There was a time when I might have considered myself a psychonaut of sorts. Certainly, from a purely consumptive point of view, I felt I had seen a great deal of my inner world that seemed accessible only through psychedelics. That person is long in the tooth now, but there has been something of an awakening in me with the recent media attention around tryptamines and similar compounds in the treatment of PTSD and Complex Post Traumatic Stress Disorder, in reconnecting people with self, others and nature, and in interrupting addiction or other entrenched behaviours. These possibilities appear to become more accessible when psychedelics temporarily alter patterns of brain function and neuroplasticity.
The results are being cautiously celebrated, with psilocybin, the active compound in “magic” mushrooms, emerging as one promising agent among a number of psychedelics being studied. It would be a truly remarkable thing, particularly in a world obsessed with technological advancement, perhaps at all costs, to find naturally occurring compounds capable of expanding consciousness for a manageable period and allowing a person to enter a state in which reflective processes are enhanced enough to process trauma, address treatment-resistant mental illness, or reconnect with one’s own spirit, the collective human spirit, or a power greater than oneself.
This does not mean that getting off your chops on mushrooms at a party is necessarily going to be a transformative experience. What is being explored therapeutically is something very different: supported or guided psychedelic experiences involving agents such as psilocybin, dimethyltryptamine (DMT), or 5-MeO-DMT, undertaken in an appropriate set and setting. There is a great deal of research happening in this area, with one of the possibilities being therapies that require only a small number of carefully supported sessions yet produce longer-term reductions in symptoms. If borne out, that would represent a very different therapeutic model from long-term regimes of daily or PRN antidepressants, antipsychotics, or anti-anxiety medications.
Of these agents, dimethyltryptamine, or DMT, is perhaps the most interesting to me. I can only say that I have had a brief encounter with this molecule. DMT has also been detected endogenously in the human body, although its biological role remains unclear. From my own perspective, there is something philosophically compelling about the possibility of therapy involving a molecule that also occurs naturally within us, even if that fact alone says nothing about its safety or therapeutic value.
What is particularly distinctive about DMT is the reported experience of transitioning into what feels like an entirely different or parallel dimension. Accounts ranging from Amazonian ceremonial contexts to contemporary users frequently describe encounters with apparently autonomous “beings”, entities, or intelligences, or an overwhelming sense of entering a realm inhabited by something more than oneself. Whether these experiences are understood neurologically, psychologically, spiritually or metaphysically, their consistency and intensity make them difficult to dismiss simply as “tripping”.
I know that is a big stretch.
I can say that I have been a seeker of the spiritual for much of my life, only eventually returning to a point where existence in the moment was, and is, enough. Much of that seeking, supported on many occasions by psychedelics, probably did more to cloud and confuse or self sabotage the picture than enlighten me. I am probably not the best data point to examine.
My very few experiences with the “spirit molecule” were nevertheless extraordinarily powerful. At the time, they left me absolutely convinced that there were multiple dimensions of existence and that we were not alone. My strongest experience took me somewhere that appeared entirely situated in ancient Egypt. I was presented with unfamiliar glyphs, observed by entities that seemed to possess voices but no physical form, and experienced an immediate sense of contact with what felt like a fundamental truth: that we are all different arrangements of matter, that matter is never truly destroyed but continually changes form through cycles of birth, growth, senescence and death.
I do not know whether I would line up to do that again. It belonged to a different time and place in my life, a time before bipolar diagnosis. But those experiences were quite separate from other experiences that were far more about excess, self sabotage and escape. They challenged my outlook. They were certainly transcendental, if not spiritual, and they reinforced ideas of hope, respect, humility and the interconnectedness of all things. They were 180 degrees removed from simply “getting wasted”.
In a life in which I can honestly say I frequently chased risk and difficult inner journeys a little too often, experiences with the tryptamines DMT and psilocybin, and even with mescaline, almost forced me to see the flipside of that reality: a universe so close to us, and so connected with us, that it becomes part of the fabric of life itself. A connection to what is good and genuinely meaningful; the tiny giants of everyday existence that bring peace and hope.
The use of any substance is not a prerequisite for a full life, nor does the learning that may come from a transcendental experience make the difficult, in-the-moment work of everyday life any easier. It is worth considering, however, that just as not every bottle of wine is equal, neither are all psychoactive substances, nor are the experiences they produce.
When there is strong evidence that potential benefit may outweigh harm, anything capable of helping people reconnect, promote Recovery, challenge negative schemas, process trauma or rediscover meaning should not automatically be removed from serious discussion simply because it falls beneath the blanket heading of “drugs”.
What is needed is good research, free as far as possible from both romanticism and societal bias, capable of answering some of the genuinely difficult questions raised by these substances. Perhaps one of those questions is whether humanity, in its race to progress and dazzle itself with science and technology, has forgotten some of the things that matter most: the capacity for wonder, meaning, connection, hope, and whatever it is that keeps a little bounce in our step and maintains that silver-cord connection to the larger mystery of existence.