Journey of Simon

At the start of the third night of the Trinity, I was actually amazed as to where I’d got to. Although you couldn’t really count the first two ceremonies as I took minimal doses and it was a process of rebalancing and clearing energies. The last time I had drank, on the first night of the Trinity, I had mustered the courage from somewhere to go into my darkness and I was still living, I’d survived it. Although my emotional body was up and down like a yo-yo, I wasn’t crazy, I was still living and fighting another day. I had actually managed to sleep and although still fearful, I was preparing to drink again. Interestingly, the morning after my last intense ceremony two or three people mentioned that thought my eyes had slightly changed colour. They felt they were greener and less dark than they were before that ceremony. It’s hard for me to tell but it was just interesting that it was picked up on by a few individuals in the group.

I was still trying to work out what my correct dosage was, two ceremonies ago I’d taken a medium cup and half a small cup and at points, it was just too intense. Too much energy passing through my body to the point I thought I was going to explode. On this occasion, I decided to drink just a full medium cup and see how I got on.

As the ceremony starts, a magnificent thunderstorm breaks out with fierce thunder and lightning. The lightning momentary illuminates the pitch black maloka, and all the silhouettes of all the healers in the centre appear as if a Hollywood film with dramatic strobe lighting effects. It’s quite amazing to behold, and I feel in awe of them.

The medicine is kicking in and something unexpected happens. I’m thinking about a girl I hooked up with in the past and I begin to feel really sexually aroused. My mind instantly goes back to obsess on the gay or straight debate but instead, I just allow myself to feel it and enjoy the sensation of having a natural sexual attraction to a woman with no shame attached.

Shortly after, unsurprisingly, my perspective and state of mind turns dark again… I start to see weird open eye visuals of a man, with long black arms and legs all hunched over sat in the maloka near me. Something reminiscent of A Nightmare before Christmas, but far more sinister. I then begin to witness horrible black creatures with tentacles all around my mat as if they are coming up from some horrible abyss. I throw my hands out to touch them and to see if I can feel the floor and to try and show some sense of bravery. Inside, I’m back to shaking with fear.

I feel myself being pulled down through my mat, deeper and deeper and the visions start to go from black to red. I am now fully immersed in Hell. Not the dark, black emotional hell of previous ceremonies but the actual archetypal biblical Hell. Everything that I was scared of seeing in an Ayahuasca ceremony is now right in front of me. There are demons and devils, some static, some moving about. I’ve tried to find a Google image to describe what it was like, and the closest was the Dante’s Inferno style image I’ve pictured to the left. It was as if there were multiple levels of Hell, and I was moving up and down like some kind of very real terrifying platform Playstation game. In each ceremony, I tell myself I am categorically never touching this medicine again.

I just remember it being very red and so visual. I feel the need to purge more fear so I grab my bucket and start to bring up that horrible metallically Ayahuascha taste as it leaves my system. As I purge, I start being pulled from the hell, rising higher and higher until I’m totally free and I find myself navigating a huge beautiful cruise ship, furnished with and gold, as if like some kind of representation of a heavenly boat. My emotional landscape changes and I begin to return to my normal state.

Was this a metaphor for my own emotional state of mind? That I can transcend my own hell into a heavenly place, out from the darkness, where I can enjoy living a happier life?

Three or four times in the ceremony, the medicine attempts to lift my consciousness from my body but I fight it. It feels as if this dosage puts in a halfway house. I’m able to fight with it, and avoid the experience. Each time I try to find the courage to let go, but I just can’t. There is too much fear.

As the ceremony comes to a close, I get one very clear message behind my eyelids, “Spiritual Dysfunction”. I thought my spiritual dysfunction came from being a Jehovah’s Witness, and in my last ceremony I was told I need to rejoin!

I fall asleep in the maloka and have a pretty vivid Ayahuasca dream. I’m back in the UK, after the retreat and working for another corporate company. I’ve only just started but I’m being fired. When I ask why, I’m shown their corporate website. The website has a javascript that auto updates the employees’ position based on their Linkedin profile. My boss looks angry. She shows me another script that has some kind of algorithm especially for my Linkedin Profile where they have to keep resetting my title back to what it was originally was because I’d been changing it so much. Historically, I’ve been guilty of being more concerned with the job title, status for my career progression than the actual job details or the cause. Too concerned with making it to CEO status to try and fill that empty void inside that I filled through work achievements in an effort to get acceptance and self-love.

Interesting lesson.

The Trinity was over and although I was relieved, I was feeling a bit dejected due to the fact we now had only two ceremonies left in this retreat and I felt nowhere near a good state of mind. I just spent my days in my hammock, obsessively overanalysing each message I had received during ceremony. Remaining fearful of returning to be a Jehovah’s Witness. Being asked to give up everything that I saw as safe, women, sex and my addictions. Rather than taking a moment to congratulate myself on how far I’d come, I was still self-hating, thinking I was pathetic and not a ‘real man’.

I chatted with Tanya Mate again. I relayed my experiences and how confused and depressed I was about my previous ceremonies and what was coming up. She told me that she is always incredibly sceptical when people say to her “Ayahuasca told me…” due to her belief that the medicine very rarely gives direct messages. She asked me to describe the emotions that arose as these ‘messages’ were coming up. I said that the thought of rejoining makes me so fearful, the separation from other non-JW people, the rejection and feeling ‘different’ from everyone else.

Tanya: “Simon, what have your intentions been over the ceremonies?”

Me: Well the first two were just praying for healing. The last one was to try and rid this fear and toxic shame, and it would be nice to be able to love

Tanya: “Who would you be, if you had all of those things come true? What would you be if you healed your fear and shame and were able to love?”

Me: Well, I’d be free

Tanya (with a big smile on her face): “I think you’ve found your intention for the next ceremony”

We had an evening off and something strange started to happen, I started to feel an overwhelming sense of love for my recent ex-girlfriend. It was bizarre, something I’d never felt before. I felt so much love for her and her family, I missed them so much and I was filled with gratitude. For once, it didn’t come from a place of neediness or sexual addiction. It felt genuine. It was even slightly uncomfortable for me to sit with as a feeling, as I hadn’t felt it before. One thing became incredibly clear to me was just exactly how consumed I was by my own guilt, shame and fear. They were all intertwined and they flared up in every moment of my life, sabotaging any real joy I could have with any partner.

We had a night off before the final two ceremonies and I slept in my tambo with another person at the retreat, as I was still struggling to sleep alone. I expected an Ayahuasca dream, the medicine was still vibrating in my stomach and, it delivered.

My memory is hazy, but from what I can recall, I was in some modern utopia with buildings and architecture of a similar style of films like The Fifth Element, I, Robot and Blade Runner. My ex-girlfriend is sat up in some kind of viewing box where she is watching a fighting sport that I’m participating in down below. She doesn’t really appear to be paying attention to me. She is really far up there in the viewing box. In the dream, I’m losing confidence, feeling emasculated and feeling a lack of power.

Suddenly, a huge mech-suit falls from the sky (reminiscent of that of Titanfall, if you’ve seen the game) and I climb up and get in. I begin to win the fight with the other competitors, jumping around, wall running and showing off as if I’m some confident warrior with new found power. Now she is constantly watching me and smiling in awe of my new found confidence that I have. End of dream.

I have no real idea of what it meant, or if there was any lesson from it but it was incredibly vivid. I can generally tell the difference between an Ayahuasca dream and a normal one from the emotions that I feel. Ayahuasca dreams, to me, are like a watered down psychedelic trip. Less of the vibrations and physical discomfort but the emotional spectrum is much higher and more intense than a normal dream.

I knew I had only two ceremonies left, the final ceremony being the Arkana which would be mild with a lesser dose. So I knew this next ceremony, I needed to go big and attempt to get as much healing as possible.

And so, as much as possible, I attempted to prepare myself to go in for my biggest night yet.