Vipassana Retreat And Ayahuasca Trip Report

[Vercingetorix]

10 days ago I returned from my Goenka Vipassana retreat. 9.5 days of Silence, almost 11 hours of meditation per day which 3 of them are SDS (strong determination sitting, aka sitting still meditation). The meditation technique is basically attention to the body sensations. In the First 3 days you practice Breath awareness of the nose area and in the rest 7 days body sensations awareness - moving through the body parts in different ways and being aware of the sensations in every part, while being equanimous to the sensations - not craving a "good" sensation and not averting a "bad" one. the concept that helps you be equanimous is "Anicca" - Buddhist term for eternal change, sensing the changing nature of every sensation.

In addition there are discourses every night which explain the Buddhist view on life, enlightenment, suffering and such.

What i learnt:
-The importance of watching the body sensations. Very important to notice that our reaction to a situation is really not to the situation but to the body sensations that this situation triggers in us. For example when someone verbally abuse me I feel angry not because he cursed me but because of the sensation I sensed (in my case heavy sensation in the stomach and/or chest).
-seeing the changing nature of sensations - when you can understand at the feeling level that everything is temporary it can help accept what is without clinging.
-meditating for 100+ hours in short time can really help you understand the practice and yourself, you see things you won't see when you meditate an hour a day or so. Many insights dawned on me during and after the practice.


5 days after returning from the retreat I took part in an Ayahuasca ceremony.
I didn't follow exactly the preparation but  I took 1.5 (grams I think :D) of mimosa (active ingredient containing DMT) at first and after 3 hours 1.5  again. (If you take it this way the effect in more gradual than 3 grams at once).

The experience: what can I say, It's the most shocking experience I had in my life.

after like half an hour from taking the Mimosa I lied down and closed my eyes and It began: 
Like you wake up from a dream, "reality" broke up and I wake up and this place that feels familiar and i'm 100% sure that my life was just a dream, that's everything, my 30 years of life were just a dream and everything I did and everyone I ever met where just figments of my Imagination. I contemplated how I put clues in reality to help me come back to this place -I thought how clever of me to create leo    Than for the rest of my trip I wandered in this place. at that time to me It felt like strolling in infinity but I think It was just projecting Leo's description of being infinite on 5-MeO. After the trip I googled DMT and I was quite surprised that there are images that describe something close to my visuals:




(my visuals were much more red with a clown face). also I had this constant eery music playing in the background.

During the trip even though when I would open my eyes reality returned to normal I was quite lost in that place and for part of the time I though I would never go back to my old reality (and it saddened me and frightened me a bit), I remember contemplating that I created reality because I felt lonely and wanted to trick myself into thinking that I am not alone but apart from that I didn't really feel any emotions, it wasn't particularly scary just a bit sad part of the time and very shocking.
my sense of time (if it existed there) was kinda screwed -  experienced lasted about 8 hours but It felts like only one or two hours, and throughout it was quite the same experience. 
Although it felt so real that I was convinced it's  true, that "I am god and I created this",During the whole trip it still felt like everything is happening to ME so I was a bit skeptical about it still, so no "ego death" experience that I remember.  Also I didn't feel that I was resisting anything most of the time so probably I need higher dose for ego death experience  

What I take from the experience:
-It changes how I see death, as it seems I can exist without a body (logically it's ridiculous haha)
-it made me more appreciative of my life as at some points I thought I won't return - "you can really appreciate something only when it's gone"
-now I can't be 100% sure this reality is just another (long) dream and all of you are just a figment of my imagination, it makes me more loving and compassionate for some reason




 

[Leo Gura]

Good work!

Now the real work begins.