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A PhD Researcher's 120+ Ayahuasca Experiences in the Peruvian Amazon: Rebekah Senanayake with Dr. Darian


@bekplants - https://www.instagram.com/p/B5siCCJjQ1c

Questions

Hey, I'm super pumped to talk about your research and work, which seems to be about unpacking altered states in a different setting than what most people are used to. Before we get into that, how did you first come to learn about and get involved in this area?

This project started about seven years ago when I first went to the Amazon. I've always been interested in the Amazon, plant medicines, and plants in general since I was a child. When I had a flight booked to South America, I thought it was my chance to visit the Amazon. Upon googling it, one of the first things that came up was ayahuasca. It sounded intense from what I read, so I didn't want to read too much. I thought the best way would be to try it, so I dove in eyes shut.

What I found was incredibly profound - not just the medicine itself, but the ceremonial construction and the people who knew how to navigate the state. The ayahuasca is a great medicine, but to me it's just a plant. Knowing how to navigate it and having this knowledge preserved for thousands of years, that tells me there's something really important going on.

That started seven years ago. From there I went on to complete my university degrees - bachelor's, honors which involved more fieldwork in the Amazon for three months building off those connections, then my Masters on psychedelics. Now I'm doing my PhD here for a year, working with people I've known for 4-7 years. We've built a level of trust which means this knowledge can be shared with someone they trust as well.

It was also important for me to build up to this gradually. The Amazon conditions are quite different from regular life, so I had to get used to things like mosquitoes, staying safe, seeing tarantulas, etc. It would have freaked me out the first year, but now after being here a few times, I feel more used to it and able to navigate the space better in the physical day-to-day life.

The Amazon seems so mysterious to me, as it does for most who have never been there. You may watch a documentary or hear certain things about it being the "lungs of the planet", but what do you take away from the relationship between the Amazon and plant medicine that makes it so incredible?

cooked ayahuasca @bekplants

The first time I saw the Amazon river itself, I was flying over in a plane. It was beautiful, like a snake river with its twists and turns. A sense of awe filled me, realizing this is completely natural with nothing constructed. In a way it took me out of my own ego as a human.

This is what I've learned from talking to my research participants, the healers I'm working with. Ayahuasca and plant medicines are wonderful, but having that in the center of nature, the lungs of the planet, and being able to feel that strength and phenomenal power that comes with nature - even the storms here sometimes feel like World War 3 with the downpours, it's beyond anything human and completely natural. It makes you feel small but also realize you can have that connection with that bigger thing.

For me it's very important to not only drink ayahuasca and have these ceremonies, but also have that connection to nature, because nature is such an integral part of the ceremonies. In my own journeys, that's come with a lot of respect for nature which I think has greatly helped in my own healing.

I strongly agree. Psychedelics have exponentially deepened my connection to and significance for nature. Whenever I've gone down the psychedelic rabbit hole, it's one of those things that's truly an alien experience if you've never attempted it - hard to explain and just different.

I want to jump into this discussion about altered states. When I was reading Michael Pollan's book and other material, it talked about how humans crave altered states. What is it about these altered states that we're always seeking as humans?

Art from Ayahuasca visions book by Luis Eduardo Luna

That's a really interesting question. Michael Pollan's book was quite pivotal for me in my research career, he writes beautifully about what we are seeking in these states.

The first thing that interests me is a study done in 1967 by anthropologist Erika Bourguignon. She looked at a bunch of societies globally and found that 90% had some form of accessing an altered state. That number is significant - 90% of societies have some way of doing this, so there must be some prevalence that makes people think this is important, otherwise why are so many doing it?

A lot of these states from what she found were used for healing or transmuting knowledge. With ayahuasca, there is a myth from the Tucano people of Colombia that says ayahuasca came to them as part of their creation story, as a way of maintaining connections to the spirit world.

In Western science, spirituality isn't included as much. But it's still interesting to see psychedelics used in some way to maintain a connection, whether to another spiritual realm or to another part of yourself. It's almost extending past just the human as who I am today.

There's profound research now about the mental health benefits of psychedelics. What I'm interested in with my project is looking at the functions of ayahuasca beyond that. I acknowledge it's an amazing mental health and physical health tool, which I've seen with ayahuasca especially for gut illnesses. There seems to be some connection between mental and physical healing that I'm seeing in the ceremonies.

But I'm also interested in other elements like creativity, societal harmony - there are old ethnographies about ayahuasca being used in situations of conflict, where if people aren't agreeing they'll have a ceremony, talk it out. It's like consulting an elder or something else that's wise - have a conversation and bring that back to the community. You don't want to live in disharmony.

So there are a lot of different accounts and that's what really interests me in this project. The psychedelic renaissance is great and I'm 100% here for it, but with so much research being done on mental health, I want to see what else is out there, what else is inside this galaxy of uses. Let's do a bit of discovery into that.

You said a lot there, a lot to unpack! The connection to the spirit world is significant. From your research working with people in the Amazon, what was the primary purpose of ayahuasca and psychedelics in our ancient past? Was it to have a connection to the spirit world or were there other reasons beyond that?

That is pretty much the crux of my research question that I'm investigating. As I investigate more, I'm seeing there are more layers to this picture than I initially thought.

That reference to the spiritual world from the Tucano myth about their creation story is often referenced - that ayahuasca connects to something else. It's also interesting that post-missionary, a lot of Catholicism has spread through Amazonia. There's a lot of religion here, it's quite heavy in that way, and many of the maestros are religious. In ceremonies I sometimes see them invoking the Catholic priest.

jungle house @bekplants

To me this is especially interesting because once again it's maintaining a connection to something else that's divine, and ayahuasca is the vehicle. It's just a different thing they're connecting to. Super interesting moment.

Another interesting thing I find with ayahuasca is that it's also used as a knowledge bank. If the maestro wants to know more about a person's illness for instance, that's something he can ask ayahuasca for. If he wants to know more about particular plants and how they function, he can ask ayahuasca.

Going back to ancient stories on how ayahuasca was first encountered, a common story told to me is that a plant spirit told them. There's this reference to the ancient people having such a strong connection with the spirit realm that a plant spirit told them what plants to use and in what particular way.

With the ayahuasca brew, it's two plants - the ayahuasca vine and chacruna leaf (if you're in Peru and most parts of Latin America). These two plants have to be mixed in specific quantities to get the intended psychedelic effects. I've always found this interaction quite interesting, because you're in the Amazon jungle with so many different plants - how do you find two that work perfectly together in perfect concentrations?

Also, with both the chacruna leaf and ayahuasca vine, there are different types and only certain types of the ayahuasca vine work with certain types of chacruna leaf. So it becomes even more sophisticated. It's a bit of a tangent, but a great one - life is tangents, nothing happens the way you think it's going to happen!

Did you ever see yourself doing this, long time ago? Maybe you did, but maybe not the exact way it's happened.

Not the exact way, definitely not. But I'm absolutely stoked that it happened this way. I could not have asked for it to unfold better.

Funny story - my first ceremony, the first thing I saw was the Amazon. It was above me and I kind of knew then that I was going to spend more time here than initially expected. It was obvious, but not quite in this way - it's turned out even nicer than I expected.

It feels like in Western society we try to strip the spirituality out of these medicines too much. I'm curious what you think about that

Western society

The first thing that comes to mind is, with the psychedelic renaissance and more places legalizing or decriminalizing psychedelics, how important it is to have safety around these practices. When I think about safety, I'm not going to talk to someone who's just started - I'm going to talk to the person who's been doing this for a very long time and ask their opinion on how to safely navigate this.

This is where I think the crucial role of indigenous folk and people who've been practicing this medicine for thousands of years comes into the picture. I'm not going to talk to someone who's just started, I'm going to the person who's been practicing for a long time, whose father and grandfather have been practicing. You get the picture.

This is where I think it's really important to include indigenous people in this discussion. It hurts me a bit, if I'm being honest, with Western science. I feel it has a very tunnel vision point of view - if the brain is working in this way, this must be the effect, blah blah blah. But like you said, it doesn't really account for the spirituality, the subtleties, the little flavors of the experience - the bits that need to be integrated a little more finely. It's quite clinical.

I'm not against Western science, I want to be clear. I do have a lot of respect for it and think it has its place. But there's a softness that needs to come with it, especially with psychedelic science and how sensitive these states are.

I've participated in probably at least 120 ayahuasca ceremonies at this point, with about 15 different healers across South America - Colombia, Peru, Brazilian brews. I've seen how different healers work and the level of subtlety in their ceremonies, the level of protection they put in. It's amazing, it constantly amazes me. They really know what they're doing, how to protect the space, how to navigate the space, even when it comes to my own personal healing experiences. I've seen how they interact with me in that space.

It's a very sophisticated technology that they know how to maneuver and have known for a very long time. They usually come from a line of healers who have been practicing this as well, with initiations starting at maybe 18 years old or even younger. It's fascinating - I've seen children as young as 14 being initiated.

Wait, they're taking it that young? They're imbibing it?

bekplants.wordpress.com

The tiniest bit, like drops. If for instance you or I had it, it would have a very very mild effect. But yes, there is some ingestion at that age.

This is what I wanted to learn, I didn't know any of this. Let's go right to this nuance - what do you mean by the nuance, the flavor that indigenous people and healers who have learned this over many generations and centuries do differently than say current society people administering it?

There's a level of expertise in this, if I'm being honest. This is why I'm so interested, because I like a big problem to tackle and ayahuasca is huge.

For instance, with initiations, the average initiation practice is 3-5 years. In this time, you'll spend time with one or several maestros in the middle of the jungle. You'll be on an ayahuasca diet, which means no salt, sugar, oils, fats - essentially your diet is rice, plantain, fish. You won't be having any sex either. A very lean diet. And you'll be drinking ayahuasca regularly, at least 3 times a week, during this process.

The reason I mention this is to show how much training goes into holding these spaces. That's the difference between asking a first year med student to do brain surgery versus a very specialized professional. We're having discussions, working in these spaces - the healer I'm working with now has learned from about 16-17 different healers in different parts of the Amazon. His diet was for 5 years without salt. Wild stuff.

So I'm telling you, it's phenomenal. The subtleties are that he really knows this space, he's seen it, spent 5 years doing this and since then 40 years practicing. There's a whole lot of knowledge this man has, he's seen a lot happen in this space.

One thing that really interests me is how mosquitoes don't enter the ceremonial space. Usually when we have ceremony, it's in a little hut called a tambo with four pillars and a palm leaf roof, but it's open air. You're in the middle of the jungle at night, so you'd expect mosquitoes, but they never enter the ceremonial space. Interesting, right? I mean, how do you explain that? You'd probably have to ask him, but it's something that always interests me.

I can feel it in the ceremonies, I can see how it works. It's on the very subtle points of people's energy. It's a very beautiful process, but it's like doing very fine brain surgery. That's how I would describe it - very very fine. You need that level of expertise to know exactly what point to get to without displaying anything else in the way.

Do you think this molecule, medicine, whatever we want to call it, is meant for animals, humans, all life to experience to have a deeper meaning of their existence?

I love this question, it's a great one. It's something I've tossed over in my mind quite a bit recently. I think yes, it has great potential.

Going back to that Tucano myth I mentioned at the start, ayahuasca was put here to maintain a connection to the spirit realm, but also to show humans how to be human. Interesting, right?

I think it's very important. In some older societies, not everyone would drink ayahuasca. Only certain people would and they'd bring back the messages.

I think with the modern day and what we're moving into, there needs to be more scientific research on the interactions of different medicines, like pharmaceutical medicines with ayahuasca, and also certain mental illnesses with ayahuasca. Always erring on the side of more caution with that, or going to someone who really knows what they're doing.

The maestro I'm working with, I would have confidence in him knowing how to navigate that, just because of his level of expertise. So it doesn't have to come out with some facts, but it needs to come from some expert in some way.

I have a blog where I write things, as blog people do. My most recent post was a bit of a rollercoaster, but something that interests me is - what is the plant's intention? What does ayahuasca get out of our communion?

Huh, yeah. That's a question I've never even given thought to, and I actually feel bad that I haven't. Wait a minute, because it feels like a one-way street, but it's true - if we're all connected, what are the plants getting out of it?

I guess in order to have that conversation, you kind of have to think plants have spirit and a certain level of sentience. And we know this now - we know about tree communication systems, emotions and feelings. We're starting to know these life forms are much higher level than we thought. So what are they getting out of it? I can't even imagine...I can't even imagine that conversation either, you just blew my mind with that one!

The place I'm sitting with that conversation now, and sometimes it's just like trying on a hat, a different way of thinking to see how it feels - if we come back to the experience, the effect, the respect for nature we get from ayahuasca, are we then not somewhat inspired to protect nature in some way?

It's a bit sad where we're at with nature right now, very sad. But that's kind of where I'm sitting with that, letting this one take away in the back.

What's been the most profound part of this study that you're currently going through?

The first thing that actually came to mind was intimacy. The intimacy and trust I've built with my participants, the healers.

I don't know if you've come across this, but MAPS did an ethics pledge in 2020 for anyone in the field of psychedelic research who wanted to have their moral script. When we're creating psychedelic science, it's beautiful, new, and flourishing, so we can put in so many different intentions and moral frameworks.

They created this pledge and I think one of the first things they say is that "change moves at the speed of trust." That's something I've noticed over these seven years. The maestro I'm working with is phenomenal at what he does, with his level of experience. But it's the level of trust and ongoing friendship we have, not just with him but his family, his mom, his daughters, their children. It's a whole interaction.

This has really led to good research for me, a very intimate relationship where we can share ideas and he's comfortable sharing information with me. I currently have quite a bit of data, and before I write my thesis, we'll sit and go through all the data to determine what's appropriate to share versus what's more traditional knowledge that needs to be kept a bit more discreet, because it is quite intimate what you're sharing.

It's also that sacred part of the community, that spiritual knowledge. That's almost like the heart of a community.

So for me, it's the intimacy of knowing someone for so long, knowing their environment for so long, and reaching this place where they feel comfortable sharing that with me. They feel happy to endorse the research project, which is what I liked.

When I first came back here on my last trip, I was here for three months doing a small research project. But this time I was like, I'm actually here for a year, this is what I want to do. And he fully welcomed and supported it. To have every stakeholder completely on board, knowing about indigenous oppression, how bad it's been, how much knowledge has been stolen - to have someone on board who's happy and trusts me as a researcher to go forward in a good way, that to me has probably been the best and most valuable part of this project.

This project never would have happened, I wouldn't be getting the data and information I'm getting now, if I didn't have that experience and trust. So it's a long process in that way and will only keep getting better. But it's been a process to set that up. I'm lucky to be in the place now where I can actually enjoy it. I mean, it's always been enjoyable, but it's nice to see the product in the present day of all that time spent in the past.

What is it that is now awakening people to this more than ever?

The reason people seek something is because they don't have it. If you have everything, you're not going to seek. Just dropping some knowledge there.

But seriously, I think it's a reflection of where we're at in society. I look at what's happening in the world and I'm hurt, it really hurts me. I think a lot of people feel that. I think we have a lot of pain within ourselves as well.

That's why we're seeking healing, we're seeking some sort of meaning. Perhaps we've been seeking meaning because, as you mentioned earlier, Western society doesn't really have spirituality currently. There's something there that needs something, and I think as humans we know there's something a bit deeper, a bit more nuanced. It's like putting the garnish on a dish - we know the garnish can be there but it's not always readily available, so people are looking somewhere else.

I think with ayahuasca, it's quite interesting because it comes with a few different prongs. The first prong is that it's great to have direct relationships with indigenous culture, with people who are actually able to come over. Then there's a cultural exchange which I find really important. So you have your ceremony, but also, how do people who drink ayahuasca live? What's that community look like? What can you take home from what you see in that society?

But then on the other hand, it's a business, it's a money business. When money gets involved, and this is what the maestros here have told me as well, there are a lot of fake shamans out there. A lot.

As I mentioned, I've drunk with about 15-ish people in my time here. Out of those, in the current day, there are probably 2-3 I'd recommend. So there's a lot of, I wouldn't say scamming, but people looking for money. The people I wouldn't recommend, it's not that they're looking for money, it's just their level of expertise once again. You just have your specialists.

It's like anything that takes off - anything that's getting big, somebody's going to try to capitalize on it. Whether they're trying to sell something they don't really know about, that happens unfortunately with anything that gets big.

Going back to what you said about Western society, I think people are shedding organized religion but they're not shedding their belief in something greater or something spiritual. A lot of research has indicated there's a large decrease in organized religion membership, attendance, and places of worship, but people's belief in a higher power is just as high as it's ever been.

People are seeking, they just don't want to seek things that seem antiquated, restrictive, and honestly may not be very truthful. I think this burgeoning aspect of psychedelics is just another way for humans to connect to, as you said, learn how to be human. That blew my mind, I didn't think about that.

I guess going back to that Tucano myth, psychedelics are a way of connecting with something greater, or reminding us of that connection to something else. In terms of putting humans in their place, but not in a bad way, just a gentle nudge like you would with a kid. Just a gentle hand holding, this is your space.

What has ayahuasca taught you about the lessons of being human?

The first thing that comes to mind is fear is an illusion. There's a difference between feeling fear and danger, but chances are it's probably an illusion.

Respect, for sure. Respect. That we're custodians of the earth and we're put here to look after nature. But also that nature is put here to look after us. It's a loop, it can go both ways.

One thing that was probably my hook with ayahuasca was, yes the ceremonies were amazing, yes I felt the benefits worked well with my system. It was my first psychedelic actually, which is quite funny because I really went for it, right in the middle of the Amazon. I remember when I drank it the first time, I was like, wow, you've done some things in your life but this is definitely one of the most interesting!

But what really hooked me was when I went back home after my first month in the Amazon. It was my relationships that got stronger. I don't know what changed there, but something happened where suddenly people made more sense to me and I could give more love. I felt like they received it, so it was a nice loop. I love people, I love my friends and family, so for me that's a little key to my heart. As soon as that happened, I was like, okay, this is something.

I strongly agree. I think that's one of the best benefits of psychedelic use - the strengthening of your ability to see people in a better light and have better relationships. Seriously, who doesn't want that? Who's ever said they don't want better relationships? Of course you want better relationships, and this is such a powerful way to deconstruct yourself, come back together, and then see people in a better light. For them and for yourself.

It's interesting with the maestro I'm working with. For some reason, and I think ayahuasca is good for me because it helps me unpack my Western ways of thinking. I do work at a university, I'm doing my PhD, I'm very grounded in that way of thinking. I spend a lot of time in that space.

Then when I come here, I realize, oh yeah, that's an idea from there, but I don't realize it's made a home in my mind.

But the maestro was talking about self-love the other day and how important it was to love yourself. For some reason, I thought that was a really Western, almost new concept. But he was saying that was one of his best lessons from ayahuasca - to love himself, respect himself, look after himself. To him, drinking ayahuasca and having a clean diet of good food, that's all part of his self-love. His little speech was very moving.

I feel like ayahuasca is a highway to wisdom. I feel like a lot of this is kind of lost knowledge. Self-love feels like a Western ideal or a very pop culture idea, but it's not. It's like ceremony - we have done everything in our power, especially in the Western world, to kill ceremony over the past 100 years. We're just killing it left and right. Why do we do that? Why have we decided that ceremony and transitions in life and death are not important?

It feels like these medicines help you get back to that - the ceremony, the transition from one plane of existence to the next is critically important.

It's a rite of passage, you might say. I would still say Western culture has a lot of ceremony, it's just the significance behind it, the intention. Because a lot of things we do in day-to-day life are little rituals.

But yeah, to the absence of the spirituality or perhaps the deep aspect, I've found it particularly difficult in Western culture to think about not having a puberty transition, a formal rite of passage. A lot of cultures do have that rite of initiation, that way that takes for instance a girl to a woman, or you'd see it more commonly with boys to men. They fulfill some sort of trajectory and then at the end they're confirmed a man or woman.

I find that particularly hollow in the West, that there is no real formal structure for that. Because puberty in itself is quite a difficult process for young people. There's a lot going on and it would be nice to have some sort of structure to show and also to almost create strong people, a strong society, people who know themselves, who are grounded in themselves. If you could help during that transitional phase, that makes me a little bit...

Yeah, I think the West needs some sort of rite of initiation in that way that's a little bit more structured than what it currently is. Other than a 16th birthday party or sweet 16, it's like, yeah.

One thing too with death, we have a very difficult time dealing with death, even discussing it. Again, another huge benefit to psychedelics is decreasing the fear of death, acceptance. If you talk to most young people, they don't really think they're going to die. It's like out of their mind, a long way away, we'll figure this out or something.

I always remember I'm going to die. Always. And I think it's important to remember that because there's fuel, it should push you to accomplish things and have reverence for the life you're in.

But in Western cultures, people are generally dying in not ideal places they want to be. In a hospital looking up at a ceiling, in a sterile environment, maybe alone, maybe with some people. There are some exceptions, like in New Orleans in the past culture where they would have parties and celebrations when people died to celebrate their life. But that's very rare in the West. It's mainly a fairly sad situation of passing on.

100%, yeah. It's quite... and there's so much fear around death as well. It's not really accepted as part of the life, and there's also a fear of holding on. People want to hold on so dearly, but there's a point, in my opinion at least, where there's a gentle meeting and a gentle acceptance that this is someone's life.

This is crazy. What you're doing is pretty amazing, studying something in a very raw and ancient way. I think that's amazing. Who knows where it's going to go for you, I'm sure you have an idea. What would you want to do after your formal education? How do you want to be in this space professionally?

Professionally, I would like to continue the research. I think some sort of research role, whether that's within a formal university institution or perhaps ideally something a little bit less rigid than the university.

For me, what works well as a researcher is being out in the field and using my resources in that way. I love living in the middle of the jungle, there's something about it that I really enjoy. There are some people who love being in a lab, so why don't we work together instead of trying to be in each other's spaces? Because I would not work well in a lab, maybe for a few months for sure, but the level of satisfaction would be okay actually.

So for me, I'd like to continue research because also what I've found, with plant medicines in general, is that it's a huge massive field. It's humongous. I think there's a lot of time that can be spent researching this.

Also, a little area that I'm playing into, which I've just started actually, is documentaries. I'd like to do more documentaries because, for me as a researcher, I love writing. I absolutely love it, hence the blog. I think that's a little bit more accessible.

But academia, in a sense, slightly annoys me because the research is not very accessible. You need to have a level of education to be able to read a research paper. But hey, what if I make a documentary? Then you understand it probably, right? People understand videos.

So to me, that would be a nice little side avenue that I'm feeling out right now. I've got my little camera with me right now actually and I've started putting together little bits and pieces. We'll see how that goes after the year's over. But yeah, it's about accessibility at the end of the day.

We absolutely need people like you willing to immerse themselves in the jungles to deeply study these ancient practices. I really appreciate you sharing your knowledge and experience, as it fills an important gap. I hope many people from the psychedelic community reach out to you, as you're doing something unique in connecting with the very roots and ancient history of these medicines. Thank you for the important work you're doing.

Thank you so much, it's been a pleasure. Feel free to get in touch with me on social media @bekplants or my blog bekplants.wordpress.com. I'd love to hear from anyone interested in learning more. And thank you for holding such a great space for this conversation.