There has been a 30 year trend going among those wanting to explore the depths and heights of consciousness, and many who want healing from health issues and traumas from which conventional western medication has failed, to go to South America to use herbs and psychedelic plants with indigenous cultures to heal of what ails them.
But most of these people don't understand that there is a discipline associated with taking these plants traditionally, and it is known as taking on a dieta. And the process of the dieta is the most medicinal and evolutionary part of the entire ordeal.
Many people try to bypass this process by staying at Luxury Resorts that do not adhere to the traditional process, and therefore, it is not surprising that they often do not get the results they were looking for.
During a traditional dieta, people often find themselves spending a lot of time in silence and avoiding the use of verbal speech, thus reducing the activation of certain cerebral cortex circuits that, in an ordinary state of consciousness, make rational functionality predominant.
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC4507237/
By partially limiting logical thinking, space is given to the intuitive-instinctual sphere of the mind, usually repressed in the daily life of the average Westerner.
This immersion into the whole of nature often allows one to fully integrate into the microcosmic world of plants and insects, while being surrounded at the same time by the repetitive melodies of birds, cicadas and frogs. Although these can become loud, these frequencies are soothing to the mind and body, allowing it to fall into full rest and restoration, which is rarely experienced among the consistent man-made static in western civilization
Sometimes the visual and physical encounters with larger animals, especially monkeys and sloths, can further contribute to the feeling of reconnecting with the intelligence of nature, rather than thinking of it as a brain-dead, mechanistic system of predetermined engineering.
The human-like form of these animals pushes towards taking awareness of the human being as one of the many animals that inhabit the planet, rather than the animal that owns the planet. This can facilitate the experience of feeling part of an egalitarian whole, a sensation shared among most indigenous tribal cultures.
When a person has been immersed in the forest within this kind of experience for a lengthy amount of time, from at least two weeks to a month, you can certainly expect profound changes. In peru, when a person or a healer appears to be very wise, humble and kind, you'll often hear people say they've done many strong dietas.
It certainly shows. They are powerful because they remind us of where we have come from, and Who We Truly Are.
