Fixing Brains With Magic Mushrooms

Hi,

One of my favourite memories is of something that never actually happened. 

I remember floating up into the middle of the room and looking around at the overly-white walls, before peering down at my prone body. I distinctly recall thinking, “I need to find my way back to my body at some point”, before promptly floating through the wall. 

I emerged onto the other side into a vast area of endless black, which might have been terrifying if not for a brightly lit cube floating in the air about 50 metres away. I guided myself towards it, and as I got closer one of its six sides opened up like a door, allowing me to drift (or was it float? It’s hard to describe movement when detached from your body) inside. The door gently closed behind me. 

I was surrounded on all sides by bright, rainbow coloured fractals that slowly cycled through different colours. It was both brilliant and hypnotic. Being inside that cube was the best place I’ve ever been. I absolutely loved it in there.

For one thing, it’s the only time in my life where I’ve felt utterly awake, but with zero anxiety. I was still acutely aware that I needed to get back to my body, but that didn’t really matter. Who really needed a body, anyway? I was in my rainbow cube. I was happy. 

I bobbed around in the cube for about three hours, maybe four, just looking around at all the shapes. At some point I closed my eyes (not that I had any), and the black enveloped me. When I opened my eyes (my actual eyes this time) I realised I was back in my stupid body again.

It was 2017. I’d sliced open my hand in Turkmenistan, and I’d been given a surprise syringe-full of ketamine by a doctor.

Looking at my photos before and after, I hadn’t been out for very long. I got in a cab and went to watch – somewhat groggily – the opening of the Indoor Martial Arts Games. And while it was an amazing display of choreographed humans, horses and fireworks, I just kept thinking about that fucking cube – and how if I could go back, I would.

Sometimes, when I’m stressed out beyond my means, I just think about that cube.

I am not the first person in the world to trip on ketamine, but for me it was a surprise trip. Luckily for me, it went well.

Ketamine isn’t strictly a hallucinogen, but it has some of the same effects. Ever since that trip, I’ve been pretty fascinated by the idea of consciousness and how we view the world. The fact we’re alive and aware of the world around us is marvelous to me, but also utterly terrifying. Terrifying in that we are trapped in our own minds, unable to know exactly what anyone else is thinking or feeling. 

Is our perception of the world just a bunch of chemicals banging around inside our heads, or are our brains just a vessel for some larger 'consciousness' we've somehow tapped into? And how do we talk about this stuff without sounding like a stoned hippy?

I’ve been thinking about this a lot as I talk to my therapist, describing how I think and feel about certain things, people and events. The therapist is there to help me make sense of things: “But how can they, if they have no idea what it’s really like inside here? Inside me?” I keep thinking to myself.

So when I found myself in Wisconsin recently, I was really excited to visit the Raison Lab at the University of Wisconsin to talk to Dr Charles Raison, a psychiatrist who’s really, really interested in mushrooms – or rather psilocybin, the psychedelic compound found in a bunch of them. 

He wants to know how this substance can interact with our conscious minds, and how it can make us happier.