The Profile
Name: Hannes
Nationality: Swedish
Lives in: Barcelona
Age when taken psychedelics: 26
Job: Marketing Entrepreneur
Psychedelic of choice: Ayahuasca
Place of ceremony: Spain
What was your intention?
I just went with “Show me what I need to see and show me the truth both about the world and myself.”
Why did you take it?
To learn more about myself and get clarity about my life. I wanted a bit of a confirmation if I was doing the right thing, was I on the right path.
I’m one of those people who likes to question himself a lot. I know how easy it is to let your ego take over your decision and thought processes or to allow the society to impose their expectations on you. Even if I loved what I was doing, I wanted to have an open mind and see if that was truly what I loved and wanted to do.
I had 4 ceremonies within 1 week. It was in a retreat setting just outside of Barcelona – it was a very professional one with a very well-trained shaman from the Shipibo tribe. The venue had a therapist, a psychologist, and a masseur – it was a very pleasant experience where you could truly focus on yourself, your mind, your consciousness and the healing process. You could just relax there. Integration is very important and that setting helped it. Hearing other people’s stories and sharing yours was a great part of this process.
The 4 ceremonies were completely different from each other.
During the 1st ceremony, I didn’t feel anything. Everybody seemed to be having a very interesting time and I was bored. Nothing was happening. I didn’t even purge.
The day after everyone was so happy and I was thinking I was in the wrong group. I wanted to feel what they were feeling too! I then realised it was because I had too high expectations. I was so prepared, I meditated, I was so focused, I had a specific state of mind and was so focused on relaxing that I actually failed to do it.
The day after, I went in there with no expectations. I was joking with my friends and had a good time and I’m never going to forget what I experienced then. Your consciousness, your mind just opens up.
It’s very easy, if you’ve never tried it, to say that it’s all just a product of you taking some substances and I understand that as it’s very hard to imagine what you can’t understand. But after you do it, you realise what your mind is capable of and that the universe is not at all as boxed or simple as we think it is. You just realise we don’t know anything.
When I woke up the next day, I was waking up to a whole new world. I was 10 kg lighter; the air was so light, everything was so easy – I never felt like that and this has not gone away.
What were you most afraid of?
Nothing. I had done a lot of personal development before that. I was of course very humbled by the experience but the philosophy, how to think, how to act during it, how not to identify yourself with your thoughts, which are just energy that comes through your mind, I knew how to do that. I took those teachings from the Stoics: Socrates, Plato, Marcus Aurelius, Seneca, Epictetus.
That allowed me to separate myself from things like anxiety, stress, or nervousness. So, I knew I was not going to identify myself with any of the bad things that might happen during the experience. The way I thought about it was that whatever I experience, is just an experience and I don’t have to be afraid of it.
Of course, I didn’t know what was going to happen but that was just how I approached it before the ceremony.
What did you most look forward to?
I wanted to get more clarity on my life’s purpose. I did not expect I would get the exact answer as to what it was but more the clarity about what I was doing.
I wanted to understand my past, how it aligns to the now and how I could take it to the future and just use everything that I know and experienced to be happier.
Before the Ayahuasca ceremony, I tried not to think about it too much and clear my mind as much as possible, so I didn’t lie to myself or put myself in a specific direction. Instead, I tried focusing on my values and asked myself questions like “What is the foundation of what I believe in?” That’s how I was preparing myself to dive deeper into this topic.
What was the hardest bit about the experience?
There were difficult experiences but I was grateful for having been shown them. I saw things that may be perceived as hard but I never thought I was not going to be able to take it. I didn’t view it as difficult, just as an interesting experience.
One example was when I got a bit more clarity on my own behaviour in social situations and how I interact with other people. I was able to see and feel from my family and friends’ point of view when I was being ignorant towards them. I felt what they felt, the hurt in their body. When you are younger, you are not very aware of what you do and I could see how I hurt my mother or my sister, why I did it and especially how they felt. I felt sadness but also liberation and gratitude that I was able to change that for the future.
I tried not to identify with that though but was grateful for being able to understand it so I know what I can do to change that for the future. I just made sure not to identify myself with the past me.
What was the best bit about the experience?
You hear all these things like “Love is all that exists” and my old self would just say “What do you mean? Stop dreaming.” But this was one of the most profound experiences I’ve had. I was connecting myself to love, to the existence and had a better understanding of the source of our reality. Then you realise that love is actually all that exists.
I’m not even going to try to explain that with words because it would be unfair to love – you can’t explain it with any of the tools we use for expression. I experienced it and I truly realise this love exists.
It’s a nice thing to know it in the daily life: to know the source and where it comes from. You can slide in your perception but you can always come back to that source. You also rip away a lot of things from what has been inserted into your brain. You realise that’s just not true, it’s an illusion.
I still have a lot of Ayahuasca ceremonies to do to come close to that source but based on where I was in the past to where I am now, I have come so much closer to a better ground in myself, my mind, body & soul to go back to it when needed.
What did you get from it?
To me it was a confirmation that what I’m doing is what I love to do.
I was asking myself questions like “Am I the person I truly am or someone that tries to be liked?” – even if you think about it, it’s still very easy to deceive yourself. So, I was glad to get that confirmation and a message to just be and allow it to flourish, be even more who I am, not to hold back, just do what I do because I love it. So, I got acceptance and a confirmation to just be who I am.
I think this exists in layers as well: I am who I am but you can still work with it taking off a layer after layer, because there is no end. You build this ego around you based on all the information from the past and step by step, you can rip it all off. To me that’s one of the keys to a fulfilling life. Just keep on taking away what you are not and just allow yourself to be. And when you can allow yourself to be 100%, you will have no fear. If you have fear, then you still have work to do.
How did it impact your life?
Everything I see and I do, I do differently. I truly see every hardship or challenge as an opportunity now.
When you can really connect all the things you did in the past and how that led to this point and to who you are and how you can move forward, then you almost want to move faster, do more things you are afraid of, put yourself through more struggles – that’s what’s fun, that’s what I realised I love: putting myself in difficult situations and challenging myself in different ways.
As an entrepreneur, you hear it all the time that you should make more mistakes but it’s easy to hear words and not understand what they really mean. You need to experience it. So now, I throw myself into the challenge and accept the moment. The only way I can do it is by being present and not giving in to the negative emotions – in the end, it’s the challenge that I love.
Also, I don’t care about what I’m achieving anymore – it just doesn’t matter. Instead, I care about taking up the challenge and seeing were it goes. I just want to be as aware as possible and send that awareness into this existence.
I just see things differently now: it’s the awareness, being present, loving the experience you are having, the blood flowing through your body, the breath through the air – those are the things I value most. That allows me to be present and value the experience even more and to approach it with open arms.
All the external stuff is just seduction of our senses leading us in the wrong direction. We must not be a slave in our mind to the desire inside us. It’s about freedom of your mind. If you are going to be a slave to the desires, needing external things to make your soul happy, you cannot appreciate the experience.
The Ayahuasca experience also gave me more freedom.
I come from a perspective of Philosophy. A lot of people will have different experience and just accept to just be. To me it was more about my mind and my consciousness because I’m a lot about thoughts and discipline – can I control myself and be the most of myself? During the experience, I was speaking to Mother Ayahuasca and she was teaching me discipline in my body, my fingers, my lungs, my heart and especially my mind – not to let the thoughts drift away but be disciplined with myself.
I took it as a tool to be even more disciplined in my life, to be less dependent on desires all around me like social media, snacks, fast food, or coffee – e.g. can I stay away from it for a month just like that? If not, maybe coffee has a stronger consciousness than I do?
This what I am working on and I may go even further in that direction.
What did you struggle with after?
I was a bit tired of my body and my mind. I tend to think a lot and after the experience, I wanted to think even more. I wanted a bigger brain – what I had was not enough.
What improved?
I felt as if we had knots in our mind and Ayahuasca unravels them and straightens up the string. We don’t even need to be conscious of it. It just releases the mind from whatever haunts us.
I realised during the ceremonies that I needed to stop thinking so much. Stop thinking. Just stop thinking. The entities I met told me: feel more, don’t think logically only but do it based on intuition, connect to your heart to see what feels right. That’s what I’m working on right now: finding that balance of feeling and experience and what I should be doing based on what’s happening combined with my attraction to thinking.
I also feel like Ayahuasca restarted me. I wish I had more visual effects – I think I can get it if I follow the diet better and clean myself to connect with the pineal gland. I did feel like I had a type of rebirth though where everything was removed, I was liberated and I could start over and I didn’t have to look back ever again, just take it from here. It’s about what I can do right now, be kind, love people and the world around me.
I see it as learning to ride a bike. Once you have learnt it, you don’t need to keep falling off the bike to be able to ride it. Before Ayahuasca, I always felt a bit of sadness in me one way or another, no true happiness, not flourishing but now, I have realised it’s all inside me and I have found that feeling in my mind, my heart and my soul especially.
If I feel sad, I say to myself “No, Hannes, you are not sad. You are imagining that you are sad. This is inside of you. Just take one or two minutes and you can change your whole self just like that and focus the energy on the right things”. That was the main thing that was taken off me. It showed me parts of the existence that I can always get back to, that I can always choose to be happy. The sadness doesn’t serve me. It’s not necessary.
I am from Sweden and we are an extremely sad society. I don’t think we know it because that’s just how it is but I have lived in many cities and countries and I can see the difference. I have seen a lot of sadness and depression in my personal surroundings and that’s how I thought you have to be, that you have to be sad and depressed because that was all I knew. The Ayahuasca experience made me realise that I don’t need to be sad. There are ways out of it. Of course, I’m not saying this attitude will help everyone as it depends on the kinds of problems you have but I still think it can help many people.
What do you need to work on?
It’s all about discipline for me now. By discipline, I mean being conscious of the moment, of my breathing, how I sit, how I move and so on.
You can control your energy and well-being, but it requires work. If you fall back to a reactive and passive state of existence, you will fall back to your old patterns. If you focus on challenging yourself and on being present (that’s what I mean by discipline), you can do anything.
To me, in order to live a happy life, it’s about the discipline of the mind and being aware of the existence. I believe we should celebrate life by giving it awareness. By being aware, you have stillness in yourself and by having that, you are more likely to be happy and able to show love, empathy and compassion to your surroundings. That’s what I believe life is about: being present and conscious. If you are still inside and aware of your existence, then you can create great things if that’s what you want to do but I think it’s enough to just be present.
What would be your advice if you were to do it again?
Relax more and stop thinking.
There were a lot of times when I felt I had the connection but if I had stopped thinking, I could get more into the experience and get more insight.
When Ayahuasca communicated some insight to me, it was so exciting and I couldn’t help myself and I started thinking but as soon as I did that, I lost it. I really had to stop thinking and free my brain of all the thoughts. When I did, I had better visuals and insights.
So, all in all, I’d say work on meditation, breathing and quieting your mind.
First of all, I was impressed with the depth of Hannes's thinking when still in his 20s. I knew a thing or two about the power of your mind at that age but if I was to name one thing I wish I had done differently, it would probably have to be to have had Hannes's understanding of the nature of reality back then!
In the end, being able to free yourself of the thoughts and negativity is the key to a good life. Every time we do something, we choose what kind of energy we want to send out to the world. Knowing that can truly change our life.
Of course, it's not to say Hannes is all done growing (or thinking for that matter) but he seems to have already gained insight that has allowed him to transform his life in a way that has freed him of the invisible shackles of his conditioning. There is a reason why he is living in sunny Spain and not Sweden!
Our upbringing and what we are fed with when we are kids form a very robust autopilot that if we are not careful, can totally derail us trying to get on our paths. All that self knowledge Hannes was talking about is key to freeing ourselves from it and building a life that's more in accordance to who we truly are instead of who we feel an obligation to appease. Appease yourself first I say, everything will follow then...
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