Three months ago I participated in a week-long iboga retreat here in the Netherlands, this is my story.

Background

Iboga is a shrub native to Gabon and Cameroon, of which the rootbark contains Ibogaine and some other alkaloids that have a psychoactive effect. It has been used by the pygmies for thousands of years and later has been incorporated into a religion in Gabon called Bwiti. Iboga has hallucinogenic and lucid-dream-like effects that last several days and usually when you take Iboga, you stay awake the whole time, because it is also a powerful stimulant. Iboga can be dangerous under certain circumstances, so medical testing beforehand is advisable (and at the place where I did it required). This is not a recreational experience, so don’t try this at home without proper guidance. Iboga is quite immobilizing, making it difficult to walk around for quite some time, so assistance is needed. Traditionally, people say that Iboga brings you into contact with your ancestors, giving you roots from which you can grow spiritually. A few decades ago, a junkie named Howard Lotsoff discovered that after Iboga he was completely without withdrawal symptoms and didn’t feel the need to use heroin again. Since then, research has shown this effect to be quite strong and if used under proper conditions, ibogaine can be very helpful in the treatment of addiction.

Preparation

My reasons for doing Iboga have been several. I have been working with plant medicines for around 12 years and have learned a lot from them. However, the more I used them, the more I realized that I was able to dance around the central trauma in my life and that my personality structure was too strong, so that this trauma was never truly reached. I heard from several friends that Iboga was really good in finding and releasing such trauma’s, so decided to do a retreat. The decision was about 9 months before the retreat, as I wanted to take time to prepare mentally, physically and emotionally for the experience. During these months, I’ve written down all the questions that I wanted answers to. Questions like: Why are my family relations not so strong? Why do I have a tendency to walk away from things when they get challenging? Why is there such a strong resistance against authority figures? And the like. I also had a good talk with my mom about my childhood, something that is not common in our family. Out of this a picture started to emerge, that can best be described as my ego, or personality. I found many habits that I wanted to reconsider and perhaps change.

The Retreat

The venue was beautifully decorated. We were a group of ten participants plus five staff, two ceremony leaders and three assistants. I already knew many of the people, as almost everyone involved also works with ayahuasca with a group that I frequent. I felt comfortable and ready to do some serious work on myself. The retreat lasted for 6 days and 5 nights. The first night we started with a sharing, everyone took the opportunity to talk a little bit about who they were and why they were there. We only took a small test dose (one spoon of Iboga) that first night, to see if there were any adverse reactions. As there have been deaths associated with the use of Iboga, it is better to be safe than dead. J We did a few exercises, the most powerful of which was looking into a mirror for 15 minutes. For me this was enlightening: I started a conversation with myself, after noticing that I looked insecure. I urged myself to show myself more and by the end of the exercise I was smiling broadly at myself. This was great preparation for the next evening, which is called the Death Night and in which you take a larger dose.

The Death Night

This night is called by this lugubrious name because in it, you are given the opportunity to let go of everything that you have carried along with you for so long. Before we started we did an exercise in which we took stock of our lives, rating aspects of our lives to see how satisfied we were (aspects included family, relations, money, work, etc.). For me this was very confrontational, but it helped me to realize there was immense room for growth. During this night, you take a spoon of Iboga around every 45 minutes. But before we started we each took a flower bath, with medicinal plants and trees from Gabon. We had to dance in front of the altar and sing along to some songs. The process was very ritualized, normally I would be annoyed by it, but in this case it really helped me to become strong and face my fears.

The Iboga came on slow. Visions started to appear and memories came up. The first few hours it was very chaotic. I saw many different things, but I couldn’t focus on the deep trauma that I wanted to work on and became a little worried that I wouldn’t be focused enough to do the work at all. One of the guides reassured me that all would be fine, and that it was normal in the beginning. After the third spoon I had to throw up (also quite normal). The fifth spoon was the last one of the evening for me and I almost threw that one up as well, immediately after swallowing the particles of bark (quite grainy, very bitter and amazingly disgusting), but my throat closed itself and nothing came out.

The first thing I saw was a small computer screen in the top right part of my field of vision. It was very strange. I saw a computer game (formula 1 racing or something) that I played a lot in my teens. It kept repeating the scene where I finished first and saw a black-and-white checkered flag indicating that I won. Interspersed, I saw beautiful and ugly images.

Now just to give you an impression, all the while music like this is played: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vbkl4Y9nDH8

They say that the music and the rhythm helps to keep everyone on the right path.

When the morning came around, something inside me cracked. I started to cry and memories came up, memories of how abandoned and lonely I have felt after I was separated from my mother for the 18 hours following my birth by the doctors. They had to operate on her and afterwards my mother had to wake up before I could finally be breastfed. Memories of how scared and afraid I was after that, how my father intimidated me with his unpredictable rage. I felt sadness and I cried. For hours I cried. I screamed. The fear transmuted into anger. Anger towards my father, foremost. Simultaneously, however, I noticed something special. Up until that point in my life, I never believed in past lives, or in souls that continue after death and are reincarnated, but I had a vision that showed me that this interaction between my father and I has been something that already existed before. In another case I was the perpetrator and ended up dying alone in a prison cell underground. The dynamic between us was something that behaved like a karmic pattern (before this I also didn’t believe in karma so much). It was kind of like an agreement between the two of us that in this life, he would hurt me. And then Iboga showed me that my mission in this life was to break this pattern and to heal this relationship through love. Luckily my father is still alive and there is time to do this. At the moment in the trip, though, I really felt like murdering him again. In the afternoon I talked with a close friend of mine, who was one of the assistants and this really helped to release more and more of the pain. I really hoped it would be over soon, but new we had one more night of Iboga to go.

The Rebirth Night

On the third night, there is a rebirth. Again there are many rituals, the most fun of which consisted in going outside with a lantern and a torch and screaming ‘BONGO!’ while pointing the torch up to the sky. Others included dancing and singing alone, or together with an assistant. On this night you take a smaller dose. It is possible to eat three spoons, but I only took two half spoons, as I was completely exhausted from all the crying and screaming and wanted to go to sleep as soon as possible. During this night (or the following day) everyone will be ‘reborn’, which means that you come back into your body, ready for a fresh start.

The two half spoons started to work and the experience (which never really stopped in the meantime) became stronger once again. The visions became more clear and more clear and I saw many ‘spirits’ floating through the room. Some came towards me, showing me their face. The funny thing was that as soon as I started interacting with them, they floated or turned away and some other spirit came. They obviously didn’t want to be defined in any way.

I felt another wave of sadness and anger come over me and A. the ceremony leader came to me. She sat down beside me and touched my chest. My heart responded with gratitude. The sadness lasted for maybe another 10 minutes and then I felt that I was ready to be reborn. The most beautiful part of this, was that I had a vision and took charge in that vision, I became an actor instead of a passive observer. I found myself in a big room, maybe 100 feet across. It was very strange, low ceiling thing, carpeted floor, it kinda had this Twin Peaks vibe:

I willed myself to the other side of the room and as I approached the wall, it turned into a curtain. The curtain in its turn, turned into smoke as I moved through it and then I knew that I was reborn. At that precise moment, a chronic pain in my leg that has been bothering me for months just flowed out of me and dissolved.

I was awake for maybe two more hours, in which I had very gorgeous visions. One example is that I saw a mind-generated video clip of the music that was playing in the background. The people in the video clip were actually singing the words of the music and everything was completely in sync. I could move the camera (my angle of vision) around and played director for some time. I saw very archetypal images and played an active role in many of them.

The Days After

We are at day four of the retreat. This day for me was amazing. I took a walk in the woods, had probably six plates of food to regain my energy and had an all-round great day. As I slept a little more than the other participants, I could do a little more. This day was just glowing all around. We didn’t do much except talk about our experience. At the end of the day, there was a shamanic drumming session and I still had very clear visions in which I continued to actively play a role.

The day after I felt tiredness. I slept maybe 12 hours in 4 days and now I just wanted to lie down and recover. We did some small exercises this day as a group. We did a meditative walk in nature and a group hypnosis session, which was very relaxing. On day six we cleaned up the place collectively and I got a ride home from one of the assistants.

The Power of Iboga

Integrating the experience was not easy. Upon returning home, I was quite tired and overwhelmed by the experience. But over time, the experience has helped me to break some bad habits, like keeping things too much to myself. In a way, I’ve opened up more and learned how to show myself to others without feeling too vulnerable.

Iboga gives you something very precious: the moment you tend to go into an old habit that you want to change, Iboga gives you some time to reflect. It is as if time stops and that which automatically happened is now the result of a conscious choice. The habit thereby loses its power, and you gain your freedom. So whenever I feel like I want to close down and not talk to my girlfriend (or friend, or relative) about something that is bothering me, I am given the opportunity to break the habit. It is not easy, and you still have to do the work yourself, but you are more mindful about when you can do this work.

A high dose of Iboga is traditionally only taken once, during the initiation within the Bwiti religion. While I’m not sure I will ever do it again, I might, as it has brought me a lot of insight and has helped me with some key issues. This wasn’t a proper initiation (in which you eat a lot more wood, in a lot shorter timespan), so the door is still open for me.

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