NYU Conference on Ibogaine Nov 5-6, 1999
The anecdotal reports on this page have not been verified by The Ibogaine Dossier.
Ibogaine Experience - Visions
I took 1.67 grammes of pure Ibogaine. I was looked after by someone who had administered about 17 treatments to drug addicts and spiritual seekers. The setting had no spiritual content which made me realize how important it is to provide some kind of spiritual/religious/meditative setting as a base of referral.Phase 1 (Visions)
The effects came fast, after 15 minutes. For about 4 hours I had intense visions while lying down. I felt well, no vomiting, but not so intensely exalted as with daime. I saw faces, especially my own! (They say one might see the faces of the Bwiti, the ancestors...). Other faces tended to contort into brutish, animal grimaces. I see primal structures, as with daime. But being so used to those visions, I just let them happen, letting go totally, I am not really interested in them. At the deepest point of the experience I am totally merged in the all pervading void, as if sliding gently into death. I notice my breath stop for very long periods of time. And yet I was not aware of any teaching, no revelation...Phase 2 (intellectual digesting)
After 4 hours I opened my eyes, asked for the time and went to the toilet. I could not motor coordinate and my vision was somehow impaired. This phase usually lasts at least 36 hours, and one just lies down and thinks about one's life, unable to sleep. It is somehow similar to what happens after a daime ritual, but there this phase lasts only for 6-10 hours and is less intense.My thoughts are very negative. "No significant experience, and I had paid a lot of money!!" I was depressed. The mind realized that it had caught itself in it's own trap, craving for MORE, avidity for "enlightenment", "realization", becoming more "perfect". My main realization is that I have already gone through all the experiences possible on the inward journey, that I have received all the necessary purification and healing through 22 years of meditation, therapy and daime, that I did not need this experience!
After 20 hours of this "digesting" I slept for 4 hours. Afterwards I felt fit enough to stay up, but still feeling the aftereffects, I lay down for another 10 hours of "thought digesting"
Phase 3 (afterwards)
After this experience I felt quite positive, dynamic, purified. Some visual impairment remained for another 2 days. I didn't need much sleep. 2-3 hours in the first week. 4-5 hours now, 10 days after the treatment. I still feel very "normal", settled and dynamic, and yet with the same psychological/behavioural weaknesses as before, but accepting this (for the moment) as my perfect imperfection....During the 4 hours of visions I felt physically well and somewhat spiritually elated. I did not feel any attachment to the occurring visions. They came and went, without any particular meaning for me. I was just witnessing and letting go. Occasionally I transcended the visionary level to be overwhelmed by the "void" beyond, which is what really and unavoidably attracts me. I noticed my breath stop for long periods of time, both on the out and in stroke, while I felt melting with the all pervading void, sliding gently into death.
Compared to my Daime experiences, I perceived this session as less intense, the difficult, purifying, painful passages as well as the spiritual highlights, which have a very "holy" and "revealing" character in the daime-ayahuasca rituals.
Afterwards, during the second phase, my thoughts were very negative and depressed. I felt "cheated", as having fallen into a trap which I had laid for myself, through the greediness of my mind wanting MORE. I then also realized that I have long achieved all that there is on the inner journey, that I have purified body and mind long enough. That I have had all the revelations, teachings and trainings necessary to fully live my perfect imperfection in the world. And this was my main realization: that there is no excuse but to ACT IN THE WORLD.
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© 1999The Ibogaine Dossier