Drugs are a window but not a door. Ram Dass

I will assume you know psychedelics have been used in trauma research recently, which might seem a radical idea but in fact it’s a really old idea. As a therapist, being able to bill for such work as a regular part of our Medical Insurance Industrial Complex, now that would be truly radical.

But I realize that I’ve had a lot of experience with this therapy.  When I was in my teens, I used psilocybin and LSD for my trauma, though, at the time, I thought it was just recreational use until the experiences opened me up beyond the restraints of my childhood—restraints aren’t a metaphor here.

To warn you, I am going to describe one macro dose of mushrooms. I promise I won’t bore you about the predictable geometric patterns and wowing colors.

I anticipated a spiritual journey, that was a deliberate intention for the day, a good set and in a good setting as Timothy Leary suggested, but, an hour in, I was bent over with unbearable pain, radiating from my gut through my limbs, my fingers claw-like. I couldn’t hold still, pacing around, then finding myself dancing about like an ancient warrior preparing for a hunt; that was the thought at the time, though you might question what I would know about ancient warriors. Which would be a good question.

I danced myself out onto the porch. I hoped Nature would be a distraction from the pain, but a crow stopped by to tell me to “get over it.”

“You know nothing about pain. You don’t know the trouble I’ve seen.” Not exactly a Blues lyric, but something like that. The message was conveyed without words, with some Caw, Caw, but I got the point. There was even a tone, like I was human piece of garbage, not worthy of pity. It was very pointed, and then a bunch of other crows gathered to reinforce the message.

The flock said, “Buckle up Get ready! Forget your warm spiritual nonsense. Get serious. These are serious times. And this is traumatic pain.”

It was strange medicine. Normally I would not expect it to be helpful.

I would never say to a client doubled over in the somatic wounds gouged in them from horrific nightmares, “This is not the half of it. We live in a traumatized world. Get ready to feel even more like crap!”  But it helped me. Of course, anything would sound different coming from birds, but, more than that, the pain suddenly took on a different texture, a different color or a different geometric shape. It was less personal. Existential. And I thanked them.

That was the start of approximately six hours when I spent much of the time in the bathroom having a conversation with God. Or, to be more precise, I was talking, incessantly, acting out, shifting between different parts of a very old Heart-drama.  I sounded crazy. I knew I sounded deranged. In therapy I might call that dual awareness or metacognition, being a witness and participant at the same time.