Chemically induced enlightenment, Part 1

 Last year about this time, I was accepted as a subject into the "Spiritual Practices" study by Dr. Roland Griffiths.  It involved starting a mediation practice, weekly meetings that were a bit like psychotherapy sessions, and, on two occasions, coming in and taking a dose of clinically manufactured psilocybin.  This is my account of my first "session," which took place on August 29, 2012.  The account was written the evening after the session.

We were looking at pictures of puppies because what could be less
anxiety-provoking than puppies? But towards the end of the book I
started to be aware that something was happening. I remember starting
to cry almost immediately. I don’t know is that was the drug or just a
reaction to knowing that I had done it. That I had swallowed the pill
and I was on this ride.  I felt woozy and unsteady like I was drunk.

I was sitting on the couch and I looked at that painting and I was
aware that it looked really bright and intense, and I noticed it was
moving, and I realized this was happening. I didn’t really like the
painting, but it was interesting to look at. I remember saying that I
was scared, that I didn’t know if I was ready for this. I felt jittery
and antsy and I just wanted to walk around. I didn’t want to lay down.
I felt this was going to be a fine, interesting experience and I was
going to be okay as long as I could keep my eyes open and walk around.
 I felt like I just physically wasn’t capable of lying down because I
felt so jittery, but I also knew that I was afraid of lying down and
surrendering to the experience.  I felt like it was important to keep
up a normal stream of conversation with Mary and Rosemary even though
it was hard to concentrate on what they were saying.

I was scared but I wasn’t deeply terrified. And at the same time I was
scared I also felt like it was okay and also that this was kind of
funny and entertaining. I sort of became aware that Mary and Rosemary
were just at work doing their job while I was having this
semi-meltdown. And they were funny with the things they were trying to
get me to do to work through my jitteriness, shaking their bodies to
try to get me to do the same and all that.  But at the same time I was
aware that they really wanted me to lie down, and I wasn’t ready to
lie down.

I went to the bathroom and noticed the pattern on the shower curtain
was moving around.  I looked at my face in the bathroom mirror and I
felt like I would like to keep looking at it. But it was also
reassuring to see myself looking normal and I felt like I would go in
and lie down.

But it was still a struggle to do it. I think I must have sat down and
got up a few times. At one point I know I put the mask on but I was
walking around with it on the top of my head.  Mary had me repeat my
passage and I could say it but it didn’t seem to mean anything.  She
asked me what was scaring me about lying down and I said I didn’t
know.

I remember I told them that I thought the point of doing this was to
get ready for the time when I was going to die and I wasn’t going to
have any choice about letting go. But right now I still had the choice
and I didn’t want to let go.

But I started with just putting the mask on.  I put it on and there
was nothing really scary about the mask per se. When I put it on I saw
colored lights and geometric shapes. I took it off for a minute and
looked at the rug and it was okay.


I thought, okay, I’ll just do this one step at a time. The mask, then
lying down. I realized I liked the music, but I felt like I just
wanted to listen to it without the headphones for awhile. I didn’t
want to feel covered by the blanket.

As soon as I put the mask on and lay down I felt like it was going to
be okay. There might have been a moment of trepidation, but it didn’t
last. Then I felt okay, let this happen. The thing is, not long after
that, the visual hallucinations faded away.

I remember thinking, I was so scared of facing what was inside me, and
all that is inside is just a bunch of colors and shapes. At first I
saw moving geometric shapes, then it was like I was looking into deep
space and there was a constellation of colored lights, which was an
octopus, and it was moving.  This kind of an actual octopus and a
constellation of stars at the same time, and it wasn’t scary, it was
just kind of out there in space.

Then after that the visual stuff stopped. I remember thinking I was so
scared of this and it’s just lying on the couch listening to music. I
remember feeling sort of disappointed, like I had finally surrendered
to the experience, and it was just lying on the couch listening to
music. I wanted more of the experience and it was receding. I remember
being aware that I wasn’t having a particularly spiritual experience
and feeling sort of disappointed by that.  I was trying to remember
whether I would get to do this again, and hoping that the next time I
would have some really profound experience. But then I also thought,
if this is not the high dose I don’t know if I can handle the high
dose.

But I felt like it was okay. For the most part, after I laid down
everything felt peaceful and calm. It was okay to just lie on the
couch and listen to music. I remember laughing because I had been so
scared and it turned out to be perfectly okay.  All the things I
resisted the most were what I wanted now. I had been somehow afraid of
the music and being covered by the blanket but now I wanted more
music, I wanted to go into it.

I was crying at some point, too and I don’t know exactly why, there
might have been something vaguely there about my mother, but more just
some sense of accepting this and this was what it was and this was
what I was and it was fine.

Even though on one level it was just listening to music and I was
always aware I was lying on the couch listening to music, I was
hearing the music in a very deep way. It was like my head was a big
hollowed out space and the music was in there in a very palpable way.
The classical music seemed very European and cloudy and gray, but this
wasn’t a bad thing. A vague sense of gray storm clouds.

Even though I wasn’t really seeing anything anymore, I had a sense of
being in deep space, a sense that my chest had sort of opened up and
there was all this space in there. I sort of felt like it would be
okay to just dissolve into space, but I didn’t dissolve, I was still
there on the couch.

I has the understanding that the self I identify with is just sort of
this endless string of words, this endless narrative I tell myself.
The whole time I’m having this experience, I’m thinking about it and
try to describe it to myself. I had the sense that the self that makes
the words is the words. To let go of this self would be to let the
words go. I felt like it would be okay to let the words stop. But the
words didn’t stop, and that was okay, too, although what drew me to
the music was that it was non-verbal. I felt like I didn’t want to
have to explain this all over again to Mary when she asked me what I
was experiencing. Like it would be good to have a break from stringing
together words.

I remember thinking about how my initial motivation for getting in to
this, or at least part of it, was because I wanted to figure out what
to do with my sort-of boyfriend John or find some peace with my
relationships, and I was asking myself is this helping me figure that
out. And thinking not really, but screw that anyway. But along with
the sense of being essentially a string of words was the sense of
relationships being conversations, that our conversation was the
important thing, that my conversation with John was the one that
matters most to me, that the rest of it or figuring out what label to
put on it doesn’t really matter.

Some music came on that was Indian chanting, and it really seemed deep
and interesting and complex and comforting. At some point I realized
they were chanting “om namah shivaya” which was a mantra I had tried
out and rejected because it seemed too complex, too many syllables,
but now I really liked it and would have been happy to listen to that
all day. For some reason this also brought up the Muslim cabdriver who
brought me to the session, and I felt like he had been some sort of
mascot or guardian angel for me. I don’t know why, I know that’s a
totally different religion, maybe just because he had the aura of
being a good soul.

After that I got up again to go to the bathroom and I was aware of
being mostly back to normal. The painting wasn’t moving anymore, nor
was the shower curtain. I told Mary and Rosemary about what I had been
experiencing, even though in a way I didn’t want to indulge in even
yet more verbalizing. Mary showed me the rose, but it just looked like
a rose. Early, when I had been pacing, I had noticed that was a very
intensely saturated color, but now it was back to normal.

After that it was just listening to the music, and it was mostly a
less intense version of what had come before. Hearing the music in a
more intense way that usual. Aware that I was not entirely comfortable
on the couch, but it was okay. Aware that I was a little disappointed
with the experience, but feeling that it was okay. Sad, but in a way
that felt okay. Towards the end Louis Armstrong’s “Wonderful World”
came on and that made my cry a lot all over again, but that song can
make me cry even without the assistance of drugs. I had been aware
that I was doing this on the 7th anniversary of Katrina, and this
brought up a lot of emotions about New Orleans, and also knowledge
that Katrina had been the thing that knocked me off one course and set
me on the course to living in Baltimore and the string of events that
led to me being in this study.

I felt like this was a good experience, but, oddly, a sobering one. It
was at once easier and harder than I feared or expected. When Darcy
came to pick me up and the first thing I said to her was “Geez, Darcy,
put on some pants” I felt bad and disappointed in myself, like I am
still the same flawed, snarky, insensitive person I was when I
started.