I went on a psychedelic mushroom retreat. This is what happened.
A little more than a month ago, I flipped back through the pages in my journal with a kind of dumbstruck pride. It worked. It had actually worked. I started the month on suicide watch, with the cops pounding on my door for “welfare checks”, and struggling with my psychiatric care providers to come up with an effective treatment plan for my life-threatening depression. I ended the month with plans, optimism, and a modicum of genuine happiness. The point of origin for the change can traced back to a single significant addition to my life; Psychedelics. Ketamine, specifically.
I’d started psychedelic therapy months before, but for this and that reason, it had taken me until August to follow the program to the letter. (You can read more on how that went here.) Revising and recommitting to seeing the program through as designed was a last-ditch desperate effort to save my life. Once I did, the results were undeniable. Psychedelic therapy not only brought me back from the precipice but suited me up with tools to be a more effective participant in my own healing. Naturally, like any traumatized single female on a healing journey complete with a Spotify manifestation playlist, things escalated quickly. One evening I was microdosing ketamine in easy, thirty-minute trips from my cozy bed, the next I was booking a psilocybin (magic mushroom) retreat because apparently, that’s a thing that exists.
With my 40th birthday looming large in front of me as a stand-alone existential crisis, I wanted to tee up my retreat experience with my birthday. I’d never done any kind of retreat before, let alone one that involved illicit substances, so at first I aimlessly groped the internet looking for something that sounded about right. To my surprise, psychedelic retreats are a thriving business set into the fringes of less judgmental countries. I spent an entire nine-hour Tuesday searching and finally drilled down what I wanted out of the retreat before I began making inquiries:
No Shaman Bob’s. Any white dude with dreadlocks sitting in Costa Rica appropriating the sacred term Shaman was out. If the person I was trusting with my consciousness couldn’t practice consciously, it was an automatic disqualifier. Same applies to Shamania Becky. White dudes were fine. White dudes actively participating in cultural appropriation were not.
The retreat company had to display a level of professionalism. The healing arts are not typically known for their high-level branding strategies (but what I wouldn’t give to sit in on that brainstorming session), so I wasn’t assessing them based on how large their marketing budget was. However, it is really accessible to create a cohesive, simple, and well-thought-out digital presence. The operating term is “well-thought-out”. I wanted to go with a company that clearly put some effort in.
There had to be an evaluation by a licensed professional. Psychedelics, in smaller doses, are mostly safe and can be enjoyed recreationally with far fewer negative consequences than socially acceptable drinking. However, therapeutic or “hero” doses are at a much higher level and participants need to consider what they are getting into very carefully. If I didn’t have to get cleared to participate, it was indicative that the retreat operators were a little too free-spirited (reckless) and could indicate other unsafe practices.
There had to be some form of integration, which is the post-psychedelic practice of applying conscious change to everyday life based on insights gleaned from the journey*. (Pro tip: this is actually where the magic happens.)
Armed with my newly formed standards, I started making inquiries. Five, to be exact.
No, I’m not going to name names, but here’s what happened;
The first company seemed to have “all the things”. Not only were we going to be journeying four times in seven days, but those journeys would be smashed in between life coaching classes, therapy sessions, healing massages, and two colonics. (What the contents of my ass had to do with my healing journey was a mystery to me, but I reminded myself that I needed to be coachable.) It was, by far and large, the most involved and comprehensive program I found. I called the headquarters with optimism to set up a screening, at which time the secretary informed me she was certain I’d be cleared. Her ease of certainty was suspect - she knew something I didn’t about the clearance process. The abundance of safety issue stories I found later on the same facility turned my original “I’ll think about it” into a “Hell no”.
The second company was nearly double the cost, but it came with swanky adventures like parasailing. While I am sure there is some inherent value in play during these retreats, I wasn’t taking this trip (pun intended) to hang with a bunch of trust fund babies listening to yacht rock in between journeys. I was trying to heal some inner demons that almost took me out, not purchase a selfie package.
The third company had all the right marks and I was feeling really optimistic - until I was told I would have to pay an additional fee for my medical screening. I firmly believe in paying people for their services, but this was cheap, and felt exploitative in presentation.
The fourth company denied me based on my application alone, in which I was honest about some possible psychiatric contraindications. Rather than evaluate me to learn more to see if there were any real issues, I was simply denied and told to do breathwork. It was discouraging and disparaging.
Then, there was EQNMT.
Well-branded and highly responsive, my first interaction came in the form of my screening. I inquired to all five companies in the same afternoon but was already a little salty after hearing back from the company that wanted to charge me an extra fee to do their job safely first. I did have to put my 10% deposit down before the screening, but this was acceptable to me as it legitimized my interest in the retreat and therefore, them spending the organization’s psychologists valuable time screening me.
From across the world and nine hours ahead, a somewhat bookish man peered at me through his webcam. His hair was closely cropped with nary a dreadlock and his round glasses sat on a nose free of a piercing. I think he was even wearing a button-down Oxford shirt that complimented the cream background of his office. This was no wannabe shaman. This was Brad. Brad looked like he belonged in a library and may have suffered his fair share of lunchtime wedgies in his school years.
Of all the ways I could obtain and ingest magic mushrooms, getting them from a South African Jewish man who looked like he had an impressive collection of tweed not something I could have drummed up even on my most imaginative day. Softspoken to the point that one has to lean in and listen hard, Brad and I talked about my history, what brought me to psychedelic therapy, and my interest in working with the team of EQNMT. I had my own fair share of questions, too; Why did we have to go to Jamaica? How long had he been using psychedelics in his psychology practice? What made him feel confident that I’d be a good candidate for this type of therapy? Being highly traumatized and somewhat intelligent, I’ve made a meal of therapists in the past. I needed to know I wasn’t putting my psyche in the hands of someone who I could snack on for breakfast, or run circles around for our entire week together.
Satisfied with our inspections of each other, and after a call with the CEO, I completed my payment, booked my flight, and spent the remaining weeks alarming my friends by saying I was going to a remote island with men I didn’t know to do drugs. (The company, though well-versed and established on that side of the globe, had only recently expanded its operations to the western hemisphere. While not as widely recognized as some of the other more established retreats, it’s not for lack of experience as much as situational geography.)
It’s worth pausing here to note that this retreat, while on a beautiful tropic island and with a euphoric substance, it was still work. Its primary purpose is therapeutic. I suffer from severe Major Depressive Disorder and had long since been plagued by Generalized Anxiety Disorder. I also have C-PTSD, which is incredibly difficult to treat due to its severity and complexity. In the weeks leading up to my departure, I had assignments to complete and two therapy sessions. Post-retreat, I have six integration sessions (applying what I received during the experience.) If the objective is just to trip, there are far easier and cost-effective ways of going about it.
Getting off the plane in Jamaica, while attempting to cross customs and immigration, I realized that my phone plan did not update to international despite having set that up before leaving the States. That is how Brad found me, stumbling out of the shuttle they sent to transport me from the airport to the villa, having a very terse conversation with a customer service representative. My retreat began.
Our villa was set back from the beach by just a five-minute walk, and the rooftop deck provided a perfect view of the Caribbean sea, which was a lovely way to soften the blow of sunrise yoga. While I am mostly kidding, the yoga part is true; every morning, I was expected to be up on that deck by a certain hour to practice mindfulness with yoga and meditation. Brad led us through a moderately challenging, yet very achievable practice. After, breakfast was served with an abundance of fresh fruit, whole grains, and smoothies. Coffee was problematic - on days when we would be journeying, coffee was pretty strictly prohibited, as it could induce anxiety. While it was made clear to me that I had my own agency and could choose to have it, it would come with unwanted side effects. I abstained.
Tuesday was our first journey day, having arrived at the villa the day before. The intention of the first journey is to have a smaller, more gentle dose so that Brad could gauge how we experienced the effects before the deeper therapeutic dose on Thursday. In between these journeys were classes and therapy. Classes were strategic; we learned about the history of magic mushrooms in ancient cultures and their uses. We walked through the construction of emotion, leaving us armed with a cognitive understanding of how emotions are created and giving us leverage to manage them. My favorite session was a lively one around strategies for meeting needs, which sparked a dialogue so engaging I forgot for a moment I didn’t know these guys in real life and accidentally let a d*ck joke slip. Conservative as they may be, there are still dudes, so I was gifted a laugh for my troubles instead of a glare.
When we weren’t meditating or contemplating or learning or journeying, there were the one-on-one sessions. Despite my familiarity with dozens of approaches to psychoanalytical therapy, it never once occurred to me that there would be a compound effect when a conversation can continue for five days straight unbroken. That alone was worth the price of admission.
And then, I journeyed.
The psilocybin was administered by way of lemonade. I smartly remarked when I first saw the glass that I was relieved it wasn’t Kool-Aid, a joke that fell flat in the presence of my facilitators from a faraway country. (Explaining Jonestown was not something I anticipated, and skirted past quickly lest I kill the proverbial buzz.) The facilitaors went far out of their way to create a stunning, candlelit environment. The word “reverent” would be an accurate description of space. It was impressive to the extent that I’ll not detail it here and rob anyone of their own experiences by comparison. I threw back my microdose, hit the play button on a soundtrack curated specifically by and for the experience, pulled down my eye mask and off I went.
I have no concept of when it all kicked in, but I clearly remember that first feeling of being very “in” my body. My body had never appeared more wondrous to me than it did in that moment. It was as if I truly felt, for the first time, each individual muscle fiber stretched along my limbs. I deeply appreciated all of it and could feel myself moving into positions to delight and relish in my own bodily existence. (Later, I was told I began doing yoga.) It was nothing short of decadent.
The first giggle set me off, and from there, as far as I know, I laughed nearly the whole time. It seemed to me that everything had an air of humor to it, and when I snuck a glance at my facilitators watching over me, I couldn’t help but burst into laughter. Not at them, but with them (though they weren’t laughing). It was joyous, but not mocking. I even grew concerned that Brad would be upset with me for not taking it seriously enough, which only served to set me off harder. I laughed and stretched until the nausea hit.
As far as I can tell, there are only two quite practical issues with ingesting psilocybin. The first is the absence of stimulants like coffee, a proactive measure against having a journey filled with anxiety. The caffeine withdrawal that day gave me a headache. The second is the nausea. It rolled over me in waves, and I could feel my lower lip quivering and reminding myself not to drool out the saliva that was gathering in my mouth. I wanted to puke. I didn’t, but I sure wanted to.
Once I managed to salvage my dignity and keep the contents of my stomach contained, I went back into the darkness provided by my eyemask and let the mushrooms take me where they wanted to go. During what I suspect was my peaking, I dropped down from the starry cosmos and into what seemed like a giant, limitless claw machine. The prizes were are all giant hearts, diamonds, and rainbows a foot or so big. Tthe objects themselves remained clear, like a fiber optic. I picked up a giant, gem-cut heart and inspected it, marveling that it seemed made of stone but was light and touchable. I offered some to another woman on her own journey since I had so many to spare. As I clearly remember saying to the facilitators; “Does she need any hearts and rainbows? I got buckets full, she can have some of mine!”
Later, in the afterglow, Brad reassured me that my delight in my journey was not the wrong way to do it, as there’s no “right” or “wrong” way to journey that doesn’t come before or after the journey itself during preparation or integration. And apparently, my bursts of laughter were entertaining, not disruptive as I thought they would be. The entire experience was deeply pleasurable and wonderfully magical to me.
Two days later, I prepared for my bigger journey with a dose almost four times the first.
This is where I put a disclaimer; Understand I made informed, sober choices with lots of research, in a very safe environment with an experienced team including a psychologist before taking what is widely accepted as a larger “hero” dose. While everyone's dosing limits are different, it exceeded a smaller, recreational dose as its intended purpose is to open the portal to my subconsciousness and do deep healing. Despite psilocybin itself being far less harmful than alcohol and the likelihood of a physical adverse reaction is nearly non-existent, one could do some real dumb shit if not careful. I strongly advise you to follow my example and do this with intention and information should you want to take a “hero’s” dose for therapeutic reasons. Here’s a great guide I used to help me understand how much I was given and why.
As expected, my therapeutic dose was just that. Readied by my intention setting and familiar with the sensations from my first journey, I set out to do the work I traveled thousands of miles to do. The second journey was rich with meaning. This was a more sacred, private journey that requires respect and discretion, so I’ll be keeping the details of it out of here. It’s sufficient to say that it was meaningful in the way I needed it to be to recover parts of myself long lost. Still, there was one noticeable difference I am comfortable sharing; curled into a ball with the blanket covering me head to foot, I slipped only a hand out. “I don’t want to talk about it, I just want a friend.” I am notorious for self-isolating when I am dealing with difficult emotions. Even asking for a hand was, for me, a very big deal. Brad, who sat with the entire duration of the experience, held my hand until I pulled away.
“You’re going to really enjoy dinner tonight,” Brad said at breakfast that morning, but after my journey, I realized what he meant. I could taste in HD. Food was so much more flavorful than ever before. I stretched, I ate, I walked on the beach. Everything about my body and the world around me was so much more there. It felt like being aware of each individual grain of sand on the bottom of my feet, the tendons of my joints as they let my body move with ease, the sounds a kaleidoscope of bird song and crashing waves.
The next day, after our now habitual mindfulness morning routine, Brad and I settled into the first of two big sessions to unpack my journey from the day before. Armed with the less esoteric and more fundamentally practical learnings from the previous days' workshops, we unpacked my psyche. Probably the most interesting component of the entire week, aside from the experience of psilocybin itself, was the way such an esoteric experience full with emotion and meaning could be applied in a really mundane, practical way. This was the integration I was looking for. As Brad said: “It’s really boring, like reading the back of the sugar packet. But, actually using the information is where the magic happens. Most people don’t.”
And so, we read my sugar packet.
That evening we all trooped down to the beach for one more dip before our departure the next day. The sky was heavy with thick, dark clouds. Rain started to come down on us as we waded into water so unbelievably warm it felt like a hot spring. The horizon of the dark ocean met the bottom of the stormy sky in a monochromatic coupling. We laughed - it felt like the edge of Narnia in a surreal way. I felt myself falling, falling, falling into a hypnotic trance as I let the waves splash up against me, my body buoyed but the salty water. In an unspoken agreement, we all fell quiet for a very long time.
The next morning it was time to pack up and say our goodbyes. Much to my horror, I started to cry. I looked like a Stage 5 Clinger. Having been so wrapped up in the cocoon of warm air, meaningful conversations, and being so well cared for had me feeling nearly terrorized to launch back into my life. I knew the experience was finite in nature, and I also knew I had loving relationships and goals and plans that could not be done from a villa in Jamaica, but I was still not ready to leave. I had experienced joy and bliss and healing and nurturing and self-care for almost six full days, and the thought of losing that feeling was more than I could stand. I cried.
“I feel like I had open heart surgery. I need to be sewn back up.”
Brad thought for a moment. “I know that feeling. I’ve felt that before, too.”
And, like I do, I sucked it up and trudged on. By the time I landed back in the States, I had played out a few different scenarios in my mind, all of which led back to the same thing: I’d need to design my life in such a way that the deep sense of well being I found on my retreat was not something only reserved for special occasions but as part of my ongoing experience of my own life. I knew that feeling was possible, that its existence was as much a part of me as everything else, undeniable and real as rain, because I had felt it. The mushrooms have shown me it was there, inside me, where it had always been my whole life.
*Journey is the quasi-official definition of the experience of taking a psychedelic. Think of it as a more sophisticated way of saying “trip’, as in “Yo, we gonna trip our assess off!”. It’s more clinically acceptable to say “We will be preparing for our journey”. 80’s smash hit lyrics are uninvolved.
