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giesun1 karma

What do you know about the relationship between ayahuasca and music? South American shamans who conduct ayahuasca ceremonies sing what they call iqueros, which direct the experience. The iqueros themselves are minimally structured clicks, throat noises, and are without lyrics, or harmony, but when they are produced by the shaman, they change the entire experience according to the shamans will, i.e. The song they choose to sing.

As an example to demonstrate the level of control these folks have learned, if you are at a ceremony and wanted to see the jungle turn blue and asked and the shaman was so inclined, they could make it so through their Iqueros. Or if you wanted red, they could do that as well and would sing a different song from their blue song to make it so. Obviously this is all very subjective and easily dismissed because hallucinogens are involved, but there is a consensus among participants that the shaman is able to control the intensity of the experience, the type of visions one sees, and also the information which is imparted during the experience.

I'm skeptical by nature, however, my experiences with this suggest that these men and women have mastered through centuries of shared experience the manipulation of the relationship between the mind and music, if only in the ayahuasca consciousness.

Thoughts?