Thursday, August 13, 2009

Ayahuasca Dosages

A friend recently asked me what the typical ayahuasca dose would be, and whether it was determined in part by a person's weight: a petite old woman, for instance, versus a hulking athlete. My answer below:

Depends on the curandero and the medicine. Julio's medicine was generally given in maximum 6 gulp doses--about 3 ounces, I think. He'd give less for someone who had no experience, but size was not important.
At Sachamama, Francisco gives about 2 gulps--he either adds something to the medicine or simply cooks it down so much that two gulps is effective.
At other places, sometimes I've been given 4 or 5 ounces and then a second cup after an hour or so, making it an 8-10 ounce event.
In truth, once someone is very attuned to it, they don't need to drink the medicine to have a full experience. I've had them just on smelling it while cooking (vapors) and some of my most amazing experiences occurred on nights when the spirits said they had something to teach me--before the experience--and in an effort to avoid learning I took just three or four drops. In those cases the spirits just laughed when I did and said they were going to teach me regardless of my being afraid.
So dose can range from vapors to half a pint, depending on the medicine and the person taking it.

PS: In cases like Italo's cleansing of me: He probably should not have done it as he didn't "see" what he was taking from me, despite being able to do it. In cases where you can see what's coming off or out of someone, Bertha Grove, a great medicine woman from the Southern Ute tribe, explained that all things, all energy, has a life and will of its own, and that removing an illness from someone and tossing it on the ground, or worse, taking it into yourself, would result in you or someone else winding up with that illness. That would apply to whatever was taken. Because you are dealing with spirit here, and everything has spirit. She recommended that whatever was removed, and she was speaking primarily of removing illnesses or other negative things from people, be wrapped up in a sort of invisible gauze and put on some far away planet where no other living things would ever encounter it.
In my own case, I've been taught to put those things in a place where the doctors, spirits who work with negative energy, can transform that negative energy into positive energy.
However a person does it, it's important to remember that in cleansing someone, to be sure that what is removed from them does not wind up in you, or worse, simply on the ground, where it will affix to the next passerby.
In the extreme, a person can have a full blown experience just by being in contact with someone else who has taken it. My son Italo, called into service to "clean" me one time a couple of years ago after I returned from Peru feeling very heavy with spirit, used a chacapa (leaf rattle) and Florida water to do the psychic cleansing. Unfortunately, I wasn't thinking straight and didn't tell him how to eliminate whatever he cleaned from me. Two days later, while leaving the house to run an errand with Chepa and the kids he doubled over, began to vomit--an ayahuasca vomit, not a normal vomit--then said he was going to need some help as he'd begin an ayahuasca experience. Chepa and I moved him to a calm area in the very back yard and sang to him for the full two hour experience until he came back to his normal senses.
So dose matters more in the early stages of one's relationship with the medicine--or more properly, one's relationship to the vibrant spirit of the medicine--and less once that connection with a person and that vibrant spirit has been established.
The key thing to remember is that the ayahuasca experience has little to do with chemistry and everything to do with the shift of a person's spirit which allows them to communicate with other spirits not normally visible or apparent to humans. The chemicals in the medicine allow that shift to happen, but once that shift has been made, the chemicals are of less and less use as the door, once opened, never closes.

13 comments:

Gritter said...

I must needs get that door open a bit more ya know. Still trying to work it out to get there - not very hopeful though.

Dr. Grossman said...

Nice to see someone else say this. Sometimes all I have to do is think of la Madre and I go into an altered state.

Serhio said...

Interesting facts, Peter.
In the cases like with your son Italo, during cleansing. What one should do? How to eliminate or how to ground all those energies?

Peter Gorman said...

Serhio: I've added a paragraph to the piece that addresses your question. Thanks for asking. Hope all is going well.

The Grudge said...

I can't wait to medicate again, I feel I have so much work to do. Thanks you for the post. Have a great weekend.

Steve Beyer said...

I did some calculating -- the details are in Singing to the Plants -- by looking at the mean DMT content of ayahuasca drinks not as mean mg/100 ml, as they have generally been reported, but rather as mean mg/dose. When we do that, the total beta-carbolines in the ayahuasca drinks vary quite widely, ranging from 20 to 416 mg/dose. But the amount of DMT becomes remarkably constant, with a range of just 25 to 36 mg/dose and a mean of 30 mg/dose. It certainly seems that 30 ±5 mg of DMT is considered, from the Upper Amazon to Brazil, an optimal dose, and that the leaders of ceremonies are able to judge just what amount of the drink they had made contains just that much DMT.

Peter Gorman said...

Steve:I respect your work and so don't want to question it. But I'll say that Julio generally made one liter of ayahuasca from 20 kilos of vine and 3-5 kilos of psychotria viridis, pure males, counted one by one, and then ad mix.
So if you are counting doses, he's got the essence of at least 7 pounds of DMT bearing leaves for 10 people. Which I believe, is greater than what your math comes to.
But then he would often be so stoned by the second or third hour of cooking, just smelling of vapors, that we had to carry him to ceremony 12 hours later. And I've experienced the same. Point being, we're dealing with spirits, not chemicals. And spirits just need an invite, while chemicals have a threshold. But this ain't western medicine, this is spirit communion, and so dose simply doesn't matter.
P

Steve Beyer said...

Peter --

I don't disagree with anything you're saying. Perhaps I should have been more clear about the source of my statement.

I took some published data that analyzed ayahuasca samples from a number of widely separated sources and that gave their DMT content as mg/100 ml. The same data also gave the size of the "dose" the researcher was given. Both the DMT content and the size of the dose, as you would expect, showed considerable variation.

But then, out of curiosity, I did some simple mathematics to determine DMT content per dose, since the data were right there to be used. I was myself very surprised to find that mean DMT content per dose turned out to be remarkably uniform -- 30 ±5 mg of DMT.

I didn't collect the data, I made no measurements, I just took a look at published data from a new angle.

I don't doubt for a minute that there is tremendous variability among Amazonian shamans in all aspects of ayahuasca preparation. But I think these results -- analyzing samples from Peru to Brazil -- are striking, and call for an explanation.

I would be really interested in your thoughts.

Warmest regards.

-- Steve

Serhio said...

I know some modern mediums use lighted candles, while cleansing proces. They would wave a hand over the fire in order to clean or burn the energy taken from patients.
Being self taught, i came to an idea to use a sun as the transformation point. As for me I would visualize this, like i'm take some negative energy, emotions and etc and send it to the sun furnace. Keeping in mind that all energy will be burned and transformed into the light.
But what about ceremonies? When almost everybody purge to the ground? What next? What happens with all of those emotions , energies and illnesses which came off from the participants.
When the shaman works face to face with the patient it is one thing, but when there are 5-10 people are laying around?

Peter Gorman said...

Steve: I guess I find your results for the DMT dose simply astounding. I'm somehow not surprised because of the innate understanding of the medicine by curanderos, but I am amazed. Excellent work on culling that information. And your book looks to be wonderful; I hope you sell a million copies.
Serhio: I think that during ceremony, the medicine itself (herself) takes care of transforming the illnesses and negative energy that come from people and land on the ground or simply fly into the air. I think she simply takes care of the space in which she's used.
Most curanderos I've asked put it something like that.

Steve Beyer said...

Peter --

I was amazed too. :-) After I had written pages and pages about how variable everything was, suddenly this 30 ±5 number comes up. I might have made some sort of error, I guess. If so, I am sure there will be a reviewer who will be happy to point it out to me. :-)

Thank you for the very kind words about the book.

Warmest regards.

-- Steve

maria_is_awake said...

Hi Peter,

My name is Maria. I live in the D/FW area. I am a newbie to the aya experience or should I say topic. I have read several articles and viewed lots of videos but don't have any one in the local area to communicate with regarding this topic. I got your name from the Ayahuasca Forum as a person who was in this area and could guide me to a group locally. Is this true?

What I am looking for is someone experienced with healing plants and plants that can help me connect with my higher self. I have been very interested in self development/spirituality and would like guidance to the next step which I believe maybe the aya experience.

If you have any suggestions of groups or "safe" people in the area I would really appreciate it.

Thanks,
Maria

Peter Gorman said...

Maria: I'm gonna plead ignorance here. My work is done in Peru and I don't really know any people in the area who have circles. They are probably out there, but I really have never tried to find them. So I can't help on this one.