How to enhance Your Psychedelic Mushroom Trip
Psilocybin Mushrooms & The Path to Higher Consciousness
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I wanna continue to explore the healing powers of fungi.
I've learned of another mushroom that's been used
for thousands of years to bring people enlightenment and unity.
Psilocybin and other psychedelics are now being used
in new ways.
I've connected with psychologist Dr. John Vervaeke,
who studies how psychedelics can change our minds.
How do psychedelics affect the brain?
What you can do with psychedelics is you can
expand the number of states that the brain can get into,
and then this can introduce what's called
cognitive flexibility into people's cognition.
Why are psychedelics being studied today?
There's some preliminary but growing evidence that this can
help with certain issues: people dealing with PTSD,
people dealing with depression, people dealing with vary kinds--
various kinds of addictions.
Psychedelics are thought to have been used by humans worldwide
for centuries.
Some people have now started taking low doses of psychedelics
or other drugs, a practice called microdosing.
Why are people doing this?
I think more and more people want to,
if you'll allow me to put a word on it,
they wanna start cultivating wisdom.
Psilocybin could improve your insight, right,
improve the reduction of your egocentrism,
your ability to pick up on other people's perspectives,
and also enhance your capacity for self transcendence,
which is what you need to overcome self deception.
And I would say that's the core of wisdom.
Interesting.
John's research into microdosing in the mind is fascinating,
but I wanna meet with someone who has started microdosing
to learn firsthand about their experience.
My name is Tom Brennan.
I'm interested in microdosing as a exploratory way to
increase consciousness.
What has your experience been like
since you began microdosing?
In the last, like, three years, when I started microdosing,
which is eating just a very small quantity of
psilocybin mushrooms, you get an experience
where your perception is just slightly altered.
And I found that it actually makes me more attentive
and able to focus on problems.
How prevalent is microdosing?
People in Silicon Valley, other business leaders
have already admitted now to microdosing on a regular basis.
So how is it done?
These are the mushrooms, which I'll weigh on
a digital gram scale to 0.5 grams.
Then I'll take them, put them in the spice grinder.
(Whirring)
And now they're all ground up.
In the glass.
Yummy.
Little orange juice, make it a little more palatable.
Little stir.
Down the hatch.
Mmm.
Onset is about 40 minutes.
From start to finish, it's about six hours.
With a microdose like this at this level, it's pretty minor.
I'll be there in 20... 20, 30 minutes.
See you later.
(Laughing)
What are the psychological benefits?
Uh, it has a calming effect,
and it also has a pathogen effect similar to MDMA,
where it makes you feel better about other people.
It's definitely reduced anxiety in me.
Do you consider yourself high?
In a higher state of consciousness, but not high.
So it's mind-expanding as opposed to escapism?
It's a helpful and beneficial compound
that is good for everybody.
What change could someone who's decided to start microdosing
expect to see in themselves?
Uh, intention is critical.
So what you expect or want out of the compound seems to happen,
even though that does sound a little on the unscientific side.
I've found it, in my experience,
that what I expect or want from it, it seems to give to me.
Tom's anecdotal evidence is interesting.
I'd like to conduct a psilocybin microdosing experiment,
but without access to legal forms of the drug to test,
I'll remain an interested observer for now.
