Mushrooms and Human Metamorphosis

A Personal Journey

“…pulled into such a….listlessness of vacant, unconscious reverie is this absent-minded youth by the blending cadence of waves with thoughts, that at last he loses his identity; takes the mystic ocean at his feet for the visible image of that deep, blue bottomless soul, pervading mankind and nature; and every strange, half-seen, gliding, beautiful thing that eludes him; every dimly-discovered, uprising fin of some undiscernable form, seems to him the embodiment of those elusive thoughts that only people the soul by continually flitting through it.”  Melville, Moby Dick.

In my life I have been fortunate. I have experienced many life-changing events including climbing the highest mountains in Ecuador, Bolivia and Argentina. I swam with and touched Great White Sharks in South Africa. I learned to fly small airplanes. I have explored the reefs and undersea world in locations from Maine, the Caribbean, the Great Lakes to the Western Pacific and Micronesia. I’ve crossed the country as a nomad, living in an Airstream travel trailer.  I recently, at the “advanced” age of 55, I learned to ride motorcycles.

Yet the sum of all of those experiences does not approach in significance my first (two) psychedelic experiences. 

Both of my psilocybin journeys occurred several weeks ago and were the most important experiences of my life.  Yet if asked to explain why, I could not.

Be Prepared and Self Aware!

I took two journeys over the course of one week. I did the work and was well prepared for the experience. I do not recommend this experience for anyone who lacks introspection and self-awareness or for those who fail to adequately prepare.  I did a lot of preparatory work. I found an experienced guide, and ensured I’d be in a safe and comfortable space.  I spent several hours with the guide prior to my journeys to prepare myself and we conducted an integration session after my journeys (integration is a review of my experiences – many the guide captured for me by writing down what I said during the journey).   Had I not done the work to ensure I was prepared and that my set and setting were excellent, my experience would have been very different and potentially very negative.

Even prepared, the experience was not a picnic. While some trips can be blissful and euphoric, mine was hard, exhausting, ecstatic, but definitely NOT euphoric or blissful. However, they were not “bad trips”. Rather they were lifechanging trips. My point is that psilocybin is not ketamine. It’s not marijuana. It’s not alcohol.  Rather than relaxing you and dimming your awareness it allows you to maximize your internal awareness. It amplifies your unconscious self.

What I can do is attest to the sheer power of psilocybin to transform one’s perspective in one or two journeys.

Some experience ego dissolution.

Substances like alcohol, tobacco and other addictive drugs (which in my view should never be used in conjunction with psychedelics) may be perceived as nothing more than neutral “things” – interesting but not compelling. This, to me, shows the power of psilocybin to help with substance abuse disorders.

If you are very self-aware, you may not experience new “revelations” but you may feel that you have a better sense of what is important, and what beliefs about yourself are true versus those that are fabricated.

Yet some people have less profound experiences.  My first journey felt this way. However, a day or so later I had a sense of well-being and believed the first journey to have been extremely important – although I could not say why.

There is an ineffability about a psychedelic journey – you realize this while on the journey.  Frankly is frustrated me that I knew I was not capable of describing this life changing experience to anyone who has not shared the experience.

You realize that the only people who will truly “get it” have been there themselves.  

While I am not going share the intimate details of my journey, I feel compelled to share what I experienced – although it will be a less than adequate attempt.

Intentions

A good guide will encourage you to set a few intentions – essentially goals – for your trip.  An intention may be: to remember and examine a particular trauma; to be kinder; to be easier on oneself; to be more connected with people. 

This was tough for me.  Of course, I want the trip to “solve” all my problems.   I wanted to come out of the trip feeling content, fulfilled and to have lost any unnecessary feelings of anxiety. Anxiety has been a plaque on my existence.  There are other things that competed in my mind as potential intentions.

My decision and recommendation are to keep it limited and small.   A single trip or, perhaps many trips, will not fundamentally transform you.  Setting too ambitious an intention will likely lead to disappointment.

I was a bit too ambitious during my first trip and now view that trip as nothing more than an introduction psilocybin and its power to allow us to explore deeper levels of consciousness.  What DID happen is the irrational voice in my head (I have an irrational voice that often overrides my inner rational voice and compels me to be a person I do not want to be) immediately told me to fight the effects of psilocybin.   It excoriated me as a lazy slug for having the audacity to lie down during the day. It told me to move.  When I tried to comply, it then chewed me out for missing this opportunity to experience something new.  I can’t win with the irrational voice, but somehow it always manages to have its boot on the neck of my rational voice. 

This allowed me to set a reasonable intention for my second trip.  My intention was to shut down the irrational voice for the duration of the trip.  I did not need the voice to undermine the experience. I needed to allow the psilocybin to do its work.   The voice, frankly, is omnipotent and omnipresent in normal circumstances. I hate it, but seem to lack the ability to shut it down or even quiet it, unless I comply with its demands.  So, I usually comply.

My second trip: amazingly, no voice. It was gone. Completely. For the first time in memory.  Yes, it was back following the trip but during the trip, it did not make a peep. It did not interfere.  It was not until 8 or 9 hours later that it started to squeak again!

Primeval Id

I found the early part of both trips to be the only segment of the journey that approximated a “drug” experience. Mild euphoria and for a period my Id dominated the show.   It was primal, raw, sensual…I still (and did throughout the trip) had a sense of reality: where I was, who I was with, and that this was an experience that would end - but this early point the psilocybin allowed me to give up, at least internally, my inhibitions.  It almost seemed a necessary preparatory phase before going deeper. I had no real sense of time, but expect this phase last only 15-20 minutes before the trip went too far deeper and to more cerebral and less limbic places.

Synesthesia and the Senses

When people who have not experienced psychedelics, they think of the sensory distortions they have heard about – as if these distortions were the heart and soul of the experience.   In my view, they are not. The introspection, the ability to explore deeper levels of your own consciousness – levels you were unaware of, the insights that occur days after an experience – those are the important parts of a trip.   However, I will note below some of the sensory experiences.

Music During a trip one maintains a grounded awareness of the world, all the while exploring a deeper and amplified internal world. 

My guide had a curated playlist for my trip and I was aware that the music was emanating from her laptop. Yet at the same time the music also seemed to be completely internal, originating inside my head.  The sound was incredible and enveloping and directed the path of my journey.  When a track ended and a new track started, a “dream” ended and a new one started.  The music essentially painted the dream. Yet none of this seemed dissonant to me. It seemed wonderful and normal.

Color Largely a phenomenon of my peripheral vision and regulated by the music.  Interestingly the predominant colors for me (per my guide every trip is different) were pink, green and blue.  I have no idea why.  The photo accompanying this piece is the closest I could get (via an AI image generator) to one of the predominant images.

Smell, Hearing, Taste All amplified.  A door quietly shutting sounded like a castle drawbridge being hauled up and closed. Lemon in my tea was as intense and bitters as any lemon I have ever experienced.

Words

For the remainder of this essay, I need to use a few descriptors to capture something inherently uncatchable, ineffable, indescribable yet monumental, significant and potentially life changing. I have no better way of conveying what happened:

Liminal, Lucid Dreaming, Fever Dreams, Work, Challenge, Ecstatic, Resist, Comply, Perspective, Judgement, Identity, Ego Dissolution, Acceptance, Death, Afterglow, Introspection, Connectedness, Compassion, Empathy, Incremental, Kindness, Fatigue…

What it was not:  blissful, easy, euphoric.

Should You?

Obviously, a decision to use large doses of psychedelics is personal.

I see enormous potential for healing, addiction breaking, self-improvement, obtaining self-knowledge, becoming kinder and more compassionate, managing fears of death (amazing how serene I became with the idea of death), alleviating grief, etc.

You won’t come out of it radically changed.  Don’t expect that. I am still me. My identify may have shifted a bit – towards a better me, but the shift is minimal. That is ok though.  I feel an ability – maybe short term, to be less hard on myself.

I do not think you should do this if you lack self-awareness, do not prepare, do not consider set and setting and do not work with a guide.  I said this previously and I am deliberately repeating myself.

This is my personal opinion however – many people work successfully with psychedelics with very different approaches.

In the end, if you are looking for a drug “high” – this is not your path. If you are curious about your inner self then consider it.   At the end of a trip, you ideally feel like you want to do It again – but not for a while. You should come out of it feeling tired, exhilarated, maybe a little nauseous – but fulfilled and content.