The brain is always looking for a way out.
Not because you’re “weak.” Not because you’re “behind.” But because a human nervous system is built to reduce tension, dull pain, soften uncertainty, and invent a story that makes the day survivable.
So we escape. Into work. Into love. Into scrolling. Into the gym. Into self-help. Into therapy-speak. Into spirituality. Into “I’m just on my path.”
Ayahuasca fits that evolution perfectly. Not as an exception. As an upgrade.
Because what does an aya experience give you—just like an MDMA-fueled night out?
A sanctioned break from being you.
A pause button with a sacred stamp.
An escape you get to call “confrontation.”
That’s why it’s tempting.
The club as cathedral, the ceremony as afterparty
Be honest: MDMA is the democratic mystical experience. You take it, your heart opens, and suddenly everyone is your best friend—including the guy who normally smells like energy drink and ego. You dance, you cry, you say things like, “I’ve always seen you.” You feel connection. You feel meaning. You feel: this is me, without armor.
Ayahuasca promises something similar—but with depth, symbolism, and an ancient marketing department: the jungle.
Where MDMA softly massages the ego, ayahuasca grabs it by the ear and drags it into the basement.
And still: the function can be strangely similar.
- MDMA: “I’m okay. You’re okay. Everything is love.”
- Aya: “I’m broken. You’re my mirror. Everything is a lesson.”
Both can be true.
Both can also be anesthesia wearing a crown.
Jung would smile. Then raise an eyebrow.
In Jungian terms, ayahuasca can be a highway to the unconscious: dreams without sleep, symbols without brakes, archetypes in 4K. The Shadow shows up without an appointment. The Mother. The Snake. Death. The Trickster (always arriving the moment you think you’ve “got it”). And sometimes—at its best—a real step toward individuation. Not becoming a “better version” of yourself. Becoming a more honest one.
That’s the beauty.
It’s also the danger.
Because the ego is a genius animal. The moment you go looking for “healing,” the ego turns it into an identity: a person who heals.
You start doing “shadow work,” and it becomes a trophy: a person who goes deep.
You do ceremonies, and it becomes a hierarchy: a person who’s done seven.
And that’s where the eyebrow goes up: spiritual bypassing, upgraded with incense.
You think you met your Shadow. Sometimes you just found a new way to avoid your ordinary pain—only now you’re avoiding it in symbolism.
“It showed me what I needed to see” (and sometimes that’s the trap)
The holy escape becomes irresistible when it feels like revelation. If something shakes you, makes you sob, purges you, and then leaves you with a floating peace… it must be Truth, right?
Not necessarily.
The brain is a story factory.
The unconscious is a projection screen.
And meaning is sometimes just what your nervous system manufactures when chaos is unbearable.
Ayahuasca can absolutely show you what you’ve buried.
Ayahuasca can also give you what you secretly crave: a cosmic screenplay where you’re the protagonist of a healing epic.
And that’s the slippery part—because then “the ceremony” becomes a church you need to visit to remember life is meaningful.
At that point, ayahuasca isn’t medicine.
It’s your new Netflix—just with snakes and a shaman.
The brutal question: are you integrating, or are you chasing?
Here’s the truth no one prints on a retreat flyer:
Sometimes the biggest awakening is realizing you’re awake inside your own avoidance.
Not your parents’ avoidance.
Not society’s avoidance.
Yours.
And ayahuasca can both expose it and build you a luxury bunker inside it.
Because integration is boring. Integration is:
- setting boundaries
- staying sober while anxious
- owning your behavior
- not calling your partner a “trigger” when you’re actually scared
- not outsourcing your stability to the next insight
Integration is: changing your life without fireworks.
And the brain hates that. The brain wants fireworks. A reset. A single cinematic scene where everything finally makes sense.
So yes—ayahuasca can give you what MDMA gives you too:
a temporary version of yourself where pain isn’t driving.
But the real question is: who drives tomorrow?
The Trickster in spiritual clothing
If you want one Jung-flavored warning, take this:
The Trickster doesn’t come to punish you. He comes to sabotage your certainties.
Including your spiritual certainties.
So if you leave a ceremony thinking, “I understand it now,”
it’s a safe bet you haven’t started yet.
Maybe the grown-up view is this: ayahuasca isn’t a solution, an identity, or a shortcut to “whole.” It’s a meeting.
A meeting with the places your brain always tries to escape—
and the question of whether, for once, you’ll stop choosing the exit.
Small reality check
I’m not romanticizing it and I’m not demonizing it. Ayahuasca isn’t a toy and it isn’t a guarantee. There are real psychological and physical risks (including dangerous interactions with some medications and higher risk for people vulnerable to psychosis/mania). If someone is considering it: medical screening, credible facilitation, and serious integration matter.Welcome to WordPress. This is your first post. Edit or delete it, then start writing!