Drinking the Ayahuasca Brew

Drinking the Ayahuasca Brew

(If you haven’t already watched the DMT: Foundation Videos -  please do so. They’re fantastic!)

I’m not going to romanticize the consumption of something with centuries of spiritual history throughout the world; this stuff tastes horrible. The bitterness of the plant along with the tongue tightening pinch of the lemon juice – topped off with the offensive smell, make getting the brew down your throat an act of sheer will. I found myself holding my breath so as not to have to smell what I was drinking.

After I got the Aya down my throat, I proceeded to go to my sacred space (Both Doctors and Shamans alike teach that positive setting is essential for a positive experience).  For me, I have a bedroom and bathroom attached to my home-office. I cleared out the bathroom, put a thick white full length couch cushion on the floor, covered that with 3 solid white comforters, lit my favorite sandalwood incense and stripped down.

Being a complete computer geek I have PCs networked throughout our house and the bathroom is no different. So I grabbed a wonderful meditation CD by Stuart Wilde from The Art of Meditation CD Set (its a progressively slowing heartbeat sound, with slow strings and choir for a background).

See the end of this post for a link to the Art of Meditation CD Set on Amazon

I had read that the real Aya experience starts about 45 minutes after drinking the brew. For some reason, about 10 minutes after I drank the brew I suddenly felt an intense desire to cry. I wasn’t sad or upset about anything, just the feeling of wanting to weep. Being no stranger to my feminine side, I allowed the emotions to flow and just went with the experience. I got all snuggled into my mat with a thin white cover on top of me and started deep breathing and focusing on the relaxing heartbeat on the CD.

Scrambling for the Toilet

A common experience of people drinking Ayahuasca, is throwing up. It’s the body’s natural process of purging the unneeded parts of the brew. I have what some people refer to as a Steel Stomach; nothing makes me sick. I can take medication others can’t, I can swallow health drinks that would gag most of my friends…in other words I’m a big boy who can take his medicine.

I was very quickly humbled.

About 20 minutes after getting nice and comfortable on my mat, I felt my stomach lurch. ‘No worries‘ I thought; deep breathing…in – out -….lurch! Deep breathing…in – out – in…oh no! I barely made it to the toilet. Thank god I was IN the bathroom to begin with or I wouldn’t had made it.  Three full body spews later and I was fine. The sick feeling was gone just as fast at it came.

I drank some water and lay back down. I threw up what had to be most of the Ayahuasca brew so I was really concerned that I wouldn’t have the full effect and would have to go back and drink the other half of the pot of the brew (I made enough for two experiences) and that thought was not a pleasant one.

I am going to write about my actual experiences while on Ayahuasca, in separate posts so as to keep the information neat and segmented. Also to make reading these accounts short and to the point for you guys. With my next post, I will start with my actual experiences.  They’re not to be missed.

Damien O’Riley

PS. Oh, here’s the link to the Art of Meditation CD Set I promised you. This is not an affiliate link and I do not make a single penny, even if you bought 1000’s of these things. I recommend the set if for no other reason than the Heartbeat soundtrack.