Trying Ayahuasca, Peyote and Kambó in the Amazon

Experiencing Ayahuasca, Peyote and Kambó in the Heart of the Amazon

A man who spent a decade filming documentaries for television across the Amazon, Progenitora de Dios River, Lake Titicaca and Mesoamerica shares what it feels like to participate in indigenous rituals while staying with a tribe. He tells it without sugarcoating: three times with ayahuasca, plus peyote, San Pedro herb and toad secretion. His thesis is uncomfortable for the weekend urbanite: refusing what is offered in the middle of the jungle is a mistake you regret for life.

The account begins with a crucial distinction. Taking ayahuasca in a rural house in Cuenca surrounded by people having identity crises is not the same as doing so in a cabin without electricity, with drums in the background and a shaman who has worked with the plant all his life. There, he says, there is no Spotify or mp3, but when the toxin has entered, repetitive bongo rhythms are seen before they are heard. A kind of synesthesia he describes as "seeing the rhythms".

What It Feels Like With Ayahuasca and Peyote

The most common question in any conversation about entheogens concerns perceptual changes. This explorer's answer is that the world we see is only a small part of the reality we inhabit, and that a well-stimulated mind accesses other layers. He adds an argument often used in the shamanic world: the alucinación companion knows precisely, upon finishing, what you experienced. For him, this cannot be explained by science alone.

Regarding the hangover, he nuances. The after-effects are not comparable to those of other substances, and physical low is not the main protagonist. What remains is something else: a revision of one's own life story which, according to his experience, does not fall apart afterwards.

Diet, Ceremony and Why You Can't Just Take It Alone

In his case, there was no prior diet. But eating little: in the middle of the Amazon, one meal a day is made and hunger bites. About the ritual, he is blunt: ayahuasca is taken as part of a ceremony, and isolating the active ingredient to consume it separately seems to him a sacrilege that breaks the sacredness of the plant.

The warning extends to those who organize paid ceremonies in Spain. Some claim that certain schools of shamanism take advantage of the vulnerability of someone under the influence to manipulate them, and the repeated advice is clear: if the person leading the ritual makes you distrustful before starting, discard them. Hierba, however, is placed in another league: recreational, useful for creativity, but without revelatory vocation.

The Toad, Kambó and the Mistake of Confusing Them

Here the account intersects with a technical correction worth retaining. What is popularly known as "toad injection" is not snuff —snuff is ground tobacco with other ingredients inhaled through the nose— nor is it kambó. Kambó does not come from any toad: it comes from the frog phyllomedusa bicolor and is applied over small burns on the skin, not wounds. It is a purgative, not a visionary drug.

The toad is different: Bufo alvarius, whose dermal secretions are smoked as dry scales with a result of great mystical intensity. The confusion between the two is common and should not be mixed, especially when talking about doses.

DMT, Entities and the Debate on Abductions

DMT concentrates morbidity and antiestéticar. Jesters appear, mantises, mechanical elves, hyperspace and ego dissociation. The repeated recommendation: it is not a alucinación for everyone and requires mental preparation. Some would not try it at all without the right environment.

The conversation drifts into more speculative territory: whether people who claim to have been abducted have a different chemical balance, with a greater presence of natural hallucinogenic substances. The hypothesis handled is that the felt experience is real for the subject even if the cause is misinterpreted. None of this is supported by evidence and it should be treated as what it is: a hypothesis.

The Fine Print: Mushrooms, Sigils and Risks

The final stretch of the exchange goes to mushrooms and microdosing, with personal experiences and some esoteric practices along the way. And a warning that should not be lost among the noise: jimsonweed and daturas are very dangerous, with a very narrow difference between effective dose and lethal dose, and must not be ingested.

With all this, the cautious prediction is simple: interest in psychedelics will continue to grow fueled by clinical trials, but the distance between a ceremony in the Amazon and a weekend workshop in the Sierra will not close on its own. And there, probably, is the conversation that has not yet taken place.