A Trip Within a Trip
How Augmented Therapy Can Change Your Life
I’ve been on a healing journey for a while now (I’ve written about it here): I've been going to therapy, meditating, and journaling. I've also been reading a lot about trauma, how it affects you, and how to heal from it. Somewhere in that reading, I stumbled upon the idea of augmented therapy — augmented with psychedelics. There was a method, I discovered, that could release severe traumas, akin to multiple years of psychotherapy, in a single session.
At the time, I was struggling with Long COVID (LC; I still am, to an extent), with chronic fatigue as one of the main symptoms. For the longest time, I thought that the fatigue was caused by LC alone and that it wasn't a part of the mental health journey I was on. But at some point, I started to see my chronic fatigue as a result of severe overtaxation of my nervous system: a mental breakdown of sorts. Trauma, just like LC, has a way of putting the nervous system under severe strain. And we know that chronic fatigue is caused by a dysfunctional central nervous system, at least in some cases. So it is very likely that both conditions contributed to my case. Unfortunately, modern medicine is all but helpless when dealing with CNS disorders. But the more I read about augmented therapy, the more hopeful I was that it might help with both issues.
While the concept of augmented psychotherapy is new in the Western world, the practice is anything but and existed for millennia. One of the oldest drugs used in this context — and the one I was drawn to — is ayahuasca. Naturally growing in the Amazon region, it has been used by the Incas and the pre-Incan cultures for hundreds if not thousands of years. They used it for driving away "evil spirits": unwanted negative thoughts, depression, anxiety, unresolved grief, or any traumatic experiences, but also various psychosomatic conditions like chronic fatigue or even cancer. Unlike other drugs, ayahuasca is still done mostly traditionally: with a shaman in the jungle. When I found out about this — the use cases and the setting — I knew I had to try.
Following a recommendation, I decided to go to Santuario Huishtin in Peru. Fast forward a few months, I landed in Lima, Peru, and then flew north-east, to Pucallpa, a 200-thousand city on the verge of the Peruvian Jungle. There I was picked up by a guide, we drove south for about two hours to Honoria, then took a boat on the Pachaita River for about an hour. Finally, after hiking through a decent stretch of the jungle, we reached the Santuario. Due to a hold-up, I arrived there around 3 or 4 pm on a Monday, and I had my first ayahuasca ceremony at 7:30 pm the same day — intense, I know, but that's how I like it.
The following is the account of my first ceremony.
It's dark. It's been dark for three hours now. I'm lying on a mat, indoors, but really in the middle of the jungle, and the jungle is alive all around me. It's late at night, but there's so much life here, so much noise. I can't see anything, but it's so loud I can barely hear my thoughts. It’s nice at the beginning, but frankly, it's starting to be a bit much: the jungle sounds great, but how long can you meditate or just lie in the dark without much happening? I'm bored. "Is this it?", I think, "Is this why I traveled to Peru, to the middle of the jungle?". So I go to the shaman and say I feel nothing, I want more medicine. To my surprise, I swiftly get another cup of the stuff, no questions asked. I get back to my mat — everyone has a mat, a pillow, and a bowl to throw up in — and I lie down. I'm a bit impatient now, but also excited. Something must start happening soon, I think. About twenty minutes pass, and then suddenly I get nauseous. It feels unpleasant, kind of like food poisoning, but the onset is so sudden, and it's so intense.
I reach for my bowl and I don't really want to throw up, but I know it's gonna happen. So I sit up, cradling the bowl in my lap, and focus on what I'm feeling. Then it comes. I try throwing up, violently, but nothing comes up. Spasms are going through my body. I wish something came out so that it could stop. It's like a beast has woken up in my stomach and is trying to escape. My body ripples, and my muscles tense, it's like throwing up has become the purpose of my existence, only nothing comes out. And then I close my eyes and I see it. It's a long, dark tunnel. It's narrow and unpleasant looking. And something is moving through it. It's a sphere; a giant ball made of rock and iron and glass. It's flowing through the tunnel, bouncing violently against the sides, with something disturbingly dark around it. The image is so clear, so scary looking, the sphere and its brutal surface reminiscent of hell. And I try to throw up, and I try, and I try, and I know I'm trying to expel a ball made of evil itself. But I can't and I know that that evil is still within me.
Suddenly, it's quiet...
I open my eyes. I'm still in the Maloca (the ceremonial space where ayahuasca sessions take place). It's black all around me and it's quiet and yet so loud outside. Not quiet, I decide, but peaceful. I relax, trying to recover from what just happened. I'm slowly being transported somewhere else as the blackness of the maloca is beginning to disappear. It's weird, I think. But I feel safe and protected, I feel held by the shaman by the sounds he’s making by waving a branch with dry leaves, by singing the icaros. Before long, these thoughts disappear, too. I suddenly see a little boy, maybe eight years old. With blue eyes that seem too big for his face, light blonde hair, and a curious smile across, he looks absorbed into something, but also happy. I'm floating right above him but he doesn't seem to care. Maybe he's in flow, I think. But then... Could it be me? It is me! Or rather was, a long time ago. I start feeling love, for him, for myself, for the whole world. I see that this child is so lovable and beautiful. I want to hold him, hug him, and tell him how great he is. But now he starts getting younger, but also shrinking. Now he's six, then five, four, and before long he's lying on his back, waving his little feet and hands and chuckling happily like only a baby can: in that way that adults who experience it can't help but smile. And then the baby disappears. Or it doesn't, but my vision morphs and suddenly I see the world from somewhere much lower, almost from the floor level and I can barely control what I'm looking at. What's happening? And these tiny hands and feet, are they mine? Am I the baby now? I guess I am. And I feel so happy, so warm, so loved, so at one with myself.
My eyes are still closed and I have no sense that I'm in the jungle, yet I see a normal sort-of room from the inside, from the floor level, and I start grabbing at things. I grab at things with my open hands, and I want to put things in my mouth like a baby would. I wonder at the thought that I really am the baby, and that's how babies see the world. So I grab a plastic bowl — the one that everyone gets for throwing up, but mine was clean — and grab it with my palms. And I put it in my mouth; bite on it. It felt very satisfying, novel like I'm discovering something new and magical. I wonder, is that how a baby feels when he's faced with a new object, a new sensation? I was feeling an overwhelming sense of love and safety that I only rarely feel as an adult, and like I maybe never felt as a child. And then I understood that I am not a baby, not a child any longer. That I am an adult, but that the baby and the child are still within me. And as an adult, I can give them that sense of love and safety that they craved so much, that they deserved.
Suddenly I hear a voice coming from outside. It's the shaman, he's standing next to me, asking for a mapacho. It takes me a second to figure out what's going on, where I am and what's happening. Yes, mapacho, I remember: the little cigarette the shaman gave me when he was singing the private icaro (a healing song). I blindly grope for it but can't find it, it's still completely dark. I find it eventually, give it back to the shaman, and sit up. It's so weird being back in the real world. I'm here, I'm conscious and in control, and yet it feels so dreamy, like maybe it's not the real world. The shaman smokes the mapacho and blows the magically cleansing smoke over me, then offers it for me to smoke. I take it and carefully take a puff. The smoke feels alien like it's invading my lungs and my body, but also good. It's the nicotine that feels good. Suddenly I'm more alert, the dreaminess dissipates slowly, and bit by bit I'm coming back.
Eventually, the shaman says the ceremony is over. I get up and try to stagger out of the maloca. I swear it was smaller and the floor was even when I came in. It's still round, sure, but how did it grow from ten meters in diameter to, I don’t know, a hundred? It takes me ages to half walk, half crawl — I feel very wobbly, with weak legs and my balance way off — towards the exit and then towards my cabaña (a tiny wooden house I stayed in). When I'm back, I lie down for a bit. My body becomes stronger by the minute, and soon I feel normal. Better than normal even, I'm so fresh, energized, crisp. I take a cold shower, and the water feels wonderful, cleansing, revitalizing, and suddenly I feel hunger like I don't remember in ages. I'm famished, and I devour what little food I have stashed. With my belly full, I feel relaxed. I lie down, put on some relaxing music, and slowly drift off to sleep.
I feel the sun on my face, I open my eyes, it's bright. It's early, 7 am, and I slept maybe five hours, maybe not even that. Somehow, though, I feel absolutely wonderful. I feel light, with lots of energy, and just... happy. Then I think: Wow, this stuff really does work.
I stayed at the Santuario for two weeks, and followed it with three weeks of solo travel around Peru, with the last few days in Bolivia. In these two weeks, I did six ceremonies. The first two were profound, while the remaining four contributed next to nothing and they exhausted my body. This really was exhausting. I barely ate anything, and in the second week, I grew weaker by the day. I ate barely anything — yes, there are dietary restrictions around ayahuasca, but I also just didn’t feel hungry — and I lost almost seven kg in these two short weeks.
Exhausting? Yes. Hard to get to? For sure. Worth it? You wouldn’t believe how much. In the heart of the Amazon, I found not just healing but an understanding that I hadn’t felt safe as a baby or as a child and that all I ever wanted was to be held and loved; that I hold the power to give myself the love and safety I’ve always needed. I also regained a sense of agency and audacity: a conviction that I really can do whatever I want; that making any decision is less scary than making none. And perhaps as a result, an excitement for life has awakened in me; excitement like I’ve never known before. Ayahuasca opened a door to my past and showed me how to truly embrace my future. I knew that my life would never be the same. And now, almost a year after this experience, I can confirm that this is the case.
A couple of notes on safety.
That I knew I had to try ayahuasca does not mean it is a good choice for you. This is not a party drug; this is hard work. Perhaps my first trip didn’t sound too bad, but it was a good trip. The second trip was, hands down, the single worst experience of my life (albeit very productive). Don’t do this because it’s cool or fashionable, because you happen to be in the area, or because someone else is doing it. Do it only when and because you feel called to it.
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Safety and responsible facilitators are perhaps the most important considerations when choosing where to do your ceremonies. While I don’t regret going to the Santuario, and in many senses it is an amazing place, I do not recommend going there.