The Mystery of Dreams, Ayahuasca, and Shamanic Reality

Each night as we drift off to sleep, we enter into one of life’s oldest and most profound mysteries: the world of dreams. Cultures throughout history have been mesmerized by this ethereal state of consciousness, from the Dreamtime stories of Australia’s Aborigines to the symbolic psychologies of Freud and Jung. The alternate realms of our visionary slumbers present a puzzling paradox, calling into question the true nature of reality. Though much research has been done into the subject, the age-old question of why we dream remains as elusive as ever.

Are dreams a portal to a higher intelligence where prophetic and insightful messages are transmitted? Could they be part of an evolutionary process to advance human consciousness? In this Spore, we will pull back the covers from this mystifying phenomenon to reveal the many shades of dreaming.

Our guest speaker will be Stephan Beyer, author of Singing to the Plants: A Guide to Mestizo Shamanism in the Upper Amazon -- "By far the best book on ayahuasca shamanism I have ever read," says James Kent on DoseNation -- and an expert on shamanism, sorcery, and the sacred plants.

What do dreams and ayahuasca visions have in common? Like dreams, ayahuasca visions can be movingly beautiful -- distant landscapes, other planets, brightly lit cities, crystal fountains in the midst of distant oceans. Ayahuasca visions can tell us the sources of sickness -- the failed relationships, the broken promises, the envy and arrogance of oneself and others—and point the way toward healing. Like deeply salient dreams, ayahuasca visions can be like myths -- profound, imaginative, other-worldly, universal. And both dreams and visions -- indeed, all that we can call visionary experiences -- teach us something about the magical nature of reality. How can we begin to see through reality into its meaningful depths? How can we begin to live like shamans?

Over the years Steve have been a university professor, a trial lawyer, a wilderness guide, and a peacemaker and community builder. He lived for a year and a half in a Tibetan monastery in the Himalayas, and has published three books on Buddhism and on Tibetan language and religion.

Steve has studied wilderness survival among the indigenous peoples of North and South America, and studied sacred plant medicine with traditional herbalists in North America and curanderos in the Upper Amazon, where he studied plant medicine with doña María Tuesta Flores and received coronación by banco ayahuasquero don Roberto Acho Jurama. His book on shamanism, sorcery, and plant medicine in the Upper Amazon, Singing to the Plants, was recently published by the University of New Mexico Press.

He has worked with ayahuasca and other sacred plants in the Amazon, peyote in ceremonies of the Native American Church, and huachuma in Peruvian mesa rituals. He has undertaken numerous four-day and four-night solo vision fasts in Death Valley, the Pecos Wilderness, and the Gila Wilderness of New Mexico.