I recently heard a fascinating story from mycologist Paul Stamets (at the McKenna Academy’s ESPD55 conference). Stamets was asked for some psilocybin mushrooms by both his father and a mentor.
Stamets asked both men whether their wives would also be taking the mushrooms, to which they answered, “No.”
So, Stamets turned them down.
He explained that since psilocybin mushroom experiences - experiences that could shake the foundation of one’s religious beliefs, change one’s entire view of reality, and be difficult to explain to others - can create divides in your relationships, he didn’t want to be responsible for that rift. So, since the wives declined to participate, he declined to provide the mushrooms.
This story reminded me of a conversation I recently had with a friend about an unexpected side effect of psychedelic use: loneliness.
Although one of the core features of a positive psychedelic trip can be the deep sense of an interconnectedness that runs through all people and things in the Universe, another core feature is ineffability, which makes it difficult to use language to share your experience with others who are naïve to psychedelics (or any other altered state of consciousness).
I believe that’s why so many people who experience profound transformation after using psychedelics have such a strong desire to inspire others to go through the same thing. Yes, the drive may stem from an altruistic place to help others receive the same benefits they have (e.g. psychologically, emotionally, personally), but it may also originate from a desire to be able to share the experience with others.
It's like Plato’s Allegory of the Cave. In the allegory, there are a group of prisoners who have been chained inside of a cave since they were born, only able to view the back of the cave. A wall separates them from a fire that burns behind them. There are others in the cave (behind the separating wall but in front of the fire), whose shadows are cast from the fire onto the wall the prisoners can view. All the prisoners know of reality are the shadows cast on the wall. They know nothing of the outside world.
One day, one of the prisoners escapes the chains, the cave, and the darkness. He is momentarily blinded by the sunlight, but when his eyes adjust, his senses devour the sensuous delights of the outside world. He drinks the warmth of the sun, and the vibrant colors, scents, and sounds of nature. The solid, living, moving objects that cast their shadows in the cave are perceived for the first time. The escaped prisoner runs back to the cave to tell his fellow prisoners of what he has seen, excited to share! But, since the others have not shared the experience, they think he has gone crazy and they reject his attempts to persuade them of the truth.
The other prisoners cannot imagine beyond the limits of what they have perceived and experienced through their consciousness for their entire lives. Colors and forms never seen cannot be conjured. Imagine trying to explain a 3D bunny to a person who has only ever seen a 2D shadow bunny.
That’s what it feels like to try to describe a psychedelic experience. Now, imagine how the escaped prisoner feels. Ecstatic and undoubtedly drunk with awe and wonder at what he has experienced. But also, alone. Alone in his awe and wonder.
I know what this feels like.
I keep my 5-MeO-DMT experience close to my heart and mostly private, only sharing it with a handful of people, while I continue to process and integrate it. Before 5-MeO-DMT, I had never had full ego death or dissolution (i.e. the subjective experience of losing your sense of self), which is a key feature of many psychedelic experiences. I couldn’t even fathom what that meant. But I sure knew what it meant after! With 5-MeO-DMT, I simply ceased to exist, while simultaneously becoming the entire Universe in one glorious, euphoric moment. No amount of words or descriptions could have prepared me for the actual experience because it is beyond the comprehension of my everyday consciousness. It’s not something you perceive, it’s something you become.
After the experience, I did not know a single person who had done 5-MeO-DMT, except my facilitators and the other person in my retreat group, who was a stranger to me. A friend was supposed to join me, but he had to reschedule his own trip for the following month. An entire month would go by before I could discuss the most mind-blowing, paradigm-shattering, reality-untethering experience of my life with someone who had undergone the same extraordinary experience. Someone who could completely understand how everything had changed for me in one night.
At first, I didn’t feel the sting of loneliness of the experience because I was flying high on the perspective shifts that had happened for me, distracted by the newness of the world. Once I came out of my own head and had to interface with the world, however, the contrast was stark.
Let me explain. After you dissolve into the Universe, lose your sense of self and identity, merge with all of space and time, and then suddenly come back to your body, it becomes difficult for a period of time to relate to others who haven’t experienced this cosmic reset. I had transcended human life and seen the nature of the Cosmos. Then, I plopped right back down into mundane existence. Emails and daily tasks barely kept my attention as I felt like parts of me were still flying through the infinite universe. Everyday conversations lapped at my consciousness, but I could not properly engage. I could no longer relate. And worse, I couldn’t explain any of it to others, hence the loneliness. (p.s. This is why integration and community support are so vital for the safe use of altered states.)
Eventually, this subsided with time, the support of my facilitators, and when others who I knew had undergone the same experience (finally, we could discuss!). But, every moment of these experiences stay within you, expanding your catalog of possible experiential awareness, and you’ll likely never be the same again. Your baseline will shift. Your values, emotional landscape, interests, and behavior can all flip. While living in this 3D reality, you’ll never forget the higher dimensional space you visited. You will leave parts of yourself behind, parts that used to relate to various aspects of your life.
And you have to be prepared for that.
Of course, this isn’t just true for psychedelics. Any extremely transformative experience can have a similar effect. For example, individuals who have experienced near-death experiences (NDEs) often have significant changes in their values, attitudes, and interests (e.g. increases in spirituality, concern for others, appreciation of life, sense of purpose, etc), and their family and friends may have difficulty accepting these changes (1). Circling back to Stamets’ concern of causing a psilocybin mushroom-inspired rift between the couples, the divorce rate among those who have had near-death experiences (NDE) is over seventy percent (2).
This is why people resist change. Because transformation requires loss for rebirth, which is hard and can be occasionally lonely. But, I would argue that if you can bear the light, it’s worth leaving the cave.
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1. Greyson B. The near-death experience as a focus of clinical attention. J Nerv Ment Dis 1997; 185: 327–334.
2. Lommel P Van, Wees R Van, Meyers V, et al. Near-death experience in survivors of cardiac arrest: a prospective study in the Netherlands. Lancet 2001; 358: 2039–2045.