Dieta(s): share your experience

[Espurrr]

please share your personal experience with participating in some kind of dieta in the context of consuming some natural psychedelic or deep meditation practice on a regular to semi-regular basis for an extended amount of time, this can include anything you found significant on a 24/7 basis of the period you were involved

theoretically over time by gathering as many detailed anecdotes from different people involved in different dietas and different contexts we may be able to shed some light and clarifications on the how to of starting a relationship with a psychedelic plant / meditation practice for people who have the intention to begin by providing real life references

i want to clarify that this is not some kind of a complicated or expensive ideological lifestyle

we are usually talking about eating 1 main meal in a 24 hour period, usually consisting of

1-mainly starchy tubers/fruits in tropical areas or grains/pseudo grains in moderate climates

2-some greens or seaweeds in some locations

3-small amount of lean protein (soybean/tofu/fish) added especially when people are using white rice which is practically just starch and not a whole food

4-possibly small amount of fresh fruit/vegetable intake outside of the main meal just as some kind of a snack or just herbal teas

this is usually dirt cheap, practiced in the poorest populations, focused on increasing efficiency, energy and clarity as much as possible to manage the kind of dedicated work it takes to live a life out in the elements AND manage to dedicate enough time for deep exploration of some kind

the dieta is worth discussing precisely because of how pragmatic it is, maintaining the best physiological state in all circumstances to have the possibility of experiencing something sublime on the regular

"one meal a day and one lodging under a tree" -Gautama buddha

 

[TransistorBass]

I'm going to be dumb here and a google search didn't help, what is Dieta(s)?

Do you mean Deities / Gods / figureheads of religion etc?

 

[Espurrr]

I'm going to be dumb here and a google search didn't help, what is Dieta(s)?

Do you mean Deities / Gods / figureheads of religion etc?

dieta is spanish(esque?) for diet in the context of some specific sacramental experience of psychedelic shamanism or deep meditation , usually with an emphasis on eating one main meal a day only and the use of herbal teas / medicines etc for prolonged periods of time (2 weeks - 3 months - 8 years ) etc

 

[TransistorBass]

Ahh, cool thanks, I now learned a thing.

 

[blig-blug]

dieta is spanish(esque?) for diet in the context of some specific sacramental experience of psychedelic shamanism or deep meditation

This might be pedantic on my part, but in Spanish "dieta" just means "diet". That sacramental context meaning is the way it's used in English, as English speakers have a tendency to use words from other languages with an exact equivalent in English and pretend they mean something else But it's fine, that's the use it has in English nowadays. It's just to clarify that meaning is for "dieta" as an English word. Same goes for "curandero" BTW, it just means healer, of any kind (although implying not a medical doctor).

Sorry for the interruption, and I'm interested in knowing what others have tried. I have never tried anything else but fasting.

 

[northape]

I doubt that there are many in the West who can engage in plant diets. We need to earn a living here. Just this concept that feels like common sense already tells a lot.
We are alive and don't need to earn anything for it, yet somehow smart humans put us in shackles a long time ago. When people have free time, they desperately crave
to rest and recuperate. A diet requires time, the right kind of environment, and some kind of support from your tribe. It was possible in the Amazon with their lifestyle. Today you need to earn a lot of money for that, and it's simply a privilege. Even plant medicines are a privilege.

When I first started with rue, it was pushing me towards a diet, but I saw it more as a dream. I wanted to rent a cabin for a year and work with the plant. Sure enough, it never manifested because of different circumstances. You can find diets in the aya scene, but they cost quite a lot. I feel that modern life is the resistance. You can see the same kind of struggle in the spiritual community. A 10-day Vipassana retreat is more than just your own dedication. Once again, you need time and means for that. Maybe I am making excuses here, but you cannot escape mundane reality.

A diet is good for you, just like a meditation retreat. However, to find yourself in a position where you can engage in this practice feels more like destiny. I know it does not answer your question, but that is what my mind gave right away. Being in a position to work with plants long term is a privilege. We all ought to be grateful, or at least I should.

 

[rkba]

We need to earn a living here. Just this concept that feels like common sense already tells a lot.
We are alive and don't need to earn anything for it, yet somehow smart humans put us in shackles a long time ago. When people have free time, they desperately crave
to rest and recuperate

I feel the same way.

I'm working on redefining these core-perceptions, because they are not quite compatible with the Joy that my current Being is looking for.

It was beautiful to see your post below, right after your post above.

The 'newfound' roots are in place, we just need to let them flourish into a parallel Tree of Reality. There is plenty of room in the Garden of Perceptions.

This radiant self-awareness is rigpa, the clarity of the natural state, the sambhogakaya. This sensation of clarity cannot be explained or analyzed by the conceptual mind. The perception of the son is like a mirror. Everything is seen clearly in it—color, beauty, form—but the mirror never analyzes, judges, or draws conclusions. This is pure, direct perception at its core.
Although we usually perceive external and internal phenomena as having their own independent existence, inherently intrinsic only to them, in absolute reality every object, every person, and the mind itself—all phenomena—have the nature of space. In the first moment of the arising of sound, light, and rays, before our deluded mind can apply its dualistic perception to them, each of these three great visions is experienced as the pure self-manifestation of our own primordial state, inseparable from the basis.

Namaste

 

[Espurrr]

i want to clarify that this is not some kind of a complicated or expensive ideological lifestyle

we are usually talking about eating 1 main meal in a 24 hour period, usually consisting of starchy tubers or grains/pseudo grains + some greens or seaweeds in some locations + possibly small amount of fresh fruit/vegetable intake outside of the main meal just as some kind of a snack or just herbal teas

this is usually dirt cheap, practiced in the poorest populations, focused on increasing efficiency, energy and clarity as much as possible to manage the kind of dedicated work it takes to live a life out in the elements AND manage to dedicate enough time for deep exploration of some kind

the dieta is worth discussing precisely because of how pragmatic it is, maintaining the best physiological state in all circumstances to have the possibility of experiencing something sublime on the regular

"one meal a day and one lodging under a tree" -gautama buddha

 

[northape]

i want to clarify that this is not some kind of a complicated or expensive ideological lifestyle

we are usually talking about eating 1 main meal in a 24 hour period, usually consisting of starchy tubers or grains/pseudo grains + some greens or seaweeds in some locations + possibly small amount of fresh fruit/vegetable intake outside of the main meal just as some kind of a snack or just herbal teas

this is usually dirt cheap, practiced in the poorest populations, focused on increasing efficiency, energy and clarity as much as possible to manage the kind of dedicated work it takes to live a life out in the elements AND manage to dedicate enough time for deep exploration of some kind

the dieta is worth discussing precisely because of how pragmatic it is, maintaining the best physiological state in all circumstances to have the possibility of experiencing something sublime on the regular

"one meal a day and one lodging under a tree" -gautama buddha

I understand your perspective and I partly agree with it. My biggest issue beyond what I stated before is that you need a clean environment for your diet. It is a must both to develop your sensitivity and to have a clean experience. There is a reason why healers go into isolation in a jungle to do diets. Just try doing a strong ayahuasca session and go to the market after it. I think you know what I am talking about. The diet is about opening yourself, and when you are open, all kinds of energies can plant a seed in you. We want to plant a specific seed in a diet, so isolation is kind of a must.

Gautama lived in a totally different time, and his advice is for people of that time for the most part. Yes, we can apply his wisdom to our lives, but we need to be realistic here.

 

[Espurrr]

My biggest issue beyond what I stated before is that you need a clean environment for your diet

environment is internal

why don't you try subsisting on steamed tubers and dark leafy greens for 7 days , late breakfast and early dinner, and tell me if it doesn't work

 

[northape]

environment is internal

Yes and no. Sorry, but no one can escape a personal bias. Your local environment is one of the biggest immediate influences on your life. It took me years to understand and accept. Just move to the northern part of the world with cold temperatures, low light, and no greens to speak of, and you will get it. I understand what you are pointing at, but it is not my lived experience.

why don't you try subsisting on steamed tubers and dark leafy greens for 7 days , late breakfast and early dinner, and tell me if it doesn't work

The answer is simple: availability. My mum has a garden, and we eat her own produce in the summer. Still, it is just enough to supplement the local diet. What you can find in the store simply would not work. Your diet and lifestyle are an inspiration for me, but I can't follow them right now no matter what I do.

 

[Espurrr]

the northern part of the world with cold temperatures, low light, and no greens to speak of, and you will get it.

right, part of the issue is i have no real context about your situation to begin with, what im saying is external environments are usually something out of your control, so its kind of irrelevant to be discussing it when we are talking about changing the body physiology through food

What you can find in the store simply would not work.

you know ive seen people on a dieta with simply consuming quinoa and drinking some herbal tea on the side

what im trying to say is its kind of difficult to imagine a situation where this would be impossible because its so fundamental to human life, humans everywhere either subsist on some kind of grain / pseudo-grain / tuber / starchy fruits depending on climate, dietas usually remove "everything" other than that base necessary food , and it seems to work

by work , i mean you can see how your physiology changes dramatically and becomes suitable to meditation and psychedelic voyage, simple as that

its healing by forgoing the non-sense , constant hypertensive crisis and nervous system over excitation induced by everything thats really unnecessary to the experience of being healthy and of sound mind , energetic

 

[northape]

I will not derail this fine thread any longer. You provide sound advice, and it is my own resistance that puts the brakes on my local variant of a diet.
What to say here? I'll try to find a modality that works for me here at some point and report back. Much love to you.

 

[Espurrr]

to put things into context

i think the way a dieta works is by providing the body with nourishment without excitation

where over time (rather short amount of time) the nervous system and the brain dial themselves back into a more balanced tune of available oxygen, energy, nutrient delivery and drainage relative to the rate of the excitation of the neuron cells

this can be described as a very stable state of deep calm and flow

an oceanic calm which is needed to support the tremendous excitation brought about by a hefty dose of ayahuasca, as to prevent total psychological breakdown and trauma and reinforce the possibility of prolonged homeostasis in peak awakeness

 

[Jamie01]

This should not be all that hard to do unless a person is carb addicted.

If you are in the jungle having one meal of boiled plantain and some fish…maybe one piece of fruit per day it’s likely people are dipping towards ketosis by the end of a few days to a week.

IME with restrictive diets and intermittent fasting it just takes a few days to adjust. If you quit coffee too then happy withdrawals I guess.

 

[universecannon]

I've tried fasting or eating very small amounts of different things in the 24hr hours or more beforehand but I start to feel malnourished and depleted after the peak (especially with LSD, not as much with ayahuasca and related). Maybe I didn't do it long enough. Nowadays I like to eat a decent fruit meal 4 or 5 hours before a session and another small one mid trip. Last time, I juiced a bit of greens/ginger/fruit and we drank it during...It felt like the nectar of the immortality

My friends and I have found that upping our % of fruit in the days before a session makes a significant difference in clarity and depth. But again this is with primarily LSD.

I think there's all kinds of benefits and downsides to various diets/fasts etc. But I also think there is something to be said about fueling up the neural system properly before takeoff. This all probably depends a lot on the specific medicine/approach/long term diet, and individual differences of course. In general a mostly raw plant based diet in the long term seems to combine well for me, but even a heavy avocado salad 12 hours beforehand will throw off the experience to some degree for myself.

 

[Jamie01]

I would not take psychedelics while fasting personally. I don’t like it. If I’m tripping I want to drink juice.

 

[Espurrr]

24hr hours or more beforehand

i believe with ayahuasca, if they are planning on drinking in 10pm, the meal will be finished before 10am, which if you go by tradition is yucca and plantain, with sometimes small amounts of fish that are bottom feeders, without teeth, i believe circumstantially if there has been unusual strain/pressure/injury/difficult experiences etc.

I juiced a bit of greens/ginger/fruit

this would be an alkaline drink, with potassium and magnesium, nitrites and carbs, greatly oxygenating. but my understanding is you want to stabilize and prolong this effect rather than induce it momentarily with rapidly digesting foods

% of fruit in the days before a session makes a significant difference in clarity and depth.

although i can agree with the generally helpful effect of fruit , i experimented with true fruitarianism for more than a year straight, its missing several qualities i attribute to especially suited for deep psychedelic voyage, fruit itself is an exciting food, meaning it causes nervous system arousal, it doesn't deepen your calm unless its paired with a great amount of dark green leafs, but even then its rapid digesting and lower caloric density is a problem unless maybe we are talking about large ripe bananas and eating magnificent 2kg amounts in a meal maybe barely comes close to what im talking about, and even then not really

heavy avocado salad 12 hours beforehand will throw off the experience

yes, apparently even very small amounts of fat intake is disastrous in terms of how it affects the brain , you see this in the extreme when consuming something like aya

 

[Jamie01]

This thread should have sources honestly for a lot of the claims made.

 

[universecannon]

i believe with ayahuasca, if they are planning on drinking in 10pm, the meal will be finished before 10am, which if you go by tradition is yucca and plantain, with sometimes small amounts of fish that are bottom feeders, without teeth, i believe circumstantially if there has been unusual strain/pressure/injury/difficult experiences etc.

This isn't universal though. For example in the wizard of the upper amazon, the tribe members there eat mainly fruit when working with the medicine daily, and back to meat when hunting. There is all kinds of ancient practices that I don't necessarily think were ideal, and instead they just did what they thought worked best at the time within the limited range of plant medicines and foods they had access to. There is obviously a lot of wisdom there but we tend to romanticize the hell out of it tbh, when really I think many of them would've prefered a tree that produced high quality LSD to some of the rougher plant medicines out there (blasphemic, I know)

although i can agree with the generally helpful effect of fruit , i experimented with true fruitarianism for more than a year straight, its missing several qualities i attribute to especially suited for deep psychedelic voyage, fruit itself is an exciting food, meaning it causes nervous system arousal, it doesn't deepen your calm unless its paired with a great amount of dark green leafs, but even then its rapid digesting and lower caloric density is a problem unless maybe we are talking about large ripe bananas and eating magnificent 2kg amounts in a meal maybe barely comes close to what im talking about, and even then not really

I wasn't talking about fruitarianism at all, just upping the percentage of the fruit portion of the diet in the days leading up to a session. Many of my friends doing this aren't vegetarian. I'm not fruitarian and eat plenty of other foods, even if most of my calories are from fruit.

I eat a good amount of dark leafy greens but even when I don't, I don't experience this lack of calm you're talking about. I think a diet high in fruit doesn't work well for everybody and can take a lot of adjusting, so projecting our own experience (or even the hard data) onto everyone else isn't exactly accurate in this regard, as with many of these things