This is a more elaborate example of the kinds of vision one might expect in the Ayahuasca experience. In this case, digging behind my face revealed an endless assortment of tribal masks – with a special surprise at the core!
***SPOILER ALERT: This article is an excerpt from my book*** (‘AYAHUASCA! – Terror and Miracles in the Peruvian Amazon‘)
Through past experience, I’d discovered that creating a mental-image with some sort of story or action to it was a good way to kick-start a weak psychedelic dose.
So, intent on doing just that, I placed my hand against my forehead once more. Then, as if to free my mind, I began picturing my face and skull splitting down the middle and opening apart. Not in a gory way, mind you, just a very clean and mechanical kind of way. Like two closet doors rolling open or pieces of a collapsible movie set being carted away in opposite directions. I’m still not sure what inspired me to imagine that, it was just the first thing that came up.
I’d expected my artistically trained mind to imagine an exposed brain, internal organs and eyeballs behind the dissection of my face and skull, but to my surprise my imagination provided a ‘replacement face’ instead! In my mind’s eye, what was revealed behind my open face was a sort of decorative carved-and-painted tribal mask.
It had a menacing expression with snarling teeth and bulging eyes like those from the island nation of Bali. The impression it projected was “Grrr stay away!” An obvious defense mechanism, meant to obstruct … Not to be so easily scared-off, I cut that face down the middle with the force of my will and split it apart as well, only to find yet another mask revealed behind it! I was doubly-surprised at that. The new mask was of a completely different style, expression and culture … I split it down the middle too and willed it to part. Behind it was revealed still-another mask!
For whatever reason, as that little game began to play out, the Buddhist chant ‘Nam-Myoho-Renge-Kyo’ suddenly started chanting loud-and-clear in my mind’s ear and it persisted like a song seriously stuck in my head. The chant droned on-and-on, in the voices of old female monks. I had no idea what to make of its sudden appearance, or its meaning, so after a moment of thought I quickly ignored it like an intrusive fly buzzing overhead. Still, ‘Nam-Myoho-Renge-Kyo’ kept going and coloured the background while the mask-game continued to play-out.
Mask after mask was being split down the middle, always revealing more masks after more masks … It was like an infinite Russian nesting-doll of faces!
And so it went for over twenty or thirty layers, if not more. Every split revealed ever-more surprising and entertaining faces of endless cultural styles and emotion. As I dove deeper and deeper into the layers, the masks seemed to be getting smaller and they began to flash-by more quickly as if I was suddenly falling down a pit of opening doors. As it all took speed, the masks began to appear from cultures I’d never seen on this earth! They were all clearly solid and well-evolved artistic styles, yet not of our world or any known era of human history – At least none I’d ever seen!
Imagine living in a place that has no concept of China, the Maya, or India and then suddenly being presented some of their distinctive styles of art. This was the artistic thrill I experienced time after time while alien masks flashed before me too quickly to be properly grasped. It was an amazing thing to behold! If only I could have paused to appreciate any of them … Were they old memories of long-lost human societies, hidden in my DNA? A peek at potential future ones? A testament to the power of my own imagination and creativity? Whatever the case may be, I was fascinated and impressed by dozens of surprising reveals until the show was suddenly interrupted, when I came upon one mask that stuck out like a sore thumb.
The whole show hit a screeching stop when one of the otherworldly faces peeled away and revealed one which wasn’t much more than a brown coconut shell. It sported that three-holed ‘face’ donned by all coconuts and in the context of a mask, it created a simple and lighthearted expression which seemed to say “Uh oh. I’ve been caught!!” It almost seemed to be asking for mercy with its simple charm – A desperate tactic.
The masks were about to lose the game, I knew that now. My mind lingered on it for a moment with an internal chuckle until I finally decided “Sorry little guy, you have to go too” Then, the mask split down the middle and opened like the others before it.
When it opened, this humblest-of-all-masks revealed an impossible, spinning, glowing, pulsing, shimmering, refractive jewel of self-intersecting prisms!
It was a form like four glass cubes occupying the same space, each one spinning in a different direction. It was a swirling mess of corners mixing in-and-out of each other in a physically-impossible way. It was glowing with pure light and there were also some glowing elements spinning around it, like satellites around a planet. It was like some kind of impossible crystal atom!
As the perplexing object animated before my mind’s eye, it cast out beams of diffused rainbow radiance from its perfectly-clear, yet glowing core. The beams threw intricate patterns in all directions around it, as if scanning the environment with complex fingers of intelligent light!
As soon as the thing was revealed, I recognized what it was. Just as suddenly, I also understood all of the imagery that had played out, which by then was driving itself.
‘The vision’ had just tricked me into willingly cracking open all of the facades and defenses of my own ego, by making it a sort of game of curiosity. I’d been so distracted by the thrilling rainbow of masks that I’d forgotten they were all behind my own face. They’d all been representations of my own guardian-facades, designed to ward-off intruders with many kinds of bluffs, threats, ploys and distraction! At the bottom of stripping them all away, I’d now exposed my true self – the formless core of ‘me’ – my most sensitive and armored central point of consciousness – The impossible, intangible, immaterial object that sits inside each and every one of us.
The impossible jewel was my soul! It was the purest piece of ‘me’, beyond any human form or idea of self – This was innately clear as soon as it appeared. It was like looking into a mirror for the first time in my life.
Once freed from its cage of masks, the hyper-dimensional gem of my soul then floated out of the gaping opening created by all of my face-tunneling. I watched it float upward, through all the thresholds of the split-open masks that still formed a long tunnel of open doorways. Then finally it drifted gently out of my open surface-face and into the free air of the room!
My first vision passed and faded. My focus returned to the space around me and I opened my eyes.
{NOTE: I hadn’t known this at the time, but an internet search just now reveals that the intended meaning behind the chant ‘Nam-Myoho-Renge-Kyo’ is “Uncovering one’s core Buddha nature”. An interesting parallel that I’m sure Buddhists can appreciate. What is ones soul if not one’s own ‘Buddha nature’? What had I just done if not ‘uncovered’ it? Coincidence is a tall order to explain why that specific chant of then-unknown significance had looped in my head while such a vision played out.
The universe is a far more mysterious place than any of us can imagine! }
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