Photo Illustration by Thomas Levinson/The Daily Beast/Getty Images Editor’s note: Rob Long is not a medical professional or licensed provider of psychedelics. He may, in fact, be high while writing this column . Nothing herein constitutes pharmaceutical advice or guidance, and should not be used to inform diagnoses or treatment.
When people ask me about taking ayahuasca, they really only want to know one thing: Did it make me throw up? So let’s get that detail out of the way first: Yes it did.
On the other hand, it didn’t make me s–t my pants, which is another distinct possibility.
Now, if that hasn’t permanently dissuaded you from the incredible and transformational experience ayahuasca can offer, here’s some more background.
Ayahuasca is a psychoactive brew long used for spiritual and medicinal purposes by indigenous peoples in the Amazon Basin. It typically contains Banisteriopsis caapi (a vine) and Psychotria viridis (a plant rich in dimethyltryptamine, a powerful hallucinogen). Taking ayahuasca is often intense; ayahuasca has a life and a mind of its own, so you have to be ready to let whatever needs to happen, well, happen. Leaves of the ayahuasca plant are prepared and cut for the brewing of tea. To be clear, you’re never really out of control during an ayahuasca ceremony. Or at least, you’re not supposed to be. It’s a powerful and intense experience, of course, but if done in a way that’s respectful of the traditions and ceremonial framework of its original practitioners, you’ll feel secure and ready for whatever the plant wants to bring to you.
Put it this way: if you participate in an ayahuasca ceremony you will probably throw up, but you probably won’t throw up on yourself. (The same ideally goes for the other stuff too.) And if you choose the right place and people to do it with, you’ll have supportive facilitators and a bucket somewhere nearby. Trust that your body will tell you when you need to sit up to use it.
It’s a trip, not a vacation
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