I’ve been re-reading the Cosmic Serpent by Jeremy Narby. A highly recommended narrative about an anthropologist’s journey into the realm of ayahuasca cultures in Amazonia. It blew me away and the second reading is just as good.
Narby is an ethnobotanist, and he makes the key observation that, while Western scientists have freely picked from the fruits of indigenous plant knowledge, these same scientists do not believe the indigenous claim about how they received their staggering encyclopedic understanding of the most diverse ecosystem in the world.
The plants told us, they say. In particular, the plants communicate directly through images, feelings, and language during ayahuasca, datura, and tobacco-based ritual sessions.
Two Biases in Western Science that Narby Addresses
Narby ascertains that there are two biases in Western science that prevent the acceptance of this claim (which is nonetheless resulting in molecularly verifiable information that our civilization has profited mightily from).
First: we posit that hallucinations and visions are internal creations, and to think otherwise is the definition of psychosis, a break from reality.
Secondly: Plants cannot communicate with humans on an imaginal level, using language, symbols, or images. To think so leads back to the first point: la-la land.
Narby goes on to posit a theory about drug-induced hallucinations being the interior experience of an actual communicatory event with other non-human entities, through the language of DNA. Hmmm… I need more convincing about this explanation, but I like the spirit of the inquiry.
The Relevance for Lucid Dreaming & Other Visionary Experiences
But what really caught my eye is how the subjective reports of communication (as well as verifiable information that results from these uncanny experiences) are similar to that of advanced lucid dreaming and other non-drug-induced visionary experience.
Narby writes that for the Ashaninca peoples, “There was no fundamental contradiction between the practical reality of their life in the rainforest and the invisible and irrational world of ayahuasqueros. On the contrary, it was by going back and forth between these two levels that one could bring back useful and verifiable information that was otherwise unobtainable” (p. 47).
The shamanic perspective of lucid dreaming is similar. In the Native Americas, as well as Australia, Micronesia, and Asia, many cultures practice lucid dreaming as a communicatory event with the spirits of the land. Consciousness in the dream is a way of bridging the two realities, empowering the dreamer in the moment while allowing uncanny insight to be revealed and brought back to consensual, everyday reality.
Because lucid dreaming as it is advertised in the West is so infantile in design, it is refreshing to see parallels with other shamanic vision states that are still practiced today.
I was intrigued to hear from a friend who undertook initiation as an ayahuasquero in Peru that the visionary experiences with the brew were only a part of the story. They placed great store by the dreams that followed intensive series of ayahuasqua sessions.
Also, they worked with various other plants by following similar dietary restrictions as per ayahuasqua, but the plants aren’t “psychoactive” in the strict Western sense. However, they felt that by taking these plants in combination with the diet lead to the plant spirits manifesting in dreams.
There’s a very interesting piece in the book Narby co-edited with Francis Huxley, Shamans Through Time, called ‘An Ethnobotanist Dreams of Scientists and Shamans Collaborating’. In it, Glenn Shepard samples opatsa seri, a kind of tobacco paste mixed with Banisteriopsis vine that’s used to induce dreams in Peru.
Lastly, I can’t leave this dreams/drugs thread without mentioning The Drugs of the Dreaming by Gianluca Toro
& Benjamin Thomas: “The first comprehensive guide to oneirogens – naturally occurring substances that induce and enhance dreaming”. I’ve not made much use of it yet, but it’s a book that needed to be written!
great info, Gyrus. I always appreciate your depth of inquiry on this blog!
it appears that entheogenic cultures are often dreaming cultures as well. there are those that look inward (thru various means) and those that don’t (ie the rational west with its war on drugs and skepticism towards dreams).
also that’s interesting about the banisteriopsis vine, which is the component in ayahuasca that is the mao inhibitor, not the DMT-containing plant. Narby mentions that ayahuasceros really see the vine as the main ingredient too. is it the dream component?
I find it very frustrating trying to communicate with people who claim to be oneironauts but “find a contradiction between the practical reality of their” lives “and the invisible and irrational world of” the dreamers (quoted from above). Great article. Great website. I would like to post a link to your site here on http://luciddreamyoga.blogspot.com/ and I hope you post mine here. This is a rare find.
Dannon, thanks for commenting! In my opinion, lucid dreamers in our society have to move though a lot of cultural baggage to accept the visions of their lucid dreams without repressing them and then, even harder still, be open to respecting them. So I’m not grumpy at the oneironauts, because they are helping move our culture forward! It’s our Western mythology (especially its materialist-advertising-Manifest Destiny-unsustainable capitalistic streak) that influences the present day expression of lucid dreaming.
For instance, the topic of dream control: it is one thing to understand that all is illusion (the Tibetan dream yoga philosophy here), but in the west this tends to get translated as “nothing is real, except for me, the rational ego, who is the master of this domain…. ” I’m happy to see you building these bridges between the Tibetan teachings and the West.
Jeremy Narby’s book is great. I am on my second read as well. Snakes rule!