In an Ayahuasca ceremony, you drink a powerful plant-medicine brew guided by a trained healer over a night that usually lasts six to eight hours. The medicine is taken intentionally, often in multiple doses, and the whole experience is held in a container of healing, self-discovery, and growth.
If you’re thinking about attending a ceremony and want to know exactly what you’re walking into, this guide runs you through what actually happens during an Ayahuasca ceremony.
This is based on my experiences working closely with this sacred medicine over many years in various traditions, countries, and containers.
What is Ayahuasca?
Ayahuasca is a decoction (not a “tea”) made from two plants that are native to the Amazon rainforest: The Banisteriopsis caapi vine and the Psychotria viridis leaf, commonly known as chacruna.
The chacruna leaf contains DMT (dimethyltryptamine), while the vine contains MAOIs (monoamine oxidase inhibitors), which allow the DMT to become orally active.
When these two plants are boiled together, sometimes for days, they produce a thick, reddish-brown liquid that has been used by indigenous communities in South America for millennia.
There’s an entire culture of healing and spirituality surrounding this medicine, and for good reason! Over time, the traditions surrounding it have diversified and branched off.
Indigenous Amazonian communities such as the Shipibo, Huni Kuin, and Inga have their own ways of working with this spirit, but there are deeply established Andean traditions too, which each have their own format and cosmology surrounding it.
The thing is that Ayahuasca isn’t just a “psychedelic tea” where DMT is solely responsible for the experience. Ayahuasca is considered an intelligent spirit by the indigenous cultures and healers who have worked with it since ancient times.
Consecrating the medicine gives you an audience with the spirit of this plant. People often experience powerful vision, deep emotional processing, and even direct communication with the spirit, which can manifest as dialogue, channelling information, or clear messages, insights, and answers to questions that can feel like a sudden knowing.
Likewise, purging is a notable part of an Ayahuasca ceremony, as the medicine searches for something to remove that is no longer serving you, and that’s generally how it is energetically removed.
No doubt, Ayahuasca can be very intense, and it’s certainly not something you want to take recreationally or “just to have an experience”. That said, many people who treat it with respect and understanding describe it as one of the most meaningful experiences they’ve ever had.
So, keep in mind that Ayahuasca isn’t a recreational drug. It’s an intelligent vessel that must be used with real intention, real preparation, and proper guidance.
How do you prepare for a ceremony?
Preparation is an important part of the experience. Simply put, if you go in ill-prepared, this will translate into your experience. It may feel unclear, overwhelming, involve more purging, and generally be more difficult than it needs to be.
So, preparation comes in various forms. It’s important to prepare mentally via spiritual practice, be ready for the experience, and clean your mind before you embark on this journey. And also physically, to make sure your vessel is in the best state to commune with Ayahuasca.
Most retreat centres will ask you to follow the Ayahuasca diet for at least one to two weeks before your ceremony.
What the diet typically involves:
- Avoiding alcohol, caffeine, sugar, salt, and processed foods.
- Cutting out red meat and pork (sometimes all meats).
- Stop any medications that interact with MAOIs (always consult your doctor first).
- Stopping sexual activity.
- Spending more time in stillness and less time on screens.
The diet isn’t just physical. It’s about clearing mental and emotional clutter too, so you arrive at the ceremony as open as possible.
You’ll also complete a detailed health screening before attending. Ayahuasca interacts with certain medications and isn’t suitable for everyone.
What happens during an Ayahuasca ceremony?
Here’s a timeline of what typically happens during a night-long Ayahuasca ceremony. Of course, each ceremony is run differently, but in my experience, they usually follow a pretty similar template.
| Time | Activity |
| 20:00 – 20:30 h | Opening. Welcome, introduction and space protection |
| 20:30 – 21:00 h | Rapé ceremony (sometimes) |
| 21:00 h | Opening prayer and medicine offering |
| 21:00 – 22:00 h | Silence |
| 22:00 – 23:00 h | Journey with music |
| 23:00 h | Second door (option for a second dose) |
| 23:00 – 01:00 h | Journey with music |
| 01:00 h | Third and last door (sometimes) |
| 01:00 – 04:00 h | Journey with music |
| 04:00 – 05:00 h | Closing prayer |
The setting
Ceremonies are usually held in a maloka, a tipi, or somewhere in nature away from the urban noise, hustle, and bustle. People also hold them indoors in a nice, spacious setting, such as an event space, house, or church.
Most importantly, the space is intentional. Each participant usually has a dedicated spot with a mat or seat, blankets, and a bucket in reach, usually organised in a circle with the healer (often referred to as a shaman or medicine person) on one end.
During the ceremony, the lights are dimmed or turned off completely. In Andean traditions, there is a sacred fire in the middle. Otherwise, there may be candles to help set the atmosphere.
Each ceremony has an altar where the healer sits. The altar contains various items used throughout the ceremony: the medicine or medicines, instruments, herbs, and items to clean and cleanse.
Opening the ceremony
Once the ceremony starts, you don’t jump straight into drinking the medicine. There is usually a period of instruction and debriefing by the healer (or translator) to ensure everyone is well informed about what Ayahuasca is and how to navigate the experience.
Following an introduction, there will be an opening prayer. This can look a little different depending on the tradition, but it’s an essential part of any Ayahuasca tradition.
Space protection
The healer cleanses the space, the participants, and the Ayahuasca to create a conducive environment for healing, align with the spirits, and remove any energetic barriers or obstacles that may interfere with the process.
The healer will open a portal too. Depending on the tradition, this can be done via prayer, offerings to the sacred fire, salutations to the cardinal directions, or using particular instruments like a conch.
Rapé cleansing
After opening the ceremony, it’s standard procedure to do a cleansing using Rapé or liquid tobacco, which cleans the body and helps clear any initial blockages that could obstruct the medicine from doing its magic.
With all that done, it’s time to share the medicine!
Drinking the medicine
The fire (known as a grandfather spirit and an essential part of Andean traditions) is the first to be offered Ayahuasca.
Afterwards, the healer will call each person forward to receive their cup of Ayahuasca. In some ceremonies, they bring it to you.
The brew is thick, dark brown, and definitely isn’t a taste that most people enjoy. People tend to describe it as pungent, earthy, and intensely herbal. I would describe it as warm mud mixed with low-quality whisky.
Most people begin feeling the effects around 30-60 minutes after taking it, though it varies. Sometimes the onset feels like a slow-building wave. Other times, it can hit you within minutes. It really depends on how receptive you are and how quickly the spirit works.
After taking the medicine, participants stay in their own space and avoid communicating with others, using the space to go inwards and sit with the medicine.
The icaros
Once the medicine takes effect, the healer begins singing medicine music or icaros, which are sacred healing songs passed down through generations. The icaros are believed to guide the spirit of the medicine, and medicine music helps move energy and change the vibration of the space.
There is a lot of singing during the ceremony, and some form of music or chanting occupies a significant chunk of the experience. Other times, there is silence and integration.
Many people say the icaros are one of the most unexpectedly powerful parts of the whole experience. The melodies can feel strangely familiar, even if you’ve never heard them before.
The journey
What you experience from here is unique to you. No two ceremonies are the same, and no two people have the same journey. The experience is very tailored to your own personal processes, but there are some common themes.
Common experiences during an Ayahuasca ceremony include:
- Changes in your vibration and awareness.
- Vivid, complex visions such as geometric patterns, symbolic imagery, or scenes from your life.
- Encounters with archetypal figures or felt presences.
- Deep emotional processing, including grief, joy, or love.
- Confronting difficult memories or long-held patterns.
- Possible feelings of malaise and nausea (common before a purge).
- A sense of communicating directly with the plant’s intelligence.
- Profound feelings of connection, unity, or understanding.
Some experiences are beautiful. Some are genuinely challenging. Some can be quite dark. Many are within the same night.
The purge
Purging is a normal, expected part of what happens in an Ayahuasca ceremony, and it’s considered a good thing.
It doesn’t always mean vomiting, though that’s the most common form. Purging can also show up as deep crying, sweating, trembling, diarrhoea, or even intense yawning.
It’s seen as an energetic release. Most people feel significantly lighter afterwards. Nobody bats an eye when someone purges; it’s expected. Everyone in the space is going through their own version of the same process.
The 2nd and 3rd door
Opportunities are given to take a 2nd or 3rd cup if participants feel called. This allows them to go deeper into their processes and make the most out of a ceremony.
The ceremony typically lasts between six and eight hours. Towards the end, the effects gradually soften, and you return to ordinary awareness. The healer closes the ceremony when the time feels right, usually with a prayer, an offering, and sharing water (and sometimes food).
The physical experience
Ayahuasca causes a whole host of sensations and physical experiences that may feel like something is going wrong, but these uncomfortable sensations are actually part of how the medicine cleans you. Physical sensations you might notice:
- Increased heart rate (especially when you feel the medicine kicking in).
- Temperature changes (most commonly, feelings of cold or chill, but flushing and feelings of overheating are also common).
- Sweating and perspiration.
- A tingling or electric sensation moving through your body.
- Nausea (can build up slowly or strike suddenly before a purge).
- Heaviness in the body.
- Trembling or shaking in your arms and legs.
- Heightened sensitivity to sound, light, temperature, and touch.
- A distorted or stretched sense of time.
None of this means something is wrong. These sensations are part of the process and almost always pass as the ceremony progresses.
Facilitators are present throughout the entire night. If you need water, grounding support, or just a hand to hold, someone is always there.
The emotional and psychological experience
This is where things get harder to describe and why so many people say the experience is beyond language.
Ayahuasca has a reputation for showing you things about yourself you might have been avoiding, such as an old wound that hasn’t healed or a pattern you keep repeating.
The medicine searches every part of your being until it finds something that you need to get rid of, whether it comes in the form of a trauma, blockage, or limiting belief, and that’s where the purge happens.
It doesn’t always feel gentle. But there’s almost always a quality of care to it, like the medicine is showing you exactly what you need, even when it’s not what you wanted to see.
Research published in Frontiers in Pharmacology has found that Ayahuasca can produce lasting improvements in psychological well-being, including reductions in depression, anxiety, and PTSD symptoms.
A separate randomised, placebo-controlled trial, which is the gold-standard design in medical research, found rapid antidepressant effects in people with treatment-resistant depression, one of the hardest forms to shift.
Still, this doesn’t make Ayahuasca a cure-all, and it isn’t gentle. This is exactly why set and setting matter so much. Attending a retreat with trained facilitators and a genuinely safe environment changes the experience significantly.
What happens the morning after?
The morning after an Ayahuasca ceremony is often described as one of the most peaceful moments people have experienced. There’s a quiet, open quality to everything, like the world has been washed clean overnight.
So, expect lots of love, hugging, and gratitude for life and the community. This is often when people at a retreat truly feel like family for the first time.
Most retreat programmes include integration circles the morning after each ceremony. You sit with the group, share what came up, and begin to make sense of what happened. This part is often underrated. Integration is where the real shifts get grounded in daily life.
Post-ceremony integration at Avalon typically includes:
- Group sharing circles.
- One-on-one time with a facilitator.
- Journaling and reflection.
- Art therapy.
- Meditation.
- Ecstatic dance.
- Gentle nature walks and movement.
The work doesn’t stop when the ceremony ends. Many people continue working with what surfaced for weeks or months afterwards.
Book an Ayahuasca retreat with Avalon
If something in this guide has sparked real curiosity, that’s worth paying attention to. Ayahuasca isn’t for everyone, and it’s not something to rush into. But if you feel genuinely called to it, we’d love to have a conversation.
Book a discovery call with us to ask questions, share where you’re at, and find out whether one of our retreats is the right fit for you.
Or, if you’re already ready to explore dates, see our upcoming Ayahuasca retreats and find a programme that works for you.
