Ayahuasca as a Triptych Phenomenon:
The Person, the Place and the Infusion
Under the influence of Ayahuasca, the intensity of stimulations — both through the amplification and enrichment of perceptual details and viewpoints, and through the greater influx of perceptual data — increases considerably. The altered states of consciousness thus induced are, in their richness, a result of the interaction of three basic factors.
The essential factors are: the set, which I translate as "personal factor" — what the individual brings with them, their contents (intention, attitudes, personality, mood, etc.); the setting or "environmental factor", which corresponds to all the active external elements capable of influencing the experience (impersonal, social, environmental factors, the context). The substance itself — the "infusion" — acts as a trigger or catalyst, connecting and placing in interaction the cited factors in a specific, creative and intense dynamic.
It is evidently impossible to define which of these factors is the most important, just as it is impossible to say which is the most important side of an isosceles triangle. However, "the framing" is the aspect of the experience that can be programmed, studied, tested and carefully prepared for greater benefit.