Benny Shanon | The Antipodes of the Mind

“Typically, Ayahuasca visions—notably those that are most powerful—present scenarios that are totally unrelated to drinkers’ lives, daily concerns, or past experiences. Often, drinkers (myself included) feel as if a veil is lifted and they are presented with another world. This world, it seems, exhibits internal consistency and coherence and subjectively it impresses those who view it as having an independent existence of its own. In fact, it is very common for Ayahuasca drinkers to feel that this world which has been unknown to them beforehand is, in some sense, even more real than the world of their everyday lives. This world exhibits an air of eternity, and it appears to maintain its existence independently and regardless of all that is taking place here in the ordinary realm of human beings and mortals in general. Moreover, subjectively, drinkers feel that what is being revealed to them in the visions is invested with great meaning. When the visions are powerful they are not mere images, or even scenes as in a video show. Rather, the visions reveal and instruct, and in witnessing them drinkers feel that they establish contact with a realm of existence that is both real and sublime.” Benny Shanon