Ayahuasca ~ a rather unexpected journey into (yet another) parallel life

I feel one can even make the case that Ayahuasca/DMT exploration conforms less to the experiencer's pre-existing beliefs. The one case I can think of where someone meets a spiritual being they'd never heard of - the goddess Tara - was a psychedelic trip.

It has always seemed odd that the reported ayahuasca experience is so very different from intravenous DMT. I know the ayahuasca experience lasts much longer because the DMT arrives more slowly via the oral route once the enzyme that destroys DMT has been deactivated by the other component of ayahuasca, but supposedly it is DMT that causes the trip in both cases.

I wonder if, in truth, the Banisteriopsis caapi vine that deactivates DMT in the stomach contributes something else to the trip. After all, the recipe for ayahuasca was supposedly supplied by rainforest gods.

Remember that randomly experimenting with unknown plants in the rain forest must have been a very dangerous activity!

Have people experimented with an ayahuasca brew with a synthetic drug to replace the Banisteriopsis caapi vine?

David

It has always seemed odd that the reported ayahuasca experience is so very different from intravenous DMT. I know the ayahuasca experience lasts much longer because the DMT arrives more slowly via the oral route once the enzyme that destroys DMT has been deactivated by the other component of ayahuasca, but supposedly it is DMT that causes the trip in both cases.

That was what was originally believed by western spirituality and science. Maybe it is still believed in some of the more ignorant circles.

I wonder if, in truth, the Banisteriopsis caapi vine that deactivates DMT in the stomach contributes something else to the trip.

Caapi vine is the main component in the brew ~ it is what provides the spiritual power in the medicine ~ another term for the brew in the Amazon.

It is the harmalines in the brew that act as monoamine oxidase inhibitors, allowing DMT to not be broken down for the duration. They specifically inhibit MAO-B, so they are selective.

In Amazonian shamanism, the shamans will drink the brew with Caapi vine-only. They will also mix in a number of other plants, depending on what the spirits have guided them to take, based on the knowledge that they might need to acquire or learn, maybe even plant teachers they are to learn from.

After all, the recipe for ayahuasca was supposedly supplied by rainforest gods.

Remember that randomly experimenting with unknown plants in the rain forest must have been a very dangerous activity!

Indeed, the shamans themselves say that it was the spirits that taught them how to make it. However, Materialist science dismisses what it doesn't understand, and instead believes that it is "rational" that they must have experimented with thousands of plants in a Russian roulette of trial and error.

Have people experimented with an ayahuasca brew with a synthetic drug to replace the Banisteriopsis caapi vine?

I cannot source Caapi vine any longer in my country due to it having been made illegal.

Syrian Rue makes an excellent substitute, but lacks the connection with the spirit of the Caapi vine, traditionally referred to as Mother Ayahuasca.

However, I've had Mother Ayahuasca pop up in my journeys involving Syrian Rue because of first having established a connection on Caapi vine proper.

I also encountered early on what might have been the spirit of Syrian Rue, who informed me gently that Mother Ayahuasca is who I was meant for. I never saw that spirit ever again. Interestingly, it was during a Syrian Rue only trip, without any DMT.

I cannot source Caapi vine any longer in my country due to it having been made illegal

What do you mean by "cannot source" - do you mean GOOGLE blocks it out of your searches?

Thanks for your excellent reply above.

David

Concerning veridicality, I just meant that the experience described by Valmar certainly didn't have an OOBE associated with it that could be investigated for verification, and that if that experience was similar in most ways to other such psychedelic "trips", psychedelic "trips" in general could be pronounced mostly unverifiable. So therefore they would not have the claim from any sort of semi-scientific standpoint (that NDEs have) to being visions or glimpses into a greater afterdeath or parallel reality.

The skeptical hypothesis (that I can't fully ascribe to) would be that much or most of the psychedelically-obtained experience material could have roots in some sort of subconscious confabulation fuelled by psychologically deep unconsciously buried needs. The full capabilities of the subconscious or unconscious mind are not well mapped out, and it seems to me might be quite amazing in terms of fabricating and dramatizing various "stories' with deep psychological importance to the individual.

It's well-known how easily subconscious confabulation fuelled by conscious/unconscious desires and therapist suggestions enter into the supposed "past lives" elicited under hypnotic regression therapy. This can be quite a prolific source of "stories". I still think that there might be a connection between this last-mentioned phenomenon and psychedelic experiences.

On further thought I have to change my mind - there is actually a crucial difference here. There seems to be little or no connection between psychedelic drug-induced experiences such as Valmar's, and subconscious confabulations. This is because subconscious confabulations can produce what seem to be real memories of previous life experiences that happened in the past, but not the realer-than-real apparent experiences happening now that come about under psychedelic drugs like Ayahuasca.

On further thought I have to change my mind - there is actually a crucial difference here. There seems to be little or no connection between psychedelic drug-induced experiences such as Valmar's, and subconscious confabulations. This is because subconscious confabulations can produce what seem to be real memories of previous life experiences that happened in the past, but not the realer-than-real apparent experiences happening now that come about under psychedelic drugs like Ayahuasca.

Out of curiosity, are you certain? What do we know about the limits of actual, confirmed confabulations, outside of psychedelic experiences? How do we tell them apart from real memories, in... say, the sense of how NDE OBErs report their experiences? Astral projection OBEs are known to be a little wonky, where details in the astral can commonly be curiously very out of place when compared to a known physical state, as reported by Robert Monroe.

The one thing I cannot shake off as just confabulation is when part of those experiences take an almost disconcertingly active notice in you, and start communicating, their awareness looking straight at you. Even more startling is when those with seeming telepathic capabilities zero in on you when you appear through another they're in contact with. It was always a bit unnerving and shocking the first few times. Even more so when one just picks out my name somehow, and calls me out. I was not ready for that at all.

I frankly don't know if confabulations can happen like that can actually happen ~ nevermind rather deep in a psychedelic experience where high strangeness isn't uncommon oftentimes.

But, still, it is a little interesting to examine what exactly constitutes a confabulation, and what doesn't.

Because I like... testing things, I went into a trance state again, which seems to come easy/ier now, and found myself sensing though eagle-now-dragon-parallel-me. I wondered what his name was, as I hadn't gotten one, for some reason. Still nothing, oddly... well, once I was fully enmeshed in his senses, I noticed he was scanning the sky, while taking bites out of some kill, presumably, as I got a vague sense of meat. He'd gotten some disgusting portion of it, so he spat that out distastefully, before chewing on nicer portions and swallowing them. I was really just getting his psychological state more than anything of what he was sensing.

I decided to curiously call out a hello ~ he froze in shock, and looked around slowly, around and up at the sky, worried, wondering if he was hearing things. Maybe afraid of an ambush or enemies. He then went back for more of his kill. I decided to just do one last thing ~ tell him to stay well. He froze again, but I had already pulled myself away from the state before I could sense more.

I sort of know what I can do with this state now, at least... try and be helpful to these parallel lives of mine. If I am receiving these insights, I feel somewhat duty-bound to give in turn... what other purpose is there, perhaps? Maybe that is what it is to be a shaman? I have a sort of... "community" now, as it were.

Not that I can say I really understand the nature of the experiences, though. Maybe I'm still trying to make sense of it? Ah, whatever...

I don't know whether or not it is appropriate or not to ramble. Maybe I wonder if I am oversharing... maybe I'm... looking for validation? Ah, I don't know... it's novel, and new, and confusing, and exciting, and stuff. Maybe I just don't know how to process it otherwise, because this methodology of rambling is all I know...

Suggestions most welcome, aha.

Indeed... it is what I requested, so I got that and then some, I suppose.

Would you mind sharing some of your own journeys, perhaps in another thread? When you are ready, of course.


Indeed, that is interesting to consider. Perhaps the initial release made it possible. Maybe the memories from that parallel life were somehow affecting me in this one... though deeply unconscious, at that. I'm still not sure how it works, however. But, maybe there's no use obsessing over it, when I have so little information to work with, and even if I did have more, it still wouldn't be particularly relevant to this reality I exist in.

Still, wounds can run deep, perhaps, so healing can still be helpful overall, even if the wounds aren't obvious.

It is interesting how it happened in a seeming sequence of lifetimes, though maybe not one directly after the other. It didn't happen with the others, though perhaps that's because in those other parallel realities, there aren't troubling circumstances like this parallel one seems to have ~ a theme of war, death, suffering, betrayal.

I have no such parallels that I can think in my life, nor anything that calls from past lives of this reality to parallel them.

Reality can be certainly stranger than fiction, I suppose, aha... psychedelics can do that for you, I suppose ~ the truly unexpected, that is.

On this part in particular,

• "Would you mind sharing some of your own journeys, perhaps in another thread? When you are ready, of course."
  

It feels like I don't have much to share, mainly that's a matter of timing. Various things have taken place throughout my life and when they were fresh and recent I was full of detailed recall and fired with interest. As time goes on, I'm left with something else - a knowledge that things have happened, that they are real and that they are important. But the resulting accounts these days would tend to be a bit brief.

As I said before, my experiences were not a result of using any substances so in many ways differ from yours. But I felt I should comment because of the theme of other lives and healing.

In my case - a long time ago now - I had much healing that was needed, as a young person there was a great deal of tension and pain which was locked away but pushing its way to the surface. After trying for a number of years to simply suppress it all, eventually I realised that that approach wasn't working. So I did a 180 degree turn, instead of suppressing the pain I opened myself up to it, allowed then encouraged it to come forth.

The experience wasn't pretty and isn't something I even want to describe now, but it was a releasing followed by peace and relief. Repeated multiple times over days, weeks and years, though the first month or so was the most intense.

What surprised me was something utterly unexpected. Accompanying this process was a knowledge of a past life. There is even less I can say about that, except that it had been about half-a-century before I was born. This relationship between release of pain, mental and physical healing having a connection with the ability or necessity to recollect a past life, that was a profound and powerful link. It was the depth of the emotion and the ability for it to produce healing which made it real, not an idle flight of fancy.

That was all a long time ago and I mostly don't think about other lives now. However, the theme does break into my present life from time to time, not in a bad way, just a a result of either places I've been, or of new-found information online. I do get these reminders nudging me from time to time, confirming and adding to earlier understandings.

Lastly, I don't have any complex ideology or beliefs about how it all works or what it means, except a certainty that there is much more to existence, the mundane everyday ordinariness cannot hide that.

On this part in particular,

• "Would you mind sharing some of your own journeys, perhaps in another thread? When you are ready, of course."
  

It feels like I don't have much to share, mainly that's a matter of timing. Various things have taken place throughout my life and when they were fresh and recent I was full of detailed recall and fired with interest. As time goes on, I'm left with something else - a knowledge that things have happened, that they are real and that they are important. But the resulting accounts these days would tend to be a bit brief.

As I said before, my experiences were not a result of using any substances so in many ways differ from yours. But I felt I should comment because of the theme of other lives and healing.

In my case - a long time ago now - I had much healing that was needed, as a young person there was a great deal of tension and pain which was locked away but pushing its way to the surface. After trying for a number of years to simply suppress it all, eventually I realised that that approach wasn't working. So I did a 180 degree turn, instead of suppressing the pain I opened myself up to it, allowed then encouraged it to come forth.

The experience wasn't pretty and isn't something I even want to describe now, but it was a releasing followed by peace and relief. Repeated multiple times over days, weeks and years, though the first month or so was the most intense.

What surprised me was something utterly unexpected. Accompanying this process was a knowledge of a past life. There is even less I can say about that, except that it had been about half-a-century before I was born. This relationship between release of pain, mental and physical healing having a connection with the ability or necessity to recollect a past life, that was a profound and powerful link. It was the depth of the emotion and the ability for it to produce healing which made it real, not an idle flight of fancy.

That was all a long time ago and I mostly don't think about other lives now. However, the theme does break into my present life from time to time, not in a bad way, just a a result of either places I've been, or of new-found information online. I do get these reminders nudging me from time to time, confirming and adding to earlier understandings.

Lastly, I don't have any complex ideology or beliefs about how it all works or what it means, except a certainty that there is much more to existence, the mundane everyday ordinariness cannot hide that.

Thank you for sharing.

I am going through my own process of letting going of pain at the moment, and it is similarly not pretty. But, that is the price to be paid for its accumulation... letting go can be both extremely difficult and extremely rewarding.

I sometimes wish there weren't so many dense layers, haha. You think you've let go... but there's more layers that are revealed. But, I suppose self-knowing was never going to be pleasant or easy.

Out of curiosity, are you certain? What do we know about the limits of actual, confirmed confabulations, outside of psychedelic experiences? How do we tell them apart from real memories, in... say, the sense of how NDE OBErs report their experiences? Astral projection OBEs are known to be a little wonky, where details in the astral can commonly be curiously very out of place when compared to a known physical state, as reported by Robert Monroe.

The one thing I cannot shake off as just confabulation is when part of those experiences take an almost disconcertingly active notice in you, and start communicating, their awareness looking straight at you. Even more startling is when those with seeming telepathic capabilities zero in on you when you appear through another they're in contact with. It was always a bit unnerving and shocking the first few times. Even more so when one just picks out my name somehow, and calls me out. I was not ready for that at all.

I frankly don't know if confabulations can happen like that can actually happen ~ nevermind rather deep in a psychedelic experience where high strangeness isn't uncommon oftentimes.

But, still, it is a little interesting to examine what exactly constitutes a confabulation, and what doesn't.

The conventional definition of "confabulation" is "...a neuropsychiatric disorder wherein a patient generates a false memory without the intention of deceit.". Of course when the confabulation is "remembrance" of apparent past life experiences it isn't a disorder, just the normal tendency and capacity of the subconscious mind to generate false memories in response to inner needs and external suggestions by a therapist.

Notice that a central characteristic of a confabulation is essentially false remembering. Your description of the psychedelic experience sounds to me very much different, an experience in the now, not a remembrance of something that was experienced in the past, false or not.Co

The conventional definition of "confabulation" is "...a neuropsychiatric disorder wherein a patient generates a false memory without the intention of deceit.". Of course when the confabulation is "remembrance" of apparent past life experiences it isn't a disorder, just the normal tendency and capacity of the subconscious mind to generate false memories in response to inner needs and external suggestions by a therapist.

Notice that a central characteristic of a confabulation is essentially false remembering. Your description of the psychedelic experience sounds to me very much different, an experience in the now, not a remembrance of something that was experienced in the past, false or not.Co

Indeed, that makes sense when I'm experiencing stuff in real time, but then, I have experienced timelines of flashes of relevant memories, but those also felt like they were happening in the moment.

I've mostly given up trying to figure out how time works... as in one life, Gooseberry's, I first encountered him proper in the future, where the seer he was seeing seemed to recognize me, despite me not doing so... and yet later on, I was experiencing in near-real-time him going to see the seer for the first time, with me telling her about first meeting her in her future when she finally recognized my presence. She seemed to have mediumistic powers, as she had to scan the room to notice me.

So, the future came first for me... while the past was then partially-informed by that future. How that even works still wraps my mind in knots.