How Psychedelics Transformed Me Into A Better Person

I first encountered psychedelics in 2006. At that time, I was a much different person than I am today. Several issues had plagued my life for a long time, yet I remained unaware of them, caught up in the day-to-day dramas of life.

But things have changed a lot since then, and psychedelics played a significant role in that process.

In this blog post I will share some of the ways that psychedelics helped me become a better person. I hope that sharing my story will help reduce the stigma surrounding these special medicines and show that they are capable of helping with many different things.

Improving My Mental Health

One of the biggest ways that psychedelics helped me was by alleviating a variety of mental health issues that I used to experience on a daily basis. For pretty much my whole life I suffered from depression and anxiety. There were times when I was unable to do anything, paralyzed by fear and hopelessness. It was miserable, to say the least.

I didn’t have much patience and tended to get angry and fly off the handle over the dumbest things. I wouldn’t say that I had a short fuse, but I definitely didn’t have much control over my anger in the past. Working with psychedelics helped me develop more patience and less anger.

While psychedelics haven’t completely eliminated my dark thoughts, they did help me learn how to love and embrace them instead of trying to run from them.

Quitting Bad Habits and Creating Better Ones

Another major benefit that I’ve experienced from working with psychedelics has been stopping the bad habits that weren’t serving me and creating new ones that actually do.

I’ve intentionally used psychedelics to help me work through addictions (tobacco, alcohol, and food) and to stop interrupting other people while they’re speaking.

In place of those bad habits I have created new ones—a daily yoga and meditation practice, weekly journaling sessions, eating a healthy diet, and just taking care of myself better in general. Although I put in a ton of work to get to the place I am now, I have psychedelics to thank for helping me get here.

Increasing My Appreciation for Nature

When I was younger I was always perplexed by people who found joy in simple things like sunsets, flowers, and walks on the beach. As a nerdy kid who just wanted to stay inside and play video games, I just didn’t get it.

It took just one psilocybin mushroom trip to change all that forever.

An hour after eating some mushrooms I found myself absolutely fascinated with the natural environment I was in. I remember being completely entranced by the birds chirping in the trees nearby, bugs whizzing by me, and the clouds floating through the sky.

This recognition of the natural environment has continued to this day. Psychedelics helped me develop an appreciation for nature that was missing prior to my experience with them, and I am eternally grateful to them for that.

Finding Joy in Life

Let’s not forget one of the most important aspects of psychedelics, one that is rarely mentioned due to the effort to legitimize them for the mainstream public—they can be fun too! A lot of folks in the movement try to downplay the recreational side of psychedelics but I think this is a huge mistake.

Just because psychedelics can be enjoyable doesn’t discount their potential for healing, spirituality, or productivity.

The beginning of the word “recreation” is “recreate”, and I have found that recreating myself through my recreational psychedelic trips has been just as transformational for me as the experiences that were intentionally created for healing or spiritual purposes.

And Tons of Other Things

Psychedelics have helped me with so many other things too. Here are some of the ones that made a big impact on my life:

• Increased openness (especially with regard to spirituality)

• More tolerance and acceptance

• Enhanced creativity and ability to enter flow states

• Increased compassion for myself and others

• Understanding better how my actions affect others

• An ability to see the bigger picture

• Highlighting the people I should (and shouldn’t) keep in my life

• Better life satisfaction

• Improved social relationships

• Increased confidence

• Better at dealing with awkward or uncomfortable situations

• Showed me what’s possible (although I still had to do the work to achieve it)

• Helped me find my passions

• Assisted with setting goals

• Learning how to surrender

• Keep my mind young and playful

After spending the last 14 years working with psychedelics, I think it’s fair to say that I’ve become a much better person than I used to be. I owe them a huge debt of gratitude, and I’m proud to be part of the growing movement to show the mainstream public that they have the potential to be agents of positive change in a world that is desperately needing just that.

#ThankYouPlantMedicine

Image by johnhain, courtesy of Creative Commons licensing.

Microdosing Memoir Set to Become Major Showtime Series

From Paul Austin at The Third Wave:

CBS Television Studios announced a deal to turn Ayelet Waldman‘s book, “A Really Good Day: How Microdosing Made a Mega Difference in My Mood, My Marriage and My Life,” into a series.

With an audience of tens of millions, a Showtime series about microdosing would undoubtedly reach a ton of people.

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Could Wearable Microdosing Technology Be a Thing One Day?

Russell Hausfeld, writing for Psymposia:

Could a liquid-delivery system meant to help maintain a personalized “scent bubble” quietly usher in the creation of wearable psychedelic microdosing technology? A U.S. patent for this system—just one among an increasing list of psychedelic-inspired intellectual properties—was awarded to Sensory Design & Technology LTD in 2019.

The bulk of the patent covers a product being developed for eScent—an “emotional” fashion company, which aims to redefine the way people use and wear perfumes. In short, the patent covers an AI-powered liquid-delivery device small enough to be integrated into “connected” jewellery and removable garment buttons for on-demand personalized perfumes or liquids. But, squeezed into a paragraph that lists other potential uses for the technology, the patent covers “microdosing psychedelic medicines (e.g. LSD, psilocybin) for therapeutic applications.”

So now there’s a patent for wearable microdoses. Again, this is more innovative psychedelic technology, but do we really need it? While some people would rather have microdoses prepared for them, is grinding up magic mushrooms or cutting up blotter paper really that difficult or inconvenient for the average person?

And will smell-able microdoses be as effective as when they are orally consumed or delivered via nasal spray? In fact, will they be effective at all? When it comes to microdosing, a ton of questions remain unanswered.

One cool thing about this patent is that it was inspired by Philip K Dick’s book Ubik:

The impetus for this technology was Philip K. Dick’s sci-fi thriller “UBIK.” The novel introduced eScent’s founder, Jenny Tillotson, to the notion of “reality-in-a-can”—a mystical substance of miracle properties (called UBIK) which is sprayed from a can and stabilizes reality. This appealed to her, as someone who has had to manage long-term bipolar and anxiety disorders, and she began developing eScent.

Through a “sensor-triggered, subscription-based” fragrance service, eScent’s wearable technology aims to dispense scents based on environmental and bodily triggers dictated by the user, according to their website.

Ubik is a great book by one of my favorite sci-fi writers. If you haven’t heard of it before then I highly recommend that you check it out.

There’s no final product yet and the system for microdosing smell-able psychedelics is still in its early exploratory phase. I’m simultaneously excited to see all of this exciting new innovation in the space and wondering if we’re perhaps unnecessarily complicating things.

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Speech Pattern Technology Can Now Detect if You’re High on MDMA

Randy Robinson, writing for MERRY JANE:

A group of neuroscientists, AI specialists, and psychologists at IBM developed a new method for detecting if someone is intoxicated on MDMA — simply by analyzing an individual’s speech patterns.

In a study published last week in Neuropsychopharmacology, researchers could pinpoint, with nearly 90 percent accuracy, whether someone was intoxicated on MDMA, the active ingredient of “molly” or “ecstasy,” based on certain types of words and emotions expressed in short segments of speech. This detection method could discern MDMA use from being dosed on oxytocin, the so-called “love hormone” that produces effects similar to, but still significantly different from, MDMA. […]

Subjects on MDMA showed markedly different speech patterns compared to when they were only on oxytocin or placebo, and the unique speech patterns were more pronounced at higher doses of MDMA. Basically, people on molly used more words relating to intimacy, rapport, and emotion. Furthermore, their speech showed more instances of jitteriness, as well as different vowel pronunciations and richer use of adjectives and nouns.

Leveraging speech pattern technology to detect drug use is an impressive use case, but color me doubtful that it will accurately detect drug use (or the absence of it) 100% of the time. Unfortunately it does seem like this will eventually be picked up by doctors, police, rehab centers, parents, schools, and more:

In other words, someday in the foreseeable future, doctors will be able to tell if you’re on MDMA — and possibly other drugs such as weed, alcohol, meth, cocaine, or heroin — simply by recording you talk and running it through a handheld device.

And if doctors can do it, that means cops may be able to do it, too. Australian authorities are currently testing infrared cameras to catch people on MDMA at festivals based on their body-heat signatures alone — no breathalyzers, blood draws, or urine or saliva samples necessary.

None of these techniques are infallible, but the people who use and sell them don’t like to mention that.

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Santa Cruz City Council Decriminalizes Psychedelics

Kyle Jaeger, writing for Marijuana Moment:

The Santa Cruz, California City Council unanimously voted in favor of a resolution on Tuesday that would effectively decriminalize a wide range of psychedelics by making them among the city’s lowest law enforcement priorities.

The measure—which was originally sponsored by then-Vice Mayor Justin Cummings (D), who’s since become mayor—says the city shouldn’t expend “resources in the investigation and arrest of persons twenty-one (21) years of age and older solely for the personal use and personal possession of Entheogenic Plants and Fungi” such as psilocybin, ayahuasca and ibogaine.

It further stipulates that possession and use of psychedelics by adults “should be considered among the lowest law enforcement priorities for the City of Santa Cruz.”

Another big win for the psychedelic decriminalization movement.

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