What does ayahuasca feel like? What studies of the ayahuasca experience found

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Search for “ayahuasca journey” or “ayahuasca trip” and you find thousands of personal stories. This article looks at what researchers have actually measured instead: what volunteers rated in placebo-controlled studies, what brain imaging found about the visions, how often nausea and vomiting occur, and what field studies and surveys of ceremony participants report. For what ayahuasca is and where it comes from, start with what is ayahuasca; for the wider DMT background, see our pillar, what is DMT.

What does ayahuasca feel like, according to research?

The first placebo-controlled study of its subjective effects, published in 2001, concluded that ayahuasca changes four areas at once: perception, emotion, thinking and bodily sensation. The authors described a mix of stimulant-like and visual effects that lasted longer and felt milder than those reported for injected DMT (Riba et al., 2001). A larger 2003 trial found perceptual changes alongside higher ratings of positive mood and of activation, or feeling energised (Riba et al., 2003). Both studies used volunteers who had taken psychedelics before. Evidence: established for these lab measures.

Outside the lab, the picture is wider and harder to pin down. Ceremonies add music, group settings, beliefs and long nights, and people who answer surveys are not a random sample of everyone who has taken ayahuasca. The sections below keep those sources apart.

How do researchers study the ayahuasca experience?

A key lab tool is the Hallucinogen Rating Scale (HRS), a questionnaire first built for DMT studies that scores several areas of experience, including bodily feeling, emotion, thinking, perception and overall intensity. Our article on what DMT feels like explains how it was developed. Evidence: established as a widely used research scale.

How does an ayahuasca trip unfold over time?

1. Onset: in the 2001 lab study, the first psychological effects were noticed 30 to 60 minutes after the dose (Riba et al., 2001).
2. Peak: effects peaked between about 60 and 120 minutes (Riba et al., 2001); in the 2003 trial the peak in ratings matched the peak of DMT in the blood, at about 1.5 hours (Riba et al., 2003).
3. Resolution: in the 2001 study, psychological effects had resolved by about 240 minutes (Riba et al., 2001).

Those timings come from capsules of freeze-dried ayahuasca given to small groups of volunteers (Riba et al., 2001; Riba et al., 2003). Ceremonies can last much longer because of their structure, not the pharmacology alone. The full timeline, with after-effects and detection, is in how long does ayahuasca last. Evidence: established for lab conditions.

What did placebo-controlled studies measure?

In the 2001 study, six healthy men with previous ayahuasca experience took three increasing amounts and a placebo in a single-blind crossover design (doses not reproduced here). Ayahuasca raised scores on five of the six HRS subscales, on drug-effect scales and on ratings of “liking”, “good effects” and “high”. The most frequent unpleasant bodily effects were altered physical sensations and nausea (Riba et al., 2001). Evidence: established, from a very small group.

Not everyone found it pleasant. Five of the six volunteers rated the overall experience as pleasant and satisfactory; the sixth had an intensely dysphoric (distressing) reaction with brief disorientation and anxiety at the middle amount and chose to leave the study (Riba et al., 2001). In the 2003 trial, with 18 volunteers, diastolic blood pressure rose at the higher amount (Riba et al., 2003); heart and blood pressure effects are covered in ayahuasca vs DMT. Evidence: established for these volunteers.

What are ayahuasca visions like?

Visions with the eyes closed, sometimes called “seeings”, are the most studied feature. In a 2012 brain-imaging (fMRI) study, nine people were scanned while imagining pictures with their eyes shut, once before and once after drinking ayahuasca, with no placebo condition. After ayahuasca, activity in the primary visual cortex during imagery rose to levels comparable with actually seeing a picture with the eyes open, and the size of the rise tracked each person’s reported perceptual changes (de Araujo et al., 2012). Evidence: preliminary (small, no placebo).

A 2016 double-blind, placebo-controlled study of 12 experienced volunteers recorded brain rhythms (EEG). Ayahuasca lowered alpha rhythms over the back of the brain, and the lower they went, the more intense the visual imagery people reported. Pre-treatment with ketanserin, a drug that blocks the 5-HT2A receptor, reduced these brain changes and weakened the overall experience (Valle et al., 2016). This points to DMT acting on that receptor as a main driver of the visions. Evidence: preliminary to established (one well-controlled small study).

Members of a Santo Daime church were tested on a sober day and on a ritual day in a 2023 observational study of 24 people. Feelings of boundlessness, visual restructuring and ego dissolution rose most, and tracked peak DMT levels in the blood. Measured mental-imagery skills did not clearly change (Ramaekers et al., 2023). Evidence: preliminary (no placebo). For the churches themselves, see Santo Daime and the UDV.

Do the visions depend on culture and setting?

An anthropologist who spent time at an Amazonian healing centre argues that what people see is partly learned. Cultural background, guidance from facilitators and conversations with other participants shaped not only how people interpreted their visions but also their content (Dupuis, 2022). This is one ethnographic study, not a measurement. Evidence: preliminary.

Why does ayahuasca cause vomiting, and what is “the purge”?

Nausea and vomiting are among the most common physical effects. In a randomised, placebo-controlled trial in 29 people with treatment-resistant depression, 71% of those given ayahuasca reported nausea (26% on placebo) and 57% vomited (none on placebo) (Palhano-Fontes et al., 2019). In the self-selected Global Ayahuasca Survey of 10,836 people, 69.9% reported acute physical adverse effects, mainly vomiting (Bouso et al., 2022). Evidence: established that vomiting is common.

Many participants and healers see it differently. Drawing on ethnographic work with 227 people interviewed or surveyed between 2003 and 2015, two anthropologists describe purging as integral to how ayahuasca has been used across and beyond Amazonia, and argue it should not be dismissed as a mere side effect (Fotiou and Gearin, 2019). That is an interpretation of meaning, not evidence of a health effect. The trial authors also note that vomiting is traditionally seen as part of a purging process (Palhano-Fontes et al., 2019). Evidence: established as a reported cultural view.

What does the ayahuasca experience feel like emotionally?

Accounts often describe a sequence. In a 2009 qualitative study, 25 Northern Europeans who had taken part in group sessions wrote anonymous descriptions. Researchers grouped them into themes including a contracting, frightening state, a sudden transformation of the experience and then expansive states that participants described as transcendental (Kjellgren et al., 2009). These are written reports from a small, self-selected group. Evidence: preliminary.

Some features are surprisingly common in reports. In two online surveys, 36 of 54 experienced users (66.7%) and 150 of 305 users (49.2%) said they had experienced their own death during an ayahuasca ceremony, usually rated as intense (David et al., 2023). In a study of 339 people at three ceremony centres, 42% of non-veterans who reported a past adverse life event said they re-experienced one under ayahuasca; for those who reported a past sexual assault, the figure was 33% (Weiss et al., 2023). Evidence: preliminary (self-selected, self-report).

In a 2019 online survey of people describing their most memorable “God encounter” experience, 435 attributed it to ayahuasca. Most respondents across groups described vivid memories of communicating with something they rated as conscious, benevolent and intelligent, and the ayahuasca group tended to give the highest ratings of positive features (Griffiths et al., 2019). The survey only recruited people who had such an encounter. Evidence: preliminary.

Can an ayahuasca journey be frightening?

Yes, reports and trials both say so. In the depression trial, every patient reported feeling safe, yet the authors wrote that the session “was not necessarily a pleasant experience” and was accompanied for some by “much psychological distress” (Palhano-Fontes et al., 2019). In a prospective study of 40 first-time ceremony participants, 7 reported intense challenging psychological effects; four of those seven already met criteria for a psychiatric disorder beforehand, and the authors say a poor setting, with weak guiding and screening, contributed to some reactions (Gómez-Sousa et al., 2021). Evidence: preliminary.

Setting appears to matter. In an online survey of 2,751 members of the UDV, Santo Daime and neo-shamanic groups, people who rated their ceremonial setting better on every dimension reported fewer challenging experiences; four setting dimensions explained 41% of the variation in challenging-experience scores (Pontual et al., 2022). That is a correlation in a self-selected sample, not proof that a setting prevents distress. Evidence: preliminary.

Is ayahuasca like DMT? How the two experiences compare

Ayahuasca’s main psychoactive compound is DMT, but the experience differs. The 2001 lab study described ayahuasca’s effects as longer and milder than those reported for injected DMT (Riba et al., 2001), largely because the brew’s other compounds let swallowed DMT act slowly over hours, as explained in ayahuasca vs DMT. Smoked or injected DMT tends to be described as sudden and overwhelming, peaking within minutes; see what DMT feels like. Evidence: established for duration; intensity comparisons are across separate studies.

Content may overlap more than timing. In the 2019 encounter survey, the ayahuasca group and a group that mostly smoked DMT differed on only 3 of 21 items describing the encounter itself (Griffiths et al., 2019). That comparison covers one kind of experience in self-selected respondents. For a comparison with psilocybin instead, see ayahuasca vs magic mushrooms. Evidence: preliminary.

How do people feel after ayahuasca?

Reported after-effects vary widely. In the Global Ayahuasca Survey, 55.9% reported adverse mental health effects in the weeks or months afterwards; about 88% of them regarded these as part of a positive process, and about 12% sought professional support. These effects were linked with anxiety disorders, physical health conditions and a stronger acute spiritual experience, and were less likely with use in religious settings (Bouso et al., 2022). Evidence: preliminary (self-selected, self-reported).

Many surveys also record changes that respondents describe as positive. Those findings, with their designs and limits, are covered in ayahuasca benefits: what research shows rather than repeated here. A personal account of feeling better or worse afterwards is a report, not proof that ayahuasca caused the change. Evidence: unresolved for causation.

What we still don’t know

• How the experience feels for people who are not experienced, screened volunteers or keen survey respondents. Most data come from those two groups (unresolved).
• How much of what people see comes from the drug and how much from culture, music and guidance. Ethnography suggests a lot from context (preliminary).
• How often frightening experiences happen across all users. Rates differ by study design and setting (unresolved).
• Whether vomiting has any role beyond being an effect of the brew. That claim is cultural and untested (unresolved).
• Why some people report distress for weeks afterwards and others do not (unresolved).

The fair summary: ayahuasca reliably changes perception, mood and bodily feeling for some hours, with vivid eyes-closed imagery and frequent nausea. Beyond the lab, reports of fear, death-like experiences and resurfacing memories are common in self-selected samples. None of this tells any one person what they would feel, and none of it is a reason to take it.

Shroomverse sells mushroom products. This article is general information about published research on the ayahuasca experience. It is not medical, legal or purchasing advice, and it does not recommend any product.