DOSE:	12.5 g	oral	Mimosa tenuiflora	(rootbark)
	50 g	oral	Banisteriopsis caapi	(plant material)

BODY WEIGHT:

170 lb

The Mechanics of Bliss and Healing: An Ayahuasca Lesson

This is an account of my second strong ayahuasca dream in which I learn an amazing healing technique and discovered that the human body is capable of far greater degrees of bliss and pleasure that I had ever imagined.

My ayahuasca brew was prepared as follows. 25 grams of powdered Mimosa hostilis root bark, 100 grams of powdered Banisteriopsis caapi vine were boiled with distilled water and the juice of 3 lemons for 15 minutes. This soup was then stored in a cabinet for 8 hours. When I was ready to start, I poured off about half the liquid into a mug and drank a little less than half of that. A half an hour later it kicked in mildly, I felt some mild nausea and I vomited. After that I brushed my teeth, decided that I felt better and I then drank the rest of what was in the cup. From this point on, I felt great. There was no more nausea or any other physical discomfort or body load.

Half an hour later, the second wave of ayahuasca begins to kick in. I am sitting in my very dim living room; the only light a bit of moonlight slipping through cracks in the blinds. I tried having more light but found it highly bothersome and everything seems prettier this way. I have music playing very quietly on the stereo. It is so quiet that I can't hear it if I move more than 10 feet from the speakers but it feels intense where I am sitting. As I look around the room, every surface is covered with textured color; blues and reds and purples in undulating grid patterns that flow and move about the room in circles. I feel cold and, oddly, quite bored with waiting for something interesting to happen. I go through my yoga routine. I am amazed with how limber I am; I have never done this well before. Still, yoga can only entertain for so long. I finish my routine, spend a few minutes enjoying the endorphins, and then stop to take stock of progress of the ayahuasca.

The brightly colored grid lines that cover everything are far more active now. There are large waves that flow through them around the room as though my world has become liquid. One moment, my chair is far, far away across the room and the next it rushes forward, ballooning as it comes, until in is a few scant inches from my nose. Then it recedes again but the right side of the couch rushes forwards towards me. I turn in circles watching the room pulse and wave at me. Occasionally, one of the waves actually washes over me and I am underneath, in a sea of flowing colors. A moment later, the wave passes and I see the undulating room again. I feel an organic presence in the room, the plant spirit manifesting. Although it is all astonishingly beautiful, I find that I feel kind of bored and unsatisfied by it. Something is still missing.

I remember that the reason that I am here doing this is to learn the ways of the shaman and to learn the methods of healing. Unfortunately, I can't remember any of the experiments that I had wanted to try. I remember that the plants are supposed to be the teachers so I reach my consciousness out to the organic presence that I feel in the room, asking it for guidance. To my total surprise and amazement, it responds. To my total surprise and amazement, it isn't terrifying. When I have encountered entities while on acid, they have been overwhelming, huge, godlike presences that have filled me with awe and terror. In contrast, this felt like a sweet and unassuming friend putting their arm around me. It seemed to be saying, 'Oh, sure, I can help. It's no trouble. I know a thing or tow you might enjoy. Here, look at this…' From this point on, I was only partially in control of my own body. Mostly, I was being directed by the plant presence.

Part one: Pleasure. It started with a scalp massage. My fingers are directed to my head and begin to fly in complex patterns, rubbing and scratching and pulling at the scalp. I had not been aware before this that the top of the head could produce pleasure and now there is nothing but pleasure emanating from my head down through my body towards my toes. I can see/feel endorphins rushing to counteract stress, neutralize anger and pain and frustration until I reach a state of pure emotional relaxation and the plant spirit is able to integrate more deeply. Now it shows me complex directions in the form of intricate visions. I am being educated in the methodology of deep tissue massage. It is a subject that I know almost nothing about but which has interested me a great deal. What I am being shown seems very similar to how Rolfing has been described to me. I am being shown in visions and also more directly through my fingers being directed through the motions. It astounds me just how deep I can go, my fingers actually sliding underneath the muscles. I can feel the texture of bone. I can feel and see the structure of each muscle from every angle. The sensations of the muscles are processed through the visual cortex in the most useful synaesthesia that I have ever experienced. What is even more astounding to me is how good it feels. As I lift and squeeze the muscles, they cry out with pleasure. Each and every muscle that I work on sings with more wondrous joy and pleasure and I had ever though it possible to experience with any part of the body. Each muscle seems to be yelling it's affirmation of total correctness, that I have finally stumbled onto EXACTLY what they want to have happen to them. Endorphins course through my body and I am enveloped in pure and total bliss.

Part two: healing. I turn the attention of this deep tissue work to my hamstrings. My hamstrings have been injured for some time now. I am told that the pain that I have felt there for months is the result of many little micro-tears. It is not so bad that it is debilitating and I can still do my martial arts and yoga, but there is always some pain there, sometimes quite badly. As I begin the deep tissue work on them, I find that I can feel these little injuries quite easily. There are about twenty little knotted and scuffed areas through the muscle and one larger tear. It is obvious by touch exactly where they are, as they feel very different from the normally smooth texture of the muscle fibers. The small ones, I am able to smooth and by rubbing them between my fingers. It first, they are very tender and it hurts but then as they smooth out, the pain recedes and is replaces with a glowing and pulsing little spot of happiness. The larger tear is another story. It does not like having my fingers poking at it at all and I realize that I need another tactic. I can feel that there is tearing and I feel that I need to press the pieces back together. With both hands, I press the muscle together and compress in under a great force. Then I reach out into the plant presence and ask it for energy and try to draw that energy through me, through my hands into the muscle in the form of healing light. I am surprised by the intensity of it. It feels quite literally like electricity flowing through my body. My body grows rigid. The electricity keeps rising and every muscle on my body begins to bulge and flew of its own accord. As it rises yet higher, the world goes away completely and my consciousness focuses down to just one point of pulsing energy where it enters my leg. Suddenly it breaks and I collapse back. Endorphins flood and my body is wracked with spasmodic waves or orgasmic bliss. I find that I am totally out of breath and panting. I stop to catch my breath and I drink a lot of water. Then, just as soon as I can handle it, I go back to the work. Feeling the muscles, where the tear had been, I can find no sign of it. I repeat this with the other leg and with two other injuries that have been bothering me in my wrist and knee. The experience is identical each time. After all of that, I feel exhausted but there is still a final stage of the teaching to go.

Part three: emotional release. As I continue the work, I find something in my legs, in my abdomen and in my upper back and shoulders, all the places where I carry tension and pain. Normally, the muscle tissue is smooth but there are all these places where muscle tissue intersects into these weird little micro knots smaller than a peanut. These places are quite tender. Also, it is quite obvious that they restrict movement. They are not right and there are a lot of them. Suddenly I get a clear vision of the connection between mental and physical tension and pain. I can see feel that each of these little micro-knots is connected back to a point of emotional pain: past fights, childhood traumas, insecurities, the September 11th bombings, all kinds of stuff. I allow myself to feel the emotional pain that I carry with me and it flows very strongly. I start to feel overwhelmed with sadness and stress. I see/feel all these lines that pass through my body, each connected to a piece of the emotional pain and to one of the micro-knots, like a web through my body, suffocating it. As I feel the emotional pain rise, all the strings tighten pulling my body in, pulling my muscles and knotting them, suffocating me. Again, I call on the energy of the plant presence and reverse the flow of emotional energy such that the pain recedes. I begin flowing the plant presence energy through my fingers into these micro-knots and it begins to dissolve them. With each one what I am able to dissolve, I feel a great emotional pain releasing. I release as much as I can before I find myself laying on my back and panting like I have never before, gasping for air. I am too exhausted to go on.

After a bit, I feel better. I realize that I feel GREAT. ABSOLUTELY WONDERFUL. For the last hour and a half, I have been involved in almost pure pleasure and bliss and I feel that I have undergone amazing healing, both emotional and physical. I do something that I have really never done before. I dropped to my knees and prayed. I don't really know what I might have been praying to, maybe the plant presence. All I know is that I dropped to my knees with my hands in the prayer pose and for a few minutes, I was nothing but the emotion of pure thankfulness. Nothing else would have seemed appropriate to me after learning that the human body is capable of that level of pleasure and bliss and being shown how to do it. In the next ten minutes, the trip I dropped back down from a high level trip to almost baseline. I was surprised by the rapidity of the comedown. I wasn't quite ready to sleep so I went for a walk to contemplate what had happened.

As I write this, it has been 2 days since the experience. What have I noticed since then? Well, the pain that I had in my hamstrings seems to be entirely gone. It is the same with my knee and wrist. The tension that I have always carried in my stomach and upper back seems to be less than half what it used to be. I kind of feel like I have a brand new body. It's funny though, I can tell quite clearly which parts I worked on and which parts I missed. They feel different. The parts that I missed feel like they always did and the parts that I worked on feel wonderful. It's too soon to really tell how complete the healing has been. While my body feels good, it also still feels tired. That was an awful lot of work after all. We shall see if the pain remains absent. I have high hopes though and I feel that I have made a number of important steps on my journey.

That is all, peace.

Exp Year: 2001	ExpID: 9981
Gender: Male
Age at time of experience: Not Given
Published: Nov 13, 2001	Views: 32,110
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Banisteriopsis caapi (169), Huasca Brew (268), Mimosa tenuiflora (74) : Alone (16), Glowing Experiences (4), Preparation / Recipes (30)