Flying with friends

Ayahuasca entities

Substances: 1,4-butanediol, Ayahuasca, Peganum harmala, Mimosa hostilis, Psychotria viridis

Anyway, Friday night, R and K met over at my apartment, after having decided earlier that evening (quite spontaneously) that tonight was appropriate for an ayahuasca session. Neither R nor I had done ayahuasca since our May 2 hell-ride. K had never done it before, though she'd taken other psychedelics. I was nervous, so I took a small dose (2ml) of 1,4-butanediol at around 11:15 to relax.

At 11:45, we took our harmala. K and I had some extract I had prepared, while R had to eat crushed seeds (which he gelcapped). I said to them, "God, I can't believe I'm doing ayahuasca again!" and R said "I hear you." R and K each had 3 and a half capsules of R's brew, while I decided to have only one capsule of my own brew. I figured that my 17 gelcaps represented 4 doses, so I wanted to take the 17th and have 4 doses of 4 gelcaps left - my intention was just to test drive it. This turned out to be a wise decision! Anyway, at midnight, we ate our Mimosa capsules.

Around 12:45, irony paid me a visit. I was the first one to feel the effects, and I soon realized that one gelcap was in fact a full dose! By around 1:15, I was feeling strong body and mental effects, and realized I was in for a ride. K and R both still felt nothing more than a mild buzz. We laughed about the fact that I was supposed to be the one who wasn't going to really trip, and here I was the only one feeling it. I curled up on the bed next to K and just kept saying "Oh my God...I'm so tripping...Oh my God...just wait, you guys will see..."

A little after 1:30, R got up to puke. K puked a little after that. Soon, they were on their way to join me. We all arrived in hyperspace around 1:45 or so. I started to feel nauseous, but then I felt some sort of "entity" tell me to visualize the capsules in my stomach, and to visualize them absorbing into my stomach until nothing was left. I did, and the nausea went away. I never threw up. R, on the other hand, threw up about 5 times throughout the night, and swore he'd never eat harmala seeds again.

The visual effects were astounding. They started as little spirally fractal thingies off in the corners of my field of vision, and then built in intensity until it seemed as if my whole room was full of thick rivers of white smoke-like stuff. This stuff was so thick I could barely see my room. At this point, we turned on a blacklight and turned off the regular light. This dampened the visuals alot, though it left me with a feeling that I was having intense visuals and it was just too dark to see them (do hallucinations reflect light??). Closed eye visuals were intense, and we spent most of the night with our eyes closed, not talking. We had a Ravi Shankar album on loop (mainly because nobody was capable of changing the tape), and it was very interesting to say the least. I totally understand Indian music now...and its timeless, circular, meditative quality definately fit well with the ayahuasca mindset.

As with any ayahuasca trip report, I find it hard to give a chronological event-line. For most of the peak experience, K and I were curled up on my bed, R was sitting in a big brown chair next to the bed. We talked very little, though there was a definate sense of telepathic contact. Time was very stretched, to the point that for some time I was hearing music and voices at half speed and with lowered pitch. I was having very strong experiences of "entity" contact, and the "entity" guided me through the trip. This trip was every bit as intense as the May 2 hell-ride, but it felt familiar, and there was no freaking-out aspect to it, no fear of death or post-death experiences. The "entity" presented me with the image of a leaf floating on a river, and I knew that it was showing me how to flow with the experience. I had the distinct impression that the May 2 experience was the "entity" showing me her power, and this time, she was showing me how to flow with that power.

The group dynamics of having 3 people in hyperspace together was definately good. I'd never done it with more than one other person. I'd also never done it with a girl, and that added a noticably different energy to the experience. There was a definate nurturing femenine element to the group consciousness, which added a nice dimension to the experience. It was also nice having someone there to cuddle with when I hit a rough spot, or just when it felt like a good thing to do. Which led to some interesting experiences. I found that whenever I touched her, our bodies would melt. At one point I was even able to see this - my hand was resting on K's waist, and I watched hand and waist liquify and morph into this weird hand/waist thing, and that I could then feel sensations through her body. Later on in the night, R got on the bed as well, with K in between us. I found that if R and I both touched K, but not each other, I could feel sensations in his body through her, as if we formed a circuit of sorts.

Around 4:30, the effects began to drop off, and by 5 we were almost back to baseline. Shortly after 5, they decided they were able to drive and wanted to go sleep, so they left. I still needed to unwind before sleep, so I did some 1,4-butanediol and got on the internet for a while. The butanediol brought back some mild psychedelic effects, then faded in to the more typical sleepy butanediol high, and I went to sleep by 6:30.

The next day, I spoke with K and got some details of her experience. She also had "entity" contact. Interesting thing here, don't know what it means. R and I have both always encountered the Mimosa "entity" as being a female presence. R and I are both male, R is gay and I am heterosexual. K, who is female, encountered the Mimosa "entity" as being male, however. I wonder what, if anything, this has to say about Anima/Animus and other archetypes and their relationship with gender, sex, and sexual orientation? Anyway, she asked this "entity" if it was God, and it laughed. She asked it if it was the devil, and it laughed - and she realized that good and evil are just two sides of one coin, and neither exist without the other. She asked it "is this where we go when we die?" and it said yes. She said he told her she could ask him anything, and she asked him some questions but she cant remember the questions or the answers, but she remembers asking at least one really profound question and the entity answered "You can ask me anything, and you asked THAT?!" The next day, B, who's considering trying ayahuasca, asked K if its worth doing. K replied "If you want to get a third eye, then you should do it."

This trip completely undid the trauma left over from my hellacious experience the last time I did ayahuasca. I realized that my bad experience last time was because I was trying to cling to things in the maelstrom, and that I just needed to let go and flow. I feel like I made my peace with ayahuasca, and we can be friends again. I feel as if I worked out quite a few things on this trip, though of course its only been 3 days, and it usually takes weeks to fully appreciate an ayahuasca trip's lessons - so I'm sure there is more to come. I woke up the next afternoon to a beautiful day, and felt rejuvenated. Definately glad I had this experience!