Emma asks me all these questions in this episode:
1. What is Ayahuasca?
2. How does Ayahuasca work?
3. What are the effects of Ayahuasca on the mind and body?
4. Is Ayahuasca safe?
5. Can Ayahuasca cure depression or other mental illnesses?
6. How long does the Ayahuasca experience last?
7. What are the potential risks or side effects?
8. How is Ayahuasca traditionally prepared and consumed?
9. Is it legal to consume Ayahuasca?
10. What should I expect during an Ayahuasca ceremony?
LaWayra Ayahuasca retreat
Transcript
Sam Believ: You’re listening to ayahuasca podcast.com.
Okay, so firstly, thanks for taking the time to chat. Obviously this is the last day of. My experience, which has been amazing and super profound, and I really just wanted to like, bring this information to more people back at home. That’s one of the kind of thoughts that I’ve had while doing the Ayahuasca.
Just to give us a little bit more information on Ayahuasca, what actually is Ayahuasca?
Sam Believ: Thank you for having me on this podcast, Emma. My Irish is not that good, but I’ll do my best. Ayahuasca is a brew. It’s a, generally, traditionally it’s a mix of two plants, both together for several days, and it forms that, that sort of.
Thick viscus drink that, that you drink. What what it’s made of is two ingredients. One is the ayahuasca vine which is scientifically called oppi. And a DM tshr, which can be charo or cha. Oh, depending on a tradition, like here we use Charo Panga. Okay. What Vine does, it makes it DMT orally active and then when you drink it you can have a DM T experience for several hours, and it’s traditionally used by the indigenous tribes.
It’s, traced to 4,000 years ago. And it is a hundred percent a medicine, not a drug because that’s how it’s always been used. And yeah it’s helpful with your mental health and a lot other things. It’s like a very complex sort of medicine that addresses many aspects of both physical, mental health and so much more spiritual.
Spiritual health, if you can say so. Yeah.
So you said it, it affects the DMT receptors, yeah. Like how does it work? What are the effects of ayahuasca on your mind and your body.
Sam Believ: So basically we have DMT in, in our bodies naturally. So let’s say when you’re sleeping, you get DMT produced in your brain.
And what happens is your body absorbs DMT. What the vine does, it makes it so that for a while you can’t absorb it. So it accumulates and it actually. Creates the experience. But what was the question? How I ask? It feels so
How would it, affect your Yeah.
How does it affect your body and your mind?
Sam Believ: Yeah. Generally it it comes with few effects. One of them is physical purging, meaning it’s pretty likely sometimes during the retreat you either vomit or have. Like a diarrhea. And I know it sounds very uncomfortable, something you wouldn’t wanna do, but it’s always tied to a certain emotion that then you can feel how together with with that bodily evacuation, you also get rid of that emotion.
And a lot of time people report like they have a trauma or the feel. Some, they have some traumatic memory come up, and then they purge and then when it comes back, it’s, now it’s just a memory. It does have that emotional component to it, but generally Ayahuasca effect can be, there’s 5,000.
Different types of of effects. It can have. It can be like very visual, very psychedelic. It can be just in forms of like physical effects. Like you could feel tension in your body or pleasure. It can be euphoria, it could be pain, it could be like literally anything. And but somehow when you come and drink the brew it, it always gives you what you need. Yeah. And the type of the experience you might not expect or want, but it will give you the type of the experience that will give you the answers to your current problem that you have right now. Yeah. And even if, let’s say you have a, an intention set for the ceremony, it might be.
Not the right intention for you. The medicine will guide you where you need to go, and sometimes you will, if you don’t resist the process, you will in the end understand like why it was supposed to happen. Exactly like that. I’ll ask you a question as well. You just had your experience.
How did it feel for you?
I, it was definitely different than what I had expected. I think I, at the start, I. Was forming my expectations based on what other people were experiencing. But by the end of the four ceremonies, I feel like I had gotten exactly what I had asked for. And it was definitely one of those be careful what you wish for moments because yeah, I really, I went into Ayahuasca saying, I don’t want any more answers.
I don’t want any more words. I would like feeling, I would like experiences, I would like clarity, I would like direction, and. Because it wasn’t psychedelic and I wasn’t like tripping. I was like, I’m not experiencing. But when I take away and have done like the integration work, I’ve realized like how profound it actually was.
So yeah it’s been incredible to see how other people have experienced it as well, like compared to mine. But would you recommend, like who would you recommend Ayahuasca for? Who would you recommend to do it and is it safe for everyone?
Sam Believ: I was say for I would say 95% of people. So don’t do it if you have a history of schizophrenia in your family.
Yeah. Like your brother and your mom has it and you’re next in line and Yeah. Because it can, it’s not gonna give you schizophrenia, but if you’re, you post to have it sometime in your life, it can accelerate that process. Yeah. Don’t do it. If you are, if you have like serious health conditions, like heart issues and then also don’t do it if you’re taking medication. Yeah. So you need to quit the medication first. Yeah. SSRIs and other like thyroid medications, the interaction between the medication can be dangerous, but for an average healthy person it’s completely safe. And we so far had.
Probably more than a thousand people come to our retreat and never had any issue with, like medical point of view, ayahuasca. When you have a good chairman pure Ayahuasca without any additives, and you have a good preparation process where, you know as we guide people, tell them what to eat, what not to eat, what medicines not to take, it’s actually very safe.
Yeah. It’s safer than. I don’t know any of the drugs that people use. Eating a eating a, yeah. Fish in a Mexican beach dog. Like more likely to kill.
Yeah. Yeah. How long does the experience usually last for people?
Sam Believ: It depends. So if you have one cup, generally one cup can, the effect of one cup can last anytime, anywhere between four and six hours.
But if, let’s say we have three cups over the night starting from first cup and then more cups, it can altogether last eight to 10 hours. That’s expected. How long did it last for you? Because,
yeah the first call on my first night I felt like. Super sick. But then the second cup, I, it started, I think, to hit me more.
And then, yeah, like I, I would say it takes a while to set in like maybe 30, 30 minutes to an hour, and then to get the actual, deep thinking and clarity and stuff would probably about an hour or two. Yeah. It’s very unique to, but I like how we separate the cups though. Like every two hours I think is a good time.
Sam Believ: It’s very well planned because based on, many ceremonies and many observations because sometimes the danger is. Somebody takes one cup and they, and it hits them an hour later. If by then you took a second cup you go too deep where your journey’s not productive anymore.
Yes you might be seeing so much, but then you don’t remember anything or, lose control of your body. Like you, you want to, you always try and find what our shaman does. He is great at it. He is trying to find. A level where people have a productive journey. Like they, they see enough and feel enough where they actually can draw some conclusions to affect their life.
For this, it’s not about just having a vision and like moving on with your life. It’s about, using those lessons in your life. Back at home.
Yeah, I found the shaman really actually took care, like he would, before he would give you the cup, he would say, how are you feeling?
Are you good? Are you okay? And yeah, I really felt safe with him, which was great. So the effects on mental illness, depression, like this is I think why a lot of people come and do Aya Osca.
What would you say the effects are on mental illnesses and depression?
Sam Believ: So I personally, my journey with the be began based on that.
Like I, I started drinking regularly when I realized I was depressed. Like I was never diagnosed. But now, especially working with hundreds of people that are depressed, like I know I was a hundred percent depressed. What it did to me personally at first, it just took away the pain, right? It just makes you feel better.
And then it shows you what to do to change your life where you’re not. Prone to depression anymore because lot of, a lot of time depression comes from certain repressed emotions. Yeah. Unsatis, greater unsatisfaction with your life where you just it comes out as a form of depression or anxiety.
So in my case, it first took, lifted the pain and allowed me to actually lifted the pain and gave me the lessons. Yeah. And that lack of pain allowed me to actually do the lessons. So work the lessons. Yeah. And and changed my life enough where it gave me the direction left as well.
It helped me find it where eventually, like I would say I’m definitely no longer depressed. Yeah. You still, it’s not oh, you’re gonna be happy forever. But it’s I know more about my feelings. Now I can identify oh, what I’m feeling actually is fear or what I’m feeling.
Where back in the day, I felt I could not even identify emotions. Like all emotions just felt like discomfort. Yeah. So that’s another thing I always does, but it can be unique for all the people. But we have a lot of people that come here for depression. Anxiety, even like suicidal ideation.
We had probably more than 10 people that came here and said if it doesn’t work I have one way ticket. I’m not gonna, yeah. I’m just, I’m ending it like it’s my last resort. Yeah. All of them are still alive. Running around. Happy. Better than ever before.
I’ve seen it.
I’ve literally seen it in this group. Even
Sam Believ: in this group, there were people, it’s not as, because he didn’t specifically say that. Yeah. But people actually say that like last month we had two people in two different groups. They’re like, yeah, if this doesn’t work, I’m desperate. Life is too miserable.
And then by the end of the, they’re like, I know for sure that now there, I know there’s options for healing and I know that I’m gonna fix myself. And it’s not only depression, it’s alcoholism, PTSD, addiction, any kinds of addiction. Yeah. Yeah it’s such a. Diverse tool. Even like physical ailments.
Like we had people get relief from psoriasis. I’ve heard that. Gut issues. Yeah. Like this I forgot the name, but it’s like when your body hurts, anything, arthritis,
fibromyalgia.
Sam Believ: A fibromyalgia, anything that comes, anything, any disease that is somatic, which it comes from an emotion first.
Yeah. If you address the emotion, you process the disease is magically go away. Like even my mom came to drink, I was, and she had like relief from headaches migraines.
That’s what I would like to know. Would it be safer? Older people like, yeah, like older people who probably are prone to like high blood pressure or have real illnesses and diseases like cancer.
I know one of the guys here is here trying to find answers for cancer treatment and yeah,
Sam Believ: we had more than five people. Visiting there are, there were more than 70
really,
Sam Believ: and probably at least 20, 30 people that were older than 60. Wow. And they’re all totally fine. It’s actually sometimes surprisingly, they have a better experience than younger people.
But a lot of times it comes with a lot of purging. ’cause there’s. Accumulation a lot of stuff. And they’re doing just fine. Yeah. It’s not, it doesn’t have anything to do with age. You can drink io from the moment you’re born till the moment you die. The oldest shaman here in Colomba is 110.
Oh my God. He still alive, meaning
Sam Believ: he drinks the medicine. He gives it, he still hosts the ceremony and, a hard job to do, like doing all the cleanses. So it definitely. I would say Ayahuasca is great for older people because it also has that effect of on your brain that is like anti Alzheimer, anti dementia.
Yeah. Because it does something to the brain. It’s called like BDNF it increases your brain flexibility and allows it to recover itself. There’s actually studies about it. It’s not just like me coming up with it. And yeah, unless you’re like really sick. Let’s say you’re on the border of dying, then Ayahuasca can push you over because it is like your heart rate will increase, or you’re taking like tons of medicines, then it would be tough.
But if you’re older but you’re relatively sick, that’s totally fine. Yeah, I think the oldest we had was 73.
Wow.
Sam Believ: That’s
incredible. Would you recommend for everyone to come into Ayahuasca with an intention or do you think it’s something that like everyone can just try?
Sam Believ: No. It’s interesting because your intention can be fighting an intention. You can always come up with intention. Intention is not that thing. It’s oh, it’s not like Google. You ask a question, you get an answer. Intention is more of a. Anchor for you yourself. So it’s like you treat the medicine with a reverence.
Yeah. Because if you just come and you’re like, oh, let’s do this drug and hang out, you’ll have a terrible experience. Yeah. ’cause I ask, ’cause oh, you disrespect me I’m gonna show you.
Yeah, I heard that.
Sam Believ: Yeah. So you need to have reverence and that’s why you set an intention. And it might not answer.
It might say yeah, this is not relevant. But even setting an attention of teach me something about me or show me how to be happier in my life, or show me what should be. My intention is also an intention. It’s about that thing where you go deep in your journey.
Yeah. You have that anchor and you can reach out to it and be like, oh, this is why I’m here for, because if you’re, if you go and have a turbulent times with IO and you have no, no intention, no direction, then you’ll more likely. Want to like give up and run away. Yeah. Instead of plowing through and getting the actual fruits of the labor,
because it does take work.
Yeah. Like it takes a lot of inner work inside and outside. I think even with the integration work and the word circles, they’ve been profound as well.
Sam Believ: It’s a spiritual work sometimes.
Yeah.
Sam Believ: It’s hard to explain.
Yeah. Is it, so it’s illegal to consume in Columbia anyway.
And. Yeah from a shaman.
So
Sam Believ: yeah. So here in Colombia, like in Peru for example, it’s like completely legal and they sell it in the markets, which is reckless, extremely reckless because ayahuasca has to be taken with with reverence and it’s not dangerous when you have a good shaman, good medicine, and like proper team to control you.
Yeah. But it can be extremely dangerous if you drink it alone at home, you can jump out a window believing you can fly. I was just gonna to say, I couldn’t imagine. You need somebody to control you. Both on a physical realm. Yeah. Make sure you’re safe and also on a spiritual realm because a shaman creates sort of a barrier where bad things can come out but not come in.
Okay. And here in Columbia, they, I think they’re doing a great job with like how difficult it is to become a real shaman. Like you need to come from a lineage, you need to have a permission from your indigenous council. Like in Peru, we had a girl that came here and. Drank ayahuasca here for the first time, then went to Purin three months later.
Some guy or some organization gave her a shaman, gave a paper like she can serve medicine. There’s a lot of that in order. Don’t do it, don’t do it because honestly it might be okay for a while. They will give medicine to people and it all seems nice and ddy, but then something will happen and somebody might die.
Like literally you can die because of not having a real shaman or a person who knows what they’re doing. So please don’t do it. I would say if you’re choosing a shaman, it doesn’t have to be with us, but look for someone who’s indigenous, somebody who has at least 10 years of practice as a shaman, not somebody who just drank ayahuasca once and feels like they can give you the medicine.
Look for a place that has good integration that they focus on, that look for a place that has a big team of of facilitators that can like, control you physically to make sure you don’t just run away in the jungle and get lost and or go on the road and get hit by a car. And obviously a place with a lot of good references like you look for references.
Don’t just go, some people go to Jungle de arrive to a bus terminal and to people like Ayahuasca and they just go, if somebody’s indigenous and has a lot of. Bracelets and colors doesn’t mean they’re a title. Yeah. Being a T is something really hard to understand unless you’re working in that space, so anyone can pretend to be one.
I could pretend to be one, and sometimes people come to the retreat, they assume I’m gonna give them medicine. Don’t do it. This is where it becomes dangerous.
Yeah.
Sam Believ: But I think I lost the original question.
No, that was great. Yeah. So it is
Sam Believ: legal in Colombia.
Yeah.
Sam Believ: As long as you have a shaman that has a permit from his indigenous council.
And generally a for a shaman to get this person this permit, he needs to have a permit from another shaman who’s older than him, and it goes like this. For example, Fernando has a permit from his dad. Yeah. Because he try, he started working with Oscar when he was seven. He went to the special school that’s called Ion.
Okay. When they drink Ayahuasca three times a week for 12 years nonstop. Wow. Then he was a shaman. He traveled all over the world for five years giving medicine. So this is gold standard, like indigenous. Lives in a jungle, comes from a jungle, cooks and grows his own medicine and has a permit and knows what he’s doing.
And, on top of that, yeah, it’s very energetic. You can know that well this guy dedicated his life to his life. He can play all those musical instruments and also yeah. But it is legal here in Columbia when it’s done right.
So what should. I’d be implementing as someone coming out of an Ayahuasca retreat.
Like integration wise, we’ve obviously done a lot of word circles, we’re doing a lot of journaling, answer answering questions. What can I expect after this and what should I be implementing?
Sam Believ: Well, I. Integration is is a complex subject. Like it’s really hard to explain what it is that some people think that integration is doing something.
Yeah. Sometimes integration is as simple as not doing anything at all. Yeah. So if you just, if you go now to a hotel in the city, just. Sit on a balcony, take your journal and just think about things you saw about your life. This is already integration. Doing nothing is integration. Sitting on your phone is not integration.
No. But if you wanna take it take it more, and have a more, more powerful integration is. Taking the information you got from the medicine and implementing it back into your life, like translating it from short form memory to long-term memory. So what helps with that would be journaling walks into nature, meditation, yoga, breathing exercises.
Or any kinds of spiritual practice, like doing rap or doing a tobacco ceremony, just like anything where you give time for yourself and you can think about your life and like zoom out and look at larger picture. Yeah and especially like implementing the advice that medicine gave you, because a lot of times people get.
Amazing advice. They’re like, oh, I need, I know exactly now what I need to do. And then they don’t do anything. It’s not gonna change. And if you go back and drink Ayahuasca, Ioco tell you like, I gave you homework. Why are you back so soon? One of the guys
said that he was like he was like, he told, said that the ayahuasca said to him, why are you asking me this when you didn’t implement what I told you the last time?
Yeah.
Sam Believ: It is. Ayahuasca is like that. It’s a little, it’s like we call it tough love, oh, yeah. It’s, he’ll give you advice, he’ll tell you what to do, but if you don’t do it, then it’ll be like frustrated and I’ll give you a bad trip. Yeah. As a lesson
payback. Yeah. No. This has honestly been probably one of the best experience of my life, and I will definitely be back and I’ve learned so much.
I can’t wait to like, bring this information back to my community and my world, and. Yeah. Thank you so much for everything.
Sam Believ: Thank you for coming. And definitely spread the world, spread The word world needs ayahuasca to believe like we are all somewhat depressed, somewhat anxious, somewhat unhappy.
On the surface we are as, as rich, as successful as we always were, and there’s abundance of food and everything, but emotionally, the world is so to screwed. We have a emotional health crisis right now in the Western world specifically. And there is nothing that seems to be helping except for this therapy people, a lot of people, even this here in your group, you hear people saying oh, it felt like 10 years of therapy.
Yeah. Because it absolutely is. I don’t say anything bad about therapy, but if you come ayahuasca and then go back to therapy, it will be like 10 times more. Yeah, 10 times more. Productive. We need it. We need to stop and. Listen and dedicate times to ourselves for our own healing. Like me, myself, I was running like a hamster in the wheel for 10 years.
Just making money and buying things. And being successful on the surface while I was miserable inside. And I didn’t know why I was doing it. It is just that society told me like, oh, you do that, you’ll get happy. And then eventually when I achieved all those superficial goals that were set for me, by my family and the society at large, I was like I have it all now. Where is my happiness? Happiness never came. So happiness is not about buying things or achieving things and yeah I commend, I recommend to everyone, to I. Take a week off your life in a year and do this railroad introspection.
Drink the medicine if it calls for you. If not, you don’t even need you don’t necessarily need that. You can start by doing something simple as just picking up meditation. Yeah. Or a
good habit.
Sam Believ: A good habit. Journaling, yoga, all those things that talk to you about time.
Yeah. And you wanna start in like January 1st? Just pick one and just start and if eventually you come to ayahuasca, it will definitely help you with with the mental health and Yeah. And just health in general. Just like happiness. Just being connected to nature.
Yeah. I think there’s something powerful even about just saying, this week is for me, I’m committing to this, I’m taking this week off.
Yeah. Like putting the phone away has just been. So powerful as well.
Sam Believ: Yeah. One, one is the last time you game, you gave yourself time for yourself. Yeah. And by giving time to yourself, I don’t mean going to drink with friends Yeah. Because it’s not for yourself. Like dedicating time to your own healing.
Like when was the last time you said I’m gonna take two weeks off and I’m just gonna. Look inside and heal myself like this by itself. Even if people let’s say you come here, you just be in the nature and you do the word circles and you talk to people that are all on the path of healing.
That is healing in itself. Like, when was the last time you did it? We don’t have that in our society. There is no, there is nobody that tells you like, oh, you need to do it. It is just. And we’re missing that. And this is what we’re trying to create and accommodate for. So yeah, thank you for coming.
Thank you for giving yourself that week. Yeah. And I hope you come back and I’ll
be back and go
Sam Believ: deeper.
I will be back for sure. Going
Sam Believ: and bring some Guinness. Bring some Guinness.
Oh my God. I’m not sure that will go well with I am. But
Sam Believ: No, that’s for me for later
for you.
Sam Believ: Yeah.
Thanks so much, Sam.
You legend. Thank
Sam Believ: you Emma. And, thank you for spreading the message.
Yeah. I can’t wait to bring this back home. And that was definitely the most powerful thing is you need to go back home
And tell people about this. So
Sam Believ: Definitely.
Yay.
Sam Believ: Thank you.