Makes Sense - with Dr. JC Doornick - My Ayahuasca Trip to Peru - Part One - Dying to Know - Episode 124

Episode Date: December 4, 2025

Episode 1 of 4 Part Series — Dying to Know: My Ayahuasca Experience Into the Sacred Valley of Peru This opening episode marks the true beginning of a five-part, raw, unfiltered account of my time working with plant medicine in the Sacred Valley of Peru at the Arkana Spiritual Center. Before any medicine was poured, before the visions or revelations, there was the quiet ache. The inner calling. The fear beneath the fear. The deep, restless sense that something in life still feels unfinished. Most people don’t seek out Ayahuasca or Sapo because everything is perfect. They come because something inside them is dying to know, Who am I really? What is this life for? Did I miss something essential while trying to keep it all together? The paradox is that what we’re dying to know is not “out there” somewhere in a jungle or temple. It’s here, buried beneath layers of identity, protection, trauma, and roles that no longer serve us. Plant medicine doesn’t teach you new information; it excavates. It dismantles the inner tyrant who insists life must be predictable and safe. It burns off outdated versions of the self so a truer knowing can rise. Ego death isn’t your death; it’s the death of everything blocking your access to truth. But the real challenge isn’t the ceremony, it’s integration. You can’t pour awakened clarity back into the shape of an old life. Integration is about becoming the version of you that the medicine revealed and staying awake in a world designed to pull you back to sleep. This is why I came back to Peru, not for novelty or visions, but for the soul's quality control. To shed another layer, to die another small death, to remember something ancient living inside me. Something I had forgotten. This is the moment before the beginning.Where running stops.Where remembering starts.Where the real journey begins. For more information on the Arkana Spiritual Center: www.arkanainternational.com Follow Dr. JC Doornick and the Makes Sense Academy: ► Makes Sense Substack - https://drjcdoornick.substack.com ► Instagram: / drjcdoornick ►Facebook:  / makessensepodcast ►YouTube:  / drjcdoornick MAKES SENSE PODCAST Welcome to the Makes Sense with Dr. JC Doornick Podcast. This podcast explores topics that expand human consciousness and enhance performance. On the Makes Sense Podcast, we acknowledge that it's who you are that determines how well what you do works, and that perception is a subjective and acquired taste. When you change the way you look at things, the things you look at begin to change. Welcome to the uprising of the sleepwalking masses. Welcome to the Makes Sense with Dr. JC Doornick Podcast. SUBSCRIBE/RATE/REVIEW & SHARE our new podcast. FOLLOW Podcast - You will find a "Follow" button on the top right. This will enable the podcast software to alert you when a new episode launches each week. Apple: https://podcasts.apple.com/ca/podcast/makes-sense-with-dr-jc-doornick/id1730954168 Spotify: https://open.spotify.com/show/1WHfKWDDReMtrGFz4kkZs9?si=003780ca147c4aec Podcast Affiliates: Kwik Learning: Many people ask me where I get all these topics, which I've been covering for almost 15 years. I have learned to read nearly four times faster and retain information 10 times better with Kwik Learning. Learn how to learn and earn with Jim Kwik. Get his program at a special discount here: https://jimkwik.com/dragon OUR SPONSORS: Makes Sense Academy: A private mastermind and psychologically safe environment full of the Mindset and Action steps that will help you begin to thrive. The Makes Sense Academy. https://www.skool.com/makes-sense-academy/about The Sati Experience: A retreat designed for the married couple that truly loves one another, yet wants to take their love to that higher magical level. Relax, reestablish, and renew your love at the Sati Experience. https://www.satiexperience.com 0:00 - Intro 3:43 - Dying To Know 5:17 - The Paradox of Plant Medicine 6:59 - Ego Death 7:52 - Integration - What comes after the experience? Hosted by Simplecast, an AdsWizz company. See pcm.adswizz.com for information about our collection and use of personal data for advertising.

Have you noticed that the world that we live in has been doing most of the thinking for you? That your beliefs, perceptions, reactions, fears, and doubts have been shaped by unsolicited outside noise? How easy it's been for you to slip into that default sleepwalking mode and label it as life and reality. Yeah, that ends here. Welcome to the Make Sense with Dr. J.C. podcast. This is your opportunity to start thinking for yourself, reclaim control, and step back into that role as the shock caller and dominant force of your own reality. It's when you change the way that you look at things, that the things that you look at begin to change. So let's wake up,

let's rise up, and let's make sense of why and how shift happens. Make sense. Great morning world, great morning humans. This is Dr. J.C. Dornick, aka The Dragon, and welcome to another edition of the Make Sense with Dr. J.C. podcast. The following first, four episodes are going to represent a documented raw, no-holds-barred account of the experience that I just had in the Sacred Valley of Peru. And that's the region that most people know is just right next to places like Machapitou. So this is the experience as it unfolded. I held no punches back. And this is the no-holds-barred account and experience that I had where I was working with

plant medicines like ayahuasca, Bufo, and San Pedro. And this all took place at the Arcana Spiritual Center, which is by far the standard in plant medicine experiences. And we'll talk more about that. This would represent episode one. And in this opening episode, it's where I kind of explore that quiet ache that draws people to plant medicine. I've been working with plant medicine now for about five years. And I talk about it on the podcast, but at no point do I ever make recommendations. And this is important. I'm not here to preach and teach and make recommendations to go. But there's an inner calling that people have. And if you have that, feel free to reach out. There's a lot of avenues to learn about this. In this episode, I'm going to explain in real time what it's like to have that kind of quiet ache that

draws people to plant medicine. It's not something that you just decide to do. You have to be called to it and drawn to it. And I think it's probably supporting some lingering analytical questions that you have. But we're also going to address the fear that exists beneath the fear about what could go wrong and just the unknowing aspects of plant medicine. Even though I've been doing it so many times for so many years, I still was afraid. We're going to go through that. And we're also going to connect that to the inner calling that can't really be ignored. When you're called to do something like this, the first time I ever did it, it took me three years. But when you're called to do something like this, you really can't ignore it. It's something that is probably going to have to come to fruition.

So this is the beginning before the beginning. It's that moment when running stops and you stop avoiding it. And remembering begins. So most people, don't come to plant medicine because life is unfolding flawlessly, right? Although the first time that I went to the Amazon jungle, this is about four and a half years ago, I wasn't struggling, or at least I didn't think I was, I was kind of looking to see what else there was. But traditionally, it's not something that somebody goes to when their perception is that their life is unfolding flawlessly. So they come typically because something inside them is kind of restless, aching, or maybe seems unfinished. Make sense? Another reason would be because

whether or not they're willing to say it out loud, they're dying to know. Now, I'm not saying dying to know metaphorically. I'm saying literally, and I'll explain that more. Every day, if you think about it, and this is really important, we're going to talk about plant medicine, and I'm going to give you the whole account, but every day we have this hourglass, you know, this unexpected, unpredictable lifespan, every second of every day, that hourglass of that gift called life is draining. You know, the sand is just moving from the top part to the bottom part. Every day brings us closer to whatever unique ending awaits us. What kind of unique ending awaits you? Well, you don't know, but it's going to be unique to you. And beneath the noise of our

daily routines lies this quiet urgency because of that. And we have these questions in life. This is what dying to know means. We have these burning questions inside that say things like, what's all this for? Who am I really? Did I miss something essential while trying to hold all of the things in my life together? So we chase purpose, clarity, destiny, and meaning. And meaning's a big one. So here's the thing about chasing, though. We chase these answers. everywhere, except for the only place that life is actually happening. And that's the present moment, the now. Plant medicine introduces an interesting paradox.

And you know how I like to talk about paradoxes on this show. It's kind of unsettling and also liberating at the same time. So it's that idea that we're dying to know something, meaning we're dying along the way. That's all we're trying to do is know and figure out and give meaning to things. But what we're dying to know isn't hidden somewhere. out there. Not in the future, not in the past where we spend most of our time, and not in the mountains or jungles in some sort of sacred temple. It's already here in the now. It's buried beneath

the layers of who we've been led to think that we are, our mask, our character, our story. And those layers, the identities, the roles, the fears, the defenses, see, they all have to die before we can see what's always been there underneath them the entire time. So plant medicines like ayahuasca, Sappo, peyote, San Pedro, they aren't teachers of new information. And this is an important distinction that I want people to know. This is the educational part of this episode before I give you the actual account. When you take plant medicine, they're not teaching you something new. I like to look at plant medicine as an excavator. That's what they are.

They're excavators. They dismantle the prison guard that stands guard in your mind. They dissolve the inner tyrant that insists that life must be predictable, safe, and controllable. They burn off and strip the outdated versions of you so that more profound knowing, or at least your own knowing, can rise to the surface and be seen. This is why people talk about this idea of ego death. And ego death is a big part of plant medicine and we'll talk about that. But it's not the death of you, ego death.

It's the death of the parts of you that are blocking access to your own truth. The ones that no longer apply in your life at this time. So I'm going to quote Nietzsche here. Nietzsche said this. One must be willing to burn oneself in one's own flame. for how could you rise anew if you have not first become ashes? That just is so relevant for me at this time. That line becomes brutally literal in this work.

You die many times before your truth can live once. Does that make sense? But what nobody tells you when you're doing plant medicine, and it's the most challenging part, it's not the ceremony. The hardest part is what comes after the integration. We often imagine that integration, and that would be, what are you going to do with all this information? Because I hear all these people that go on these spectacular trips, but nothing changes, and then they think

they've got to go on another trip. But we imagine the concept and process of integration as some sort of process of returning to the world with these new breakthrough insights and reshaping our life around them. I always tell people, remember, learning and knowing is nothing more than a distraction. in the absence of action. It's a jacuzzi experience, but to turn it into a pivotal experience, it requires this process called integration. You see, you can't cram the new awakened clarity that you get on these trips back into the shape of an old life built on unconscious patterns. We can't take these new things and cram them into a sleepwalking world. So integration is not about

you going back and fitting back in with these new things. What I've learned, and this takes a lot of practice, I've learned that integration is becoming the version of you that the medicine revealed to you or the breakthrough revealed to you. And I just want to say here, you don't have to do medicine to do this. It just works for me and many, many others. So it's about keeping that version of you that the medicine revealed alive and staying awake inside of a world that is inevitably going to try to pull you back to sleep. Make sense? It's the choosing presence over prediction. Let me say that again. This is the idea of choosing presence over prediction. We're not going to predict anymore. We're going to start choosing to be present. And holding the flame steady, and that's that new flame,

when your default mode network tries to blow it out with its old habits and fear. It's about anchoring yourself. This is integration in the generous present moment, which is the only place that anything real ever happens. And boy, oh boy, isn't the present moment generous. Every ceremony is an invitation to die again. And we're going to talk more about this dying thing. It's not the dying that you think. Remember, it's the parts of you that no longer apply. But every ceremony is an invitation to die again so that you're going to you. You're going to you can live again. Not someday in some sort of imagined future, but right here in the now. In the life that's unfolding as we speak, it's happening right now as you're listening to me.

So that's why I returned to Peru. And this time, I chose a different location that I had ever been. I typically go to the Amazon jungle. I've been to Mexico. But this time I chose the Sacred Valley, not for visions, novelty, or because I thought something was missing in my life. It's not why I returned. I like to call it quality control. And it's quality control with a strong desire to show up as the best version of me for the things and the people that matter most to me. Make sense? I returned and I came back because I felt that I was ready, and I know this sounds crazy, for another death. Another shedding and another layer that needed to fall away because I see myself moving into a very exciting and opportunistic season of my life. And I didn't go there to learn something new. I just mentioned

that before. I was dying to remember something I already am, but I felt like I was losing grip of and forgetting. Now, you're either going through hard times in life or you're getting a return on the investment of your hard times. So to make sense of it, I'm at a phase in my life right now. where I've had a tough, tough stretch of time where we've just been struggling, physically, mentally and emotionally. And not that I'm expecting everything to be perfect right now, but we're kind of getting a little bit of a return on that investment right now and things are starting to look good. And they have been for a little while. So I know myself, I have a tendency of building some bullshit without knowing it. That'll take me back to some old habits. So that's what I meant by

quality control. So I didn't go there to learn something new. I was dying to. to remember something I already am that I think that I was beginning to forget. And this right here is where the story begins. That's it for today. To support the Make Sense with Dr. J.C. podcast, be sure to subscribe, like, and share, as well as follow the Make Sense substack for free daily quotes, live streams, and blogs. And remember, learning without action is just another form of distraction. If something hit home and you learn something today, give it away.

That's the only way it's going to stay. See you next time. Makes sense.