DOSE:	1 hit	insufflated	Tobacco
	2 shots	oral	Ayahuasca

BODY WEIGHT:

65 kg

Meniere's Disease and Ayahuasca

When I was 14 years old I was diagnosed with Meniere's disease, for those who are not familiarized with it, it’s an inner ear condition not fully understood yet that causes dizziness, loss of balance, hearing problems, tinnitus and more (read more about it on Wikipedia). As my condition is non-curable by regular medicine I turned to any other than occidental medicine, I’ve tried Acupuncture, Ayurveda, Tai-chi, Qi-Gong, and different kind of meditation techniques. Looking for help I came across Ayahuasca, and same as any first timer I found my expectations on it to be quite high, you know, reading those overwhelming testimonies online, watching video reports on the trips, I thought it was something worth trying.

I was told that a ceremony was about to take place in town within a week, so there was not much time to prepare for it but I did followed a strict 4 days diet of fresh cooked vegetables and rice, no salt nor sugar and lots of water.

The ceremony was led by members of Santo Daime doctrine; of course there was a Shaman in charge of dispatching the beverage and lots of people to assist him and us (we were about 10 participants).

It started with rapé, which is a snuff of a very thin mixture of strong tobacco, clove, camphor and other herbs and ashes. We were told that this snuff was good to prepare ourselves for the Ayahuasca; it would cleanse and open our minds to the experience.

I began feeling dizzy, nothing to worry about since I’ve felt worse, but then came a strong nausea and I lost sensitivity on my upper limbs, started to sweat heavily on my forehead and I just started to vomit violently. The nausea and the dizziness faded and a rush of heat spread across all of my upper body, chest, back, neck, head and finally the hands. I had to go to the bathroom because my guts were rumbling so much I almost didn't made it. By that time I was already regretting being there and I thought that rapé and Meniere’s disease are certainly not a good combination.

Before the first dose of Ayahuasca, the Shaman encouraged us to think of an intention, something specific, that way we would further increase the healing power of the plant. I did my homework and read almost every report on Ayahuasca online so I had an intention ready: I was there to grow, to become a better person and to overcome my spiritual lethargy.

After overcoming my fear of a sudden Meniere episode I drank the dose (it was shot glass) and went back to my place within the circle to chill and let the plant do the work. To my surprise nothing happened (at least that was my understanding at the moment), not even the strong nausea everyone describes. I was seeing nothing at all, no shiny colors or weird surroundings, nothing but a strong conscious sense of “the present”. Soon I realized that I was thinking more than usual, and my thoughts were not proper for the occasion, I tried to meditate a little just to get in tune with the ceremony but as soon as I began the meditation strong visuals appeared, nasty faces with dark eyes and a big fish like a trout but with lion teeth jumped out from the faces towards me and I was back at “the present”. The thoughts were horrible and loaded with emotions like anger, guilt, regret, pride (the bad one), confusion, disappointment and the sense of being powerless.

The second dose was even worse, the feelings got very intense and every time I tried to do something like visualizations or meditations that big fish pushed me back to “the present”. By that moment I had already lost all sense of time and finally I started feeling a little nausea so I vomited the little something I still had in my stomach.

Nine hours had passed since the beginning and the ceremony was ending. Everyone got up and we started dancing with the shaman, that was nice and much needed.

I’m still trying to understand the whole thing, but I have the idea that all those bad feelings and thoughts were actually the Ayahuasca manifesting, I mean there are no limitations on the type of hallucination and in my case it was thoughts and emotions only (except for the fish of course). Also, I’ve been talking a lot about this trip trying to give meaning to it and it seems that Ayahuasca cleared the conscious autonomous thinking by which I filter dark thoughts and feeling like those letting them to come forward to express themselves.

It’s too early to say anything about Meniere, neither the Ayahuasca nor the Rapé triggered an episode but I think it’s just the same as before the ceremony, the tinnitus is still there and I’m not feeling anything different. Nevertheless it was good experience of personal growth, I may let these dark thoughts and emotions to show up from time to time, it may be healthy.

Exp Year: 2016	ExpID: 108721
Gender: Male
Age at time of experience: 34
Published: Jun 23, 2016	Views: 5,813
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Ayahuasca (8) : Therapeutic Intent or Outcome (49), General (1), Group Ceremony (21)