DOSE: T+ 0:00	25 g	oral	Banisteriopsis caapi	(tea)
T+ 1:15	25 g	oral	Psychotria viridis	(tea)
T+ 22:30	25 g	oral	Banisteriopsis caapi	(tea)

Here is an account of my first two Ayahuasca trips, taken 2 nights in a row. Both doses came from one brew I made by cooking the herbs separately in pots of purified water with a bit of lemon juice added. I did 2 extractions, 4 hours and then 2 hours. My mindset when dosing was positive and hoping to see what Ayahuasca was all about.

Saturday

11.30pm Started drinking the extract of 25g White Caapi (about 100ml) which I had just made. Tastes quite bitter but not too bad. Drinking very slowly in teaspoonfuls, stirring brew each time to get an even amount of sediment and salts in each teaspoon. Last ate at midday. Didn't drink much water since then.

12.40am Finished caapi. Feel like I might be starting to trip. Feel a little sick in my stomach. My pupils are dilated!!!

12.45am Starting to drink extract of 25g viridis (about 100ml). Tastes much more bitter than caapi.

1.05am Drank only a few teaspoons of viridis. It seems to make me more likely to puke. Feel like I might puke soon.

1.30am Pupils quite dilated.

1.53am Puked a bit after a teaspoon of viridis. Feel much better now.

2.25am Finished viridis at last. Fucking horrible. Feel sick. Minimal trip effects. Had 2 or 3 very small pukes and retching.

2.50am Stuck fingers down my throat to induce a good puke. Feel much better now. Drank some water to give the puke volume and make it come easier. Eyes still dilated a bit, I think.

3am Ate 2 slices of buttered toast and a banana. Noticed swirling patterns on kitchen floor. I think I'm coming up!!! [ Before this point I was quite disappointed, thinking the brew was a dud. I was merely getting something to eat before going to bed, with the weak hope that the food might induce a trip.]

3.10am Eating potato waffles and tomato sauce. Trip is getting stronger.

3.15am Feeling cold

3.18am Starting to trip strongly.

3.27am I'm getting occasional pins and needles in hands. Physically I feel light and 'rubbery'. I don't like bright lights. Feel sexually aroused.

3.32am Using candles. I think I have nystagmus. Feel cold.

3.55am I think I'm coming down.

4.20am Well down now. Wasted trip having sexual fantasies. Feel tired.

Sunday

12pm Got to sleep about 5am and woke about 30 mins ago. Feel tired but my mood is fine.
The build-up to the peak was very similar to about 2g of mushrooms but had its own subtle character. Eating the toast and waffles caused the trip to kick in. I got extremely horny when I peaked and became totally pre-occupied with sexual fantasies. My bedroom had an exotic aura, like a dream sequence from a Sinbad the Sailor film. It was in the vivid colours and the way things sparkled rather than actual hallucinations, very different from shrooms. The stronger I tripped, the less I could tolerate bright lights. I went from room light to desk lamp to candles and finally total darkness.

Nausea was minor, I had no diarrhoea, and puking was minimal despite drinking heavy sediment. The only decent sized puke I had was one I induced myself. Very strange. I think having a totally empty stomach to start with, being a bit dehydrated, and drinking a very small volume of brew minimised puking. It seems that the stomach needs to contain a certain volume of liquid in order to puke properly.

If the brews had been less bitter I would have been able to drink them quicker with less nausea. The caapi was probably wearing off by the time the toast caused the viridis to kick in. During the peak, my eyesight and especially my hearing seemed better. Also, when writing my trip notes during the peak, my hands occasionally looked like those of an old woman. At the time I disregarded this as silly, but in my next dream it turned out to have quite a profound meaning. All other hallucinations were just regular geometric patterns, but subtly different from the usual forms that shroom patterns took. No jungle imagery at all.

3.50pm Felt like a pussy cat. I was chilling out in my garden, when I got the urge to walk along the top of a wall, about 4ft high, 4' wide. I felt very relaxed and natural doing this, like a cat would be. My feet and shins felt very relaxed. Walked along the top of a field gate, about 2' wide and rounded, 5ft high and wobbling. Fell off a few times and was unconcerned, like I was falling 1ft. Climbed an apple tree stealthily, hardly making it shake at all, and jumped off the top, about 6ft. Climbed onto the roof of my house intending to jump off the eaves, about 8ft. Felt I was starting to get reckless so I went to climb down safely. I climbed onto the roof of a flat shed on my way down, and with hardly a second thought I jumped off it onto the lawn, about 7ft. I had persistent cat-like feelings of calmness, relaxation, balance and fearlessness of heights. I got no pains in my shins like I normally would when jumping from such heights. I rarely do such acrobatics, especially not just for fun.

When I came in, I became fascinated with trying to walk down my very creaky hallway as stealthily as possible. I took off my shoes and jeans because they seemed to be making a terrible amount of noise. I wanted to run closely and stealthily along the wall like a little pussy cat would. After trying various methods, I found that walking very close to the wall was indeed the quietest way! This cat-like behaviour rose to a worrying level after my second dream. Has anyone noticed that the ends of the caapi vine look like cat's paws? I slept for about 2 hours from about 5-7pm, and felt refreshed afterwards.

This dream may not sound like a big deal, but for me it was a fascinating glimpse into a new exotic world which I never knew existed. My second dream was much more powerful and profound, and I got a proper taste of the Ayahuasca experience.

Same Sunday

10pm Started drinking extract of 25g caapi I made the previous day. Last meal was at 5pm. Drank very little water since then.

10.30pm Finished caapi. Rinsed tub with distilled water and drank. It was easier to drink than last night because I was familiar with the taste now. [While drinking the caapi, I sweetened the viridis extract with 3 heaped teaspoons of glucose.]

11pm Started drinking extract of 25g viridis. Tastes not too bad. I think my eyes are a bit dilated. Feel very mild CNS stimulation.

11.30pm Starting to trip. Eyes quite dilated. Stomach a bit sick.

11.45pm Finished viridis. Quite hard to drink even when sweetened. Rinsing my mouth with a bit of water reduced nausea by removing the taste from my mouth.

12.15am Was outside for the last half-hour getting fresh air. It reduced nausea. Burped a few times and had some intestinal grumbles. Eyes look LESS dilated!!! Looking at swirling patterns on carpets causes nausea.

12.35am Ate one slice of buttered toast.

12.45am Still minimal tripping.

1am Tripping much more strongly now. Had been trying to puke to reduce nausea, but couldn't. Drank about 1 litre of water to give puke volume and stuck my fingers down my throat a few times, but it wouldn't come. The large volume of water in my stomach feels quite uncomfortable now.

1.05am Don't like lights. Pins and needles in hands. Feel quite sick. Very cold.

1.26am Feel like I'm coming down. Trip has a warm Caribbean feel. Weird! Sickness gone!!!

1.40am Tripping lightly but pleasantly. Just ate another slice of toast, thickly buttered. Feel quite well. Washed down toast with a little bit of water. Sense of taste and saliva reduced. When trip got strong, there were very intense geometric closed-eye visuals.

1.46am Feel like I might be coming back up.

1.55am Just ate another heavily buttered slice of toast and washed down with a bit of water.

1.58am I think I'm starting to get pins and needles in my hands again.

2.02am Trip is definitely getting stronger.

2.18am Coming back down. The MAOI effects are probably wearing off and the DMT is probably running out.

2.33am Still getting weak pins and needles.

3.38am Almost fully down. Still vague pins and needles. Feel tired.

4.05am Going to bed

4.54am Feel quite hot. Had to remove duvet from bed. The same thing happened yesterday when coming down.

Monday

12pm Got up. Feel tired but in a good mood. Got to sleep about 5.30 to 6am.

When coming down from my previous trip, I became very regretful that I had wasted the peak indulging in silly, futile sexual thoughts. For this trip, I was determined to make the most of it. After drinking the viridis, I got very nauseous. As the first peak kicked in rapidly, it rose to an unbearable level. I lay on my bed under the duvet, freezing cold, sick as hell, and having intensely vivid geometric hallucinations. They were like mushrooms and lsd in the sense that they were geometric, but the patterns were different. Some were plated with vivid gold and silver, something I don't remember ever seeing on shrooms. I could see the viridis brew with claws coming out of it, like it was those claws which were gripping my stomach with nausea. I think the extra bitterness of the viridis was the main cause of nausea. It tasted like sludge from the bottom of a stagnant ditch. Despite the intense nausea, I didn't puke or get diarrhoea. Soon the trip mellowed out into a 'Caribbean Cruise' where the nausea left me totally. With my mind's eye in my darkened bedroom, I could see a jungle coastline, looking out over a warm tropical sea. I could feel the heat and humidity, but it was pleasant. I could get a wonderfully vivid exotic spicy smell, which I now realise is the smell of the dried caapi vine.

These tropical hallucinations were much longer and more enjoyable that the geometric ones at the peak, which were meaningless. I distinctly remember the appearance of the chest of drawers in my bedroom. It is battered and cheap, dark brown with 'gold' handles. When in the 'tropical phase', it looked like the top-quality travel chest of a 16th century explorer on expedition in the Amazon basin or Africa. My bedroom looked like a quality hotel room in some tropical country. The way things shone and glistened under lights was very distinct, in a clear, pure, and beautiful way very different from shrooms. Sometime before the first or second peak I was walking through the house, and with my mind's eye I could see myself as an old woman, about 60-70. She had grey-white hair, was small and thin, yet was quite fit. She seemed to have a very determined personality and a great sense of purpose. During the mellower second peak, all this became clear, I think. The tropical visions intensified, and I saw the old woman from behind, in the jungle. She slowly turned around and showed me her face. I think she had brown eyes, and looked like she had been a very beautiful woman in her younger days. She still had rugged good looks. She told me her name. She seemed to be South American. I think she was an 'Ayahuasquero'.

She told me I didn't need to use so much lemon juice in my extractions. I think she was still alive in the 1960s. I think I was this woman in a previous life. These communications were in the form of 'thought impressions', not audible speech. I have had many profound spiritual experiences on mushrooms, but this has knocked the socks off the lot of them. I feel an amazing affinity with the Vine. The tropical hallucinations had a bluish red colour, and were hazy but fairly clear. They were the colours you would expect to see in the jungle at twilight after a nice red sunset. When I first heard that Ayahuasca caused jungle visions, I thought it was simply due to people expecting to see such things. My jungle visions were too vivid and persistent for me to be able to hold that view now. The jungle is built into the vine. When trying to get to sleep after the dream, the dawn chorus of birds outside sounded like the birds in a jungle. Today I was a bit absent-minded with fuzzy thinking and a low sex drive, like yesterday, but generally in a good mood.

At first I didn't seem to have any more cat impulses, until I suddenly got the urge to lounge in a tree like a Jaguar. I wanted to find a big tree with a very big thick near-horizontal branch which I could sleep on, with my arms and legs dangling down either side. The thought of it was blissful. I quickly tried to think of a tree near my house which would be suitable. I couldn't think of any and was too tired to go out looking. I found that an ok substitute was to lie on my bed with one arm and leg hanging off the side. I snoozed for an hour, partly in that way. I got up for a while and got something to eat, but still had this strong tree-lounging urge. I ended up putting a one-person bed on its side, and folding a duvet in half and putting it over the top along with a pillow. I climbed on top and snoozed there for 40mins, arms and legs dangling. It took a while to get comfortable, but when I did it was lovely. I even found several different comfortable positions. While snoozing, I imagined I had a Jaguar's muzzle and big whiskers. Help, I'm a Jaguar!!!

Exp Year: 2003	ExpID: 45861
Gender: Male
Age at time of experience: Not Given
Published: Oct 13, 2005	Views: 50,577
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Banisteriopsis caapi (169), Psychotria viridis (170), Ayahuasca (8) : Entities / Beings (37), Multi-Day Experience (13), First Times (2), Alone (16)