Hi, just wanted to share a few unusual experiences relating to this subject.
About 8 years ago I traveled to Peru by myself and spent 2 weeks in the jungle with a small group of people from different areas of the world. During that time I participated in 5 ayahuasca ceremonies. More occurred than I could relate in a little summary, but I'd like to mention some of the more intriguing incidents. I really don't have an all-encompassing theory that encapsulates these experiences, but I'd like to share them anyway in the hope that it might shed light on whatever area of strangeness you happen to be investigating:
1 - One of the men I met, when I shook his hand I took note of the fact that he did not look me in the eye. I considered this to be a sign of bad character. Later I discovered this was because he was blind, he was there with his girlfriend who was also his sight guide. At the end of one of the ceremonies, I walked outside the ceremonial hut into the jungle area. I joined a small group of people, all standing in silence and looking around. The jungle as well as the roofs of the surrounding huts were covered with a silver luminescent glow, it seemed as bright as daylight and I remember thinking that it reminded me of something in Harry Potter. I also noticed that I could focus my attention on any particular aspect of my surroundings, and no matter how far away, I could see it with clarity. This was shocking because my eyesight is poor. I noticed that the blind man was outside as well, and he was standing a little behind the group in the shadow of the hut.
The next day I spoke with him, and he told me that during that particular instance outside, somehow his sight had temporarily returned. He then described what he saw that night and it matched exactly what I saw, every detail. This silver light "super vision" effect took place on only that one night.
2 - During the third ceremony, I had what I call my "hell experience". I felt the distinct sensation of a foreign entity living inside of me, the impression was of a black thing that had been living in some sort of symbiotic relationship with me for quite a long time. During the ceremony, I was engaged in some sort of battle to expel it. The experience during this time was quite terrifying and weird.
The next day, I saw that I had suddenly grown a huge brown mole on my belly, it was located a bit under my belly button. I have no moles on my body and this one was particularly large, so it was kind of frightening to me. The thought immediately arose that this mole had resulted from my "battle" the evening before. I didn't tell anyone about it, but during that same time I was reading a Carlos Castaneda book that was on the shelf in the common area, and I was surprised to read a passage describing the area where one's will extends from the body to contact the outside world - the book said this area was one inch below the belly button, which was exactly where this mole had appeared. Incidentally, this mole disappeared about a month later and I've never had another one since.
3 - For myself, since this was the first psychedelic I had ever taken, it took quite a while for it to actually take effect, sometimes an hour. This could also be due to that fact that since it is ingested as a drink, it is assimilated more slowly so you can actually feel the "trip" creeping up on you.
For the final ceremony, I had just ingested the drink and was lying on my cot waiting, as I did in the other ceremonies. Within minutes I was surprised to see a solid bright pinpoint of bluish white light floating about 8 feet from the ground, above the shaman's head. The ceremonial hut is in darkness during the entirety of the ceremony, so it certainly caught my attention.
While "under the influence" it was often difficult or even impossible to move my body, but at this moment I felt completely in control of all my faculties. I was in a totally ordinary state of mind at this time, I could think logically and did not feel impaired in any manner.
I wondered to myself, what is this light? Was a star somehow shining through a hole in the roof of the hut? The light then turned a shade of orange white and began floating. It moved side to side in what appeared to be a deliberate and almost robotic fashion, always remaining above the heads of the shaman and his apprentices. When it was moving it was an orange hue, and when it stopped it would come to an abrupt immediate halt, and the hue would return to blue. Its movement gave me the impression of a tiny UFO, and how they are described to travel.
I stared at it, trying to rationalize what this light could be. It was confounding, because I was still experiencing a totally ordinary state of mind and body. After about 10 minutes, the light flew sharply to the left and beyond my field of vision. Since I was still in total control of my body I instinctually moved off my cot to follow it, and I saw it disappear right through the wall of the hut.
Shortly afterwards, I felt the approach of the ayahuasca and went into a trip.
Many hours later, one of the shaman's apprentices came up to my cot to check on me and see if I was ok. I took this opportunity to tell her about the light I saw floating above their heads at the beginning of the night, and asked her if she knew what this light was.
Without hesitation she immediately replied "That was don Alberto." Don Alberto was the teacher of the current shaman, and what is particularly odd about this statement is that this man was still alive.
The next day, I heard stories of 6 other people who also saw this light. One of them discounted it as a lightning bug, but being very familiar with lightning bugs I can say with confidence that it was not. What is odd is that we were a group of about 20 people, and this object was literally the only light source in the room so it practically jumped out at you, so it seemed strange that less than half of the people in the room saw it.
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Well there are a few anecdotes for you guys to mull over. I'd say one of the ideas that these experiences inspired was the idea that some UFOs, in particular the flying lights, might be conscious entities rather than inert physical vehicles.
