Meme #11 - Psychedelic

In Entangled Life, Merlin Sheldrake devotes a chapter on the psychedelic effects of psilocybin-producing mushrooms. He describes the long relationship between psilocybin and humans and reports on recent studies that demonstrate its medicinal and spiritual benefits. I will quote the chapter at some length because he does a masterful job of creating context and capturing the “spirit” of the molecule. In the chapter called Mycelial Minds, he states: 

It is their ability to pull our minds into unexpected places that has caused psilocybin-producing mushrooms to be enveloped within the ritual and spiritual doctrines of human societies since antiquity. (pp.95-96) 

It is their ability to soften the rigid habits of our minds that make these chemicals powerful medicines capable of relieving severe addictive behaviors, otherwise incurable depression, and the existential distress that can follow the diagnosis of terminal illness. (p.96) 

A growing number of studies have made a link between animal behavior and the trillions of bacteria and fungi that live in their guts, many of which produce chemicals that influence animal nervous systems. The interaction between gut microbes and brains - the “microbiome-gut-brain axis” - is far-reaching enough to have birthed a new field: neuromicrobiology. (p.105) 

After a single dose of psilocybin, eighty percent of patients showed substantial reductions in their psychological symptoms, reductions that persisted for at least six months after the dose. Psilocybin reduced demoralization and hopelessness, improved spiritual well-being, and increased quality of life. (p.107) 

Many studies have found that psilocybin can reliably induce experiences classified as “mystical.” (p.108) 

[Other studies found] increased openness to new experiences, psychological well-being, and life satisfaction…helped smokers and alcoholics break their addictions… [and showed] enduring increases in subjects’ sense of connection with the natural world. (p.108) 

[Brain] scans revealed that psilocybin didn’t increase the activity of the brain as one might expect, given its dramatic effects on people minds and cognition. Rather, it reduced the activity of certain key areas. (p.109) 

[Default Mode Network (DMN)] - When we’re not focusing on much, when our minds are wandering idly, when we’re self-reflecting, when we’re thinking of the past or making plans about the future, it’s our DMN that’s active. (p.110) 

Shut down the DMN, and the brain is let off the leash. Cerebral connectivity explodes, and a tumult of new neuronal pathways arise…psilocybin appears to shut down a “reducing valve” in our consciousness. (p.110) 

Psilocybin appears to take effect not by pushing a set of biochemical buttons but by opening patients’ minds to new ways of thinking about their lives and behaviors. (p.110) 

It’s literally a reboot of the system…Psychedelics open a window of mental flexibility in which people can let go of the mental models we use to organize reality. (p.111) 

One of our most robust mental models is that of the self. It is exactly this sense of self that psilocybin and other psychedelics seem to disrupt. Some call it ego dissolution. (p.111) 

Psilocybin was produced by fungi for tens of millions of years before the genus Homo evolved – the current best estimate puts the origin of the first “magic” mushrooms at around seventy-five million years ago. For more than ninety percent of their evolutionary history, psilocybin-producing fungi have lived on a human-free planet and have done just fine. (p.113) 

Analysis of DNA of psilocybin-producing fungal species reveals that the ability to make psilocybin evolved more than once. More surprising was the finding that the cluster of genes needed to make psilocybin has jumped between fungal lineages by horizontal gene transfer several times over the course of its history. (p.114) 

[Studies suggest that] psilocybin served as a lure, somehow changing [animal] behavior in ways that benefited the fungus. (p.115)

Psilocybin has caused humans to seek out the mushrooms, carry them from place to place, and develop methods to cultivate them. In doing so, we have helped to spread their spores, which are both light enough to travel over great distances in the air and numerous. (p.116) 

Communicating about a psychedelic experience is a losing proposition. Language, which attempts to use “signs” to describe a moment and signify its meaning, is just the wrong tool for the job. It’s like trying to explain parenting to someone who has no children – you can capture the “superficial” but not what the “essential” feels like. Probably the best way to understand parenting, without being a parent oneself, would be to watch the person move through his or her day and catch glimpses of the effects of the experience in their interactions. The traits pressed into their personalities by parenting shine through in subtle ways that offers insight to the watchful and discerning eye. 

This method would help us emulate the Way of Fungi by learning from others who have experienced the psychedelic effects of psilocybin-producing mushrooms, but a more direct and powerful method would be to experience the moment ourselves. Since Gordon and Valentina Wasson brought back reports of a fungal sacrament taken by native peoples in Mexico in 1957, the notion of using a mushroom as a vehicle for spiritual and medicinal exploration has slowly gained traction, until today, we have ongoing research into its positive effects and governments are starting to decriminalize (and even legalize) “magic” mushrooms. Sheldrake outlines the tremendous benefits of psilocybin-producing mushrooms in this chapter. I would add that the psychedelic experience might also be the only thing powerful enough to dislodge our human world from its current trajectory toward self-destruction. As Sheldrake reports, “It’s literally a reboot of the system…Psychedelics open a window of mental flexibility in which people can let go of the mental models we use to organize reality.” Imagine that happening at a scale large enough to effect global change. It would not have to be all 8 billion of us. Rather, just enough to form a critical mass that precipitates a tipping point toward a new way of thinking and behaving. 

From personal experience, I would say that one of the biggest effects of a psychedelic experience is the realization that existence is much bigger, more vibrant, and just plain weirder than we ever thought it was. In our day-to-day lives, we get caught up in narrow and confining perspectives of what is “real” and what is “important.” The psychedelic experience blows that mindset to smithereens, and we discover that there’s just so much more out there - or perhaps, “in there.” This is an extremely hopeful notion because we no longer perceive “time” and “treasure” as finite resources, and therefore our anxiety is reduced. Of course, some religions use a simplistic version of this idea to justify poverty in this world because it supposedly leads to reward in the next. That’s just a power play used by elites to keep masses of people down and oppressed and could not be further from the truth. In fact, it’s hard to keep people down and oppressed after they’ve had a true psychedelic experience. This is why religions and other power structures work so hard to crush out the possibility. 

A downside to the psychedelic experience – if you do it often enough – is that this world starts to lose its luster and it becomes more difficult to “come back” from the trip. The non-psychedelic state begins to take on the shabby appearance of a two-bit traveling circus and a psychonaut might wonder, “What’s the point of rejoining that when there is so much out there that is more real – and just a lot more interesting.” So, there may come a moment when it’s time to stop the exploratory traveling and start figuring out how to integrate the experience into a non-psychedelic environment – with the goal of increasing its depth and meaning. This can be a life-long journey, but by increasing the number of people who join this path now, we will raise the odds that the world will begin to follow the Way of Fungi in a more psychedelic manner in the future. This would be quite a course correction. It might already be too late, but maybe it isn’t. Perhaps we have just enough time to patch up the holes in our sinking ship, find a calm harbor, and disembark onto a greener shore.