Experiences of Encounters with Ayahuasca - “the Vine of the Soul”

Introduction

Ayahuasca is a traditional Amazonian psychoactive brew containing dimethyltryptamine (DMT) together with monoamine oxidase (MAO)‑inhibiting compounds from Banisteriopsis caapi, which render the DMT orally active. Use of the brew has long been embedded in indigenous ritual contexts and has spread into religious organisations in Brazil and into wider spiritual and ‘‘drug tourism’’ circles in North America and Europe. Earlier reports and some clinical assessments describe intense physical effects such as nausea, vomiting and diarrhoea, pronounced psychological experiences that can include fear and perceived loss of control, and subsequently feelings of euphoria, insight or spiritual contact; there is little evidence of physiological harm or addiction according to prior literature cited by the authors. Kjellgren and colleagues designed a qualitative study to explore how western participants in group ayahuasca ceremonies describe those experiences and the meaning they attribute to them. The investigators sought to capture participants’ motives for attending, the phenomenology of session events, and any longer‑term personal or worldview changes, and to organise these accounts into a higher‑level structure describing the process of participation.