Ayahuasca with a electronic shaman

My first Ayahuasca experience was maybe just over 10 years ago. I was naive and unsure of myself and had a lot to learn since then. I wrote down the experience in a chapter of an unfinished story that I wrote about that time in my life which I have only shared with a few poor souls who have taken the time to read it with my almost forceful (is it good) questioning. It tells the story better than I can write it up from memory and so I hope that sharing it will bring light to others a little of who I am and what Ayahuasca can do for a first timer.______She looked at me with eyes of fire, snakes wrapping into her hair, roots of trees and vines growing to form her lips. I was not much more than a simple fly to her. The vast size of her figure was larger than life; she resided in what seemed to be another layer of space and time. I was utterly in awe of the mass of her figure and powerful beauty that encompassed her. I pleaded obsessively for her compassion, which went unnoticed. I open my eyes, I was back and all was somehow normal. Do I dare close my eyes again? The fear, the adrenaline was flowing through my veins. I have nothing to lose. I close my eyes and as reality broke. I fell into the abyss.SUREYou sure you want to this? Vine asked me. Yeah I am sure, I replied. Vine had been reading about it for so long that it practically had become some kind of mythical experience causing him to wonder if the elusive substance even existed. It evaded him in his reading, and straddled on the edge of reality and fiction. It was no longer fiction, tonight was the night.I looked at Vine very seriously and scared, Are you SURE you want to do this?" Vine asked me. "Yeah, I think so.Vine had flown in last night. I didn't want to take it alone and Vine didn't either, so we had to meet up someplace. We had read every ounce of information we could find on the subject, and taken all the precautions we could. We had been dieting all day to make sure the Monoamine Oxidase Inhibitor (MAOI) which was required in our potion, didn't counteract with anything we would eat. If we did by some chance, we were told that it would result in our heart rates to accelerate to the point of death we were hungry, but also ready to travel to this new and exciting realm.The goop over the electronic fireplace bubbled like something out of a Hansel and Gretel fairy tale. We took turns stirring the mixture so the heavy sediment wouldn't burn. It had been cooking for a number of hours and was almost ready.We filtered the liquid over and over until it resembled a fine wine. We filled two glasses. One filled with the MAOI, yellow with bits of seeds left over from grinding them, and another glass filled with a purple and blood red substance. Both cups were about halfway full, much more than could fit in one swallow, more than enough to get us where we wanted.We stood up from the bar stools we had been sitting ok, feeling the dread and the sinking of our hearts, much like looking over the edge before jumping off a cliff. We were excited and needed to have our legs firm on the ground, ready for the sprint. We took the wine glasses we had filled with the MAOI, and shifted it in our mouths and swallowing.The taste was horrible. I can only describe it as absolutely unpleasant, nasty urine-like flavor, which no matter amount mind over matter will cover the taste. Time will never allow me to forget that taste. It was the definition of horrible.After cringing and utter distaste in our reaction and we sat discussed our taste buds reactions to each other. Our descriptions were much the same. Surely now we knew that this must have been some kind of awful joke that convinced inexperienced uneducated individuals to be traumatized by tastes of hell. No way could someone do this to themselves on purpose. It was inhumane. We waited the times recommended to us through our research and we were ready for our next glass. I dreaded that idea.What came next can only be described as a repeat what my thoughts were of the first glass, and take that bile taste and multiply it by ten. It was death. The gritty bitter taste of this substance was the same taste that one would get from red wine, but horribly amplified to the point it was if you were drinking bark. I never wanted to repeat this again, I didn't care how amazing the experience could be. Regardless, the substance flowed through my vines; it was in me now headed to my brain, and now was just a matter of time.My stomach hurt and I was hungry, or maybe just wanted something to clear the horrible taste. Vine and I sat on the ground, dim light surrounded us, it was night and we were home alone. It started to get cold. My skin sweaty, I didn't feel well. I was still sick. Since Vine had flown in from his flight and I had somehow formed a cold in the form of congestion and a possible allergic reaction from the summers growing plants. I could hardly breathe at the point Vine's plane landed in the terminal. How was your flight? I asked him, with a cough and choke. We talked in nervousness about the next day's event and how we were both starving as we had been not eating in fears of the future interaction of the MAOI in our system which could lead to a case of serotonin syndrome.We started to drive to my place and even though we were just a few hours before blast off, our stomachs pleaded for us to feed them as we saw the local diner pass by. Me being sick and starving, the tires of the car squelched and we stopped to order a load of pancakes and omelets. We would fast later.We arrived at my place in the dead of night. The food didn't help with my sickness at all. I laid down in hopes to reduce the pain in my head. Vine watched a movie as I passed out into exhaustion.I awoke a few hours later to light glaring in my eye from the window. I felt pretty exhausted and my cold had gotten worse. What even made matters worse was the fact that we had to fast again for the next twelve hours."It's cold man, I said to Vine. "Yeah it's getting cold. I think I feel something. Yeah me too. Do you feel something? Yeah I think, I'm not sure.We had read about the effects and the changes in temperature that occurs when altered stated of consciousness occur. I had felt these effects before, when I was sick in bed, poisoned from bad food, or the flue. Was this poison I wondered?Don't think of bad thoughts. I closed my eyes as Vine lay on the ground next to me. I felt sick, starting to get nauseous. We had a trashcan laid out next to us for the time when la purge came. Hold it in, it needs time to absorb, I thought. Forty minutes had gone by now. La Purge, getting itself ready for my ultimate finally, the ultimate exhaustion of all matter out of every bodily orifice.A had felt a slight tingle in the top of my head more near the front area between my eyes. As it grew more intense I could close my eyes and see what seemed to be a light in the distance glowing brighter as time passed. I wondered if the light was from inside the room where Vine and I lay. I opened my eyes and the light was gone, it was dark. I closed my eyes and the light started to appear again. Something strange, almost alien started to make me feel anxious; I wondered if I had made a horrible choice.Vine and I had met in college a number of years back. I was strait out of high school and came from a religious family. For that reason I didn't use any substances including alcohol. Vine lived a few doors down from me in the local dorms and we often hung out to play video games and to talk about the drama that occurred around us. Vine also came from a religious family and he also didn't use any substances. He had recently become an atheist so his primary reasons for not drinking or smoking was for creative reasons for his music. He wanted it pure.Vine loved his music. Vine would play his guitar for his fellow residents in the college dorms. His self-composed lyrics were of corruption in the government, his love for change, and his passion towards people. He understood that most of his audience didn't understand what he was trying to communicate, but he didn't care. Vine was always a generally happy person; his long blond hair splashed his face when he walked. To me he was old for his age, as though his spirit was matured. I respected Vine and I listened to him. I would tell him my problems and we would discuss life and love. Over time I began to let myself be pulled into the college life. I drink my first gulps of alcohol and even got a Minor in Possession which ended up getting my roommate kicked out of the dorms as his father was the chairman for education in the state we lived in. I joined up with the River Crew which was named because there obvious use of marijuana down by the nearby river that ran through our city. Life had changed for me and I was tumbling around in no general direction desperately trying to find acceptance. I got to get out of here, was my only clear thought. I wanted to see the world, I had an adventurous heart, and I didn't seem my life going anywhere. I was involved with girls and the social drama that college dorm life brings. I just couldn't take it anymore. "Vine why don't you believe in God?" I asked him. I just don't. I have a lot of reasons." I had it in my head to teach Vine about God. I wanted him to know the truth that I knew as a fact. I was determined. Vine and I walked around the college campus in the middle of the night. I had been troubled by a recent choice to leave school and join the military. I had to get away from things, get some order, travel a little, and prove myself. With my strong religious views, I thought surely this was what God wanted me to do. My family didn't see me grow as a person, I had no profession. "But you should believe, you just have God in you, I can see it." Vine smiled as he looked at me. "Well thanks man, your awesome." Vine didn't judge me for my beliefs that he no longer held, and he could see that I didn't judge him for his, I just didn't understand them. I was sure I understood my own beliefs, and I would often judge those around me, seeing sin or God in them. I would see these things in others but not in myself. My eyes closed again and soon I was transported, as a dream appears when I had extremely tiresome day and fall asleep hard and fast. The substance kicked in hard now. Hypnologic images of faces appeared, and then a shadow, the outline of a man appeared. Brighter the image of him became, and clearer I could see who he was. He was an older, Hispanic, and seemed to be in the late forty's. He spoke in poor English tones, "Mr. I show you those things you asked about," he explained in his Spanish accent.I was told from the numerous books that I had read about on the subject of entheogens, that when you go into the realm of the spirits you bring a question for them, something that they can guide you on. I wasn't sure about the whole spirit idea but I figured it was worth a try. The last few years of my life had been filled full of regrets, depression and hatred that I shared with myself and others. I had a lot to ask the spirits if they existed and one of those questions was in the hopes to find some answer to why, I, like many others in our society, treated others so badly. My failures in relationships was a pure example of this; I wanted to know how to change and once again and love people, and myself.As the man of my dreams dissolved into the past, I had lost all sense of reality, a darkness passed and things became clearer now in this new world. I flew into the past, wings spread wide as I landed. As a bird on a fence I saw a small boy playing with toys and a cooking summer grill stood near him. I recognized this, something from my past. I saw me as a young boy playing in the back yard as adults talked about sports over cold beers. I decided to run around near some old wood left there from last winter. I hit the wood with my foot, kicking it to let out childhood frustration and wasps that grew angry because of the disturbance to their new home nestled in the wood came flying around in full defense, stinging me with their powerful venom. I saw myself scream with pain and run from them, crying for something or someone, to remove this unknown new hurtful force inside me. In my new bird form I flew closer to the young me; I could see the skin on my arm swell with the pain.Sickness overflowed from me, the pain overwhelming! I was no longer the bird but the skin of my arm inflamed and stretched to its extremes. I was dying, being violated by the poison. I opened my eyes. It was too much!I rolled over from the uncomfortable feeling of the experience. I was back in my house, hearing the recording of drums in the in the background, something we believed would help with the experience. Vine was next to me. "You okay?" Vine asked. I breathed out a sigh of exhaustion. "I'm okay, just Uhh saw some stuff." I was okay, I repeated to myself to make myself believe it. Vine was quite and he too knew unconsciously what I meant by seeing some stuff, as I could tell he was having his own experience. I closed my eyes and heard as the drum beats became longer, longer, distorting into a hum of alternating frequencies. They were no longer drums, but electrical waves, particles of energy produced by the electric device which had birthed them.The experience fully in its peak, I found myself In front of my dad. I was just as naked as a person could be with cloths on. He was screaming at me. You are stupid, your fucking mom is a bitch, I'll kill her! I looked at him with my eyed filled with the salted seas, tears flowing down my face. "You are not my son!" I didn't know what I had done wrong. My lips trembled as my voice was hoarse with pain. "What did I do wrong?" the words shuddered from my throat. "Get out." I got out of my dad's van and stepped onto the dirt road that traveled to my mother's house. My dad started up the van and drove off. Dust flew off his ties and covered me in the fine layer of stones. I stood there in shock, oblivious of what just took place. A card was in my hand, for my birthday, my sixteenth year of being on this earth, my gift from my father.I hadn't seen my father for years. We hadn't talked because of more reasons than what happened when I was sixteen. My father had a lot of issues and after the constant mood swings and bipolar to the extreme. He hated my mom for leaving him when she divorced him, and hated me because I reminded him of her. I had taken joining the military as an excuse to separate ties. He was so bitter after my mother divorced him, and like any good parent, never spoke about the actual reasons or faults that may have lead to the separation. He instead focused loneliness and pain into almost every conversation we had, directing it all towards me.Stuttering, the thought of it came to me as the poisonous plant matter continued to flow through my brain. I used to stutter, that's right. Now when I talk to people of higher authority I no longer stutter but I lock up, breath heavy and have a mild anxiety attack. The constant uneasiness of my dad, his change from pure happiness, loving kindness to pure hatred, didn't exactly help with my ease of talking to others or the love of others. I didn't trust anyone, I didn't trust myself. I had used to stutter and show my distrust of words and people with honestly, now I hide is as best I can in fear of showing weakness. Now I'm left with the fear of failure. The fear of becoming who my dad was.Soon I was falling into the depths of history, farther back this time. I was a child in my mother's womb. It was warm, I felt secure. Nothing was going to hurt me, not my father, not the bees from my vision. I had nothing to worry about. It lasted for what seemed an eternity. I felt like I was on a tender ocean wave, washing backwards and forwards. In the darkness of the womb a woman showed herself. She, like the man, was Hispanic. She hugged a cauldron that sat between her chubby legs that extruded from her overweight body. She looked at me with large eyes and a glow of knowledge. She was dirty from hard work and the unclean living arrangement of being in a wood hut with a dirt floor. She was poorly lit from the wood hut, and the glow of the light just barely lit up her face. She had a large spoon in the cauldron that she slowly mixed the liquid inside as it cooked. As she turned the spoon around in the cauldron, my stomach clenched and I felt sick. Sensing my uneasiness, she turned the spoon in the caldron even faster.A feeling of losing control came over me. Vibrating, scary, new. I tried to resist but it became stronger. I resisted it more. Sweat poured out of me and I shook like I was freezing. The Turning Lady, which I now called her, continued to turn her cauldron, moving that wooden spoon faster and faster now. I shook with a torrential force, at which point I felt as though I had no choice. I either had to give in to the Turning Ladies will, or die.My body forced out all I had in me. The red liquid poured into the trashcan. The drums continued to play in the background, the sounds of the tribe from Africa. I grasped the edges of the trashcan and put all my body into it, exhausting all I could muster to get this waste out of me. As I did, a sweet taste came out of my mouth. It wasn't the same horrible bark that I had in me all this time. It had transformed. I clenched the trashcan again. A face appeared as I hurled the red bits of the liquid we had consumed not long ago. A woman, she was beautiful. A sleek fit face, black leather like cloak around her neck and yellow eyes. Her cheek bones well defined and fit, she had pail bluish skin that glistened like jewels. She looked at me for the moment as I explored her realm. I was free floating like an astronaut breaking away from the Earth's gravity, suddenly feeling weightlessness. As soon as she and her realm appeared, they were again gone. I was back in the wood hut, years had passed in my mind, but everything was how it had been before however the Turning Lady was no longer around. Everything was going to be okay wasn't it? I thought. The Mexican man now stood before me and turned to look into my eyes. In his Hispanic accent he told me, Mr, you okay. At this point I knew I was going to be okay.I had learned a small piece of why I act the way I do. I wasn't sure if the man meant that he understands I mean well, or that now I'll be okay to live a more complete life. It didn't matter; I was exhausted and ready to have this over-with. My cold hadn't subsided and mucus flowed out of me like a river. I could taste the slight after flavor of the sweet throw up on my lips. I didn't care anymore, I was defeated, broken and anew.Light shone through the window, bright enough that the plastic blinds that swayed can no longer protect me from its rays. I felt it's warmth on my cheek. I didn't die; I made it to the other side. I opened my eyes and just lay there. Vine was next to me. I woke him up, it was time to eat.Food tasted amazing! In all actuality, everything was amazing. The slight overtones of the previous night still could be felt on some level. The glistening of the sidewalk with tiny stones that refracted the light every which way created in my mind's eye what seemed to be the stars of the universe. The diner surrounded by concrete were we had eaten breakfast not but twenty four house before, had been transformed into a five star restaurant.Vine and I discussed out experience and what we had taken from it. We had read so many books about the subject of psychedelics, but no book could describe the trial and amazement that occurred. It felt like a roto-rooter had gone through every neuron in my brain and removed all the buildup of negative thought processes over the years. Something spiritual was growing in me that no Sunday church session could contest. I wasn't sure what it was, but it was both terrifying and exciting.