Kira Salak is no ordinary journalist. She has won awards for her reporting on the war in Congo, is a contributing editor for National Geographic Adventure magazine and is the first person to kayak solo 600 miles to Timbuktu. In 2006, the American writer described her experience with the hallucinogenic drug ayahuasca while in Peru.
Ayahuasca, which literally translates to “vine of the soul,” is ingested as a plant mixture brew that induces an altered state of consciousness. The plants contain significant levels of dimethyltryptamine (DMT), an illegal psychedelic compound. It has been reported that this potion is used by native South American tribes in healing ceremonies and rituals.
Salak says she will never forget the emotional interaction she felt when she used ayahuasca. “[I experienced] overwhelming misery,” she describes. “The certainty of never-ending suffering. No one to help you, no way to escape. Everywhere I looked: darkness so thick that the idea of light seemed inconceivable."
She further details her tumultuous encounter as she writes, "Suddenly, I swirled down a tunnel of fire, wailing figures calling out to me in agony, begging me to save them. Others tried to terrorize me. 'You will never leave here,' they said. 'Never. Never.'"
Surprisingly, Salak says she is eternally grateful for her experience with ayahuasca. When she recovered from her hallucinations, she wrote, “I immediately became aware of some uncanny results: the major depression I’d had my entire life, ever since I was a young child, was completely, unaccountably, gone.”