Simon, 43, American computer network engineer (with a doctorate in social psychology)
Why Takiwasi?
My initial interest was in locating a psychotherapist that used LSD as an adjunct to psychotherapy, as a way of bringing repressed material up to the surface which could then be worked on. It was not my belief that psychedelic experiences, whether induced by plants or by LSD, would in and of themselves produce a transformation or revelation but I did think that it would bring up surface material to be worked on. I couldn't find a therapist like that back in the States and Takiwasi seemed as close as I could get. It would give me some exposure to that experience which would either confirm my idea or not.
What are you looking for in terms of psychotherapy?
It would take hours and weeks to go into it in that detail but in general I have a sense of dissatisfaction with the conditions of my life. I think any person who looked at my life would think it was pretty good: I have a good relationship, good job and so on... But I just felt generally unfulfilled and I felt unable to identify where my fulfilment would lie, I did not know quite what to do. When things did not go right I didn't know quite why they didn't go right. That was one piece. The other piece is that through many years of psychoanalysis I have a fairly good intellectual take on how I'm constructed and could rattle off some interpretation, but those interpretations never really reached me emotionally and, again, I wasn't sure why. I've always been involved before in classical psychoanalysis.
What were your expectations and what actually happened?
My hopes were pretty straightforward - that I would have some visionary experiences that would put me in contact with thoughts and feelings that I wasn't aware of, that would be meaningful and would represent material that I could continue to work on, as simple as that. I wasn't expecting a radical transformation, I wasn't expecting to see God, I wasn't expecting some spiritual revelation, simply to have some intense experiences...
Was that fulfilled?
Not as intensely as I had hoped. There were some, there were a couple of ayahuasca sessions in which I did have some strong visual experiences. Most of them, though, were of a bodily sensation where I felt things more strongly than I saw them, although there were some visual experiences as well.
Overall, did you feel that it has opened anything new for you?
I think this is going to be a fruitful approach for me if I could do more of it. It has opened up my mind to a couple of options in my life that I had closed off. For example, I had decided fairly recently that I was not going to have children. That changed. One very strong ayahuasca vision I had changed my thoughts about parenthood completely. Now I see that parenthood is a very possible path to my healing, a way to be the father that I never had to the child that I never was. In this vision I was a father and it became clear to me that I needed to think about what fatherhood means and the possible reparative value of parenthood. I think that was my strongest experience.
Was this vision completely different to a dream? Was it a novel kind of experience?
It was novel but it wasn't what I thought it would be. I had thought that in a vision I wouldn't be able to distinguish the vision from reality, that it would have a quality of materialism about it but it wasn't like that at all. I always felt as if I was the author of my vision. Not necessarily in control but always observing it.
Have you had experience of psychedelics before?
No, never.
You went through a series of diets?
One diet. The five days in the jungle were surprisingly easy and went by rapidly. It was a good opportunity for me to take a mid-point review of my life. I began with my earliest memories on the first day of the diet and worked my way forward until I reached the present on the fifth day. I tried to figure out what my earliest memory was and I think I found it on the second day, then moved forward. I wasn't trying to analyse, just recall. I hadn't planned it as I had no idea what effects the plants were going to have so on the first day I waited fairly passively for something to happen and nothing really happened so I thought well, now what, how can I best make use of this time? Perhaps the plant made it easier, I had no difficulty in staying focused for those days. Lots of feelings came up - I cried, laughed, lots of associations I hadn't made before came up - how early decisions and patterns affected later decisions and patterns and so on.
But then, if I had locked myself in my bathroom for five days I would probably be doing that same thing with a lot less discomfort. But, who knows what the plant may have been doing? I didn't feel any psychoactive effect. I felt some nausea and some queasiness but I wasn't aware of any psychotropic effects from the plants. The ayahuasca is different. I had dreams every night - I typically don't recall my dreams but I did have good recall which was unusual.
Did you feel that the curendero's visits each day were useful?
There was a real language barrier. There was not much opportunity to talk to him and frankly I don't know what I would have said anyway. I think having a psychotherapist there would have been helpful, but that's not the purpose of the seminar. But if from the beginning I had been working with a psychologist it might have been more interesting for me.
If you could come back in six months time and set up your own programme what would you do?
I would extend it to six weeks. I'd spend the first two weeks just talking with the therapist so he could get to know me. Then more frequent ayahuasca sessions - a total of five in the three weeks.
What was your experience in the ayahuasca sessions?
They were valuable as openings rather than insights. For me the ayahuasca did not reveal new truths but confirmed things that I knew with doubt such as the parenting thing. The ayahuasca removed the doubt about parenthood and now it is clear that that is a path of healing for me. Similarly some other issues with my parents, there were things that I thought I had to do and it was made clear that yes, I did have to do those things. For instance, in terms of having a greater sense of forgiveness towards my parents about certain things and knowing that I can choose what I store in my heart, that I'm not entirely a passive victim here. That yes, things do happen but then it's up to each individual to decide what the lasting value of that is. That came directly from the ayahuasca session.
Did you feel any connection with the spiritual aspect in this session?
I have difficulty with that word. I would have to ask what you meant by spiritual.
Some people would say it's to do with what you were mentioning earlier about choosing what to put in your heart, opening your heart...
To me that's psychological health. I had one or two visions were I saw figures, and a white sparkly light next to me, and a sacred presence - I don't know who or what it was but it was some kind of presence. But I don't catalogue those as the more important visions. It was more the visions to do with my father, and parenting and this one other one... One of the things the shaman saw was that he felt I was under the spell of some sorcerer. I received it with openness, I was going to sit with it for a while and not just shrug it off. So I thought about it and I went back to him and asked him and he says that as it turns out the spell was not directed towards me after all. It was directed towards someone else and I happened to get in the way of its path. So I caught a bit of it, but not to worry, a couple of ayahuasca sessions and he'd get rid of it for me. He asked me to bring a bottle of cologne to the next session. So I went into town and bought a bottle of cologne, took it to that session and gave it to him. We had the session during which he did something to it and at the end of the session he gave it back to me. But during the session I had a vision of the bottle of cologne. Very clearly, I saw it go into my heart and my first thought was well, this is awfully silly, the thing which I choose to place into my heart is a cheap bottle of cologne. Then I had a very strong feeling that what I was being told was that each of us can choose what to store in our hearts - you can choose to store bitterness or sweetness. It's your choice, and whatever you put in there will permeate all of you. So that was something for me, that was a strong clear feeling without any doubt. I think that and the image of parenthood were the two strongest moments. But it wasn't a blown out vision of colours and animals and things. A part of me still wants that but I think there's a lot of material still to get out. I'm firmly convinced that death is a very important theme in all of our lives, but I haven't really explored that yet. I'm looking and waiting for some stronger visions. More consuming, perhaps more painful. There was no pain in any of my visions. In the one with my father I saw an eagle with my father's head on it and he was trying to bite me, eat me. I didn't feel particularly terrified, I knew that it wasn't a good thing but I didn't feel terror. But then very quickly I saw the image of the shaman and I saw myself become smaller and hiding behind him and I saw him as a shield. Whatever it was that was trying to get to me was not going to penetrate the shaman. So I felt perfectly safe. Later the shaman told me that what I had seen as my father was not my father but was some kind of evil spirit posing as my father. At the time I didn't really accept it, I wanted to, but I have to suspend judgement. I would dearly love to believe in some kind of afterlife but I can't seem to bring myself to believe it. I sincerely would like to but part of me resists, sees it as giving in, collapsing, saying well I've had enough of rational thought I'll give in to something greater than myself. To me that's a reduction of the human powers than we have - giving up rather than a journey that one goes on and that one is responsible for.
Where does this lead you to?
I'm open to coming back to Takiwasi at some later point. Not doing the seminar but just taking the ayahuasca.
©Nicholas Saunders and Anja Dashwood. Interview took place in Terapoto, February 1997.
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