Psychedelics
We commonly use a variety of chemicals to alter our experience of life, from caffeine in the morning to be more alert, to painkillers to soothe aches and pains, to alcohol or marijuana to relax or be more open. Psychedelics evoke a very different kind of experience.
For many people who haven’t had any personal experience of them, psychedelics bring to mind images of unwashed hippies at music festivals or eccentric weirdos talking about far-out stuff. And sure, there’s a grain of truth there, although the media framed those images for the uninitiated masses from a place of ignorance and fear. In reality, a whole generation was shaking off the shackles of a deeply repressive social mindset, and only the most extreme and cartoonish examples were reported to the public.
In truth, psychedelics have been used as tools for entering non- ordinary states of consciousness for thousands of years. In various cultures, shamans, medicine men and women, priests, and elders have used psychedelics spiritually for rites of initiation, ceremonies, vision quests, and as a tool for obtaining a higher perspective, knowledge, and growth. Historically, people have been tripping out and enjoying the inner spectacle and adventure created bypsychedelics for a very, very long time.
Somewhere along the way, the use of such powerful substances fell out of favor in mostsocieties and was made illegal, largely owing to those in power fearing what it might do to thecarefully managed control they held over those they governed. I won’t get into the whole Waron Drugs and “Just Say No” campaigns, other than to say that such efforts have been ahorrible waste of money and lives with no measurable results other than empowering the growth of immense networks of organized crime and countless lives wasted away in prisons.There are much better ways than brute force, violence, and stealing people’s freedoms to manage drug use. And no authority has the right to control what people do in their own heartsand minds. It is absurd that drugs as damaging as cigarettes and alcohol are legal and readilyavailable through convenient and regulated retail sources, but psychedelics can land a person inprison.
These campaigns may have started based on real concerns about the epidemic of easily abused and addictive substances that were destroying lives, families, and communities. But they were severely misguided in their execution. The flawed and often outright dishonest propaganda that was used to scare the public into compliance led to radical misunderstandings about all drugs, their users, and their abuse.
It’s important to note that around this same time SSRI (selective serotonin reuptake inhibitor) antidepressants, with their massive economic potential, were just getting a foothold inthe market. The appearance of these drugs was considerable motivation to shut down any research on psychedelics that might potentially help patients heal relatively quickly, instead of having to pay for antidepressants for a lifetime.
It’s common for people, especially Americans, to have deeply ingrained misconceptions and strong feelings about “drugs” (medicines not prescribed by a doctor). Even people who have themselves experienced profound changes in their lives due to healing with psychedelics can continue to cling to these misguided notions out of habit. The indoctrination of thepropaganda around drugs has its claws deep in most of us, and it can be hard to know to even question those beliefs unless someone points out the conflict.
Slowly and painfully, researchers are once more gaining permission from theirgovernments to work with psychedelics legally. This research is beginning to demonstratepsychedelics’ incredible ability, when properly used, to help heal mental and emotional health issues. Real progress is being made. But until patients have access to competent and qualified legal outlets, there are true heroes I call psychedelic guides. These risk much, including potential legal entanglements and even their freedom, to offer guided psychedelic medicinetherapies. Their drive to be of true service to others is inspirational, and my heart absolutely breaks with gratitude that they persevere.
WHAT IS A PSYCHEDELIC DRUG?
A psychedelic drug is a hallucinogen that triggers a non-ordinary state of consciousness —what pop culture calls “tripping.” Among friends, it’s not uncommon to look at one another during a big experience and say, Oh man, I’m tripping balls! And for someone who has never been in a psychedelic-induced altered state of consciousness, it’s not just difficult to wrap your head around what that must be like, it’s impossible. The best description of trying to explainthe psychedelic experience I’ve heard is that it’s like trying to explain the color blue tosomeone who has been blind since birth. It’s simply so far outside of any known experience for them that it’s not describable.
It’s known that psychedelics predominantly interact with the serotonin mechanisms of the brain and that they cause the brain to activate, use and connect different areas than during thenormal waking state. Outside of that, it’s not well understood exactly how psychedelics induce altered states of consciousness.
Insights
Most equate their psychedelic experiences with trippy visuals, deep thoughts and insights — moments of clarity when you see aspects of yourself or your life from a different point of view. If you tell a person who has tripped before that you took psychedelics, they will almost inevitably ask you about any insights you might have gained. Even if you’ve usedpsychedelics purely recreationally, you almost certainly recall having many wow! momentswhen some aspect of your life was shown to you from a different perspective than you’dnormally see it. Such insights always feel like incredible moments of clarity and often can be truly helpful for personal growth and healing.
However, your own rationalizations can at times get in the way of clear insight: you seewhat you want to see or what you are afraid is true. At other times, what you see shouldn’t betaken literally but is symbolic instead. There are many factors that can affect the insights you receive while on a psychedelic journey.
This is why it is important to let things settle for at least a few weeks before making anylife-changing decisions based on insights from psychedelic experiences. You certainly wouldn’tbe the first person to rush out to quit a job, propose marriage, end a relationship, or start theprocess of moving to a new location after inspiring insights on psychedelics. You would also not be the first to end up regretting it. No matter how important an insight might feel, if it’sright, it’ll still be right in a couple of weeks or months. Any urgency to take immediate action is a big red flag telling you that careful, sober consideration is most definitely needed.
Adventures in Self-Exploration
My early experiences using psychedelics were always and without fail grand adventures. They were incredibly interesting, sometimes challenging, and I loved them. I especially lovedgoing for long walks or hanging out in nature with a good friend or friends while doing it.
What I loved most about the experiences was the sense of inner exploration and theinsights that would light up my brain. I hardly ever used psychedelics purely for the fun of it, although they can indeed be a great deal of fun. OnceI had a taste of the honest, self-reflecting nature of psychedelics, of the deeper self-awareness thatcould grow from their use, my intent in using them, even in a fun setting like a music festival orcamping, was always with an eye for personal growth. I’d ask myself: What will I take back withme from this experience? I had a sense that there was much more to me than what I had previouslyrealized, and I craved learning what that was. Decades ago, close friends and I would meetregularly to go on what we called “outings” on psychedelics. We’d venture through my neighborhood or over to the beautiful Balboa Park in San Diego to think deep thoughtsand ponder deep ideas with each other. Those were fantastic, beautiful experiences. Whenever I describe them to someone, I can’t help but have a huge smile on my face.
Fear and Loathing in a National Park
Kings River runs through Sequoia National Park in central California. Each year I’d go with one of my best friends to camp in the foothills of the park, where we’d spend our days next tothe river, alternating between dipping into the ice-cold pools beneath waterfalls and stretchingout on huge sun-soaked boulders to dry off. And each year, we would dedicate at least one of those days to having a psychedelic outing, usually on psilocybin mushrooms, or “shrooms.”
I remember one visit so clearly. I was gingerly climbing over the boulders and rocks that we had to cross to get to one of our favorite pools. I’d had many months of knee pain that mydoctor couldn’t figure out or help me with. That day my friend and I each ate around four grams of mushrooms, sipped ice-cold beer, and enjoyed the day. I found myself lying back across a huge, smooth boulder in the middle of the pool, my head hanging over the edge toobserve the upside-down stream flowing away from me and losing myself in the sound of the rushing water. As the mushrooms settled in, the boulders turned translucent, revealing their slowly churning liquid cores.
With the universe starting to unravel at the edges, I found myself focusing on the constant presence of the knee pain in my life. Now, in a crazy, profound moment of visualizedunderstanding, of insight, I saw and felt how tension I was carrying had been keeping my body,especially my back and hips, out of alignment. I didn’t think this; rather, I knew and could feel the truth of it.
As that understanding sank in, I lay there breathing, just observing, as the recent narrative of my life that I’d been fearing would happen played out in my mind’s eye. I’d been constantlyfearful that my business would fall apart and I’d be unable to provide for my daughter. Thisfear had built up to a crippling level in my body.
As I lay on the rock, the fear crept up on me. At first, I’d clench down on my breathing in amisguided attempt to hold the feelings back. But like the pressure of water against a dam, thefear would start to build and feel overwhelming. I desperately wanted to escape it, but I knew deep down that running away wouldn’t work. Instead I focused on my breath, doing my best tosurrender. None of my feelings felt too big to be endured, as long as they were flowing in and out with my breath. Over and over again, I felt the waves of fear flowing through and out of me, and I came to experience them as nothing more than energy flowing, until at last, I came to a point of peace and was able to relax deeply.
At the end of the day, when we were packing up to go back to our camp, I felt like one of those huge boulders around us had been lifted off my shoulders, and, incredibly, I walked with no knee pain whatsoever. At least fifteen years later, as of this writing, that pain has never returned.
Personal Growth
It was on another outing, this time on MDMA (more commonly known as Ecstasy), as a friend and I were walking through the neighborhoods near my home and talking, when I had the first experience that I could ever remember of feeling love and approval for myself. I was in my late twenties and never even knew that it was missing from my life until it hit me then, like a bolt of lightning.
As with any time I had a profound insight, I carefully observed how it felt in my body, so I could work on feeling into it again later. Of course, I closed up again to the feeling after the drug wore off, but whereas before I never knew that people could feel this way about themselves, now I had a new map of what was possible and a felt sense of the direction I needed to move in.
This insight showed me a new perspective and was a life-changing gift for me. And while this experience was incredibly powerful, what I didn’t know at that time was that it only scratched the surface of the kind of healing that is possible with psychedelics. A deeper, intentional exploration with psychedelics would have led to the expression of the pain of a lifetime of emotional isolation and my desperation for real connection. It would have revealed a clear understanding of how it was the felt sense of shame for even existing that kept those loving feelings towards myself locked away so deep inside. This is the true power of using psychedelics to heal.
