Smells Like Humans
Top 5% global podcast! Smells Like Humans is a seasonal podcast dedicated to bringing a humorous perspective to quirky and curious aspects of human behavior. Each show, the SLH crew will focus on a different topic, and share personal stories and observations in a way that sounds like you’re hanging out with your funny friends. The stories and commentary are presented with humor and warmth, since let’s face it: we all smell like humans. (Contact us: contactSLH19581980@gmail.com)
Smells Like Humans
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Cool person Emily joins Ross to discuss tripping with mushrooms. Tangents include: "The Hip Hypnotist"; chasing raccoons; licking Pomeranians; Nicole Kidman; animal consent; Reefer Madness; jumping out of windows; barf box; hallucinogenic retreats; Equal packets; party punch.
Notes:
- https://www.businessinsider.com/scientists-and-geniuses-who-used-drugs-2013-8
- https://psychedelicspotlight.com/celebrities-who-used-psychedelics/
- https://www.businessinsider.com/drugs-humans-used-high-history-2016-10
- https://www.nytimes.com/2021/11/25/travel/psychedelic-retreat-ayahuasca.html
- https://www.nytimes.com/2022/01/05/well/psychedelic-drugs-mental-health-therapy.html
Contact us: contactSLH19581980@gmail.com
And my mom would find little like blue paper packets emptied in corners of the house.
SPEAKER_03We're all jacked up on equal. Not even real sugar. No, it you were what is the what is the uh Aspartame? Yeah, aspartame. I'm on Aspartame and she jumped right out of the window. Welcome to another episode of Smells Like Humans. This is the podcast where we explore the curious things that people do, the very human things that grab our attention and cause us to wonder, what and why? I'm Ross, your host, and today, my guest is a very funny, smart, and otherwise charming human, Emily. Hello, Emily.
SPEAKER_01Hi, that's quite an expectation there, man.
SPEAKER_03It's great to have you and welcome everyone, friends. You can help us grow our little community, and the very best way to do that is to share the show with anyone you can, any way you can. At the end, I'll mention some other ways that you can help us, but right now I want to get to our discussion.
SPEAKER_02Yeah.
SPEAKER_03So we know humans have been using hallucinogenic drugs for a long time. As it turns out, thousands and thousands of years, probably even before recorded time.
SPEAKER_02What?
SPEAKER_03Yeah, like thousands and thousands of years with people have been getting high. And people didn't used to get all upset about the use of these substances until the 60s, when guess what happened?
SPEAKER_01Uh the love movement, peace.
SPEAKER_03The damn dirty hippies. Yeah. The damn dirty. Yes. And they freaked out the man so much that they made these types of drugs illegal. Nixon actually was president, and he was convinced that the damn dirty hippies and their anti-war movement was hurting his chances. Yeah. And hurting his image. So he said, What are these damn dirty hippies like to do? They like to have unbridled sex and they like taking drugs. So let's clamp down on as much of this as we can. By the way, those same damn dirty hippies are the same. Now they're the old people that everybody loves to hate.
SPEAKER_01Yeah, they're the boomers.
SPEAKER_03They're getting theirs right now. Um but because these drugs were declared illegal, um, there was a lot of messaging telling people like me that these drugs will fry your brain. They definitely cause brain damage. And it was the same messaging that they put out there with marijuana back in the 30s when they made a movie called Reefer Madness. Have you ever seen this movie?
SPEAKER_01No, I don't think I have ever even heard the word reefer.
SPEAKER_03A woman jumps out of a window because she's high on pot.
SPEAKER_01I don't think I could even get off the couch if I'm high on pot.
SPEAKER_03No, they they could they totally mischaracterized the effects of marijuana, but it didn't matter because they were trying to scare people. But if you can watch this movie, it's worth watching. I think you can even see it on YouTube or you can see clips. But everybody in the movie is it's almost like they're uh like meth heads or something, they're completely off their nut. Yeah. Nothing like pot smokers. And I don't know if I mentioned this previously. But a lady jumps out of a window for no reason. Just because she just goes right out the window.
SPEAKER_01She's looking for snacks.
SPEAKER_03She has got the munchies hard. So right when Nixon blew his nut on this stuff, um, the government actually was involved, the federal government was involved in sponsoring groundbreaking research on drugs like LSD and other hallucinogens because they started to think maybe these drugs could actually have a beneficial use for all kinds of things. And but all of that was stopped. And now, only now there are clinical trials going on, which I think you can actually sign up for, but they have a long waiting list.
SPEAKER_01For psilocybin, yeah.
SPEAKER_03Yes. By the way, psilocybin. Psilocybin. So another uh a long time ago, there was a comedian named Jerry Lewis.
SPEAKER_02Yeah, yeah.
SPEAKER_03And psilocybin reminds me of something he would make up. Like, do you have the psilocybin? I look at that word and I go, that sounds like Jerry Lewis. All this research comes to a stop. The the the hallucinogenic drugs are banned, they're made illegal, people are given all kinds of negative messaging. But what we find out now is that, at least anecdotally, these kinds of drugs seem to help people with serious anxiety issues, depression, cigarette addiction, and alcoholism, among other things. So it's really cool. Now, these anecdotal studies are really small, so we can't, or they can't really draw firm conclusions, but there's been some encouraging results. More information's coming out all the time. Um but I just need to be clear to our listeners who hang on every word that we say. Um, that everyone knows that we're not famous. We're not and we don't know anything.
SPEAKER_01We're not medical professionals, y'all.
SPEAKER_03That's that's on the sweatshirt that we're gonna sell someday. Is we're not we're not famous and we don't know anything. But there are potential risks, uh although they're reportedly rare, but there are some serious potential risks. And that just means as you listen to this and if you're stimulated to think about using these kinds of drugs, or you do, uh, be a cautious consumer. Yeah, absolutely uh proceed with care, be responsible, do your homework. Okay. That being said, liability check. We know that, yeah, because we are deep pockets. Yeah. You want to sue us. We know that people are getting heavy into tripping, especially during the pandemic, when people have been pushed to the brink.
SPEAKER_01Yes.
SPEAKER_03Have you been pushed to the brink during the pandemic?
SPEAKER_01No, actually, I'm one of the few people that got my life got a little bit calmer and and a little bit better from from COVID. So, but I won't rub people's noses in it.
SPEAKER_03Well, no, but I think that's happened to people. Yeah. I mean, I've talked to a lot of people who feel like, you know, it's given them a chance to reset.
SPEAKER_01Absolutely. My life is so much more simple. I enjoy being home. My husband and I are doing so much better than we've ever in the past.
SPEAKER_03Yeah. Yeah. That's great. Yeah. Did you quit your job?
SPEAKER_01Um, I actually, right at Mar in March, I transitioned from retail into HR, and it was the best move of my life. Oh, yeah. Um, it allowed me to work from home. Um, getting out of retail during a pandemic was a gift from the gods above because it just I saw all of my friends that were managing um different retail stores just dropping like flies because they couldn't handle it anymore.
SPEAKER_03Right. Well, retail is under the best of circumstances a tough battlefront.
SPEAKER_01Yeah.
SPEAKER_03And during the pandemic, anyone who's got a customer-facing job has had to deal with an incredible amount of stress related to their maintenance of their own health, to dealing with people who have forgotten what it's like to be a human being.
SPEAKER_01Yeah. I don't think I would have been able to have the capacity to explore what I did emotionally to get to the place where I was comfortable doing uh mushrooms while working retail, just because of the constant 24-7 responsibility.
SPEAKER_03Right. So perfect segue. It's almost as if it were scripted.
SPEAKER_02Weird.
SPEAKER_03You know, you and I were hanging out one day at a friend's house, and you shared that you will occasionally do some tripping, and it piqued my interest because I'm interested in doing some experimentation. And I figured I'm probably not the only one, especially during these times. So maybe you could just give us a little background on your experience.
SPEAKER_01I'm definitely green when it comes to this stuff. Um, I usually say things like the marijuana still. Um I I enjoy um alcohol, um, I enjoy um a beer and maybe a cocktail. But as far as marijuana was concerned, I had a hard time um um getting comfortable with that. And actually, for a lot of times I had jobs that wouldn't allow me to even smoke it because of drug testing. Yeah. Um so I just stayed away from it completely. Right. Um, but as far as um anything harder than uh marijuana or um um alcohol, I didn't even think about until I started understanding the the anecdotal studies that you were talking about where it could help regrow pathways in your brain that have been damaged from trauma, depression, anxiety. And I had just gotten through a good three to four year stint of some heavy therapy. Some I was going to Codependence Anonymous and um working on stuff with my husband and working on some really heavy stuff that I was just coming to terms with personally, and um understanding I'm like, wow, there's so much healing I need to do. And I was talking to my housemate who was wanting to try shrooms for his depression. Right. And so him and I started having a conversation around maybe growing our own stuff, and then I found out I had a friend who um had a source for um shrooms, and so I was like, wow, my very first drug deal. Like, hey guys, I'm feeling so edgy. Yeah. Um, but we we my husband and I talked about it quite a bit, and I hate to use the term do your research, and I'm using air quotes right now, you can't see it, um, because research, like for some people, is just googling it and checking or clicking on the first article you see on the list. But we watched a lot of videos. I talked to a lot of people who had shroomed before. And in that case, I think anecdotal anecdotal um uh stories is how I got my best plan to create um a good environment for me to experience shrooms for the first time.
SPEAKER_03Right. I I was watching a mini documentary on this topic, and they suggested that you if you think of your um your brain and your mental experience as a ski slope, and uh over time you will wear like uh a tracks into um that slope. And those are your sort of in-grained habits and your way of orienting toward the world and your typical reactions to various kinds of stimulation. So you kind of just get into your old familiar habits.
SPEAKER_01That's why depression, it you when people are depressed or anxious, they are constantly just re-traveling this one neuropathway in their brain, so it gets so worn in, it's hard to pull yourself out of it. And psilocybin is supposed to help re-grow neuropathways that help you circumvent that. Right.
SPEAKER_03And that was that was very intriguing to me. That you know, it I used to go when I was a kid to a mall that had an ice skating rink. And one of the best parts about it is when they bring out the Zamboni machine and they would resurface the ice that was completely smooth. So I have that impression that you can it's almost like a do-over for your brain, and it gives you a chance to stop going on that same path over and over again. And and I've heard again, anecdotally, people say, you know, they suffered from depression or uh alcoholism or cigarette smoking.
SPEAKER_01Stuttering.
SPEAKER_03Stuttering. That's that's one I haven't heard. Yeah. That's a good one.
SPEAKER_01I watched a documentary, and the person who was basically talking through the entire thing said he had a significant stutter that he had until a early adulthood. Right. And uh his first trip, he took entirely too much for what you really need to succeed on a trip. Um and he told himself mid-trip, he's like, I don't want to stutter anymore. Woke up the next day, wound up the first person he talked to. He was able to finish a complete sentence, no stuttering, and he hadn't stuttered since. And he had stuttered up until I think he was like 20 something when he like 22 or so.
SPEAKER_03Yeah.
SPEAKER_01It's amazing.
SPEAKER_03And it and we'll get into this a little bit more, but it it there is a there is some speculation that some of this is a placebo. You go in with an intention and you come out with the result that you wanted. And is it really the experience that you have or is it something else? But in in in this case, as long as you're doing it safely, who cares?
SPEAKER_01Yeah. What do you call a placebo is I think almost as powerful as medication sometimes because the mind is crazy untapped with its potential.
SPEAKER_03I love a good placebo. Yeah.
SPEAKER_01Give me all the sugar pills.
SPEAKER_03I want placebo effects in my life.
SPEAKER_01It's not I don't feel fooled. I think that it just kind of allows your brain to go, okay, I'm going to step in now and not rely on medication to fix.
SPEAKER_03Okay, so before you started the first time with mushrooms, did you have any like concerns? Were you worried?
SPEAKER_01I was afraid that I was gonna claw my face off, I was gonna like jump out a window. I was jump out of window. I was gonna like text people inappropriate things, I was gonna post things that were gonna make me lose my job. I was I was just so concerned about like me having such a severe reaction. Um, so I was like, well, what we're gonna do is I'm going to figure out dosage.
SPEAKER_03Okay.
SPEAKER_01That was the first thing to figure out. Um, so um, we watched videos on how much people normally take if it's their first time. What does microdosing look like? Because some people actually take um little tiny pills of psilocybin every day for a medicinal, like actual, like um, almost in lieu of an antidepressant. And I'm like, well, I'm not there, um, but I would like to feel something because if I'm going to do this, I might as well have a little fun.
SPEAKER_03Yeah.
SPEAKER_01So I weighed myself, I weighed how much shrooms, and I found out what a good starting point was. I had a babysitter. So Yeah, like a guide, right?
SPEAKER_03Yeah.
SPEAKER_01Well, um Or just someone to watch. Just someone to watch. Because it was me, my husband, and our housemate, and none of us had ever done shrooms. So we wanted one person who was sober that could call 911 or drive us somewhere or make sure we didn't like do something harmful to ourselves just in case. Right. Um, and uh guides, I think, would be something that I would might like to move up to, um, where maybe I go to a retreat and we have someone that walks me through meditation, but I've never had the opportunity to experience that.
SPEAKER_03Um you had a you had a a babysitter, someone to watch you. And how did you select that person?
SPEAKER_01Um Well, it was my husband because both myself and our my housemate um were the ones that wanted to try it. Okay. So he's like, oh, you guys do it the first time and I'll watch it. Okay.
SPEAKER_03So someone you really trusted. Absolutely. Uh if you can trust your partner, that's a good person. Because that's one of the things I'm worried about is I'm I'm worried because I haven't tried it before, and I'm worried that um the person, whoever's there to babysit, will uh leap. Oh no. Or or you know, will be become distracted or get caught up in a you know, uh video game or something. And uh in the meantime, yeah, out the window I've gone. Yeah, yeah. And then they're like, hey, Ross, where are you, man?
SPEAKER_01Well, the funny thing is with when I'm on shrooms versus things like alcohol, um, I feel like I'm still pretty present. I I'm really aware of myself. Um I am uh able to have conversations, and if I needed to kind of snap out of it to focus on a task, I can.
SPEAKER_03Where is it like um so I've done like hypnosis and hypnotherapy? Have you ever been hypnotized?
SPEAKER_01No, not not that I know of.
SPEAKER_03So maybe I'm just waiting for the music.
SPEAKER_01No.
SPEAKER_02There's no music.
SPEAKER_01I was waiting for it.
SPEAKER_03Um yeah, because when you're hypnotized, uh you are totally present, but you are in an altered state. Yeah. But if the place caught on fire, you would leave it. Be able to leave, yeah. Easily be able to leave and get out. Uh I never believed in hypno. I was I'm pretty much a skeptic in the in a posit the positive sense of that word, which is mean I'm uh you know, I'm an empiricist by nature, it's always about show me. Um but if you show me, then I'm interested if you show me evidence. So but uh but uh when I was younger, I didn't believe in hypnosis, I thought it was a stage trick. Interesting. And I went to a show in LA, and the um there was a performer who was a hip hypnotist, and her name was Pat Collins. Okay, and she was billed as Pat Collins, the hip hypnotist. Oh Lord. So you Yeah, so you would go to the club, yeah, it's all snapping fingers, all beatnics and bongos. Yeah, so so we would go, we went to the show, it was like in a nightclub, a very, very old-timey nightclub atmosphere. And she was like an older woman in a like a cafton, I think they're called, just long flowing, it was more robes, or I don't know what she was wearing, like a priestess of some kind. And she was, you know, corny and sitting up there talking on the mic, and she said, I know a lot of you don't believe in hypnosis, I'm gonna hypnotize everybody in the audience right now. Ooh, zero consent. So, so well, she said, you know, you don't have to. Oh, okay, okay. But but if you if you want to, just stare into the little candle on your table. It was dimly lit in there. So I I'm totally skeptical, but I so I stare into the candle and she starts talking. And she said about two sentences I can feel myself slipping under.
SPEAKER_02Interesting.
SPEAKER_03So I shake myself out of it and stopped focusing. And so I didn't get hypnotized. But then that was my first time where I thought, well, maybe there's something to this hypnotist stuff. And um, so anyway, so now I actually do hypnotherapy. Interesting, which I'll talk about in a little bit. But uh going back to uh your situation, so you were saying that you feel very present. Yeah. So you don't feel like you're not there.
SPEAKER_01No, I'm just I'm so aware of everything around me. Um and it takes like about 45 minutes for the onset. I've learned my lesson. Uh I need to do it with an empty stomach. I made the mistake of um eating breakfast quiche and then drinking a tea uh with the mushrooms in it.
SPEAKER_02Right.
SPEAKER_01And then getting super nauseous. And the unfortunate thing about being nauseous while you're on shrooms is you're trying to like look at something to help ground you, and everything you look at is moving no matter what. Like I looked at the floor and then the grain and the wood flooring was kind of swirling around. It was gorgeous, but also like, oh no.
SPEAKER_03Yes.
SPEAKER_01And then at one point I looked at a sketch that I had had of my dog. Um, cute little dog. I have a Pomeranian, and I'm looking at my dog's eyes in the sketch, and her eyes just got wide, and I'm like, that's not helping. And so I wind up, I'm like, you know what? I'm just gonna go get rid of breakfast real quick in the restroom and uh move on with my trip. Um, by the way, it was gorgeous coming out too, which is very funny. Um that's the nice thing, is also uh they tell you, oh no, what if you have a bad trip? Yes. You're in absolute control. If you have a bad trip, it's because you're letting yourself have a bad trip. So, I mean, yes, some people are probably significantly depressed that are on it, and they might have more triggers and harder things to work through. But um, I definitely had sad points of my trips because I was processing sad things that were happening in my life. Right. But also I thought to myself, I'm like, hey, I'm going to be okay now. And then guess what? I was.
SPEAKER_03That's cool. Well, I've this is what I've read that what real the there are some important factors in increasing your chances of having a positive experience. One is having a clear intention up front.
SPEAKER_01Yep, absolutely.
SPEAKER_03Another one is the setting you choose.
SPEAKER_01Yes, that is so important.
SPEAKER_03And part three that I've heard about is who you're with matters.
SPEAKER_01Yes, safe people for sure.
SPEAKER_03So, so where what was your setting? Did you just do it at home?
SPEAKER_01Yeah. It blows my mind. I have had a couple friends say that they do shrooms at parties, and I'm like, that sounds like chaos. Yeah. Like also for me, whenever I've done shrooms, only thing I want to do is lay on the couch with blankets and my dogs on top of me and just stare at the ceiling.
SPEAKER_03Do you wear headphones or the blockouts? No.
SPEAKER_01Well, we have a playlist that my uh husband created that's just fun and just good, like vibey music.
SPEAKER_03What's on the playlist?
SPEAKER_01Um, it's it's on Spotify, but basically it's just kind of like trance, kind of like has a little bit of a beat to it, not a lot of vocals. Um, but we'll have uh the lights down low. I'll usually have like a uh candle going or some kind of like incense, and um that's the living room. Then we do actually different rooms. So like our basement, my husband turned it into a karaoke lounge, um, has kind of like a disco light in there, so you can go in there and lay on the ground and just kind of look at pretty lights.
SPEAKER_02Wow.
SPEAKER_01Um, and then also we have the outdoor option of going into backyard, if depending on the weather, um and enjoying like the sunshine and the greenery. I I would recommend if you're on shrooms, finding yourself outside and looking at nature is amazing.
SPEAKER_03And part of it's not use the door, don't jump out the window.
SPEAKER_01Yeah, don't jump out the window. Um, but they actually talk about how um my the mycelium in mushrooms is so interconnected with interconnecting everything in nature. And so when you're on shrooms, you feel more connected to nature.
SPEAKER_02Okay.
SPEAKER_01Um so I literally was staring at lichen that was hanging off of one of the trees in my backyard. For God knows how long.
SPEAKER_03Yeah. So how long does when you've used mushrooms, how long do you feel like you're under the influence?
SPEAKER_01Um set. So like say if I start tripping around noon, um, I want to say I'm back to normal completely by 5 p.m.
SPEAKER_02Okay.
SPEAKER_01Um and the nice thing is it's not like day drinking where you're like you're sleepy and you want to go to bed or you're like have a hangover. As soon as the trip's over, you're fine.
SPEAKER_03Now, do you feel like your serotonin or whatever it is is depleted for a few days afterward? Like you're washed out and you're kind of flat?
SPEAKER_01No, I'm feeling actually I the residuals from being on a trip is I still feel very connected to um people who were on the trip with me. So if I was Sean and I were tripping together on New Year's Day, um him and I like I felt really connected to him. I felt really connected to my animals. I just felt very at peace. And that peace kind of like carries on for a couple days.
SPEAKER_03Did you have you had in your experiences, have you had like a sort of a sort of um revelation of any kind about things?
SPEAKER_01Absolutely. Um it's funny because I brought my journal with me and one of the pages I wrote in when I was tripping, and I wrote still tripping on top, at the very top with the next the date, because my handwriting was garbage and I wanted to verify know why it was so bad. Yeah um and I wrote something about how when I, my husband and I, one of the things we're having a hard time with was just like honesty and communication. And I was telling him something that I became aware of is like whenever I I was dishonest with you, it wasn't because I was being malicious. It was because I was protecting myself. And it was just like things like that, learning things about myself and how I was communicating. Those are the things I learned through my time, my twiet time in in on psilocybin. Right. Also, uh another thing is control. I'm a very controlling person by nature. Um, it's something I inherited from my dirty hippie parents. Um, but my husband, when he's on shrooms, he's complete opposite to me. I'm very mellow. He's like a six-year-old. He wants to play with everything. He runs outside. And we one day we decided to uh take shrooms while it was snowing.
SPEAKER_02Okay.
SPEAKER_01And I saw a raccoon run across our front yard.
SPEAKER_02Wow.
SPEAKER_01He was in the backyard and they came inside and I said, Hey, there was a raccoon out there, and he's like, I'm gonna get it. He is wearing long johns, a t-shirt, a thin hoodie, and slippers, and it's snowing outside. And Emily would have been, Emily, not shroomed Emily, would have been like, Oh no, Sean, get all these things on. You need this before you can go outside. Shrooming Emily was like, he's fine. He's adult, he can take care of himself. If he's cold, he'll come inside. Like, and that's um doesn't sound like a big deal, but like that kind of split-second decision to not control someone else's life is a really big deal for me. Um, just not managing every every decision that needs to be made.
SPEAKER_03Right. So um, so I want to ask a question about that. But first, was anybody thinking about the raccoon in this scenario? That's my concern.
SPEAKER_01This guy was like just flopping through my snow. You can see this like little, like just like mushed snow like pattern a little chonky.
SPEAKER_03I'm a big believer in animal consent. But anyway, so when you had this um experience where you were less controlling in the moment, um I'm assuming that was a positive feeling. Yeah. But did it have lasting consequences?
SPEAKER_01Absolutely. Um, I think I'm more mindful about um my inclination to step in and um try to take responsibility for other people when it's not. That's the whole codependency thing. Um one of the reasons why I decided to do shrooms is because I was really trying to recover from these bad patterns that I had established early in my life to now, where I literally will walk into a room and if someone has a problem, it's officially my responsibility to fix it.
SPEAKER_03Yeah.
SPEAKER_01It's exhausting.
SPEAKER_03You're a fixer.
SPEAKER_01No, thank you.
SPEAKER_03Yeah.
SPEAKER_01Um, and so now I'm aware of that pattern, and I think psilocybin has done a lot to help me easily release and walk away from um those behaviors.
SPEAKER_03That's really powerful.
SPEAKER_01Yeah, it's been great.
SPEAKER_03A lot of people struggle with that same thing, and we know that fixers their personality type, if you're a fixer, you tend to look for broken people.
SPEAKER_02Oh, yeah.
SPEAKER_03Because they're fun to they're like a project forever.
SPEAKER_02Yes.
SPEAKER_03But the relationship often is not good.
SPEAKER_02No.
SPEAKER_03Um, and so to the extent that you can step down from your fixer role or be less of a fixer, it you can um discover different kinds of relationships which tend to be a lot more fulfilling, right?
SPEAKER_01Yeah, or even just be able to turn that energy back on myself and fix me. Because guess who the problem guess whose problem was the one I needed to fix the most? It was racing. I mean, poor little raccoon.
SPEAKER_03I feel sorry for the raccoon. I have empathy. Getting harassed for my husband. Well, you know, I just imagine him out there with a big butterfly net chasing a raccoon. The raccoon's like, hey, come on.
SPEAKER_02You're not wrong.
SPEAKER_03So um so as a kid, were you a kid that was experimenting with things?
SPEAKER_01Um so funny that I came from a household, my both my parents were those dirty hippies you're talking about. But uh I through the years, parents um, you know, reform and I was raised in a very Christian household. Okay. Um I actually uh was pretty devout myself for years. Um I don't currently go to church. In in our household, it was funny, beer and wine were like the hardest thing we had in the house. Okay. And maybe brandy for like a holiday. So I even had a weird stigma around hard liquor growing up. Okay. Because we didn't have it in our house. So it just was for those people. And um, I didn't really get into hard liquor until one of my friends who was a worship pastor at the church I worked for. Oh, I used to work in ministry, by the way. I know.
SPEAKER_03Isn't that I'm like I'm glad you leaned in because I was ready to How dramatic is that? It was very dramatic, and I was ready to start praying.
SPEAKER_01Yeah. Um, don't worry, I'll put you in my prayers. Um, so, anyways, I my worship pastor friend he made a cocktail for me when my husband and I went to go visit him at his house, and I was like, Oh, you have hard liquor in your house and you're okay. Yeah. So I just I think I I'm now discovering that I had all these weird biases around um those kinds of external influences uh coming into your body. So the hardest thing I did was like equal when I was a child. I would because we didn't keep a lot of sugary snacks in the house, so I would sneak equal packets and I would like eat them, and my mom would find little like blue paper packets emptied in the corners of the house. Not even real sugar.
SPEAKER_03No, it's you were what is the what is the uh aspartame? Yeah, aspartame.
SPEAKER_00I'm on aspartame, and she jumped right out of the window.
SPEAKER_03So when when I was a kid, I so it was so interesting because uh my mother could not have so sh if if she was present today with children, she would be in jail because she so because what everything I'm about to tell you is gonna sound really irresponsible, and all I can tell you was it was a different time.
unknownYeah.
SPEAKER_03That's what that's what no seat belts. So her philosophy was she had a lot of kids and she had four boys, and she said, I know, you know, I'm not an idiot, I know you guys are gonna drink underage. And if since I know you're gonna do that, I want you to do it at home. I'd rather have you do it here. She was one of the cool moms. She oh, she was so cool. So she would let us drink. Uh, I don't know what age you had to be. I think you had to be at least 16, but you could drink at my house. Oh. And once my friends figure that out, because she let them drink too, because for her, that was a good idea. They're all here hanging out. And if they get a little tipsy, it's okay because they're here. So sh we so once my friends figured this out, first of all, hello.
SPEAKER_01You're a popular dude.
SPEAKER_03Oh, yeah, I was very popular. Um, and my mother was very popular. So we went from that to then I started um, because so many people wanted to come over, I started throwing these huge parties. And my mother, so we were allowed to have, she would buy us all the alcohol, but then she would also make an alcoholic punch. Oh my god, your mom's awesome. So she became famous for these punch parties. Um, so we this was uh this was the time of my life where I lived in Southern California, and so uh these parties would be huge, and um people would come over and they would uh drink as much as they wanted, and um they would also smoke pot or whatever. My parents would stay home, but they would stay in their bedroom, they wouldn't come out.
SPEAKER_01Okay.
SPEAKER_03So that was another thing. They were like, people would be like, What are your parents gone or something? I go, No, they're here. Like, where? They're in the like the next room, basically. I don't know what they would do, probably because it was loud, it was crazy, and there was always mayhem because people got off their, you know, their they just went a little wacky. Yeah, yeah. So there'd be people like outside, like fighting or chasing, you know, or breaking things, and inside it was mayhem. I had one friend, we had these big sliding glass windows, he was totally gone.
SPEAKER_01Did he jump out the window?
SPEAKER_03He tried to go through them. So it was this crash and then he's lying there, you know. There would be people who uh would get so uh wasted that they just fell asleep and they'd be there in the morning.
SPEAKER_00Oh my god.
SPEAKER_03Just people just passed out on the floor.
SPEAKER_00Yeah, yeah.
SPEAKER_03So as a result of all that, my go-to was always alcohol. And when the few times I experimented with pot, it was like a non-starter. I just didn't yeah, I felt something, but it wasn't that interesting. And it just never it never like was a cool thing. Flash forward, I'm in college, somebody makes pot brownies, which used to be a thing. I don't know if it still is.
SPEAKER_01Is this it's still a thing. I don't do edibles. Um I've tried like smoking weed, but I'm just not great at smoking. Edibles just is too long of a a high for me.
SPEAKER_03Yeah.
SPEAKER_01It hangs out too long.
SPEAKER_03Yeah, so so I didn't know anything about this. This is before there was like legit edibles, so that people are just making the stuff on their own. And I don't know how much was in there. So I try I'd already been drinking that night. I somebody said, You gotta try one of these browns. I was like, okay, whatever. So I try one and I wait five minutes and I don't feel anything. Well, that's not how it works.
SPEAKER_01No, and so you ate more. Yeah. See, that's what happens with edibles. People Plus they were brownies. My husband is a sweet tooth and a half, and so he's done the whole thing where he's eaten like four cookies, and because he's like, I feel fine. And then an hour later, he's like, Oh no.
SPEAKER_03Yeah. So I had already been drinking most of the night. I I shotgun a few brownies, and then suddenly the synergy happens. And there was about one minute of this incredible euphoric feeling where I'm like, whoa, this is insane. And then the rest of the night I was throwing up in a box.
SPEAKER_01Yep.
SPEAKER_03I was throwing up in a box. I need kid you not. Just a box. There was a box nearby in my room. In my vomit box. And that was the whole night. I just kept hitting the box. And if I could have jumped out the window, I would have. Um, and so that was like a very important experience for me because then I was like, I don't want to ever do anything except what I know, which is alcohol. Again, I just don't want to.
SPEAKER_01So I Crossfading's the worst, though, I hear. Like having alcohol and then smoking weed or consuming. Yeah, you're not supposed to do it. And for me, whenever I want to smoke weed is when I've been drinking. So that's why I never wind up smoking weed because it just I don't want to do both at the same time.
SPEAKER_03But so now here we are, and I've been reading and and been just talking to people about specifically the use of mushrooms and the responsible use of mushrooms, and this idea that it can open up uh new pathways.
SPEAKER_00Yeah.
SPEAKER_03One of the things that I've read that's excited me and I wanted to check out with you is that people who are on mushrooms during the experience, they tend to experience this sense of uh interconnectedness with everything.
SPEAKER_01Yeah, absolutely.
SPEAKER_03Does that sound familiar?
SPEAKER_01Yeah, and it's funny, um, sometimes I feel experience that when I'm not even the one shrooming, because I've in turn be been the babysitter for my housemate and my husband and let them experience, and then I'll be the sober one and the snack provider and the blanket runner and getter. Um just seeing them process everything helps me, I think, uh live through them in those moments. Okay. I had a one time my housemate wanted tea, and so I have a couple options and brought him into the kitchen. I'm like, hey, which one do you want? And he just sat there and he was so like it was v decision fatigue. He just couldn't decide. And I told him, I'm like, hey, dude, if you don't like this tea, guess what? We can make another tea for you. You don't have to keep on drinking the thing you don't like. And for him, that just kind of reverberated into all the areas of his life that he's been dealing with where he's like, if I don't like this thing in my life, I can choose another thing. I can not just stick with this one garbage thing that I don't like anymore.
SPEAKER_02Wow.
SPEAKER_01And so, like him and I having that tea moment, like he cried, he wanted a hug. Like it was beautiful. And actually, he kind of still talks about that moment. And I wasn't on shrooms at that point.
SPEAKER_03Yeah. Here's another thing I read that you your your awareness expands beyond the ego, like your ego dissolves.
SPEAKER_01Yeah, they call it ego death or something like that.
unknownYeah.
SPEAKER_01Yeah.
SPEAKER_03So what does that feel like?
SPEAKER_01Um, yeah, you're just not concerned necessarily about you, but more how you relate to everything else and how everything is super connected. Um I usually I call it permagrin.
SPEAKER_03When I'm when I'm tripping, what'd you just say?
SPEAKER_01Permagrin, where I'm just kind of smiling.
SPEAKER_03Permagrin.
SPEAKER_01I'm just smiling and everything is gorgeous and everything is beautiful, and there's there's light and there's energy and everything, and it sounds like I'm a dirty damn hippie right now. But when you actually try shrooms, you freaking get it. Like there's just something that switches, and you're like, oh, we are all connected. Yeah. Nature, humans, all of our choices, everything is energy. And it's really just an interesting perspective to have now because it feels very counter to my very Christian upbringing, where there's God and then there's creation, where when you're on shrooms, God is in creation.
SPEAKER_03For those of you that are like me who um haven't done this before, but unlike me have never really spent any time reading or learning about this topic, you will think uh that maybe that what Emily is saying is a one-off, this permigrine. And now with permagrin. Yeah. Um but um but actually what she just said is completely consistent with everything that you can read about this topic, about people who have had positive experience, exactly like that. Although the term permagrin is not one that I've heard.
SPEAKER_01I think I might have made that up. Patent pending.
SPEAKER_03But um, yes, and we do that on this show. We do we do pend a lot of patents. We talked about the sense of interconnectedness with others and the universe, and you expand beyond the ego, you sort of lose this self-consciousness. It's another thing people say is that they have these intense feelings of love.
SPEAKER_01Yeah, it's I would classify it more as empathy.
SPEAKER_03Okay.
SPEAKER_01Yeah, because like, yeah, sure, you can call it love, but I feel like love can mean so much to different people.
SPEAKER_02Yeah.
SPEAKER_01But my awareness of other people's life and even like with my animals, my husband, we have very small animals and they get very irritated if they get overhandled because tiny dogs, people just touch them all the time. And my husband was sitting next to one of our animals, and he's like, You don't like it when I touch you like like this, because I can tell because you're girring at me, and I see that now, and I'm so sorry. He's having this conversation with our four-pound Pomeranian.
SPEAKER_02Right.
SPEAKER_01But like, like as far as empathy is concerned, now not being on shrooms, I'm walking around every day. And that kind of pathway that was growing in my brain about empathy is still there.
SPEAKER_02Yeah.
SPEAKER_01The way I see people now is so much more um from their perspective than I have before.
SPEAKER_03Wow, that's really cool. And what's the Pomeranian on?
SPEAKER_01Um An attitude prompt.
SPEAKER_03I want to see a Pomeranian with a permigrine.
SPEAKER_01Yeah, she's just sassy.
SPEAKER_03Um it is uh it is possible to have an unpleasant trip, and we've talked about the importance of having good intention and having a good setting and to be with the right people.
SPEAKER_01Yeah, the right people's key, because sometimes they can play into the negative experience. Um one time we had a a f a friend with us that wasn't going to trip, um, but he just wanted to hang out with us because he had recently gone through a rough point in his life. So he was kind of in a kind of a sad head space. And because he was in a had sad head space, um, he was talking about some kind of bummer, I guess, type things prior to us tripping, which I think kind of messed with some of us a little bit. So it's important for everyone to be on the same page about the intent of the trip and making sure that you're able to maintain that positive um kind of vibe, I guess you could say. Yeah. Not sound too catch-free.
SPEAKER_03No, and and and if you're predisposed to mental health challenges, um the taking hallucinogens can uh that has been reported that can exacerbate those problems or um push you beyond what your comfort. And so that's why it's important to the extent that you can there are there are guides, um uh play people that you uh I think sometimes it's transactional, so you can pay them to be a guide and to prepare you and assess you.
SPEAKER_02Yeah.
SPEAKER_03Um and if you can't afford that, but you are gonna take a chance and do this, then you need to at least do a self-assessment or uh talk with someone you know about whether they think it's a good idea for you. Because if you are predisposed to have mental health issues, that's one of the risk factors for a bad trip. And the only other thing that I've read that you know is a negative, and and I should mention what I've read about those extreme mental health reactions, they're extremely rare so far. So it's not like it's probably really a thing for most people, but it's something to be concerned about. But the other one, only other one that I've read about is what you mentioned before, which is the barfing. If you you should not have a you know turkey dinner.
SPEAKER_01Yeah, we started really small scale. Um, so we started with um trying to eat the shrooms. Our first time, um, my housemate and I, we both ate w what the appropriate amount was for us.
SPEAKER_02Right.
SPEAKER_01And um, once we got done eating it, it was really hard, by the way, just plain old dried shrooms are just they don't taste good at all.
SPEAKER_03And I thought that was the only way you can take them.
SPEAKER_01No, so what we do now, which is a lot easier to consume, is we chop them up, mix them in with some tea, steep it for 15 minutes, and drink the tea. Yeah. Um, that seems to um kind of absorb into our body a little bit faster. I do get a little bit queasy still, um, but I will say part of that's just anxiety, and then also like part of the psilocybin, I think is toxic. That's part of why it kind of you have that effect. So your body's going to have some like uncomfortable reactions in the first 40 minutes, but just knowing that ahead of time, like, hey, I'm gonna feel uncomfy, maybe I'm gonna put some ginger in that tea, or maybe it's gonna be peppermint tea. Right. Um but then uh what's the best part is like after so I fast basically at the first part hour of the the trip, and then I buy crunchy snacks because I like the sound of it, the crunchiness and the flavor of the snack is so intense and delicious. Like I had we bought ruffled kettle chips, they were truffle flavored. Holy cow! Wow, I almost ate an entire bag by myself, and I wasn't even hungry. It was more of like just the fascination of the texture of the chip. Or if you have an electric toothbrush, that was fun too. I just realized, oh, I should brush my teeth after eating all these chips. Yeah. Because that's the idea that popped into my head at the time.
SPEAKER_02Right.
SPEAKER_01So I went to brush my uh teeth, and it's just like this little vibration in your whole face and your head, and it just like everything around you starts to vibrate in the same kind of Wow. Yeah, it's just it makes everyday tasks so much more fun.
SPEAKER_03I'm excited about the idea of um being on shrooms and getting around a Costco size bag of Cheetos.
SPEAKER_01Oh man.
SPEAKER_03Because that's my thing. Yeah. Cheeto. And I just, you know, want it five hours later, I want to wake up and I'll just be covered in orange. I I'm really curious. So the reason I want to try this is because um at some point you gotta try everything. But also uh I'm really excited about people who have said it really um has opened up like this creativity portal. And I like to um think of myself as a creative thinker or creative person. And so that is very exciting to me. And of course, a lot of famous people have, you know, famous creative and smart people have done something written or drawn or I had uh coloring pencils and plain paper out on one of my trips just to kind of doodle.
SPEAKER_01Oh, yeah. Because I saw, of course. You see it, Jesus, in the ceiling, um, like you do. And uh, I thought it would be a great idea to try to draw what it looked like. Um for whatever reason, yellow was the color that I grabbed, so it was a yellow rendering of what looked like Jesus Christ um on my ceiling. And uh I was pretty proud of it. And then when I got out of the high, it was so it was just gobbledygook.
SPEAKER_03Jesus was the first damn dirty hippie.
SPEAKER_01Yeah, he's pretty much the archetype of damn dirty hippies.
SPEAKER_03Um and uh but people thought he was cool for a while. So yeah, so a lot of uh like the the um this guy Crick, I think it was Crick, you know, of the famous Watson and Crick singing group. No, they uh that was Captain Atnial. Watson and Crick were the guys who discovered the DNA double helix. Oh and one of those guys, I think it was Crick, was uh reportedly his insights were fueled by hallucinogens.
SPEAKER_00Interesting.
SPEAKER_03So, you know, think about that, kids. Yeah. If you want to be famous, yeah. Um, but I'm really curious about sort of peering into my psychological trunk. Um I have I have this interesting um relationship with anxiety that I'm I'm going to be uh exploring more deeply in hypnosis. Interesting. So in real life, unless I'm in an MRI machine or a coffin, I don't have any anxiety of any kind of in any sort of clinical sense.
SPEAKER_01Wow.
SPEAKER_03I mean I have normal variety. Everyday garden variety. Yeah, you know, the normal hum that you get just by, you know, being out in the world and doing things. So, you know, and if a raccoon is banging on the window in an angry, aggressive manner because someone's chasing him around with a net, I will, you know, feel some feelings of concern. But in terms of like crippling panic attacks or something that a lot of people struggle with, I only experience that again, putting aside the coffin, the one-person elevator, or the trunk of a Ford Pinto. I only experience that level of anxiety when I'm asleep and when I have certain kinds of dreams. Not dreams where someone's chasing me or there's something really scary happening. What's happening in the dream? And this happens already twice this week. Usually it's only about once a month, but I've already had two of these this week. And what's happening? I'm doing something very intricate in the dream. Like I have to open a safe, but it's got 40 numbers, and I have to remember the numbers in the right sequence, and I start doing it and I'm fine, but all of a sudden, panic attack in the dream. So I wake up, and of course, I know what a panic attack is, so I like I have this, so I have to actually get up and walk it off. Like I can't just lie there. I feel like I have to move around because it's it does feel the same way if I'm in a claustrophobic situation. The way I've related the two in my own sort of layman's brain is being in a really, really tiny space for me is constraining, and that sets off anxiety. And these kinds of very specific tasks, only in the dream, not in real life, but in the dream, it's that same feeling of constraint, like it has to be done a certain way. It's very complicated, and um, it's intricate and specific, and that sets off this thing. So I'm really interested in exploring that on shrooms.
SPEAKER_01I think that it would be positive. I have a little bit more than your normal garden variety anxiety. It's for me, it it ties a lot to how I'm perceived. And uh it's funny because for the longest time before I think shrooms, I just assumed everyone felt like that. And uh I think that's one of the things that I started talking about a little bit more readily wh after kind of uh taking hold of my mental health is saying out loud the thing I'm anxious about to my husband, and then he looks at me like, what? And then it's not like I he makes me feel bad about it. He just doesn't understand what that anxiety is or how it originated. Because he's not an anxious person at all.
SPEAKER_02Yeah.
SPEAKER_01I'm interested more to find out if you are a chill shroomer or if you are a shroomer like my husband, where he takes shrooms and then he's like a little kid and he wants to jump all over the place.
SPEAKER_03Yeah, it would be interesting because my orientation through life is to be to have um low impulse control, and I'm essentially a hedonist by nature. I tend to follow the fun. I tend to be the person at the party who's just a little extra. But I'm also, and that's and I tend to be the person in real life who's extra, even though I am not even on anything. I've always been extra, and I've always been hyperkinetic. You know, like all of us, I know that I'm I have complexities. I know there's a part of me that is is kind of chill.
SPEAKER_02Yeah.
SPEAKER_03I'm curious. See, I'm curious about all of it. I'm also, you know, I'm a little concerned that, you know, like I'm having this experience, but because I'm like I have claustrophobia, again, only under very in real life. You're afraid that maybe you might have a claustrophobic experience. Yeah, like what happens if I like imagine that's why it's good to have a babysitter.
SPEAKER_01Because if you are experiencing any kind of discomfort, that person who's there with you is like, hey, you're okay. You'll be fine. Yeah. And I would recommend definitely for anyone who's a little bit like anxious about starting, start small. Like I I started with a gram.
SPEAKER_02Okay.
SPEAKER_01And actually I still kind of sit with a gram because I'm comfortable with how my body feels. But um, my husband and house um housemate, they started with like a gram and a half, and they obviously they're bigger guys than I am. Um, and they worked their ways up to find a comfortable spot for them.
SPEAKER_03Right. That's really good advice.
SPEAKER_01Yeah, don't go big. Don't do it.
SPEAKER_03Don't go big. No. I don't know if you saw it, but there was uh uh sh one of those mini-series uh starring Nicole Kidman called Nine Perfect Strangers. Did you see it?
SPEAKER_01I heard about it. It's on my list of things to watch.
SPEAKER_03So it touches on this kind of cool new thing that people are doing, which they're going to psychedelic retreats. Um mostly these retreats are in um Costa Rica, Jamaica, Mexico, but there are some underground ones uh here in this country. Um and people go to have these experiences, but under ostensibly the watchful eye of experts who can maintain uh, you know, who can monitor them and help them maintain their safety. Yeah. So um, and apparently there's a book by Michael Pollan, uh How to Change Your Mind, which covers this concept. Yeah, and a lot of people have read that book. It was uh came out in 2018. It's kind of stimulated them to seek out the psychedelic retreats. So um there are various kinds you can go to. That some of them can be pricey. Uh some of them go on for about a week. They cost between four and ten thousand. Holy cow! Yeah, depending on the uh amenities that um I guess chooses at a particular retreat because there's always options. So there's probably a budget option.
SPEAKER_01The moonroof, the AC, you know, yeah, yeah.
SPEAKER_03Or you can just have your own little barf box and sit in a utility closet, and that's cheaper, but a lot of people are going for this whole experience. And so um Nicole Kidman is the is the grandmaster of the psychedelic retreat, and Melissa McCarthy's in it, and a bunch of other actors. And I found it to be really watchable. I just found the ending to be kind of not so great. So, at any rate, this one was like eight or nine episodes. Nicole Kidman, I who I think is a brilliant actress, by the way. She looked incredible. I don't know how old she is. She could be a hundred.
SPEAKER_01She's 90% Botox by this point, I'm sure.
SPEAKER_03Well, yeah, but whatever, man, whatever she's doing. Yeah, it's working. Her character name was Masha or Masha, which to me sounds like how you say Marsha in Boston. Masha. Get out of the yacht, turn the knob. Anyway, so and uh it was, you know, it was fun, but it kind of got me thinking about these psychedelic retreats. And I have a quote from someone who went on one of these retreats, and just bear with me while I read her accounts. So Ms. Cohen, who was 62, traveled from her home in Milwaukee. There's a place. But she went there to drink ayahuasca. Oh, holy crazy. Am I saying that right?
SPEAKER_01Ayahuasca, yeah.
SPEAKER_03A sludgy, psychoactive brew from the Amazon that ignites hallucinations while also inducing nausea. She arrived carrying her own pillow and blanket at a private house where she was greeted by a shaman in the living room. She curled up on a sleeping mat, and over the course of that one very intense night went on a journey that mostly involved lying still. And this is a quote from her directly. I was shown why I'm not happy, and it became clear I was carrying around the pain of my ancestors, said Ms. Cohen. And she apparently has struggled with depression for 20 years. After that night, she said she found clarity and has since sought out two other psychedelic retreats, traveling to Costa Rica and California for guided, extended experiences with hallucinogens. So these sound great, right? You go to these cool places, you lie down on a mat, you have these cool experiences. But if you look this up, you will also uh read about cautionary tales.
SPEAKER_01Yeah, there's been some pretty intense reactions ayahuasca, I've heard.
SPEAKER_03So there's that, but there's also these tales of people these are tales, so it's not like these are documents. Allegedly. Suicide, murder, molestation, and robberies.
SPEAKER_01Well, that all makes sense.
SPEAKER_03Well, the robbery part I wasn't really impressed with.
SPEAKER_01Yeah. Well, if you're high on something, you're pretty incapacitated. Someone's gonna yoink your wallet.
SPEAKER_03Yeah, and don't bring anything.
SPEAKER_01Don't bring things.
SPEAKER_03Stop bringing your jewels with you on these things.
SPEAKER_01Leave your crown at home.
SPEAKER_03Yeah, leave your crown at home. That goes for everyone. Includes dental crowns. Yeah. Because people will rip off your teeth. So one person reports that they have now moved to Costa Rica and they attend multiple psychedelic ceremonies every month where they take a variety of substances, including psilocybin, Cambo.
SPEAKER_01I've never heard of that.
SPEAKER_03It's a toxin secreted by tropical frogs.
SPEAKER_01Oh, like the licking the frog thingy, yeah.
SPEAKER_03And your husband would be happy with that because he could be chasing the frog and then make him their friend. Putting it in his mouth and spitting it out.
SPEAKER_01Sucking on a frog, yeah.
SPEAKER_03Um, what do you think about the psychedelic retreats? Is that something you'd be down for?
SPEAKER_01Um, you know what? I think I'm not down for paying $10,000. I'd rather pay $50 to my friend who has a person and do it at my house.
SPEAKER_03So yeah, I should have asked you. So, like for you think it's about a $50 investment, roughly.
SPEAKER_01Yeah, $50 and like three people could have a great time and call it a day.
SPEAKER_03Yeah, that's a lot cheaper than $10,000, but I but you probably don't have a shaman.
SPEAKER_01I don't have a shaman.
SPEAKER_03Um you don't get to lick any frogs.
SPEAKER_01There are no frogs. Um, I have a Pomeranian, but I feel like she'd be really mad if I start licking her.
SPEAKER_03Well, she apparently doesn't like a lot of touching. Yeah. So she's probably not gonna like the licking.
SPEAKER_01Yeah.
SPEAKER_03You know, in the in the Netflix show, Nine Perfect Strangers, which by the way is not a sponsor of the show. We don't have any sponsors, but if you're at Netflix and you're listening to this, we'll accept your money. Um they secretly give people psilocybin. Hmm. They secretly dose them with they give them these breakfast uh breakfast smoothies, which seems to run counter to this idea that you shouldn't be like chowing down a big breakfast.
SPEAKER_01You know what? I I'm curious to know if it just is different for different people. I know that I am just not good. No, that's a thing.
SPEAKER_03No, I've read that, that you shouldn't be yeah, sucking down those big Disneyland turkey legs. Right. Don't do it. It's gonna make you sick. It's gonna make you sick. But uh but that's what's happening with these people, and they don't find out they're being dosed for a while.
SPEAKER_01Like the Yeah, because I would not buy that at all. Knowing what I know about how a trip goes, you know you're on something.
SPEAKER_03Right. They're all very confused initially, like, why am I having these experiences?
SPEAKER_01Something I actually uh loved watching about around mushrooms is this uh documentary on Netflix, uh not sponsored, but you know, not yet. Not yet.
SPEAKER_03But if you're out there, we'll take your money.
SPEAKER_01We'll take your money. Um is uh fantastic fungi. And uh it's a hour, 20 minutes, and it is a documentary about mushrooms, not necessarily about tripping, thank you, but just mushrooms in general, and talks about mycelium and how mycelium grows underground and causes nature to talk to each other and um just like just the science behind mushrooms and how they're the oldest organism in the world and how we're more closely related genetically to fungus than we are any other um uh animal group or kingdom in the entire, you know, species of kingdoms or whatever.
SPEAKER_03You come from fungus. Yeah. Well, you know, that makes sense.
SPEAKER_01You are a fun guy.
SPEAKER_03I'm not editing that. I'm leaving that in. I want people to understand that just happened. This sense that we are interconnected is not too far-fetched. And the fact that you can get yourself in a place where you're now open to this interconnectedness and remembering, and you know, it people I know there's people listening to this saying this is all BS and it's all crazy talk, but just think of like basic things that you do to reset. Like, let's say you're able to go on some kind of vacation, whether it's a hike or whether it's a trip. And you know, whenever you do something that's out of your patterns, especially the vacation is the most easy one to reference right now. You get out of your routine, you're not going to work, or you're not doing whatever the thing is you do every day, you're not doing it. You're doing something else now.
SPEAKER_02Yeah.
SPEAKER_03And invariably you will get a change of perspective. You will look at your life and go, oh, you know what? Why don't I why did why don't I start playing the piano again? Or why is it that I'm always so this way or that way? And I think that's something we already do. But we need that opportunity, right? And a lot of times you can't get away just going on a walk, an aimless walk. So you don't have to be anywhere, so you have nowhere to go. And instead of turning on Netflix, not a sponsor, or scrolling TikTok, tripping out, or scrolling TikTok, or going down the YouTube rabbit hole or whatever it is, if you just go on a walk for about 45 minutes, you will create some perspective on what's going on in your life. And I really love doing that whenever I'm struggling with a problem. Going on a walk, I have this sort of ability to step away from it and look at the bigger picture. Those kinds of activities, I think, are ways in which you can create a little space for your for yourself to kind of step back and look at what the bigger picture is. But this using mushrooms seems to me to be a more intense and deliberate way to really expand your awareness.
SPEAKER_01Yeah, absolutely. I think we don't allow ourselves in general, um, even without tripping, to be bored. We have constant input in our lives.
SPEAKER_02Yeah.
SPEAKER_01And when I take the time to shroom, I'm very intentional about clearing my day and clearing out any output. Like I'm one of the things I I do to my space outside of like making it moody or whatever is clean. I clean my entire house because I want it to be restful.
SPEAKER_03Yeah.
SPEAKER_01And so it allows me to just lay and think and look at my home and look at my animals and my partner and just absorb the love and just all that fun stuff. And it allows me to create. It allows me to problem solve things that I wouldn't do if I'm just going about my day, making, you know, doing dishes, making laundry, folding laundry, making grocery lists and stuff like that. Because you be like I was saying, you become hyper-aware. So you're hyper-aware of all the beautiful things around you. You're also hyper-aware of a mess.
SPEAKER_02Oh.
SPEAKER_01So clear out those that corner in your living room that all the, you know, all your things get dumped when you come into the house. Make sure that's cleared out, all that stuff. Yeah.
SPEAKER_03This has been so cool. I really appreciate you being here today.
SPEAKER_01Thank you so much, Russ.
SPEAKER_03And sharing your experiences and you're a lot of fun. And I hope you'll come back for another episode because I think uh you have more notes in your journal there.
SPEAKER_01Oh, yeah. This is a thick one.
SPEAKER_03Yeah. It's like it's like one of those giant tomes from like the Middle Ages that the monks would work on. Ring a monk next time, too. Yeah.
SPEAKER_01As I close it. Yeah.
unknownBoom.
SPEAKER_03Um, and thank all of you for joining us for this episode. But if you like what we're doing, we would sure love your help. And the best way to help is, as I told you early on, would be to share the show any way you can with anyone you can. You can also follow us on Instagram or Twitter and your ratings on places where whether it's Apple or I think Spotify is letting it rate now. Anywhere you can rate the show and give us a glowing rating, it really helps people find us. And because we're small and independent, that's really important to us. We're also on Patreon if you want to support us that way. It does cost uh money to do our show, and any support you can give us that way is greatly appreciated. But mostly what we appreciate is you joining us every week. And we hope you will tune in to another episode because whether you're chasing a raccoon that's jumping out of a window or just someone barfing into a box, it's important to remember that we all smell like humans. Goodbye, everybody.