well, fwiw - my 1st experience did not go as anticipated. I thought I was pretty meticulous making my aya, but I really didn't get the effects.

I thought I was going to, it seemed as tho I was right on the verge, but nothing "happened". After a bit, I thought I might try to help it along and put on some LifeFlow meditations, which is isochronic and binaural tones.

Didn't help.

I had read that sometimes eating a small amount of food may help, basically kicking the aya into your system, so tried that and again, nothing.

I could be wrong, but it seemed the caapi is what i was feeling.

I have quite a few things going against me, so is hard to isolate the problem. I have a severe back problem and take morphine for pain. I know you should not do any other drug when taking aya, but I can't go without the morphine or the pain is pretty bad. I have a disease where my spine literally grew together by itself, ankylosing spondylitis, also called bamboo spine because on an x-ray, the spine looks just like a piece of bamboo. Anyway, point is, the morphine is a pretty much must have.

I also could not stand the taste. I do not see how people can stomach it. Maybe I am just old, but I could not do it. I had read where you can freeze caapi so did some searching around and found some info where a guy froze his, making "caapi cubes" and then you can just eat the ice cube, so I tried that.

So that could also be a reason.

I tried it again yesterday, using even a higher dosage of each, but again, seemed like i was on the verge but nothing ever really happened.

What i need is a time machine. In my youth, growing up in a small liberal college town in the 70's, drugs were overly abundant and I used to do more than my fair share of lsd. unfortunately i was young and naive and tho i did have "oneness" experiences, etc, it was strictly recreational use.

I need the time machine so I can go back in time and stash some of the Mr Natural so then i could use now for exploration of my consciousness instead of recreational purposes.

If only. While the experience would definitely not be the same as aya, I am sure I could make do, plus would be a whole lot easier then trying to stomach the caapi - I honestly do not see how you do it. Again, I guess I am just getting old. It may not be working because I am eating "caapi cubes", but if I had to drink it, i would never get it down.

I have enough plant to try one more batch and tho i wish i could experience what aya has to teach me, I do not think I will making any more aya after this is gone - again, it honestly comes down to drinking the caapi. The mimosa I can stomach, not great tasting, but tolerable, the caapi - I tip my hat to those who can stomach it because I sure can't.

I guess I just am not ready to experience what aya has to offer.

On a side note and i apologize for the subject - but there is one thing drinking it has done for me, and maybe that is all I actually needed at the moment.

Anyone familiar with long term morphine use is probably aware of one problem it causes - constipation. (I told u I apologize for the topic). Long story a tad shorter, I took morphine for about 12 years then took a break for about 1 year (did this of my own volition). I never had problems during that time. I started up again not that long ago. pai got too bad and i had turned into a couch potato, so thought it was time. The dr started me out on Opana but it was not helping, so a couple of months ago i went back to morphine. Feeling great pain wise but I was having a really hard time "relieving" myself. It was actually getting pretty serious.

Enter aya - since drinking the aya, it has not been a problem.

So actually, aya did help me. As they say, it gives u what you need, not what you want....lol

anyway - sorry to bore u again.