Won't touch on ceremonies and groups vs. individual but rather the problem of quality & strength of experience.
The hardest thing about Ayahuasca is the "problem child" part of it (not the caapi) but rather the hard to find good quality Hawaiian leaf. It is sporadic and difficult to find. Over the past several years had over 60 experiences in dreams, all with quality caapi and only good quality Hawaiian leaf. Too much leaf = terrifying experiences where only closing the eyes I was able to ride it thru (like peeling back the layer of an onion infinite times with eyes open, and even the slightest movement, say 1/2 of an inch of the body, would trigger massive new fluorescent CEV's with a new direction and theme), but with the right amount of leaf = perfect experiences that would last a good 3 to 4 hours with 90 minutes of very strong activity.
Learned how to modulate the strength by first brewing the leaf down to 3oz, then tasting it to see how bitter it was, the more bitter the stronger. With the leaf had at the time, 25g = perfect, 30g = strong, 35g = a bit too strong, 40g = ego loss. There is a fine line between a perfect mildly strong experience and ego loss, a matter of just 15 extra grams, but sometimes the leaf would be double the potency depending on the time of day it was picked, and in which case it would be double the bitterness, in which case learned to pour 1/2 of it out, and just use 1/2 of the leaf brew....took lots of experience to learn the bitterness trick, but it worked flawlessly thereafter. After accidentaly consuming in dreams lots of overly-bitter leaf brew which resulted in overly strong experiences, learned the perfect bitterness, and thus potency which I loved. When you get it right, it is heavenly.
25 to 35 grams was perfect to strong territory which was amazing to say the least, but 40 gram ego loss territory -- had been there a few times, and prefer to stay as far away from as possible, no fun, quite terrifying...but 25 to 35 grams was completely and absolutely amazing, but like I said, you gotta really watch the bitterness and use that as a gauge as 25 grams would sometimes (rarely like about 1 time out of 10) be like 50 grams when some of the leaf was picked at the "prime time of day", in which case it was extremely bitter, and not something you would want to drink all of in dreams, but use only 1/2 of instead.
And yes, you do want to take the leaf brew at the exact same time as the caapi brew, all mixed together in dreams, but test the bitterness of the leaf first! These days it is rare to find good quality leaf, but it does happen, and often a very long wait, thus the problem child in the mix. Page 149 of attached paper shows the tremendous variability of actives vs. time of day. Most leaf would be 1mg per g, and much more lower quality at 1/2mg per g. There is very little out there at anything above those levels despite what page 148 and 149 reveal. The dynamics of digestion in dreams of the leaf in it's natural boiled down salt liquid form is unbeatable & very special. To me, easy vs. hard Ayahuasca is all about quality of the problem child, which is quite a chore these days to locate. Bad quality is no fun and expensive...it's a long waiting game. Chaliponga do not like: unpredictable and can be physically taxing & scary....but chacruna is the kindest and non-toxic/safe/traditionally used by Shuar, UDV, Santo Daime, etc.