Is an Ayahuasca retreat a bad idea?

My friend had a friend bail and offered me their spot at a highly discounted price. So I took a phone call with the retreat center and now I think Im going to Central America.

The trip has 3 nights of ceremonies. 3 sounds like a lot. 

Since I’m flying to Costa Rica, I could bail and just climb.

Any thoughts?

No send it 

Aaron Rodgers had good results-

I'd do yourself some research and think about your comfort with tripping. Then think about that comfort in a foreign country around a bunch of people you don't know. Works for some people, no damn way in hell I would do it. Some people really take to tripping and it does great things for them. It's powerful medicine though, personally I don't take it lightly and only use similar medication when I feel mentally imbalanced. If you're in a good place with yourself and life, go climb. You want to change the way you see the world, go trip balls

sir, this is a wendy's 

Who would you climb with?

Will your friend who invited you care if you climb instead of 

retreating with him?

Why are you asking strangers on the Internet what to do?

Are you now, or have you ever been, a bot? Remember, you're under oath.

go for it. 5meodmt is naturally produced in your body and is the psychedelic component of ayahuasca. It is barely different from serotonin or psilocin (the psychoactive metabolite if psilocybin). That said, the minor chemical difference makes a big difference in your perception and its interactions with your serotonin receptors. You gonna see some shit. 

Evan Gallegos wrote:

Aaron Rodgers had good results-

Did he though??

I think that your 'sarcasm receptors' need a tune-up Mark!!!

Something to keep in mind is that even if it's a bad idea, sometimes bad ideas are good ideas. 

It seems somewhat stupid and wasteful to spend several thousand dollars and fly thousands of miles to have strangers "hold space" for you. Why don't you just get some shrooms or some DMT and cruise down to the river with a trusted friend ort something? 

The set and setting of a trip matter.  If you don’t know what you’re walking into, I would be extremely cautious.  The people involved probably won’t try to steer you into a murderous rampage but they definitely could scramble your brain.  I’ve had a lot of friends do Ayhuasca and they get kind of annoying.  It’s a heavy dose of woo-woo.

5meodmt is naturally produced in your body

Methemoglobin and carbon monoxide are naturally produced in your body as well. It's unclear if endogenous dimethyltryptamine has any significant physiologic effects. Also, ayahuasca is a combination of two plants, Psychotria viridis, which contains DMT, and Banisteriopsis caapi, which has several β-carboline monoamine oxidase A (MAO-A) inhibitors; something to think about regarding drug-drug interactions. 

Ayahuasca appears to be relatively safe. Nausea, vomiting (La purga), mild/temporary elevations of blood pressure, heart rate, and respiratory rate. Deaths and suicides associated with its use are rare, and I couldn't find any published info. on ayahuasca and HPPD. Scattered reports of psychotic episodes (people with and people without a personal or family history of psychosis), serotonin syndrome, and so on. The published info. on adverse effects is poor quality, retrospective in nature, and most of it is a collection of self-reporting.

Off the cuff, here are some articles that can help you decide: the Barker article is open access and is a good read. I have more if you're interested, and I have a fair amount on the adverse effects of ayahuasca.  There is good information that is easily accessible. 

But I would think given your personal experience with mescaline, you'd be willing to experiment with ayahuasca.

Egger K, Aicher H, Cumming P, Scheidigger M. Neurobiological research on N,N-dimethyltryptamine (DMT) and its potentiation by monoamine oxidase (MAO) inhibition: from ayahuasca to synthetic combinations of DMT and MAO inhibitors. Cell Mol Life Sci. 2024 Sep 10;81(1):395. doi: 10.1007/s00018-024-05353-6.       

Barker, SA. Administration of N,N-dimethyltryptamine (DMT) in psychedelic therapeutics and research and the study of endogenous DMT. Psychopharmacology (Berl). 2022 Jun;239(6):1749-1763.     doi: 10.1007/s00213-022-06065-0.  Epub 2022 Jan 22.       

de Sousa GM, de Oliveira Tavares VD, de Menezes Galvão AC, de Almeida RN, Palhano-Fontes F, Lobão-Soares B, et al. Moderators of ayahuasca's biological antidepressant action. Front Psychiatry. 2022 Dec 5;13:1033816. doi: 10.3389/fpsyt.2022.1033816. eCollection 2022.

Rossi GN, Guerra LT, Baker GB, Dursun SM, Bouso Saiz JC, Hallak JEC, et al. Molecular Pathways of the Therapeutic Effects of Ayahuasca, a Botanical Psychedelic and Potential Rapid-Acting Antidepressant. Biomolecules. 2022 Nov 2;12(11):1618. doi: 10.3390/biom12111618

Hamill J, Hallak J, Dursun SM, Baker G. Ayahuasca: Psychological and physiologic effects, pharmacology and potential uses in addiction and mental illness. Curr Neuropharmacol. 2018;17(2):108-128. https:// doi: 10.2174/1570159X16666180125095902

Addendum: A drug is defined as a substance that interacts with biological systems and/or is intended to diagnose, prevent, or treat a disease. Ayahuasca is a drug. Do research or depend on MP. 

Just get a quad of shrooms and meet Jesus 

Personally, I would not pay thousands of dollars and fly across the world just to violently vomit in the jungle. I’ve got a perfectly good toilet right here.

Miss Cat wrote:

Personally, I would not pay thousands of dollars and fly across the world just to violently vomit in the jungle. I’ve got a perfectly good toilet right here.

There's a certain kind of fun one can only attain from terrible decisions. I think this is missing from your calculations.

Ricky Harline wrote:

There's a certain kind of fun one can only attain from terrible decisions. I think this is missing from your calculations.

Type 2 fun is great for the story, I just don’t think a story about hours upon hours of vomit is that compelling.

Ricky Harline wrote:

There's a certain kind of fun one can only attain from terrible decisions. I think this is missing from your calculations.

Sometimes, though, such 'fun' can be fatal!!!!

In climbing, while we might make bold or committing decisions, which occasionally may also become fatal, we usually try to avoid purposely making "terrible" ones

Whoever thinks I’m a bot has to first prove they are not bots.

There is a local climber here who says he was a 5.14 climber until one bad trip and now he is a 5.12 climber. I have never seen him send 5.10, I don’t wanna be this guy.

Aldous William Eaton wrote:

Whoever thinks I’m a bot has to first prove they are not bots.

There is a local climber here who says he was a 5.14 climber until one bad trip and now he is a 5.12 climber. I have never seen him send 5.10, I don’t wanna be this guy.

Lol

Sounds just like becoming a parent 

Alan Rubin wrote:

I think that your 'sarcasm receptors' need a tune-up Mark!!!

lol, likely right.    
In my defense, I was just reading an article about that very thing where he was talking it up, so I was in that perspective….

Aaron and RFK are good example setters.  Whatever their example, don’t follow it.