The Profile
Nationality: American
Lives in: the Basque country, Spain
Age when taken psychedelic: 35
Occupation: Freelancer
Psychedelic of choice: Ayahuasca
Place of ceremony: Spain
What was your intention?
Insight – that’s as specific as I got.
Why did you take it?
It’s something I had been thinking for about probably 2 years. I did some psychedelics in college and had some powerful experiences. My last one was so intense it made me think I wanted to take a few years’ break – it ended up being 10 years.
The timing for Ayahuasca coincided with me separating from my partner and taking a new direction in life. I had thought for a while this would be a good moment to use Ayahuasca as a resource to help me figure out where I wanted to be and what that direction should look like.
I like Stanislav Grof’s depiction of it as a non-specific amplifier of subconscious processes – that’s the way I understand it. So, for me it was a way to see more clearly what I had going on inside. I’m well aware that the majority of the work comes afterwards – what people call integration and if you don’t do it, it’s like going to a theme park.
What were you most afraid of?
Nothing. I felt prepared. I felt good.
Having had previous psychedelic experiences definitely informed me. When I did them before I wasn’t scared either but that was just youth. With Ayahuasca, I knew I was ready because I felt ready. I just could tell inside I was.
I did it at a retreat centre in Spain because I didn’t know how else to get Ayahuasca. It was overpriced and a pretty strange environment – I didn’t like it at all. They were doing 3-4-day retreats. I came just on the last night, took the maximum dose two times and did my own thing.
What did you most look forward to?
I was pretty careful about NOT having any expectations. I think it’s counterproductive. Whatever it is I imagine from my position now that I think I need to know may be different from when I’m in the state. That’s a perfect definition of being in a non-ordinary state of consciousness. If I limit that experience based on my current knowledge, then I’m limiting the amount of knowledge that I can achieve.
I think with Ayahuasca, like with most things, the automatic effects are limited. The set and setting are really important. You need to have the context for what you are doing and you need to believe in that context. For some people it’s a licenced psychiatrist in a medical setting, e.g. during Roland Griffiths’ studies – for those people, he’s the shaman. For other people, they need to go to Peru and on an hour boat ride and that’s their thing. Whatever you need, you need to do it in a place that you will believe will be powerful. And if you believe it will be powerful, then it will. In my case, I’m in a tricky agnostic category where I believe I am that power, I have to believe in myself and my ability to see myself and heal myself, then it will work.
What was the hardest bit about the experience?
When I was in college, I took a crazy amount of mushrooms. I didn’t realise it was a lot at the time - someone gave me mushrooms and I ate them. Those experiences definitely got to the point where I didn’t know if I was tripping or whether my entire life before that was a trip. I was free floating in reality with no idea what’s real and what’s not.
That was the moment in my last mushroom trip when things got scary. Somehow in my mind I decided that the only way I can decide if this is real or not is if I can kill myself. If I die in this state, then I will know it was real. So, I was standing next to a freeway in a desert. There were not many cars and you could see them coming from miles away. I was just watching the road and thinking do I jump in front of the car, yes or no, yes or no. Obviously, decided not to but after that trip I decided to take a break.
I didn’t get anywhere close to that with Ayahuasca. I don’t think it has much to do with the drug but with the dose. Probably, if I took enough, I’d get to the same spot.
What was the best bit about the experience?
I was able to guide my experience the entire time. I was aware that I was in a different state and it never got overwhelming like it did with mushrooms.
During the experience I had a light in my head and I could decide where I wanted to shine it. I could shine it on a certain issue or a range of feelings and that would become illuminated with all kinds of visuals, sensations, and feelings. After that was done, I would move to the next thing and then the next thing and so on. I went through probably four different issues in my life and then I decided to go back and do it again. I ended up cycling through it three times. When I felt I was done, I went to my room, wrote things down, recorded some messages and went to sleep. It was great. It felt like I had a superpower.
The language is obviously abstract and metaphorical, and it didn’t get anywhere near overwhelming and crazy like what people sometimes talk about. I saw things really clearly in my life, who I am and where I want to be going and a few key decisions I felt I had to make at that point in my life and that was it. It took me time to implement that later but I did it. I have been trying to get my life in that direction since then.
What did you get from it?
I was in a relationship at the time and I wanted to know what to do with it. The answer was right there: I saw myself as a captain of a ship that had to get through a storm. In the end, it was pretty clear and something I knew all along too but was not willing to admit to myself. I understood that was the reality I had to face though. So in that respect, I got some specific messages.
I don’t believe in the concept of Ayahuasca being a mother though. For people who do, it’s powerful and it’s great. I see it more as a placebo effect. I felt I was asking all these questions to myself instead. I understand it as me allowing myself to see the things I already know but not allowing to in the day to day life. There are all kinds of gurus, spiritual teachers and psychologists out there, even a random homeless schizophrenic person on the street can say something that might make you go “wow” and you already know it’s true but they were the ones who put it into words.
I think we generally choose to live our lives in a comfortable way where certain truths would make it very clear it’s not the best way to live. Knowing that would be uncomfortable. So, we do what we can to avoid that in a lot of subtle ways. Our minds are very good at tricking ourselves. We think of the brain as a single unit and it’s not. It’s a very complex organism and it can communicate within itself in all kinds of ways through the body and the external world. There is good scientific evidence that shows that there are many ways that we can know, perceive or react to something long before anything happens in our conscious mind. I see Ayahuasca as a tool to help you what neurologists call integrating the mind. I haven’t seen any studies that show this is what actually happens but in terms of subjective experience, that's what I have experienced: deeper self-awareness and better connection between brain and body.
How did it impact your life?
I got a bit more confidence about which direction to go. A large part of it is the visuals: having a clear image of what I needed to work on. Feelings and thoughts are very amorphous. In a lot of aspects of life, it’s very difficult to have a clear line where you can say “this is it, I need to do this or that”. At least for me, for my personality type. I’m a person who’s open to considering lots of different aspects of the same issue and I generally don’t like to make definitive statements. I say things like “this is my perspective” or “this is how I see things” and in certain situations it can be difficult to make a very clear decision because you can always see the other side of the issue and ultimately, nothing is really certain.
I think there are other kinds of people who don’t have that problem – they take very clear decisions all day everyday. For me personally, having this visual image really helps to keep that constant. I saw this and I felt it as the truth. Today could be better or worse but this is the truth and I know that.
That’s just the part of who I am and a large part of the growth as a human. My process of maturation has been in being comfortable taking those positions. I feel like in the realm of emotional or psychological issues, Ayahuasca is a great tool for me.
I was speaking to some of the people at the retreat after the ceremony the next morning and one of the guys did Ayahuasca about 20 times and said he already knew what he was going to see and what he had to do in his life, he just didn’t have the balls to do it. He knew, he was just going to go back to his old life.
A good analogy is therapy: you can have all kinds of insights, you can grow in all kinds of ways but that’s only 1 hour a week. Whether it’s valuable or not is going to be decided by what you do in the remaining 23 hours in that day. If you take those lessons and apply them into your life, then it’s incredibly valuable. Otherwise, it’s just a fun experience.
What did you struggle with after?
The implementation. The main meat of my experience was when I saw myself as a panther moving through the world at night. I was moving towards something but it was unclear what it was. I was going through different terrains and landscapes: jungle, forests, mountains.
Eventually, I came to this light, a burning white flame with blue and green sparks coming out of it. I knew this was life energy. I was this dark black animal looking at this white glowing flame and I went to eat the flame. As I ate it, it burnt me up and I became part of the flame. I think it’s typical with these kinds of experiences: the visuals is just a metaphor but you FEEL what that metaphor means. A lot of times people have these mundane things to say: I need to exercise more or spend more time with my kids but the FEELING behind it is what counts. I knew this was true. I needed to eat the flame of life. This is the essence of life and I need to connect with that as fully as possible and let that burn within me because if I don’t, then what the f*ck am I doing here…
Putting that into practice is difficult. I’ve got bills to pay. I’m still in the process of unravelling certain things. So, day to day life is sometimes a challenge. But it’s at these moments when I decide the general direction of where my life is going or where I want to focus my energy, that this serves me as a reminder. Maybe there will be this nagging fear saying “this won’t work, this is too crazy”. I now know that this is not the case, that in the end, this is bringing me closer to the light, my light, and this is where I need to go. It’s just a tool, a reminder I have that and can choose to use or not and I try to choose to use it at crucial moments. But of course, it’s still a challenge.
The thing that most people get wrong about psychedelics is that they think it will change your life. With that in mind, the logical conclusion is that I take the drug and that’s going to work like any other drug where it’s going to magically make things happen. It doesn't work like that at all.
What improved?
It’s difficult to separate Ayahuasca from all the other things I’m doing in my life. I can’t really say what comes from where. But the Ayahuasca experience was a part of the internal drive to discover myself, to relate to the world in different ways, to experiment with new things.
For the first time in a long time I feel like I’m coming out of hiding, like I have been a recluse in a foreign country living on a farm, doing my own thing. I’ve been working on a project for a few years that started as a part of a thesis for a Psychology programme. I don’t really know where it’s going to go but I have a big body of work that I’m trying to put into practice in my life and put it in some sort of concrete form. It’s a challenge: I have a son, 2 businesses I’m trying to run, a farm to fix up – life is complicated. It’s very easy to just go “I’ll do that later” and this is very much my go-to vision: I have a reminder that tells me “no, this is the priority, the other things are details”. That’s been huge for me.
I’ve been doing stuff with the Wim Hoff method, contact improvisation, sweat lodges – a whole load of different stuff but to me they are all complimentary in terms of getting in touch with myself, getting onto my path and finding the courage or clarity of vision to follow it because in the end, that’s all that matters.
Also, a lot of us carry a lot of trauma, whether it’s recognised or not. A large part of the society operates in low level PTSD where people are reacting irrationally every day and that’s considered polite and normal but it’s not – it’s pathological.
Bottom line is that we are largely dominated by fear. The transformational process for me has been recognising that. I have never thought of myself as a fearful person at all. But I realised that some of what seemed like my adventurousness or confidence from the outside was an automatic reaction proving to myself that I am not afraid. That, in itself, is fear. Fear of not being a vulnerable person, of showing my weak side, of recognising that I have weaknesses, or that I can be hurt.
That’s true pretty much anytime you see anyone doing these amazing feats – there’s a lot of fear behind. They are motivated by fear and for me that was the first step: recognising that fear is a part of my life. And then digging deeper to see where that fear is coming from, what sort of pain is underlying that, seeing that pain clearly, accepting it as a part of myself and then letting it go. It’s not a one-time deal but there was definitely a before and after for that process.
I still need to remind myself about this but I know that a necessary stepping-stone towards being free is letting go of that pain and fear and just allowing yourself to live. It’s fundamental to being an aware human. The context where that shows up most is intimate relationships: who do I find myself attracted to, what kind of person can I imagine myself having a long-term relationship with – that to me is fundamental. If we can’t have an honest, clear and open conversation about our fears, anxieties and irrationalities and ways in which we react automatically to certain things, the way that we try to deal with that and grow, then we don’t have much to talk about.
What do you need to work on?
My main focus is on trying to keep that vision present with me in crucial moments in my life when making decisions. This is my guiding light; this is the direction I want to be moving in.
For a long time, I have been trying to find my path and to contextualise it and explain it in a way that I think would be valuable to other people. I’m interested in the subject of fear, trauma and the barriers to growth. Studying Psychology, I met many people who can talk eloquently about themselves but keep doing the same old shit suggesting that you can learn great vocabulary to essentially hide your craziness more effectively.
One way of understanding fear is like a philosophical mistake: you should be more afraid of not pursuing your dreams than feeling something that someone else wants you to do.
What would be your advice if you were to do it again?
For myself, I would do it outside of a ceremonial context and maybe with a friend. I know it’s very controversial and probably stupid advice to give to someone you don’t know because there are people who are not ready to do it on their own and are not capable of judging that they are not ready. I feel like I am. I don’t know exactly why and how but I know I am.
I think fear is probably the biggest deciding factor in the quality of your experience. If you are afraid of the experience, of seeing yourself, then it’s going to be difficult. What creates difficulty is the resistance you put up internally to seeing things and accepting things. That’s true in life and even more true in this experience.
That’s why it makes a lot of sense to do the standard preparation in the psychiatric setting with 10 weeks of intensive therapy and then end with Ayahuasca. That makes sense to me as you need to be in a place where you are willing to look at yourself, willing to accept what you see, to do whatever happens and in order to do that, you need to know that you are going to be OK. You can see and feel all kinds of things but essentially, you are going to be OK. You need to know that intellectually and physiologically. Your body needs to experience that it’s going to be OK.
It was quickly evident Eric is not your stereotypical American. He left his home in California because he felt the consumerist way of life did not agree with what he believed was the way to live in accordance to his values - something not many people have the courage to admit to, let alone do. Plenty of folks go to work everyday hating what they do, draining their lives of opportunities to express themselves in return for the perceived security of the social nod. A nod to their status, the things they own and the reassuring similarity with which they present themselves to each other. Eric was not afraid to put himself outside of that structure and into new environments and jobs that tested him and I'm sure were at times uncomfortable. What he seemed certain of though was that he needed to stay true to himself.
He is also one of the most self-aware, open and honest people I have ever spoken to and I do speak to dozens every week. So, I was not surprised to hear his Ayahuasca experience was positive and beneficial in the end. It sounded like he already did a lot of work on himself and directionally knew what he wanted to get out of it.
I was also impressed with the amount of quiet courage he was clearly giving off - no arrogance about his experience or the capacity to so skilfully rely on himself, just pure openness and modesty about what else he needs to learn in order to lead a fulfilling life.
If those are the kinds of Americans who leave the US, the country is missing out on genuinely good folks who are intelligent enough to think for themselves and courageous to reject a widely accepted status quo. Imagine what those could do if they actually decided to proactively fight it too... Here's to people who stand up for their values. Here's to the flame of life burning inside all of us.
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