“We should do this,” I told my wife, watching a Netflix documentary about psilocybin and other psychotropic substances, their growing therapeutic use, and mind-expanding capabilities. I’d read about this. The film, featuring food writer Michael Pollan, showed such drug use in controlled settings, shepherded by knowledgeable professionals. That’s what I suggested we try.
I was 21 at the time of Woodstock. I missed it. In fact, missed the ’60s altogether, so socially out of it that it all passed me by. In the ’70s I did hang out with some users, but never joined in. I liked reality well enough.
But what the film talked about seemed different. There are two aspects.
One is therapeutic, helping people with problems by reorienting their minds. Like an older woman featured, facing terminal cancer. And Ben, a young man plagued by OCD. Which basically just went away after a single drug session — resetting his brain so it would say, “I don’t need that nonsense any more.”
But the other aspect is mind expansion. People described psilocybin experiences as powerful and transformative, providing new insight into their own consciousness and selfhood.
That’s what intrigued me. I don’t have “problems;” I think I’m at the far end of the spectrum on mental health. No past traumas needing work. I feel pretty clear-sighted about myself and my reality.
Indeed, one qualm about trying psilocybin was “if it ain’t broke, don’t fix it.” However, I considered my mental edifice strong enough to withstand whatever this might involve. One person in the film likened the power of the psilocybin experience to having a child or losing a parent. I reflected that I’d experienced both, and powerful as those were, they did not discombobulate my psyche.
But I’ve long tried hard to understand consciousness and selfhood. We know consciousness somehow arises from the functioning of our neurons, but how exactly seems to defy scientific explanation (so far). Likewise the self: Philosopher David Hume said it was futile trying to catch hold of his self through introspection. The problem is using the self to search for itself. Some thinkers say the self is an illusion.
I didn’t imagine psilocybin would provide a “eureka” resolving this. Yet it did seem to hold some promise of enlarged insight. I was not seeking a “mystical” or “spiritual” experience, being the ultimate materialist, firmly planted in reality.
But I understand (albeit imperfectly) how a psychotropic substance alters physical brain operation, and since our perceptions and what we make of them are functions of those brain workings, thus might psychotropics alter one’s consciousness (temporarily, one assumes) — opening a different window upon reality. That’s what I hoped to experience.
Some psilocybin trippers report it left them feeling more okay with the prospect of death. I’m pretty free of fears and anxieties, and that applies to death. I accept the inevitability. And while the idea of nonexistence is terrifying of course, the matter is muddied by the fact that I won’t ever consciously experience it.
After the film, some cursory googling found that kind of guided experience not readily accessible. But then, for my 75th birthday, my amazing wife presented me with a done deal, in Santa Barbara, thanks to one of her poetry contacts. We duly made travel and lodging arrangements.
But two days before departure, the session was cancelled because its leader got Covid. We went to Santa Barbara anyway and had a lovely time exploring the place. The thing was supposed to be rescheduled. But reading the latest stuff they sent out, it seemed a lot more “woo woo” than we were comfortable with. So we gave up on that. And decided to just go for pot.
Neither of us had ever been stoned. I had tried toking, a few years prior, late one night with an octogenarian woman friend. It had no effect, though supposedly, that’s sometimes true the first time.
Meanwhile now, legal shops were opening in Massachusetts. My wife, while traveling, stopped at one, but they required cash only, which she lacked. New York was supposed to open the floodgates, but that program, typically for this state, got bunged up by bureaucracy and litigation. However, another of my wife’s poet friends, with much drug experience, came through for us with a whole buffet of products.
First we tried smoking with her. Once again, repeated puffs did nothing for me; or my wife.
Next, gummies — putting our toes in the water, cautiously, we each ate half of a low dosage one. Nothing. Then we tried whole ones. Still nothing.
Another kind was supposed to be stronger. My wife tried that by herself, lest we both go kablooey. This time, the effect was pronounced, and not in a good way. She had a very unpleasant few hours.
So we finally decided to pull the plug on the whole thing.
When we were smoking together with the poet friend, she suggested that maybe my problem was that my mental baseline was already a natural high. Could be right.