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Could ayahuasca have health benefits?

bbc.co.uk

81–90 of 161 posts

Re: Could ayahuasca have health benefits?

#81
post #77

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I'm going to try very hard to describe this. It will not be enough :) It's more than "fun", much more profound, it's Everything, perhaps the single most important thing. It's ineffable, yet, you still feel obligated to try and explain it, as I'm doing. You may experience total happiness, love, wholeness, but then seconds later experience the exact opposite, total depression, despair, loneliness, humiliation, fear, vi…

Holy shit, man. That’s intense. Was that acid or ayahuasca? Did you do multiple days? I’ve done acid a handful of times. I’ve luckily never had a “bad trip” but I did have to untangle a friend from a coil of barbed wire which he thought was jungle vines. Another time (I’m from Florida) I went out during a tropical storm (we don’t take those seriously) with a shovel and a laminated note from myself reminding me “every…

It was very intense. It lasted 12-14 hours.

I did 5 tabs my first time without realizing how strong acid was. I had no reference, no preparation, no warning. I was just thrown into the deep end. It was so intense that I didn't even remember entering the trip, I wasn't sure if I just died or how I got there. It took, what I would have perceived as lifetimes for me to ground myself and realize what was going on.

I say the "perceived lifetimes" because there was literally times where I'd experience trips that absolutely took hours in perceived time, but they would always be interrupted by my friend's snore in the next room. His snore was the trigger for a loop to reset.

One in particularly was when I was "arguing" with myself about how of course my mental reality was less accurate than real reality, and my brain was telling me that it actually doesn't know the difference and that the only reality is what it knows. Then after me arguing that it's mental models were inferior, the next thing I know I'm walking down a sidewalk, feeling the heat of the sun and everything. I'm talking with my friend, explaining the trip to him and how happy I am that it's over. But he just keeps smiling at me strangely and asks "you don't get it yet?", to which I respond, "what are you talking about." To which he says "nothing, never mind," and we keep walking. Then I hear a snore, that shakes the whole entire space. I look at my friend, he smiles. I realize that the whole thing was conjured up. He looks at me and says "That's what it's all about." and then the trip collapses back to a more abstract meta-mind space. That walk was for at least 20 minutes. But it all happened between two snores. Absolutely wild.

Re: Could ayahuasca have health benefits?

#82

> Could psychedelic drug ayahuasca have health benefits? Certainly, anecdotally I kicked a very strong 20 year coffee and sugar habit after doing a 3-day retreat in Latin America this past winter. Just happened naturally, oh, I don't need this daily coffee and sugar fix anymore. On the flip side, as the article mentions, the psychedlic tourism industry as a whole doesn't have formal safe guards in place for when the…

"Certainly, anecdotally I kicked a very strong 20 year coffee and sugar habit after doing a 3-day retreat in Latin America this past winter. Just happened naturally, oh, I don't need this daily coffee and sugar fix anymore."

Isn't three days about how long it takes to get over caffeine withdrawal symptoms, regardless of whether one has retreated to Latin America and taken psychedelic drugs?

Re: Could ayahuasca have health benefits?

#83
post #77

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I'm going to try very hard to describe this. It will not be enough :) It's more than "fun", much more profound, it's Everything, perhaps the single most important thing. It's ineffable, yet, you still feel obligated to try and explain it, as I'm doing. You may experience total happiness, love, wholeness, but then seconds later experience the exact opposite, total depression, despair, loneliness, humiliation, fear, vi…

Holy shit, man. That’s intense. Was that acid or ayahuasca? Did you do multiple days? I’ve done acid a handful of times. I’ve luckily never had a “bad trip” but I did have to untangle a friend from a coil of barbed wire which he thought was jungle vines. Another time (I’m from Florida) I went out during a tropical storm (we don’t take those seriously) with a shovel and a laminated note from myself reminding me “every…

Oh wow that sounds amazing. I was sadly in a dark house locked in a room with a bathroom. Environment wise it can't get much worse.

My second time I only did 1 tab and it was much more sane and I was intact with reality. The amazing thing about that experience was that when watching the sky and trees, I saw pinks and purples that don't exist as typical colors and they would move between dark and light shades following very intricate patterns. This would also cause my do shift from happy to sad and back. Eventually, after a long time, I realized what I was seeing was the pattern of the wind flowing through everything. Was amazing because I'm pretty sure it's something we don't typically consciously think about. :)

Re: Could ayahuasca have health benefits?

#84
post #77

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Holy shit, man. That’s intense. Was that acid or ayahuasca? Did you do multiple days? I’ve done acid a handful of times. I’ve luckily never had a “bad trip” but I did have to untangle a friend from a coil of barbed wire which he thought was jungle vines. Another time (I’m from Florida) I went out during a tropical storm (we don’t take those seriously) with a shovel and a laminated note from myself reminding me “every…

It was very intense. It lasted 12-14 hours. I did 5 tabs my first time without realizing how strong acid was. I had no reference, no preparation, no warning. I was just thrown into the deep end. It was so intense that I didn't even remember entering the trip, I wasn't sure if I just died or how I got there. It took, what I would have perceived as lifetimes for me to ground myself and realize what was going on. I say…

5 tabs is a good amount of tabs.

I got myself into that mess a few times with the whole “we got ripped off let’s take it all just in case” just to realize I didn’t get ripped off and the first thing I always think when it kicks in is “I got ripped off”

Now as a grown up(ish) it’s turned into “I got ripped off, oh never mind I’m high this is fine”

Re: Could ayahuasca have health benefits?

#85
post #69

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I'm going to try very hard to describe this. It will not be enough :) It's more than "fun", much more profound, it's Everything, perhaps the single most important thing. It's ineffable, yet, you still feel obligated to try and explain it, as I'm doing. You may experience total happiness, love, wholeness, but then seconds later experience the exact opposite, total depression, despair, loneliness, humiliation, fear, vi…

Three screenfuls of a run on paragraph does not convince me of a desirable outcome.

Most acid trips feel like a run on sentence. It’s the perfect medium for describing one :D

Re: Could ayahuasca have health benefits?

#86
My brother went on an Ayahuasca retreat but ended up deeply disappointed that it didn't change his life and his problems got much worse as a result.

Of course, that can happen with any treatments as well. However, professional support could maybe mitigate that a bit. Plus actual data may give a better idea of likely outcomes.

He then came home and took LSD that caused an episode of psychosis that lasted a couple weeks and landed him on the hospital plus in trouble with the law.

I don't disagree that these drugs can be beneficial for many people and should be studied but there is dangers as well and the dangers are often downplayed as "just anti drug FUD."

Re: Could ayahuasca have health benefits?

#87
post #80
post #74

While I was on a retreat this year in a Peruvian village, I was told by several natives (Shipibo people) that, by their tradition (some estimations are that Shipibo tribes have been using Ayahuasca for millenias), Ayahuasca is orally taken in healing ceremonies by their shamans only. Traditionally, in the normal course of a healing ceremony, it is not a patient who takes 'the medicine' or 'the plant teacher' (Ayahuas…

the shaman in order to learn from the plant what his patient illness is and how to go about healing it. And how was that working out for them, from what you could see? Did patients there prefer the "traditional" or the "western" medicine?

Please don't take HN threads on generic tangents. That argument leads nowhere new and therefore nowhere interesting.

https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html

Edit: whoops I misread that one and broke the site rules in the process. Sorry and carry on!

Re: Could ayahuasca have health benefits?

#88
post #84

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It was very intense. It lasted 12-14 hours. I did 5 tabs my first time without realizing how strong acid was. I had no reference, no preparation, no warning. I was just thrown into the deep end. It was so intense that I didn't even remember entering the trip, I wasn't sure if I just died or how I got there. It took, what I would have perceived as lifetimes for me to ground myself and realize what was going on. I say…

5 tabs is a good amount of tabs. I got myself into that mess a few times with the whole “we got ripped off let’s take it all just in case” just to realize I didn’t get ripped off and the first thing I always think when it kicks in is “I got ripped off” Now as a grown up(ish) it’s turned into “I got ripped off, oh never mind I’m high this is fine”

That's pretty much how I ended up taking 5 tabs. I definitely learned my lesson, but am very grateful I did it. My second trip with 1 tab was not even remotely comparable nor as enlightening. I actually haven't done it since (definitely open to), but have noticed that now I can reach a similar state through mediation. I noticed something else odd as well though, now if I do marijuana edibles (sativa), I can actually revisit the psychedelic state, not as intense, but enough for me to question if I ever left the psychedelic state to begin with.

Re: Could ayahuasca have health benefits?

#89
post #87
post #80

Earlier quoted context omitted.

the shaman in order to learn from the plant what his patient illness is and how to go about healing it. And how was that working out for them, from what you could see? Did patients there prefer the "traditional" or the "western" medicine?

Please don't take HN threads on generic tangents. That argument leads nowhere new and therefore nowhere interesting. https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html Edit: whoops I misread that one and broke the site rules in the process. Sorry and carry on!

dang, apologies, but the parent didn't seem to be taking this on a generic tangent. The OP has a very interesting anecdotal story to tell, related directly to a group of people that take ayahuasca for healing, and I, too, am curious about how it worked for them, specifically.

Re: Could ayahuasca have health benefits?

#90
post #85
post #69

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Three screenfuls of a run on paragraph does not convince me of a desirable outcome.

Most acid trips feel like a run on sentence. It’s the perfect medium for describing one :D

That's a very good way to describe it. I hadn't thought about it, but indeed, every time I "grasp" something, it unfolds/collapses/opens/transforms into something else, (over and (over and (over and (...))).

I wonder if it's because information flows in cycles throughout the brain. Any thought that you would be aware of is because your brain observed its own thought, thus starting the thought cycle over again. It would seem that this just repeats continuously as your brain thinks. :)

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