Singing to the Plants: A Guide to Mestizo Shamanism in the Upper Amazon (45 page)

This effect was reported by Strassman's DIM participants as well. Usually there was little difference between what participants saw with their eyes
opened or their eyes closed, although opening the eyes often caused the visions to overlay what was in the room.,'

Time Dilation

Ayahuasca frequently induces a sense of time dilation: things seem to take a
long time. The ayahuasca session seems to last much longer than the clock
would indicate; each icaro seems to last as long as a Wagner opera, when, by
my watch, it has been only fifteen or twenty minutes. Psychologist Benny Shanon reports similar experiences. "Feeling so much had happened," he writes,
"I reopened my eyes only to discover-by looking at my watch-that barely
two minutes had elapsed. The contrast between perceived time and real time
was striking."19

Synesthesia

Synesthesia-what Shanon, in his extensive phenomenology, calls intermodal effects-is a prominent effect of ayahuasca.20 There can be a sensory convergence of vision, sound, and smell; icaros create visions, smells produce
sounds. Among mestizo shamans, the icaros modulate the visions not only of
the shaman but of those who hear the icaro as well. The icaros speak of a medicine as "my painted song," "my words with those designs," or "my ringing
pattern." Two writers have tried to capture this aspect of the ayahuasca experience. Poet Cesar Calvo writes, "I see him reach over the neck of his cushma
and extract a bottle of Florida water. Later he comes close and sprinkles me
with the music that pours from the open bottle."" Or again: "The fresh air
was something I could see, and sometimes a sound was like a texture offeathers that I could touch. All of my senses were one, communicated between
themselves: I could listen with my fingers, touch with my eyes, sense those
visions with my voice."" And novelist Peter Matthiessen describes part of a
solitary ayahuasca session: "Somewhere, somewhere there was singing.... The chords were multicolored, vaulting like rockets across his consciousness; he could break off pieces of the music, like pieces of meringue. 12, In the
paintings of Pablo Amaringo, many elements that appear purely decorativemulticolored spirals and waves-are in fact visual expressions of music.24

Among the Shipibo, the designs painted on their bodies, homes, boats,
tools, household goods, and clothing represent sacred patterns derived from
a cosmic anaconda whose skin embodies all possible designs. The Shipibo
shaman, after drinking ayahuasca, sees such a luminous design in the air;
when this design floats down and touches the shaman's lips, it becomes
transformed into a song the shaman sings. Different elements of the song relate to different elements of the design; for example, the end of each verse is
associated with the end curl of a design motif. The shaman sings, "I see brilliant bands of designs, curved and fragrant"-a synesthesia of sound, vision,
and smell.25 Shipibo shamans employ these patterns to reorder the bodies
of persons who are ill. Certain diseases are thought to be caused by harmful designs that the shaman must magically unravel and replace with orderly
designs.21 The shaman's song penetrates and reorders the patient's body in
the form of harmonious geometric designs: "At first, the sick body appears
like a very messy design. After a few treatments, the design appears gradually.
When the patient is cured, the design is clear, neat, and complete. 1127

Among the Shipibo, visionary designs become songs; among the Cashinahua, songs become visionary designs. When Cashinahua drink ayahuasca,
their songs describe their journeys in the spirit world; at the same time, designs that are drawn by the songs they sing help them orient themselves in the
spirit world. The designs function as paths to be followed away from and back
to normal space and perception. "One should always stay inside the design,"
the Cashinahua say, "in order to not get lost. 1121 Like the Shipibo, the Cashinahua paint these maps their songs create: different worlds are represented
as houses with doors to be entered and paths linking the different contained
spaces-houses, worlds, bodies; spots represent stars.29

Similarly, in a Tukano creation story, the sounds made by the firstborn
mythic child are the tastes and visions of ayahuasca, "for as soon as the little
child cried aloud, all the people who were in Diawi became intoxicated and
saw all kinds of colors. 1131 Indigenous myths from southern Colombia speak
of yage-created Solar Men playing melodies on flute or drum, with each melody transforming into a different color: "When the world was illuminated, all
this symphony of colors and the music brought forth understanding to humankind, creating intelligence and language. 1131

Gap Filling

A significant effect of ayahuasca-and one that will be important when we
consider Charles Bonnet syndrome in the next chapter-is that ayahuasca
serves as a gap filler in ambiguous visual stimuli and probably auditory stimuli
as well. In other words, ayahuasca constructs visual meaning out of bits and
pieces of perception, a sort of perceptual bricoleur.

Example 2. I have drunk ayahuasca, and I am now off by myself in
the jungle, suffering simultaneously from vomiting and diarrhea. I will
discover, the next day, to my immense regret, that I am in fact squatting over an anthill, but at the time I am so focused on my intestinal
disquietude that I do not notice the angry ants. I see, on the ground to
my left, a small Confederate flag, perhaps eight inches long, on a slender stick-the sort of flag bystanders wave at a parade. It is perfectly
formed, three-dimensional, present. My mind tells me it is a hallucination; my senses tell me it is real. I reach over and touch it, and immediately the flag decomposes into its component parts-twigs, leaves, jungle
detritus. I remove my hand, and the flag reconstitutes itself. There it is
again, real, actual, indisputable.

Here the ayahuasca drink has taken ambiguous visual stimuli-a jumble of
uninterpretable sticks, twigs, leaves, shadows, and moonlight on the jungle
floor in the nighttime darkness-and done me the favor of turning them into
something coherent and meaningful. I do not have the slightest idea why this
should turn out to be a Confederate flag. I do not believe that the Confederate
flag has any particular psychological significance for me; it is as if the ayahuasca has searched my visual memory banks and come up with something
that would fill in the perceptual gaps and make the stimuli meaningful.

Example 3. I am living at don Romulo's tambo, his jungle hut, where
we have ayahuasca ceremonies in a small cleared area in front of his
hut. I know that the ayahuasca is taking effect when the grass in that
clearing becomes, in the moonlit dark, a highly detailed Persian carpet. The complex and detailed pattern of the carpet remains consistent
even when I examine it closely; but when I touch the carpet, it feels like
grass-and just in the spot I touched it, the carpet disappears, and I see
a small patch of grass, seemingly growing in the middle of the carpet.

This gap-filling effect of ayahuasca explains many visions reported by others as well. William S. Burroughs saw, instead of a Confederate flag, Easter
Island masks: "The hut took on an archaic far-Pacific look with Easter Island
heads carved in the support posts."31 Wade Davis saw plants in his friends'
hair and snakes on the ground of the hut: "There were rainbows trapped inside their feathers. In their hair were weeping flowers and trees attempting
to soar into the clouds. Leaves fell from the branches with great howling
sounds.... Then the ground opened. Snakes encircled the posts of the maloca and slipped away into the earth."33 Cesar Calvo writes of an ayahuasca
experience: "I took the little box of matches and began to laugh inwardly, because the matchbox was the skull of a deer ... knowing that it really was a
matchbox. The same with the top of that small tree next to the wall: it was a
canoe that was beached there. But at the same time, in the same way, it was
just the top of the small tree!"34

Auditory Hallucinations

The same gap-filling phenomenon may apply to auditory hallucinations as
well. Ayahuasca drinkers often hear what they describe as the sound of flowing water, loud rushing sounds, the sound of wind rushing, the sound of
rushing water, and the roar of rain or waterfall.35 These ambiguous and amorphous sounds may then be constructed as meaningful-as sorrowful songs,
unknown languages, people singing, the voice of a recently deceased friend,
a brass band.36 People ingesting DIM report similar experiences of hearing
sounds described as high-pitched, whining, chattering, crinkling, or crunching.37 One ayahuasca drinker reports hearing high-pitched chirps, like the
sounds made by dolphins;38 William S. Burroughs, drinking "oily and phosphorescent" ayahuasca in Colombia, describes how "larval beings passed before my eyes in a blue haze, each one giving an obscene, mocking squawk."39
These sounds, too, are constructed as mysteriously meaningful. Users of DIM
report hearing "alien music" and "alien languages," which may or may not
be comprehensible.4° Terence McKenna reports that he heard "a language of
alien meaning that is conveying alien information. "41

Example 4. I have drunk ayahuasca with don Antonio Barrera. I am
sitting quietly, waiting for something to happen. Between my feet is a
basin half-filled with water for me to vomit into. I have used the basin
several times. I am absolutely convinced that a puppy dog has found its
way into the thatched hut and is lapping up the water from the basin. I can hear the puppy clearly, hear the slight splash of water. I look down;
there is no puppy; there are no ripples on the surface of the water. I look
away, and I hear the lapping sounds again. This happens several times.
The sounds are overwhelmingly realistic. It is the absence of the corresponding puppy that is puzzling.

Here again, I believe that ayahuasca, as perceptual bricoleur, has taken ambiguous auditory stimuli-the sounds of calling frogs in the jungle, the rustling of don Antonio's shacapa, the shifting and breathing of other people
in the hut, the inchoate rushing sounds of ayahuasca itself-and given me a
gap-filling closest match. I do not know why it turns out to be a puppy dog who
has wandered into the hut; probably it does not matter. Rather, it is as if ayahuasca wants me to see things and hear things, wants me to find new meaning
in my visual stimuli, wants me to see the world as strange and wonderful and
unpredictable.

Sometimes visual and auditory hallucinations are neatly coordinated:

Example 5. I am sitting in the dark jungle alongside the cleared area in
front of don Romulo's tambo. The cleared ground has become a Persian
carpet, on which is scattered cast-iron lawn furniture, chairs and low tables, which I see in great detail and solidity, which I must be careful not
to trip over. On the other side of the clearing is a large building with a
terrace and a stone balustrade overlooking the lawn; dimly sensed people in evening clothes stroll on the terrace holding murmured conversations. The palm trees in the jungle are now in large pots on a terraced
lawn. Clearly I have crashed a sophisticated party, and I am embarrassed
to be making such a mess, vomiting into the potted palms.

Auditory perceptions of spirit speech are a central part of mestizo shamanic experience. Dona Maria and don Roberto are given patient diagnoses and
prescriptions during healing ceremonies by plant spirits who speak clearly
and distinctly, in Spanish, in their ears. Spirits use other languages as well.
Dona Maria's spirits spoke to her in Inca-that is, Quechua-which she understood, although she did not speak Quechua. Both doh a Maria and don Roberto, at the start of each healing ceremony, are attended by outer space spirits
who speak in computer language. Dona Maria says they speak like this: beep
boop beep beep boop beep beep; don Roberto says they sound like ping ping dan dan.
Amazonian mestizo shamans also know the languages of birds and animals. Don Romulo Magin, for example, is fluent in the language of buhos, owls;
their language, I am told, sounds like this: oootutututu kakakaka hahahahaha.

Explorable Space

What is most striking about ayahuasca visions is the sense of personal presence-first, that one is interacting with persons and second, that the persons are
external, solid, three-dimensional, real.

I think that there may be two different sorts of experience that are frequently conflated under a single description. Many who drink ayahuasca report the visions as being like television or the movies-like "cinematographic
films of a phantasmagoric nature."41 Young Shuar today, for example, have
a very relaxed attitude toward taking ayahuasca; they say that they "like it a
lot because it's like watching a movie."43 Anthropologist Luis Eduardo Luna
speaks of people at ayahuasca ceremonies exclaiming, "How beautiful. This is
like a movie! 1144 Cesar Calvo has a character in his novel say that his ayahuasca
vision was "as if I had watched a film while being drunk. 1145 Such visions have
a two-dimensional feel to them, like watching events unfold on a screen.

Other visions more immediately communicate presence, providing not only
interaction with three-dimensional persons but also a sense of being embedded within a three-dimensional landscape capable of exploration. I think this
distinction may be what Bona Maria was trying to communicate to me when
describing the difference between her tobacco and ayahuasca visions-that
tobacco visions, unlike ayahuasca visions, are not very clear, but still reveal
things; tobacco visions, she said, are like a movie. Pablo Amaringo explains
this even more clearly: "It is only when the person begins to hear and see as
if he were inside the scene, not as something presented to him, that he is able
to discover many things. 11411 think this must be what the Cashinahua intend
when they describe drinking ayahuasca as being a bai-that is, a sightseeing
excursion with visits to the houses of friends and relatives along the way.47

Biophysicist and computer genius Clifford Pickover speaks of DIM allowing the user to enter a completely different environment "that some have
likened to an alien or parallel universe," in which alien-like or elflike beings
appear to live and interact with the user. "The DIM experience," Pickover
writes, "has the feel of reality in terms of detail and potential for exploration.1148 This DIM space appears to be "an independent and consistent reality," he says;49 this space is also often called "DMT hyperspace." S0