The next thing I know, I'm in a crib. And I'm a baby. If you follow me on Instagram,
you'll know that last weekend was a huge weekend for me. I was invited to participate in my very
first magic mushroom ceremony, which... I was beyond excited to get to experience. I didn't
think that this soon after my last psilocybin trip alone — that I would be granted an opportunity to
take the leap of faith and fully immerse myself in the psychedelic experience. And what I mean
by this is an experience where you have become so immersed, that you've lost all sense of reality
and you find yourself in direct encounter with a realm that seems to have a mind of its own.
That seems to be the pinnacle of the psychedelic journey; something that I had read about
—something that I have heard from some of you about what you've experienced... and up until last
weekend, I had not experienced it for myself. And now I have. In my next video, I want to talk more
at length about the ceremony that I participated in and I want to tell you more about the healers
who made this experience possible for me: Intronaut, based right here in Vancouver, Canada.
Ivan, Lana, Dr. Nick... I'm going to provide their information in the description box below
if you want to check them out in the meantime. And I do want to talk to you about the ceremony itself
and why I believe having such an experience was so special for me and it allowed me to journey
further than I would have been able to journey had I been trying to do it myself. All of that
will come in the next video but, today, I wanted to just talk to you about the trip that I went on,
the things that I saw, felt, experienced, and what they meant to me. I'm going to use the term
"heroic dose" to describe my recent journey but I don't want you guys to get too caught up around
the legalism of that term heroic dose. It was originally coined by Terence Mckenna, who was an
early psychedelic advocate here in the West. And by "heroic dose," Mckenna meant five grams of dry
psilocybe cubensis taken in silent darkness alone. The more experience that I have on psychedelics,
the more I'm now of the belief that (really), at the end of the day, we are talking about
one ultimate destination and different avenues of getting there. The idea of dosing is a very
western construct. You would think that one dose gets you *this outcome*, another dose
gets you another outcome... when it comes to psychedelics, it doesn't exactly work that way.
We are talking about one ultimate destination. One ultimate outcome. There are so many variables that
go into your ability to get there and dosing is certainly one of those variables, but another huge
variable is your ability to be in total surrender to the medicine every step of the way —which is
why I believe that doing what I did, within a ceremonial setting (within a guided setting)...
that ultimately allowed me to journey further than I ever would have been able to journey
on my own because I knew that I was going to be okay no matter what. Because I had trusted healers
watching over me, making sure that I was gonna be okay. Usually people leave this
kind of role to their ego, which is why if they plunge into the unknown... that can be really,
really scary. They can think, "Oh! Am I actually going to be okay?" And they cling onto their ego,
which I believe is ultimately one of the biggest contributors of a "bad trip." That didn't happen
for me (spoiler alert) and what I ultimately experienced was... I can't... I can't possibly
describe it in words but I'm going to try. That is what this video today is going to be for:
my heroic dose trip report. And I will see you on the other side of the transition.
So I'm in a ceremonial setting; I'm in a group setting but even though I'm with a group,
the fact that I'm with other people —in the same room as other people— that really was not
a variable for me. It did not impact the quality of my journey. We all had our own section to
ourselves and our journey was entirely our own. The shaman came around passing out medicine...
it was psilocybin mushroom tea. And after I consumed my tea, I laid down on my yoga mat,
placed my head firmly on a pillow and had my eyes shut the entire time. I did not open my eyes
for the entirety of the trip, which is what we were instructed to do and that's what I did. Now,
because I ingested my mushrooms in liquid form. the onset came rather quickly. Pretty much just
minutes after I took my medicine, I started to feel its effects. Now before I get into describing
what I saw, I want to say two things. Number one: the effects of mushrooms hit you in waves, and so
you're gonna see this reflected in my description of my trip. If it seems like, at one point,
I'm in one setting and then all of a sudden I'm in another setting... I'm essentially describing two
highs of the same wave. It goes in and out; highs and lows. So I want you to be mindful of that.
Number two: the core of my trauma comes from my relationship with my mom. Growing up, I felt like
I didn't have a mom (emotionally-speaking). My mom is the type of person who is tough as nails.
She'll never let you know what her vulnerabilities are. She will never ever show her vulnerable side.
And while our relationship has gotten to a place where it's at least amicable and where
we have a mutual respect for one another, there is something missing about it still. And I didn't
even quite realize what that missing link was until the mushrooms showed me what it was.
My mother grew up in Cambodia in the 1970s and if you're not familiar with what happened in Cambodia
in the 1970s, I'll tell you. The Kingdom of Cambodia was under siege by one of the most
genocidal, dictatorial Communist regimes in modern history. In the four years that the Khmer Rouge
was in power, Cambodia lost over a fourth of its population. So that was the environment in which
my mom came of age and I knew this about her, but she doesn't talk about her trauma. She doesn't
talk about her childhood and so even though I knew the broader timeline of the events in her life...
I didn't understand (really) what made her tick as an individual. She never shared with me the
things that she saw, rightfully so and completely understandably so. On my trip, the mushrooms took
me to a place where I could immediately see and I'm gonna tell you the image of what I saw.
I saw my mom as a child in the jungles of Cambodia and I saw my aunt as a child. They were together
and my mom had her arm around her younger sister, my aunt, and they were both terrified. I saw that,
in this image, my aunt was crying and my mom was not. And in a split second, I understood...
like it just all made sense and I felt a flood of emotions. My mom had to grow up sooner than
any child should be made to grow up and she had to develop a way of surviving. She had to be strong
for herself. She had to be strong for her siblings and that is why she is the way that she is. And
it clicked! Seeing this image... it struck me as true. I have no doubt that that was the truth. I
haven't verified it with my mom; I haven't spoken to her about this image that I saw on my trip but
I know it to be true and I certainly knew it in that moment. When it clicked for me, with my eyes
still closed, still journeying (of course)... I burst into tears. I just felt a flood of emotions.
And, truly, in that moment, I felt like that was the missing link. That was what I needed
in order to heal my mother wound. So right now I'm cognizant of my environment again. Again, I
could feel my toes on the ground. I could feel the anchoring of my breathing going in and out and I'm
cognizant of my ceremonial setting. I'm asking the mushrooms to show me more and I'm feeling quite
good at this point. The next thing that I know, I'm completely immersed in this realm that I've
never seen before. You know when you search on Google: "psychedelics"? If you look that
up on on Google Images, you'll see a bunch of colorful fractals and symmetrical patterns and
asymmetrical patterns. That kind of look was the way that this universe that I now found myself in
was painted. And it clicked. I was like, "I get it now. I understand where that art comes from."
This realm where I stood was so magnificent, so colorful, so dynamic, it was so
beautiful. I'd never seen anything like it before and I found myself trying to desperately
capture certain aspects of it. Like I found myself trying to stare intently at a single aspect of it,
as if to try to store it away in my memory. And every time I did that, I found that the aspect
would have already morphed into something else. As if this realm that I was in had a mind of its own
and it could always stay at least two steps ahead of me. So once I realized that I couldn't try
to grasp at everything desperately, I was like, "Okay. I'll just experience this. I'll let go."
And that's what I did. I let go and I allowed myself to be with it. At this point,
how do I say this... What I saw was so beautiful that it completely captured my attention. I'm not
even trying to pay attention to the fact that my toes are on the ground. In fact, at this point,
I couldn't even feel my toes on the ground. I'm still vaguely aware of my breathing but I could
feel it kind of slowing... I wasn't really trying to clutch onto my breath because I knew that,
at the very least, I was still breathing. Okay, there's something else about this part of the
journey. I had absolutely no sense of time. I couldn't tell you if I was there for five seconds
or if i was there for five minutes or fifty —I don't know. There was complete time dilation and
nothing really interesting happens here other than the fact that I was so small standing up in the
presence of this infinite beauty and wisdom. What happens next is that I stop breathing.
Or at least I think I stopped breathing. And the world around me (last I checked was colorful,
it was dynamic, was beautiful, magnificent) —it turns white. And I feel like I'm floating on a
cloud now. So what's really interesting about this point of my trip is I truly, at this point,
had no recollection of anything that had gotten me to that point. I had no sense of context
whatsoever. I'd completely forgotten that I was tripping. I'd completely forgotten about
the fact that I was participating in a ceremony. I didn't even know who I was at that point. I had no
recollection. It was absolutely blank. I didn't know why I was where I was at, at this point in
my journey. But I did have an inkling that I was perhaps dying because I could sense that my breath
was gone and so I found myself at a crossroads. It was really strange and I hope you guys will
understand. I don't know who I am at this point. I don't know how I got there but I knew that I
was on my way out. And I could sense myself being at a crossroads. Do I fight for my breath at this
point or do I just let go and see where this journey takes me? At that moment, I remembered
a quote that I had read somewhere. I think it was a quote by Terence Mckenna —that mushrooms
can't kill you but they can make you think that they can kill you. And I remembered that. I was
like, "Oh okay. If it's true that I am journeying, then I will... I'll just see where this takes
me." So I chose not to struggle at that point. That was the only time that I sensed any sort
of anxiety on my journey. I ultimately chose not to fight for my breath and I chose to just
be carried away. Now, at this point, I actually believe that I'm dying and it felt very oddly
peaceful. I felt so enveloped in a sense of peace and I remember thinking, "If this is
where it ends, I would be okay with that because i don't feel like i have any loose ends to tie
i just feel okay with that." Again, I have no recollection of how I got there, but I just felt
oddly okay with going where this place was taking me. Anyway, so I'm being carried away and floating
away on clouds... and there are voices bellowing into the atmosphere and these voices were saying,
"Rest in peace. Rest in peace. Rest in peace." And so I'm convinced that I'm dying, like: "Okay, take
me away." The next thing I know, I'm in a crib and I'm a baby. I can't really look up and see
like who is up there. I have the vision of a baby, I suppose, at this point. But I can hear voices.
I hear the voice of a woman, I hear the voice of a man. There might have been other people
too. I get the impression that they are peering over the crib and they are talking about me.
And at one point, I hear the female voice saying, "Look at her. She's the light. She's the light in
our lives." And I remember feeling so good. I know this sounds very strange, but yes, I went
from feeling like I was dying to feeling like I was being reborn into the world as a baby. So
then after that the ceremony came to an end and the ceremonial music stopped playing and I could
hear everybody else get up and break, go to the restroom, break for snacks... At the same time,
I'm still under the effect of the mushrooms, so it was very strange. I'm in a waking dream
at this point. I'm still not exactly sure what happened. When the ceremony ended,
it didn't even click. One of the healers came to me and sat down next to me and I was like. "What's
going on?" And he said, "Oh, you're just grounding back into 3D reality now." And then I was like,
"Oh, okay." This phase of the journey was terribly awkward for me only because —okay, I will admit.
This is the only part that was in which being in a group setting kind of impacted the quality
of my journey. It was only at the tail end but I didn't realize that I was particularly sensitive
to this medicine. Everybody else had grounded their journey except for me. The show must go on
and I understand that and I respect that. So I'm still sitting on my yoga mat and another healer
comes to me. She brings me food. Her name is Lana and she says to me, "Eat this and it'll help you.
It'll help ground you." And so I did. I'm coming in and ouch of consciousness
and at one point, I look at my hands. I remember seeing my hands morph from bulgy to aged,
like 50 years aged. And I remember thinking, "Cool!" And all around me I saw, still,
there was like the sense of synesthesia. It was truly like I was in a dream
but yet I was awake. I was in a waking dream. The group gathered together for integration
and I will tell you more about that in my next video. There's one more thing that I want to
share in this video before we wrap up. Towards the end, Lana (one of the healers) came to me again
and this time I was on my way out. I had packed everything, I had ordered my Uber, and she wanted
to just make sure that I was okay. Lana wanted to make sure I was okay and she came to me and we
were chatting and I don't quite remember what we were talking about. But I remember that we hugged,
she asked if she could hug me and we did. I remember bursting out into tears and she said,
"Did you know I was coming?" This person had been checking in on me the entire time while I
was journeying. There were times when I could feel her hands on me, just to make sure I was okay. And
she'd been making sure that I was okay —she was my guardian angel. In that moment, I just don't know
how else to describe this to you. I will just say: in that moment, when she hugged me, I recognized
that angels were real. This is what I thought at the time: angels are real but they are angels who
walk among us. I've often wondered why I continued to journey after everybody else had already ended
their journey. I wondered why I was still on the under the effects of the mushrooms while everybody
else really had already grounded their journey. I feel like maybe there was something else that I
needed to see before it was over and it was that last bit. Seeing the goodness in other people,
which... if you've ever known what it's like to have the kind of trauma that I've experienced,
it makes it very difficult to trust other people. That's one of the issues that I've
struggled with is being able to trust other people and I truly believe that. The last
lesson that I needed to learn on my trip was to recognize the goodness coming from other people.
That I could be safe in their hands and that's exactly what I saw. It's what I saw from that
my encounter with one of the healers who I'm just so... I'm so grateful for her.
I'm grateful for everyone who invited me on to have this experience. I know
this is still very fresh in my mind. This only happened to me last weekend.
I think i'm going to end my video here now. I feel very good about how I filmed this and I
think I'm going to just share this video with you as is. And it's in your hands now. This was my
experience on a heroic dose of psilocybin mushrooms and in my next video,
we'll talk more about the ceremony and all that good stuff. I will see you next time.