My ayahuasca experience was one of the most depressing nights of my life.

This was back in 2023, I did it with a small group in a retreat (won’t name the place). The brew tasted bitter. Then about 5 minutes in, the dizziness hit hard. I was staring at the bucket, feeling the room spin. I lay back, closed my eyes, and the geometrics started immediately. Bright, sharp patterns swirling fast. Then the little figures appeared. Tiny dancing beings dancing with rhythm of the music being played, kind of cartoonish but creepy, moving in circles around the edges of my vision. Suddenly the visuals shifted inside my body. I was looking at my own intestines – like a clear picture. They were packed full of literal trash: oily sludge, toxic waste. It was disgusting and felt so real. The trash started moving, slowly pushing through the loops of my intestines toward the end. When it reached the bottom, I snapped out of it, jumped up, and puked hard into the bucket. Violent, burning vomit. I lay back down, closed my eyes again… and the intestines were still there. Same trash, still moving. This happened two more times. Each time the purge felt stronger – the third time it was like an invisible hand was squeezing my guts, forcing all the crap toward the exit. When it hit the end again, I bolted up and vomited everything left in me. After that final purge I felt completely empty, physically and weirdly emotionally hollow. Then the real mind-fuck started. With my eyes closed, I saw this overwhelming vision: we’re all just pawns. The elites, the big corporations, governments – they own us. Every job, every purchase, every scroll on our phones is designed to keep us consuming and producing for them. Our entire existence boiled down to being slaves in their machine. Work, buy, repeat, die. Nothing more. it felt like cold, undeniable truth staring me in the face. Then I was transported. I was watching myself from outside – like a ghost cam. I saw me leaving my house in the morning, walking to the car, driving to work, sitting at my desk doing pointless tasks. The same routine I hated but kept doing. Seeing it from that detached view broke something in me. I felt this deep depression wash over me: “I don’t want to go back there. I can’t go back to that life.” The last part was the worst: this crushing sense of utter aloneness. Not just me – all of us. Floating in a cold, empty universe with no real connection, no meaning beyond the grind. No loving mother ayahuasca hugging me. Just isolation and pointlessness. The comedown was rough. I spent the rest of the night curled up feeling numb and sad. The next day I felt physically better (gut was empty af), but mentally I was wrecked for weeks. It took months to shake the “we’re all slaves” feeling, and honestly parts of it are still with me.