Short Ayahuasca guide

UPDATE: I have a video guide which some folks might prefer over this text: youtu.be/eYmXTOTeM1s
I also have an abbreviated guide on reddit: reddit.com/r/Psychedelics/s/iGosWD7vgz

Read on for the old guide:

Dryahuasca
The No-Brew Ayahuasca for lazy giraffes who dislike brewing, purging & OD'ing!

Why this guide?
The purpose of this guide is twofold:

Harm reduction: there is so much false information on the net (especially from Chris Geo), resulting in folks putting themselves in serious danger. We cannot do much about recklessness or stupidity, but we can try and address ignorance. One reason that some people like Mr. Geo might be using dangerously high doses is because cannabis blocks the effects of DMT in 70% of people studied at one aya retreat center.
It works, despite its simplicity. Here's a recent user review. And here's another one.

This is by no means intended to cover the entire topic of Ayahuasca therapy, please see other references such as iceers.org for more info and support. For a history of ayahuasca, see the EntheoNation guide.

Introduction

Ayahuasca (aka "yagé") a is a word loaded with mystery, images of shamans, young people in blankets sipping brews, and vomit too. Historically if you wanted to experience ayahuasca, you had to travel to South America or more recently some places in Europe, and participate in a ceremony. You can definitely still do that (I recommend with The City Of Light, in Peru and with closer branches), but there are other alternatives. You can also get some extremely deep emotional healing from my good friend, Shaman J, who works with a number of medicines, depending on the client.

This is a guide for people who prefer doing this on their own. You are encouraged to not take any advice here at face value: seek, learn, question everything until you feel as assured as you need to be. Traditional ayahuasca with B. caapi vine (a.k.a. ayahuasca vine, confusingly!) had to be brewed, but with modern options, extracts and knowledge this is no longer the case. This method requires no brewing, is as safe as you make it, and effective as any ceremony.

For some people, a ceremony involving an authoritative figure (the shaman) or being surrounded by other people is extremely important. This guide is targeted at people who prefer going into the journey on their own terms and having better control of the pace, environment, and the dose they will ingest, or simply cannot afford to travel for a traditional ceremony.

Two Ingredients
Ayahuasca is essentially composed of two components:

MAOi source (traditionally the plant B. Caapi, “The teacher”). Note that pharmaceutical MAOis will not produce the correct experience, though they can activate DMT.
DMT and/or NMT source. DMT is the "masculine/yang light", while NMT is the "feminine/yin light”, which illuminates the teaching. DMT is very challenging, as it starts from the crown chakra and goes down hopefully to the heart chakra if all barriers are smashed successfully, while NMT starts from heart chakra and goes up in a gentle loving manner. Traditionally, Psychotria viridis, aka chacruna is often used as a plant source in the jungle for DMT, but Acacia confusa bark, mixed in fat to isolate NMT, is preferred for therapeutic purposes.)

The third component that cannot be underestimated is mindset and setting, which is discussed later on, but you can read a lot at the front page at u-dont-exist.com

Most of the complexity arises for these 3 reasons:

These sources can come in many forms and be combined in different ways. Each source has its unique character.
When and how to consume each of the ingredients (timing).
Finding your own range of correct doses for each ingredient.

Dryahuasca eliminates the additional complexity of simmering, concocting, extracting, reducing, boiling, freezing, adding egg whites, sitting in circles, holding twigs and many other traditions and gospels that you are welcome to do if it brings you joy, but don’t have to.

Before we proceed, these warnings and words of advice should be understood:

Ask yourself why you are doing this (each time you do). Always have a clear understanding what it is you are seeking. If you are looking for some fun or to escape boredom, please do yourself a big favor and go elsewhere, but do come back when you have exhausted fun-seeking. If you are looking for Ultimate Truth, Liberation, or Ultimate Reality, then don't do Ayahuasca or other drugs, because they are more likely to just show you some delusional state of Oneness or alien communication. What ayahuasca is mainly useful for is boosting the power of your meditation, and it can do that without producing side effects if you take a low dose. If you don't have a daily spiritual practice, ayahuasca can be more destabilizing, and if your spiritual practice of surrender to the divine peace and love does not include sending that love down to your inner child, then you are Spiritual Bypassing, which is what leads people to become abusive gurus.
Understand the potential dangers of ingesting MAOi when combined with various drugs, herbs, and even some foods for some people. Drug interactions can be fatal. Many sources exist, please review e.g. this pdf or Foods and Medications to Avoid with MAOIs.
Do not mix drugs with other drugs, or alcohol/weed unless you are super savvy and not reading this guide. Weed often blocks ayahuasca effects to some extent, and cannabinoids are stored in your fat cells, so chronic cannabis users might not get strong aya effects even if they take a tolerance break.
Always test all ingredients for allergic reaction (extremely rare, but I have seen it happen) by ingesting a tiny amount of each ingredient alone, long before you actually intend to start.
Don’t rush it. Be cautious when you are using a new drug, or even a new batch or source. Start with a fraction of the lowest recommended dose and see how you feel.
Give yourself sufficient time to integrate, reflect and clear up between trips.
Understand the importance of set and settings, consider a trip sitter and don’t do it without guidance if you’re in shaky mental state and certainly not if you have a mental condition. Turn off your phone & computer & get someone to watch the kids & pets. Zero obligations today and ideally, none tomorrow. The average length of the aya meditation is 6-8 hours when done correctly. More set prep info later on.

OK let’s get to it
Option I: Simple and fixed ingredients (or read option II: playing around with MAOi options for more traditional, but less reliable, full spectrum effects--some people really need the extra harmala alkaloids in B. caapi vine.)

The simple approach is to follow this guide, if you just want to get a first taste with minimal time spent learning about the options and experimenting with ingredients, you'll need the following 3 items:

Ozonated activated charcoal water to make the experience peaceful and block EMF.
Your MAOI source is going to be Syrian rue seeds ground into powder.
Your DMT and/or NMT source is powdered Acacia Confusa Root Bark (ACRB) from Hawai'i. The Taiwan bark is harvested from dead trees and has no NMT, only DMT-ish alks. Mimosa hostilis generally just has DMT-ish alks.

Mix 1-2g of syrian rue seed powder into cold, whole (full fat) dairy or coconut milk, and drink.

Wait until you feel the effects of the syrian rue (usually takes 15 minutes or less but for some people over an hour before they feel noticeable mood lift and slight trance feeling). If you don't feel the effects of the rue then you can take another dose of rue and wait again.

Now mix your Acacia confusa powder (1-3g depending on the intensity you are ready for, try 1g if you are new) into cold milk if you want a DMT ayahuasca trip, or, what I generally advise is to mix it into butter, oil, or ideally coconut or dairy CREAM (the fat in the cream is what solubilizes NMT and insolubilizes DMT). Then mix that into milk and drink. (If you want a combined DMT+NMT experience you can mix the confusa powder into Half & Half, which is half milk, half cream). I use about 2 tbsp of cream per gram of confusa to block nausea, but less might also work.

I also suggest taking some Lion's Mane mushroom to help your brain integrate all the new insights. If you take too much Lion's Mane it will cause your nerves to grow too quickly which will feel like an itching sensation.

-----

---------------
NAUSEA

First of all, you should not have nausea unless using a high dose, which again, I don't recommend. Fats block nausea, which is why we use milk and cream. You can also consume 3-5 drops of lemon (or lemon balm or lemongrass) essential oil, or peppermint & coriander, mixed into some raw honey.

If you need some relief while nauseous, try lying on the floor and stretching your spine out flat on the ground.
-----

SET AND SETTING ARE KEY:

For deepest experience, be alone, in a quiet dark room with vomit bucket handy and some covers in case you get cold. Sitting upright on a bed until you feel forced to lie down, but don't go to sleep if you want it to work. Nature is nice to be in as long as you feel safe. It's nice to have the ability to make loud noises without bothering anyone.

Here is my advice for the general public: Send love and talk gently with your inner child. This literally heals all of your traumas and there is no other way to heal them aside from this. You will actually be able to have a real conversation with your inner child and re-parent them. Do not identify as them, they are just a part of you, and none of it is really you anyway, but this little exercise is essential for healing before you try to end rebirth, otherwise you will end up spiritually bypassing, which is why all gurus are such fucked up abusers.

If you want to cry, cry. If you want to laugh, laugh, don't resist whatever emotions there are, but focus on sending love. If you can't feel any love for your inner child at any age then imagine a baby in your arms that is crying. How do you feel? Can you send the baby love? Or imagine whoever you can imagine loving and just build that love feeling until you can redirect it to your inner child.

The following is my meditation advice for anyone ready to end rebirth:
Contemplate how everything, including awareness, happens due to conditions. It is thus not yours. Nothing is yours, nor do you exist. The illusion of yourself (whether as a person, a soul, or as the cosmos) is what binds everything up into one ball of suffering that is born, dies, and is born again. I have a pamphlet on this.

Contemplate the "Bahiya sutta" in order to dissolve into nibbana -- the witnessless multiverse of infinite perfect flows that exists prior to the illusion of it being unified as one experience. Also check the various stages that will likely occur before getting to the one Buddha was pointing at with everything disjoint/no witness.

WHAT IF I GO CRAZY???

The experience at high doses does make you feel crazy and then like you are dying. Normal advice in this case is: You just have to give in to that and let go of identity/existence. High doses lead to more delusions, so best to stick to low doses as meditation boosters. However, there are some hacks you can use to prevent this crazy feeling while still getting the full benefit of ayahuasca release. The most traditional grounding hack is hapeh/rapé, which is mainly Nicotiniana rustica, a very potent species of tobacco that can be used sublingually or more traditionally, blown up the nose using a kuripe (painful).. Some people find 5-10mg of methylene blue to be useful. Personally, the best thing I have found is to drink Ozonated activated charcoal water which also seems to block harmful electromagnetic fields. Even just touching the water can help a bit.

But if you still feel like you are manic on a low dose or after your trip is over, you can take 10 large tapioca capsules full of DMSO(or just 10mL DMSO in a glass of juice), 5-18g of niacin (not niacinamide, the full-flush niacin, vitamin B-3) and/or PEAce. Exercise, potent lemon balm tea, peaceful music, plenty of magnesium chloride, CBD, and cold showers (or just dunk your face in cold water for a second) can also help with the excess manic energy. Next time, use less ayahuasca or none if you tend towards mania from it.

-----------

Here I will post some screenshots of any tips I get from folks who have made their own improvements/adjustments to the guide.

Waha-ishwa's tips for posture, breath, meditation during & after trip.