The Profile:
Name: Victor
Nationality: Canadian / Maltese
Lives in: Toronto, Canada
Age when taken psychedelics: 31
Job: Filmmaker
Psychedelic of choice: MDMA, Mushrooms & Ayahuasca
Place of ceremony: Peru & USA
What was your intention?
When I first went to Peru in 2011 it was a big deal and it is so every time I go into a new ceremony. So, I always go in with an intention and while the medicine may not give you what you want, it will give you what you need.
When I started this journey, it was to show me what’s not serving me in my life, teach me what I needed to let go, how to love myself and accept things the way they are. I’m also visually impaired, so I wanted to find a way to heal that.
We learn that growth is painful but there’s nothing more painful than being stuck somewhere you don’t belong.
Why did you take it?
I came to psychedelics from a mental health perspective when I was going through a challenging time in my life – I just got out of a long term relationship and was trying to understand what went wrong with myself and the said relationship. I felt like the same issues linked to my traumas kept on coming up. Despite me being on medication and talking to therapists, it never really seemed to get to the root of the problem.
During that time, I was learning a lot about the brain, ADD, trauma, learning disabilities and I came across a couple of books: one was “The Brain That Changes Itself” by Dr Norman Doidge, which was a big game changer for me, and the other one was Dr Gabor Mate’s “Scattered Minds” which is about the true origins of ADD, which he believes are rooted in childhood trauma and an upbringing by traumatised parents.
At the same time, I saw a documentary that Dr Mate did called “The Jungle Prescription” about healing with Ayahuasca and I thought this was something I needed to try. I just felt that these emotions and trauma that I had were stuck in my unconscious. To quote Carl Jung, “Until you make the unconscious conscious, it will direct your life and you will call it fate.” I was in such a major depression and nothing else worked - I needed to try this out.
This was before Ayahuasca was popular and so there were not that many people I could ask for advice before I went. I did speak to a friend in the UK who had some experience with it, but eventually, it just came down to me having to go and book something. When I was trying to decide on the place, I checked TripAdvisor reviews and the one I selected had a lot of positive ones saying how amazing it was – little did I know, that that shaman was taking down any negative reviews, which I only found out afterwards...
So, when I went to Peru, it ended up being a challenging and a pretty traumatic experience in itself because the shaman at my ceremony ended up being abusive to me. He was a drunk, used other drugs and manipulated people. I went to the Amazon to heal and had a completely different experience. I just didn’t understand what was going on.
I made it out alive and by chance, met Gabor Mate at a talk he did in Toronto. I told him about my experience and that I didn’t know where to go but that I needed help. He invited me to a retreat with him in 2012. I’ve had transformative experiences with him and he’s been a mentor of mine since.
Altogether, Ayahuasca had its place in my healing but I felt there were still some things I had to process and that needed to be worked on after. A lot of aspects of my life were quite traumatic, one being given a diagnosis of going blind through the condition called Retinitis Pigmentosa. I also grew up with a highly abusive parent and I felt I needed a lot more one on one attention and focus.
Since finding out about MAPS, I got connected with them through going to psychedelic conferences. I ended up travelling to New York to work with their psychotherapist using various medicines such as MDMA and psilocybin this time in a more contained environment. This consisted of a lot of integration as well. Since then, it has allowed for a radical transformation of my life and I even started training as a guide under a few mentors who have been active figures in the psychedelic world.
What were you most afraid of?
Me being visually impaired, the other main symptom of my condition, which is probably a bigger symptom, is that I’m night blind. So, me wanting to go to the middle of a jungle was big. Not to mention that people sometimes consume the medicine and die. I just had no idea what I would be facing.
What did you most look forward to?
It’s difficult to look forward to this experience as there was a lot of apprehension and fear going into it. A lot of the times, they were challenging moments but occasionally, there were blissful ones that show you that you are this powerful and loving human being and you get to see and feel it. You feel that we are all connected and one. These experiences were great. Not to mention the people you meet on this path – a lot of them have become close friends.
What was the hardest bit about the experience?
To begin with, the abusive shaman at my ceremony but the experiences themselves were hard too – they were very much about navigating a friendship with my shadow self. Despite the difficulty, it was also very healing though. It’s like that Joseph Campbell quote: “The cave you fear to enter holds the treasure you seek”.
I went with the best friend of mine but we were of course still doing individual work. The 1st red flag for me was when the shaman invited a group of newbies and gave us this herbal alcoholic drink made of plants. He was a white guy who had worked with the medicine for 20 years. He was a bit eccentric, which is fine but he also seemed a bit drunk and aggressive.
I didn’t think too much of it. We had the first ceremony and it was fine. After that, we interacted with other people who were there. I ended up talking to this other woman who was also healing. What I didn’t know, was that the shaman was sleeping with her, which is of course a major no-no. So, he started to see me as some kind of a threat and got jealous, even though nothing was going on between us. During my 3rd ceremony, he started to mumble stuff towards me, calling me names and while I was under the experience of the medicine, he proceeded to kick me.
It was difficult as you don’t really understand what’s going on when you are there. I was wondering if it was really happening – I was completely confused. I then asked other people but everyone was in their own space and did not really see anything. I still had to do a few ceremonies after that and wasn’t sure what to do. I couldn’t just get out of there as I was in the middle of the jungle, so I stayed. I later found out the shaman was also heavily involved in drugs like cocaine and guns and then when I got home and searched for reviews about him online, I found out that he had raped people, that he was a drunk and a psycho but all of these reviews were hidden. He paid to remove all of these negative reviews.
A year later, when I worked with Gabor, that experience made me afraid to take the medicine. During one of my ceremonies, I saw in my mind’s eye this guy’s face and as soon as I saw it, I purged. Then a week later, I found out that he fell from a tree and died. There was speculation that somebody might have done something to him as he had hurt so many people on the way.
Now, I like to educate people to do proper research before they go somewhere and work with the right facilitator.
As for the experience itself, it can really bring up dark and uncomfortable stuff that you don’t want to see but then the medicine ends up putting it right into your face for you to look at it. For instance, I had to look at death and decay and it makes you realise they are such a part of our life that you need to accept that aspect too.
I’ve worked with Ayahuasca over a 3-4-year period and sat in over 30-40 ceremonies. Those experiences are challenging. I was feeling uncomfortable and asking myself why I was doing it, this is stupid. That’s why it’s hard to recommend it to people. You have to be ready for whatever might come up and it might be ugly and awful. It’s a bit like a surgery that can last a long time, that you have to be awake for and feel it on such an emotional level - it is all so uncomfortable. There have been so many times I felt that.
Maybe Ayahuasca should not be the 1st recommendation to work with. I think MDMA might be better to establish this foundation of love in your heart. It’s a gentler step into that psychedelic realm and you are guided by somebody. The ultimate form of healing requires you to feel safe - in an Ayahuasca ceremony, you are in a jungle with noises around, scorpions and other unfamiliar things, so that safety aspect is just not there. Plus, the medicine does not taste that great either.
What was the best bit about the experience?
The connection with everything and feeling the oneness.
Bringing up the things I couldn’t see or the things I was avoiding or didn’t even know I had issues with. It’s interesting how you are there, you don’t know what’s going to happen and yet your thoughts go directly to this or that place. It’s like why am I thinking about this? Why has this come up? But the medicine just knows where to direct you.
In a way, some stuff doesn’t even have to make sense at the time. The after-effect of it seems to be that some things have been processed and that’s something to look forward to as well.
Despite having that odd first retreat experience, I remember the clarity I got there. I felt energetically stronger as I processed stuff.
It also makes you reassess the things that are not working in your life. I’ve seen people reaching some drastic conclusions that may sometimes seem too extreme: e.g. someone wanting to sell a house or leave their job right after drinking Ayahuasca. I think it’s good to wait a week before you make any radical decision like that post ceremony.
What did you get from it?
I got quite a bit.
It’s allowed me to see myself for who I am. It’s helped me really process some deep stuff that I don’t know if I would have been able to get to otherwise. And it’s allowed me to meet great people along the way – it was transformative overall.
I also learned that nothing really goes away until it teaches you what you need to know. And unfortunately, we can’t actually see a lot of these elements, e.g. we can’t see our emotions or many aspects of our environment that play a huge role in how we heal. It’s very difficult to get well in the same environment you got sick in and once you learn what the environment means from the quantum level when it comes to the circadian rhythm, and light, and processing unconscious emotions, you can really start to do some magic and healing.
There’s one problem though – you can’t really tell someone that they should do something. It’s like that line from The Matrix: “I can only show you the door. You're the one that has to walk through it”.
But that healing and the work is needed now more than ever – many people are traumatised whether it’s a big or a small “t” trauma. Those same people get into relationships and if both are bringing the luggage, they are destined to fail, especially if one or no party is doing the work. This, in turn, leads to people passing on their unresolved traumas through their DNA with new generations ending up with ancestral trauma they are not even aware of.
I have been researching this topic and read a book called “It Didn't Start with You” by Mark Wolynn, which is all about how ancestral trauma manifests into a disease. I actually have a theory that my vision condition that I have is due to an ancestral trauma.
There is a lot of research and data showing that trauma has a major effect on vision health, e.g. if you witnessed a trauma that was 20 ft from you and you didn’t want to see it, the body will manifest it by blurring it out. Not to mention there are also a lot of completely stressed out children who end being in the fight or flight mode all the time and have a narrowing of their visual field as they have to constantly focus on the issue that is causing them distress. There is also data showing that people with split personality disorders in fact have different prescription depending on their personality.
Apart from Ayahuasca, I’ve had some psilocybin sessions that were maybe even more transformative. So, I don’t want to say that Ayahuasca is the answer – all of these medicines helped me and psilocybin has been a big game changer for me too. I have also got amazing learnings from MDMA.
One thing is important to note though: none of it was easy and none of them are a magic bullet.
How did it impact your life?
Ultimately, it just showed me that we need to get out of our own way.
I still need to sometimes check myself and see how much of what I’m doing is being held back by my own fears and anxieties. I still deal with that and I’m not 100% cured. Time goes on and things happen and you shift back into where you were and you might need to work on that again and continue talking to a guide or an integration specialist. It’s hard work and it’s challenging but it can be very rewarding and there is a way to do it: it needs to be taken with reverence, intention and heart. You have to have that compass of wanting to change, good intentions and positive values and this can help guide you.
Being able to see and feel what is in the unconscious has had a huge impact in my life. It’s very difficult to get access to these things through a conscious mind. I discuss a lot of these healing modalities in my documentary called “My Neuroplastic Adventure”. I believe we need to acknowledge both the inner and the outer worlds.
What did you struggle with after?
Just fitting in.
After you have experienced and seen these things, you realise that a lot of other people you knew are stuck, living in this low vibration world, acting out their traumas, not seeing the bigger picture. So, it’s very difficult integrating back into the society. Once you see something, you can’t unsee it and it makes you realise you may need to make some big changes. The world is different and maybe the friends you thought were friends are not really your friends. That alone is another one of those things that come with the medicine.
I’ve handled that with a lot of integration and just speaking my truth and at the same time not speaking. Sometimes, people can’t handle certain conversations. They aren’t ready for it and if you are going to talk about it, you have to understand that.
That has been hard as you come back to this world changed and a lot of aspects of it don't make sense anymore, e.g. I’m guessing a lot of our politicians and the top 1% are probably very deeply traumatised people and yet they make these decisions that affect us all. That addiction to power stems from insecurity - anything that’s rooted in some addictive behaviour has a connection to some kind of trauma. Knowing that and seeing it unfold is painful.
What improved?
My quality of living my life with a lot more “easibility”.
It wasn’t easy but when it really worked for me is when all these things I’m worried about just disappeared. It’s very similar to a state MDMA can give you – you just don’t care about whatever is going on in the best way possible and you have this tremendous acceptance of what is. There are days when that is my view and there are days when I feel more disconnected from that but that’s incorporated in tending the garden: meditating, eating healthy food, having interactions with people where you act out of love for yourself and standing up for yourself. It teaches you how to do that.
Once or twice during MDMA sessions, I did in fact experience a complete temporary opening of my peripheral vision. It was like a spontaneous remission. So, I know it is possible. If anyone is interested in this topic, there is an interesting book called “Cured” which tells stories of people who experienced spontaneous remissions. It describes what happened to them and whether there was this goldilocks environment that allowed it.
What do you need to work on?
Overall, I am still in the process of using various modalities trying to fix my vision issues whether it’s through biohacking, peptides or emotional work. I’m also trying an approach with a MAPS analyst where I am undergoing ketamine assisted sessions too.
Along that, I’m also working with other healing modalities for integration, e.g. somatic therapy (a body-mind centric therapy). It’s very much like the psychedelic therapy – through talking and a type of hypnotic meditation, it guides you where the energy and trauma is stuck in the body, because trauma usually has signatures and they are stuck unresolved in the body. So, you locate where it is sitting and you allow that trauma energy to be released.
On top of that, I’m trying to understand what my vision loss can teach me about life and how it can help guide me in the future.
I’m also working on some aspects of my career, trying to figure out what the next step after the film should be. I‘m interested in trauma, healing, psychedelics and health optimisation. I don’t know what’s coming up next. Just trying to reinvent myself and go forward – it’s not easy and I’m not there yet but I’m working on it.
What would be your advice if you were to do it again?
I would have probably preferred to work with somebody more on an individual basis than maybe jumping into Ayahuasca just because of that safety aspect that I now know I need. A lot of my life and upbringing was characterised by the lack of safety and it was manifested during my first ceremonies.
I would also say to myself to go and work with a somatic therapist instead of a talking one.
It really wasn’t easy trying to figure out what’s going on but that mission and the people I have met allowed me to create my film, which I’m very proud of (https://www.myneuroplasticadventure.com/).
Victor's journey is a long and a difficult one. It started with childhood traumas leading to issues of abandonment still haunting him in his adult life and vision impairment that has considerably reduced his personal freedom - he can't drive a car or move about easily when it's dark. Yet, apart from this onslaught of problems, Victor is also blessed with a great deal of determination to find a solution.
This attitude has clearly taken a lot of courage as he faced so many unknowns and experienced so many uncomfortable situations while rummaging in that scary cave of his. And while not all the treasure has been found yet, he has unlocked some part of his life and become a lot more aware of what's going on in his psyche and his body.
Along this way, he is also helping others by training to be a guide, running psychedelic integration circles and making a movie that will surely inspire those suffering from similar issues or just generally needing to see someone not letting himself be beaten up by life difficulties.
I'm thinking Victor may be partially blind but he's seen a lot more than he would have if he had perfect eyesight because you know, life loves a bit of irony...
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