Ayahuasca but this is not an exhaustive list so you still may need to consult your doctor.
WARNING:
Ayahuasca contains an MAOI (Monoamine oxidase inhibitor) which allows the psychedelic tea brewed from plants to be psychoactive. It’s this MAOI which can sometimes be very un-safe to take with Ayahuasca Tea.
This is not something to take casually. Drinking Ayahuasca while on some medications can cause Serotonin Syndrome and potentially death. Make sure to do your research on this topic BEFORE drinking Ayahuasca. Many medications need to be removed from the system many weeks before drinking because medications often stay in your system for weeks at a time after you actually stop taking them.
Some Ayahuasca Retreats offer month long (or more) Ayahuasca Retreats. Usually these retreats are in South America and can be cost prohibitive. I would suggest you look at the our guide on the best retreats Ayahuasca Retreats in the world and look specifically at those in South America as they are more affordable (even with flights) and have experience with ‘plant dietas’ as longer term retreats are known.
An Ayahuasca Trip is, in my experience, a very personal and introspective 3-5 hour period where you can receive insights and healing psychologically speaking. You can experience healing and love which has been associated with cure of alcoholism and other addictive patterns, PTSD, depression and anxiety. If you’d like to read more about the specific experiences I have had feel free to read some of my trip reports on Ayahuasca in 2018 and 2019.
The best Ayahuasca Retreats, according to experienced users, give a day off in between ceremonies to recoup body and mind, medically screen you before accepting your money, have experienced shaman(a) and have small group sizes (10-12 people max is best). Check out our guide on finding the best Ayahuasca Retreats near you where we used this criteria to discover retreats around the world which use these approaches or get as close to them as possible. The one which did this most easily and affordably was Santuario Huistin Ayahuasca Retreat in the Peruvian Amazon near a town named Pucallpa.
A shamanic retreat is an Ayahuasca (or psilocybin or other psychedelic) which is led by an experienced shaman(a). A shaman(a) is a man or woman who is experienced with various plant and herbal medicines and is a traditional figure (likened to a doctor in western parlance) in many indigenous societies around the world. Some of the plants and herbs shaman(a) use are psychedelic in nature like Ayahuasca or psilocybin and are used for various psychological, spiritual and physical ailments. In the west Ayahuasca and psilocybin are commonly associated with psychological trauma release and healing for examp;e, PTSD, depression and anxiety. It’s possible to cure these with these substances when done with an experienced and well meaning shaman(a). Check out our guide on finding the best Ayahuasca Retreats near you.
Ayahuasca Tea itself is illegal in the USA generally speaking although you will find some retreats who offer it as a ‘sacrament’ which is allowed under US Law in some religious ceremonies under some circumstances.
As such if you want to source Ayahuasca Tea itself outside of a legal ceremony you would need to break the law in order to do so. I don’t recommended this.
As an alternative to buying an illegal substance you could brew your own Ayahuasca by sourcing the (legal) constituent plants (Ayahuasca Vine and Chacruna Leaves) and brew it yourself.
Yes it does. The DMT within the brewed Ayahuasca Tea that you drink an Ayahuasca Ceremony contains the Ayahuasca Vine itself and (usually) the leaves of the Chacruna Plant. The Ayahuasca Vine does not contain DMT but does contain an MAOI (Monoamine oxidase inhibitor) which allows the DMT in the Chacruna leaves to pass through the blood brain barrier where normally (without the MAOI) it would not be able to ‘be allowed through’ so to speak.
Ayahuasca tastes bitter, very strong and salty and I would say yeasty. It can vary from Shaman to Shaman who brew it. It also can be very thick making it hard to swallow. If it were in a chefs kitchen it would be called a ‘reduction”. As the brew is made with at least two plants and boiled in water for hours and hours reducing further and further and becoming thicker and thicker. But hey, things that are good for you aren’t supposed to taste good!!
I would say the answer is no. While Ayahuasca also contains DMT, ‘doing DMT’ usually refers to smoking Synthetic DMT. This form of DMT appears to be a lot stronger and of a shorter duration that Ayahuasca.
While I haven’t smoked Synthetic DMT the book Inner Paths to Outer Space by R. Strassman et al. documents DMT Trip Experiences and all of these sound a lot stronger than my experiences with Ayahuasca.
For example, a description of a DMT experience,
“Lucas approached a landing bay on a space station, accompanied by humanoid automatons. Chris met three reptilian creatures who opened up their bodies, showing him the nature of their reproductive processes. Jeremiah landed in a nursery where alien caretakers looked after him, but only in a most casual manner. He then experienced a session in which his brain was reprogrammed by a “master technician” sitting at a computer console. Dmitri found himself tested, probed, and examined by “aliens” in a high technology laboratory, and made a deeply sensual connection with one in particular, “who seemed in charge.” Ben also found himself on an examination table; however, the beings appeared to him as Saguaro cactus creatures, one of whom implanted a probe under his skin. When Ben came to, he was convinced that this implant was a tracking device and had no doubt about its real, but intangible, presence.“
Quote from Part 4, Contact through the Veil. Inner Paths to Outer Space, 2008, R. Strassman et. al.
compared to a description from one of my Ayahuasca experiences in 2018,
“…I energetically (perhaps is the right phrase?) went over to have a look at Jim… I was hovering above him looking down upon him and I could see and understand that Jim was not alone. Attached to his head and next to it was a large ‘black thing’. On seeing this, I understood that Jim was separate from the black thing which was the cause of all the screaming and pain he was going through. It was the cause.“
I energetically went back to my bed and started to get angry. I wanted to stand up to the Black Demon as I will call him. I challenged him, I wanted to fight him. I didn’t do this physically but these were my thoughts. In doing so the Demon came over to me. I could see his face in front of me. He was up for the challenge. His face was not full of a lot of detail but he was various shades of charcoal pixels that made up a simple face like pattern. He actually reminded me of the Tranformer logo – it was that level of detail.
“I energetically went back to my bed and started to get angry. I wanted to stand up to the Black Demon as I will call him. I challenged him, I wanted to fight him. I didn’t do this physically but these were my thoughts. In doing so the Demon came over to me. I could see his face in front of me. He was up for the challenge. His face was not full of a lot of detail but he was various shades of charcoal pixels that made up a simple face like pattern. He actually reminded me of the Tranformer logo – it was that level of detail.“
Quote from ayahuascaeasy.com – my second Ayahuasca Trip in August 2018.
If you or someone you know has had a psychotic break the treatment for this is complicated. Here is what I have gathered is appropriate to treat this kind of thing from my experience of talking with people in the Ayahuasca Community on Reddit and my experience from some people in my family having had clinical depression and taking SSR anti-depressant medications.
** I am not a trained mental health professional so you should contact one and specifically one with experience with psychedelic therapy. **
Contact a mental health professional who has experience with psychedelic integration. If you go to a ‘run of the mill’ mental health professional they will consider this kind of break as only treatable with modern western medical pharmaceuticals and while those things have their place you are better off steering clear of them and undertaking grounding practices. In my experience they end up helping initially but medium to long term act as a crutch to a full recovery as you can become dependent on them instead of teaching yourself to come back under your own power. Of course you should be talking to a trained psychedelic therapy professional about these aspects and not simply taking this information only.
Grounding practices can bring you back to an ‘awake problem solving state’ characterized by a normal person behavior in the waking hours as they go about daily tasks like work, relationships, hobbies etc. Everything that makes a healthy lifestyle.
This is the brain state most of use are easily able to access in our waking life where we are productive and motivated. In my admittedly limited experience with this people who have had a psychotic break of this kind have dissolved their ego to the point where it’s difficult to access this state as easily and as such need to undergo grounding practices for perhaps sometime (I wouldn’t be surprised it it was a year) before they can access this state again easily and continue ‘daily life’.