AYAHUASCA AND ITS PHENOMENOLOGY
Frequents Occurrences:
Given the right conditions, psychedelic agents which channel creativity are capable of broadening any aspect of human performance – intellectual, artistic, ethical or emotional – but some occurrences are rather frequents.
A triumphant feeling of joy and liberty
Ever since the very beginning of investigations into ecstatic experiences, triumphant, radiant feelings of joy and liberty have been described. Maslow’s pioneering studies show that the occurrence of a mystical, ecstatic or “oceanic” experience is a fundamental event in the stories of his subjects’ lives. According to Maslow, all the people he has studied unanimously recognise its deep secondary therapeutic effects. Such an experience is capable of removing neurotic symptoms for ever, of releasing greater creativity, spontaneity and expressiveness. It is also capable of producing a healthier and freer expression of the person, an impulse towards excellence.
A move toward more physical fitness
Because the experience is a psychosomatic phenomenon, the expansion of consciousness also increases consciousness of the body and its functions. The awareness that we are biological beings, and that we should look after our bodies seems to be part of the experience of Ayahuasca. It’s common for Ayahuasca users to stop smoking, stop drinking alcohol, to start eating more healthily, to start doing things like Yoga and Tai-chi, and to seek more contact with nature.
Subjective light
There is a great intensification of yellow-golden light in the experience of Ayahuasca, both when the subject’s eyes are open and when they are closed. This luminosity intensifies the colour and shine of objects both in the external world and in the inner world. It is very common for users of Ayahuasca to experience fantastic, kaleidoscopic, ever-changing images:
“Omnimodal Es”
“Es” is a term suggested by Nietzsche to designate a metaphysical entity buried deeper in human nature than the Freudian subconscious.
“Omnimodal”: of all ways; embracing all manners of being; embracing all things; having no restrictions; unlimited
One common aspect of the experience of Ayahuasca and, by extension, of other psychedelic substances, is a change in one’s perception of oneself, of one’s context, and of the relationship between oneself and one’s context.
There is a certain fluidity of identity (unity, disunity, aggregation, disaggregation, combination, association, disassociation); it’s common to have feelings of levitation and distance from the body. These phenomena are in the final analysis partial and incomplete manifestations of the “indifferent” state typical of mystical union.