Definitely! But whereas it makes an amazing impression, I think that the five minute or so peak is far too short to do much significant work with. It is almost more like an endurance exercise to see how quickly one’s ego can be deconstructed by weird. That’s an amazing experience in itself! But then it’s over.
It is worth being cautious about. The easy availability of LSD in the 20th century undid some of the popular awe and respect for psychoactive compounds. Many of them can be something of an ordeal, which can arguably be worthwhile if one knows what they are in for. That’s why I have always studied a lot about the pharmacology, traditional uses, subjective effects, and physiological/medical interactions long before ever taking anything. When one eats with a proper diet, the MAOI effect is not noticeable. But this diet is difficult for most USians. As foods age, cure, and ferment - tyramine is produced - which is precisely what you want to avoid. So no tea, bacon, cheese, soy sauce… lots of foods. But it’s only for a couple of days. If anything, I find that those precautions also help “ritually” - they make a distinct preparation for the event, setting it apart from the rest of daily life. It requires just a bit of discipline, beyond “let’s drop some tabs” on impulse.
Well, to be fair, they might have still gotten that infection just by visiting even without the ayahuasca. A friend of mine was just released from being treated for a nasty virus contracted by swimming in the jungle in Puerto Rico. Travelling to different climates has its own risks with regards to pathogens, parasites, etc.
My experience has been an amazing vomit to start with, but I get it over with quickly. This is another reason to mind what you eat! If all that is in your stomach is some funky liquid, you can barf it up quickly and cleanly. Not the case if you just ate a platter of nachos a couple hours ago!
Actually, I did not find the vomiting unpleasant at all. It felt like a combination of two factors: 1. firstly, the stuff tasted insanely bitter. I could only force myself to drink so much before I ejected it. And 2. it is like going up the craziest rollercoaster ever, or knowing that you are about to lift off in a rocket to space. You are approaching a frontier, a boundary of experience which is inexplicable, and you can see yourself going over into it and you just need to be committed to diving into the unknown, not-self, otherness. First time this happened to me was in my living room! I felt like an herbal fire hydrant, projecting huge jets of water. I had enough presence of mind to throw some towels on it. But it was just water, so eventual cleanup was easy.
The psychoactive effects are so powerful that vomiting and shaking sounds mundane, like staying home from work with the flu. But it can be quite an adventure, viscerally animal, yet the boundaries of what is you and what is existence are themselves fluid. One minute you might be wondering “WTF is happening? I took that drug, right?” but the next minute you might be wondering what a “me” even is. Basically, apart from some panic of coming up so fast, it is too intense to worry much about vomiting.
It can be a fairly long trip, depending upon several factors. So competent sitters and/or guides might be a good idea.
