I heard an analogy recently that really resonated with me. The speaker likened the experience of psychedelics to the paths that form along snow-covered sledding hills.
After a few sleds travel down the hill, pathways begin to form in the snow. The more sleds that slide down that hill, the deeper the grooves become. Eventually, the only way to travel down that hill will be through those grooves. They grow deeper and more solidified with each person that careens down. But psychedelics are to life what a fresh sheet of snow is to the grooves that sledders traverse.
In life, it can be easy to fall into routines. The older we grow, the better we become at blocking out all of the stimuli around us in interest of what we subconsciously deem necessary. In blocking out the unnecessary, though, we can deprive ourselves of the awe-inspiring beauty that exist all around us. We stop looking at the caterpillars on the ground and the remarkable buildings in the cities and the birds in the sky and focus instead on whether we’ll be clocking in to work on time.
The paths we walk and the routines we follow are decided by habit. Curiosity stops dictating the avenues in life that we walk along. The world around us loses its magic. We stop seeing the flowers and the trees and the creatures that leap between their branches for what they are.
But on psychedelics, our brains light up. Literally.
Other studies, too, have found that on psilocybin our brain chemistry can vary dramatically in the throes of these experiences. Certain parts of our mind lose their connection to one another, at the same time that new connections are made. It’s in that way that psychedelics can grant powerful new perspective on our lives and the issues we’re facing.
The first time I took psychedelics offered me a profound glimpse into a world that I’d begun compartmentalizing into boring little boxes. To begin these explorations at the dawn of my adult life was to challenge conceptions of how things are, and how they ought to be, at perhaps the most pivotal moment possible. Before I even graduated high school, I’d been hardened into an insufferable little cynic. But psychedelics challenged that.
I could find issue in nearly everything if I looked hard enough and I never gave myself time to just stop and appreciate the beauty of a passing cloud. I was a militant atheist and my perspective of life and the universe felt beyond reproach. What was was, and I thought I’d grown used to it. The world I’d march off into upon my graduation was one of crushing economic disparity and political turmoil and religous lunacy and crushing climate fallout. What beauties lay beyond it all I was skeptical of. I was a selfish person.
I was too mired in the problems of the world to do my part in addressing them. Empathy didn’t always come easily to me. But my early experiences with psychedelics offered my first glimpse into the world that lay outside of my perspective. They brought with them rushes of awareness, feelings of connection, nights of love and laughter, and reasons to be kind and creative.
Of all the side-effects laced substances we put into our bodies, psychedelics offer experiences that are difficult to get used to. Where alcohol, marijuana and a hefty majority of pharmaceuticals can breed dependence, it’s typical for psychedelic experiences to leave users satisfied enough to refrain from using the substances again for months, years, or the rest of their lives.
The renaissance of psychedelic interest that has begun taking hold within just the last few years has brought with it a slew of studies in which users have reported that their trips provided for them among the most valuable experiences of their entire life. Some users were able to permanently overcome longterm major depressive disorders. Others prevailed over their fear of death. The growing list of testimonies like these can appear like telling proof of the value these compounds can offer.
But even with the ample research being done, the stigma that exists around these drugs is difficult to overcome. For many, acid (or LSD) and mushrooms are loaded words that people associate with cartoonish odysseys and fruitless attempts at flight. For those whose image of hallucinogens has been tainted by the drug war that overtook society following the 1960s, seeing isn’t always believing. Research simply isn’t enough to convince everyone.
Even as more and more studies begin to suggest that psychedelics offer a greater therapeutic value than most of the tools within a psychiatrist’s arsenal, they remain difficult for the world at large to accept. That hallucination-inducing substances could carry with them such colossal benefits seems outrageous to many. Their ability to provide even more practical value than Lexapro or Prozac might still be a controversial sentiment within many medical circles. But there’s truth in the notion that these experiences can carry with them the equivalent of years of talk therapy condensed into single afternoons.
They certainly have for me. When I consider the years spent on standard pharmaceuticals in a futile attempt to feel better, it saddens me to my core how little faith people have in the alternative routes. Of course, it’s not everyone who stands to benefit from psychedelics, but the counter-assumption that the majority of people’s depression can be treated through pharmaceuticals is flawed at best.
My years spent on anti-depressants didn’t take me an inch closer toward confronting the issues underlying my depression. At best, they numbed me enough that I didn’t think about them very much. At worst, they numbed me so thoroughly that my entire personality lay dormant beneath stilted, disconnected eyes. They made me lose sight of my creative spirit completely.
If single days spent on acid and psilocybin were enough for me to challenge my perceptions of the world and the entire direction of my life’s course, it could certainly provide the same for others. During the height of the pandemic, when lockdowns, paranoia and hostilities were at their worst, psychedelics provided for me context and room to breathe. They gave me reason to remain thankful.
When everyone around me seemed to be spiraling, I reveled in what it was to take a walk through the forest with a thousand songs on my wrist and a pair of bluetooth headphones to stream them into.
I found myself in utter amazement of life’s most basic beauties. The novelty of Facetime and social media and content streaming and sprawling virtual worlds of overpowered video game consoles were enough to leave me elated during those early lockdown days. That even the first pandemic in a century couldn’t prevent me from enjoying another blissful Pennsylvania summer was a blessing I can’t easily overstate.
Each day was an excuse to take my dog to beautiful places and chase stones in shallow streams. What was considered the worst year in waking memory for many turned into a beautiful reprieve and a happy excuse again to be in awe of flowers and caterpillars and trees.