Sicho Naut
Established member
Last Christmas I was lucky enough to be invited to two ayahuasca ceremonies with Huni Kuin shamans (which actually was one two-day ceremony with two parts). Having gone at it alone with psychedelics for nine years, I have never believed that ayahuasca should exclusively be done under shamanic supervision. However, I was happily amazed at how powerfully the ceremonial aspect influences the experience. This was one of the most incredible experiences of my life and although I will continue to trip alone, I will now probably do it in an authentic shamanic setting whenever I can.
The experience is too much to describe fully but in what follows I explore how the ceremony caused a powerful psychic shift.
Confronting the desire to die
The most important thing to happen was becoming fully aware of my desire to die, to put it plainly. This was not a complete surprise, as I had (once again) been dealing with depression and bouts of suicidal ideation in the preceding months, but I had no idea that my tiredness of living went as deep as ayahuasca showed me.
I’m only 31, but I came to see that an increasingly large part of me simply does not want to go on. I’ve become ready to give up due to sheer exhaustion, paired with the fact that I cannot conceive of a future that motivates me to continue bearing what I’ve been bearing. There are several reasons for this state of being, amongst which a troubled relationship and having been chronically ill for a decade, which started in the tail end of a largely suffocating and stressful time of youth.
I came to truly see my condition and its implications: this is it, the end of the road. I really and truly am done for. To continue for decades whilst being horrified by the sheer fact of consciousness, poisoning the people around me with my misery, is simply too absurd to accept— death is better. To lock myself up in a white objectless room whilst wanting to die, just so that I don’t, is too absurd to accept— death is better. In this moment, I could not conceive of any future that would relieve me of my exhaustion with life— so only one option remained. Gradually, after a lot of crying, I came to accept my destiny to self-annihilate and felt an immense burden being lifted from my shoulders.
As the above realization unfolded, an additional and deeper reason for my death wish revealed itself: I came to see that as a child and teenager I felt very much unloved. I know for a fact that my parents ‘intended’ me, but nonetheless our toxic relationship made my young mind feel, unconsciously, that my existence was a kind of cosmic error. Unconsciously, my existence felt like an absurd nightmare in which I was created only to be hated and despised by my very creators. Unconsciously, I felt it to be my responsibility to undo my parents’ mistake— this was to be my task and meaning in life: to relieve the universe of my existence. This conviction, ayahuasca showed me, has been a fundamental motive underlying my suicidal urges, to which other life-difficulties have made me increasingly susceptible over the years.
What followed was a vivid fantasy in which I visit my parents in a state of extreme anger and despair and forcefully ask them to kill me. I tell them: I don’t want to live anymore and the fault is yours. Now kill me. Please kill me. I imagine them refusing my request and me asking why? and receiving various answers. When my father says that he does not want to go to jail, I ask him: Would you do it if you could get away with it? We’ll find a way. But he says he would not and I continue pressing: Why won’t you kill me? Why won’t you kill me? Until finally I get them to the point where they have to admit it: They won’t kill me, because they love me.
This ‘fantasy’ has made me believe that truly my parents would not want to kill me or would not have wanted to kill me in the past for reasons that surpass the troublesome logistics of murder, that indeed they would not because of an intrinsic value they attribute to my existence. In other words, I can now believe that they have and did have love for me, despite everything that occurred between us.
After having accepted the inevitability of suicide, a profound lightness and sense of freedom introduced itself. I saw that although it is indeed no option to continue living in the state I have been living in – that indeed I should and will end the absurdity if it continues – that I may yet find enough love for life to want to continue. Suddenly, the door to life opened again, even if it was with but a crack. The question arose: What can I do to want to live again?
Already a great step forward is that ayahuasca, through the above-described fantasy, seems to have relieved me of the sabotaging and soul-sucking conviction that my existence is a mistake. I am now more able to genuinely believe that my existence has intrinsic value. Other contributors to my existential tiredness still exist and being chronically ill still makes it difficult to conceive of a motivating future, but reaching this bottom has given me a deepened sense of freedom and relief from various fears, which is also already an improvement. I am free to give this ‘project’ to love life again my all, because I know the only other option is a wee bit final.
I am still trying to find my footing and am not sure how this ‘project’ will unfold further. I know it will include continuing my work with psychedelic medicines and other consciousness-expanding techniques, as well as trying improve my bodily state and fixing – or separating myself from – other draining components of my existence. However, the most important way of re-opening myself up to life presented itself a bit later in the trip, which I explore in the following section.
Living in the Now of Impending Death
When I asked myself how I could learn to love life again during the trip, I still found it difficult to picture a future that motivated continued living. I could imagine some improvements, yes, some ways to make life a little easier, but nothing that made me wholeheartedly say ‘yes’ to life and overcome my exhaustion. I began to see that the answer is not to concoct some desirable future but instead to fully and truly let go of it—to simply live, from Now to Now. More precisely, I came to see that if I can welcome death at all times, I will open up to life again. This state of being, as I’ll explain, is a very different one from wanting to die.
As mentioned above, I felt an immense burden being lifted from my shoulders once I came to accept my imminent suicide. All concern for the future dissipated, because I had none. Deep sadness made way for a profound tranquility. When later in the trip I asked myself how I could learn to love life again, it became clear that I would if I could sustain the serenity that had come to engulf me— but without the promise of suicide to enable it. It became obvious that if I wanted to live, I had to maintain this surrender to death yet give up the desire and intention to do it myself. The irony is that the labors of survival have been an important cause of my suicidal urges. Life has exhausted me so because I’ve clung to myself, resisting things I don’t want and desiring things I lack, constantly trying to take care of my future, which because of various challenges has been an overwhelming task. This had become a way of being so miserable and self-important (though naturally human) that it brought me to the point of wanting to die.
The solution, then, is not suicide, but to find a way of being free of these things, and this requires me to let go of myself, to let go of this constant concern with my own continuance and the quality thereof. It requires living in the Now, fully, which is only facilitated by being able to welcome death at any moment. Anything less entails a concern with one’s own future and will use up energy and divorce oneself, however subtly, from the current moment.
I don’t know how I would now respond to a tiger chasing me or a gun in my face. Probably not all that willingly, but I have let go a lot. I am more present, less fearful and controlling of my life, more ‘expansive’ somehow. I sleep better and longer, often. I forget about annoyances faster. I still have bad moods and anger and sadness and sometimes depression, though I seem to move more easily through these feelings. I see the willingness to die as something to be further integrated and increasingly embodied. This has, paradoxically, created a somewhat more positive image of the future to keep me going. Throughout the day I am now constantly checking in with how I would feel if I were to die that very instant— whatever resistance that I become conscious of, I can now let go of. When I do, I instantly feel better.
I should add that this what I’ve come to call ‘living in the Now of Impending Death’ does not mean obeying whatever whim you happen to have in the moment. It does not – or not intrinsically – entail being stupid or irresponsible or self-destructive. You can still have goals and projects, as long as you remain willing to die at all times with those goals and projects incomplete and with all your efforts toward them to have been in vain. I suppose this ‘state’ is characterized by a strange cognitive dissonance, in which the future is used as compass to guide you from Now to Now, but without it controlling you.
I realize that much of the above probably sounds somewhat unhinged. But I can tell you that it is at least a better unhinged than the suicidal kind. Maybe in time I can become like a normal person again, afraid to die because he likes life…!
Zijn is wat we zijn
I should add that somehow intertwined with this notion of a continual openness to death was a mystical ‘experience’ that occurred at some point after having accepted my imminent suicide. Words can’t possibly describe what is ineffable, so all I can say is that ‘I’ saw that fundamentally I am already dead because I have never really existed. Death, I came to understand, is simply a matter of waking up from a cosmic daydream, which is what my life is. Understanding this notion and staying in touch with the ‘experience’ that engendered it makes it a whole lot easier to accept death, whenever it may come.
The experience is too much to describe fully but in what follows I explore how the ceremony caused a powerful psychic shift.
Confronting the desire to die
The most important thing to happen was becoming fully aware of my desire to die, to put it plainly. This was not a complete surprise, as I had (once again) been dealing with depression and bouts of suicidal ideation in the preceding months, but I had no idea that my tiredness of living went as deep as ayahuasca showed me.
I’m only 31, but I came to see that an increasingly large part of me simply does not want to go on. I’ve become ready to give up due to sheer exhaustion, paired with the fact that I cannot conceive of a future that motivates me to continue bearing what I’ve been bearing. There are several reasons for this state of being, amongst which a troubled relationship and having been chronically ill for a decade, which started in the tail end of a largely suffocating and stressful time of youth.
I came to truly see my condition and its implications: this is it, the end of the road. I really and truly am done for. To continue for decades whilst being horrified by the sheer fact of consciousness, poisoning the people around me with my misery, is simply too absurd to accept— death is better. To lock myself up in a white objectless room whilst wanting to die, just so that I don’t, is too absurd to accept— death is better. In this moment, I could not conceive of any future that would relieve me of my exhaustion with life— so only one option remained. Gradually, after a lot of crying, I came to accept my destiny to self-annihilate and felt an immense burden being lifted from my shoulders.
As the above realization unfolded, an additional and deeper reason for my death wish revealed itself: I came to see that as a child and teenager I felt very much unloved. I know for a fact that my parents ‘intended’ me, but nonetheless our toxic relationship made my young mind feel, unconsciously, that my existence was a kind of cosmic error. Unconsciously, my existence felt like an absurd nightmare in which I was created only to be hated and despised by my very creators. Unconsciously, I felt it to be my responsibility to undo my parents’ mistake— this was to be my task and meaning in life: to relieve the universe of my existence. This conviction, ayahuasca showed me, has been a fundamental motive underlying my suicidal urges, to which other life-difficulties have made me increasingly susceptible over the years.
What followed was a vivid fantasy in which I visit my parents in a state of extreme anger and despair and forcefully ask them to kill me. I tell them: I don’t want to live anymore and the fault is yours. Now kill me. Please kill me. I imagine them refusing my request and me asking why? and receiving various answers. When my father says that he does not want to go to jail, I ask him: Would you do it if you could get away with it? We’ll find a way. But he says he would not and I continue pressing: Why won’t you kill me? Why won’t you kill me? Until finally I get them to the point where they have to admit it: They won’t kill me, because they love me.
This ‘fantasy’ has made me believe that truly my parents would not want to kill me or would not have wanted to kill me in the past for reasons that surpass the troublesome logistics of murder, that indeed they would not because of an intrinsic value they attribute to my existence. In other words, I can now believe that they have and did have love for me, despite everything that occurred between us.
After having accepted the inevitability of suicide, a profound lightness and sense of freedom introduced itself. I saw that although it is indeed no option to continue living in the state I have been living in – that indeed I should and will end the absurdity if it continues – that I may yet find enough love for life to want to continue. Suddenly, the door to life opened again, even if it was with but a crack. The question arose: What can I do to want to live again?
Already a great step forward is that ayahuasca, through the above-described fantasy, seems to have relieved me of the sabotaging and soul-sucking conviction that my existence is a mistake. I am now more able to genuinely believe that my existence has intrinsic value. Other contributors to my existential tiredness still exist and being chronically ill still makes it difficult to conceive of a motivating future, but reaching this bottom has given me a deepened sense of freedom and relief from various fears, which is also already an improvement. I am free to give this ‘project’ to love life again my all, because I know the only other option is a wee bit final.
I am still trying to find my footing and am not sure how this ‘project’ will unfold further. I know it will include continuing my work with psychedelic medicines and other consciousness-expanding techniques, as well as trying improve my bodily state and fixing – or separating myself from – other draining components of my existence. However, the most important way of re-opening myself up to life presented itself a bit later in the trip, which I explore in the following section.
Living in the Now of Impending Death
When I asked myself how I could learn to love life again during the trip, I still found it difficult to picture a future that motivated continued living. I could imagine some improvements, yes, some ways to make life a little easier, but nothing that made me wholeheartedly say ‘yes’ to life and overcome my exhaustion. I began to see that the answer is not to concoct some desirable future but instead to fully and truly let go of it—to simply live, from Now to Now. More precisely, I came to see that if I can welcome death at all times, I will open up to life again. This state of being, as I’ll explain, is a very different one from wanting to die.
As mentioned above, I felt an immense burden being lifted from my shoulders once I came to accept my imminent suicide. All concern for the future dissipated, because I had none. Deep sadness made way for a profound tranquility. When later in the trip I asked myself how I could learn to love life again, it became clear that I would if I could sustain the serenity that had come to engulf me— but without the promise of suicide to enable it. It became obvious that if I wanted to live, I had to maintain this surrender to death yet give up the desire and intention to do it myself. The irony is that the labors of survival have been an important cause of my suicidal urges. Life has exhausted me so because I’ve clung to myself, resisting things I don’t want and desiring things I lack, constantly trying to take care of my future, which because of various challenges has been an overwhelming task. This had become a way of being so miserable and self-important (though naturally human) that it brought me to the point of wanting to die.
The solution, then, is not suicide, but to find a way of being free of these things, and this requires me to let go of myself, to let go of this constant concern with my own continuance and the quality thereof. It requires living in the Now, fully, which is only facilitated by being able to welcome death at any moment. Anything less entails a concern with one’s own future and will use up energy and divorce oneself, however subtly, from the current moment.
I don’t know how I would now respond to a tiger chasing me or a gun in my face. Probably not all that willingly, but I have let go a lot. I am more present, less fearful and controlling of my life, more ‘expansive’ somehow. I sleep better and longer, often. I forget about annoyances faster. I still have bad moods and anger and sadness and sometimes depression, though I seem to move more easily through these feelings. I see the willingness to die as something to be further integrated and increasingly embodied. This has, paradoxically, created a somewhat more positive image of the future to keep me going. Throughout the day I am now constantly checking in with how I would feel if I were to die that very instant— whatever resistance that I become conscious of, I can now let go of. When I do, I instantly feel better.
I should add that this what I’ve come to call ‘living in the Now of Impending Death’ does not mean obeying whatever whim you happen to have in the moment. It does not – or not intrinsically – entail being stupid or irresponsible or self-destructive. You can still have goals and projects, as long as you remain willing to die at all times with those goals and projects incomplete and with all your efforts toward them to have been in vain. I suppose this ‘state’ is characterized by a strange cognitive dissonance, in which the future is used as compass to guide you from Now to Now, but without it controlling you.
I realize that much of the above probably sounds somewhat unhinged. But I can tell you that it is at least a better unhinged than the suicidal kind. Maybe in time I can become like a normal person again, afraid to die because he likes life…!
Zijn is wat we zijn
I should add that somehow intertwined with this notion of a continual openness to death was a mystical ‘experience’ that occurred at some point after having accepted my imminent suicide. Words can’t possibly describe what is ineffable, so all I can say is that ‘I’ saw that fundamentally I am already dead because I have never really existed. Death, I came to understand, is simply a matter of waking up from a cosmic daydream, which is what my life is. Understanding this notion and staying in touch with the ‘experience’ that engendered it makes it a whole lot easier to accept death, whenever it may come.
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(not sure how precise the Nexus guidelines allow me to be)
