Death of Time, Space and Ego in a Jungle Maloca with Ayahuasca

Artwork by Chris Dyer - Peeling Bodies

Rachel, 35, Switzerland

My name was gently called and I got up from my mat and tiptoed across the maloca towards the altar. Even as I knelt before the shaman, I had still not made up my mind whether I would drink that night or not.

I was asked how much I would like. I closed my eyes and exhaled slowly as I ceased wrangling with calculations and predictions and relinquished control.

“A modest dose, please,” I said, while thinking, whatever that means!

I was poured between two thirds and three quarters of what appeared to be (in the dim candlelight in a maloca deep in the Amazonian jungle and through the giddy haze of anticipation) a 50ml shot glass of ayahuasca.

I stoically knocked it back and swallowed it without grimacing. The familiar taste was unpleasant as always, like charred chocolate and melted grass. But it wasn’t as distressing as I’d remembered, and a wave of calm washed over me leaving little bubbles of triumph in its wake.

I was wished a good ceremony and I gave thanks before returning to my mat and sitting on the edge of it cross-legged as I waited for the others to receive their cups.

I immediately felt a shift in energy

As soon as the ceremony began I instantly felt a shift in energy, though it was too soon to tell if it was from the effects of the medicine or if it was from the sounds emanating from the shaman as he circled the maloca, shaking the grass rattle and chanting to ward off any malevolent spirits.

The quiet period began, and I watched fireflies circle the heights of the maloca while listening to the sounds of the jungle thronging from the trees.

Soon other people started to purge. As soon as one started, a chorus seemed to follow, and the space I occupied seem to be expanding with a rising sense of foreboding.

Just before it reached the point where it would become overwhelming, the shamans began to sing their icaros, and it felt like being taken by a guiding hand.

The icaros took me for a ride

The icaros swept me up and took me for a ride, I became lost in visions for a while. Tendrils of creeping vines laced over with a rainbow snakeskin pattern coiled around me and carried me to and fro like a twig carried by a fast flowing meandering river. Shimmering shoals of fish swam past me.

I shifted and teleported to various scenes; caverns adorned with chandeliers, quaint wooden cubicles decorated with simple flowers and candles. Every so often I would gasp as I blinked and arrived back in the maloca, then I would listen to the singing and purging sounds for a while until the next wave of visions came.

During one of the “intervals” from the visions I asked one of the facilitators to accompany me to the bathroom. I felt fairly lucid, but on the way back to the maloca he told me to mind my breath, that I was breathing too rapidly and asked me to breathe with him as we took a few slow, controlled breaths. He took me back to my place in the maloca and I lay down to receive more waves of manageable visions.

I realised the ayahuasca was just getting started

After some time the visions seemed to be subsiding and I perceived it to have been enough time for the effects of the ayahuasca to be wearing off, and I felt steady enough to go by myself to the bathroom.

Inside the cubicle, I splashed my face with water and looked into the little mirror above the sink. The face staring back at me was not like a reflection. She appeared to have her own sentience, although I knew she was me. A mischievous look sparked from her eyes to one corner of her mouth which curled up into a subtle smirk.

I opened the door and looked down the short walkway to the maloca, the length seemed to grow and all four sides of it started to vibrate with color and energy. It was at that moment I knew that ayahuasca was only just getting started.

I stepped back into the maloca and instantly regretted not having brought my flashlight, or having asked to be accompanied. In the darkness I could see nothing, and furthermore shadows started to appear from all sides on top of the darkness. The floorspace seemed to expand outwards, and I felt lost. I also became unsure of my orientation and felt like I was about to lose my balance, so I sunk to my hands and knees and used the sensation from the wooden floorboards to help me to navigate myself. I hoped someone would come over to help, but it was so loud and so dark in there that no-one knew I was fumbling around in the middle of the room.

I thought I was dying

I desperately crawled towards what I hoped would be my own mattress, fully expecting to have to apologize as I clambered on top of someone else by mistake, but miraculously I did not; the mattress I found was unoccupied and appeared to be my own.

As I lay down, the distant motor by the river and the icaros merged together into a humming vibration and multicolored cuboid illuminations started to pop out from one another in unison with the vibration, and I thought to myself, “Woah. This shit is getting real DMT heavy.”

I braced myself to ride it out, but the next thing I was aware of was one of the facilitators by my feet; I was sitting up. I found it difficult to communicate the support that I needed and to control my physical actions, as I grabbed her tightly by the hand and said in a breathy squeak, “Help me!”. She asked me what was happening, and I blurted out, “I’m dying!”

I lost my grip on the past, present and future

The words had come out of my mouth with some surprise to me, as though someone else had spoken them; as though I hadn’t realized those were my thoughts until after I’d said them.

She whispered calmly to me “You’re not dying,” and the panic momentarily lapsed before time suddenly had no meaning and I started to lose a grip on past, present and future, which meant that the reassurance I felt was fleeting because it hadn’t happened yet.

I heard her say, “Whatever you’re going through,” as I lunged forward violently and wrapped my arms around her, burying my forehead into her shoulder before having a flash of clarity in which I apologized, hoping that I hadn’t frightened her. She soothed me, but then time became so scrambled that I could no longer comprehend my own mother tongue.

My understanding of metaphysics had been blown to pieces

I forgot everything that had happened before this moment, I lost all comprehension of time and direction, all my understanding of metaphysics had been blown to pieces. My only awareness to center myself with was the angelic voice of my facilitator.

The actual words were incoherent to me but if I understood only one thing it was that these whispers would hold me off the edge of oblivion, and I clung to them like a terrified cat would cling to a high swinging branch of a tree that had been shaken until the cat had lost its footing. I held on to the whispers for as long as I could, until all comprehension broke apart.

When it returned, I sensed myself as a human being once again and back in the maloca, but I was dead. I was a ghost, my body had died and there was a military helicopter outside, I felt a sense of sobering up to a sickening aftermath. Oh shit, I thought. SHIT. What the fuck have you fucking done?

I tried to think… Was there any way of undoing this? Was there any way to save it?

Three cube-like beings approached

I descended back into chaos and three dazzling bright cube beings approached me, making the most alien-esque ‘squidgy’ sounds at me but I didn’t understand. I cried in despair as I lost hope of returning from this new and unfamiliar existence.

I heard the sounds of the insects again in the jungle once again, and decided to hand myself in. I accepted letting go of everything else, and awaited my fate. OK, so I’d died. What next?

I rose up into a bright light above the treetops and felt a wave of peace. I’d travelled the length of space and time, and now here was the center of everything, the only constant, the only thing that was certain. The insects chirped gently and rhythmically. This is how it always was. This is destiny. I felt safe.

I suddenly knew that everything would be OK

I fell into a shallow sleep, slipping in and out of wakefulness as I gradually entered back into sober reality. Each time I came to I wept a tear of relief.

In the morning I rushed to find my companion to make sure he was safe; the relief I felt on finding that he was indeed safe eclipsed even the relief I’d felt from living through my ordeal.

I spent the rest of the morning reflecting on my experience and felt a new strength, like my soul had been reborn. Something within me had changed that night for ever.