This is really only going to be of interest to those of you who want to know more about what a psychedelic drug such as psilocybin can do to your brain, how it works, how it’s useful in treating conditions such as depression, anxiety, adhd, ptsd and so on. Bear in mind this is only my understanding of wading through academic papers, so don’t quote me.

Psilocybin is a hallucinogenic compound of the alkaloid class, found in the liberty cap and related toadstools. It grows wild in the UK, yet it’s a class A drug; quite how you make a plant illegal I’m not sure. It’s certainly not illegal in other countries such as the Netherlands, although only if contained in chocolate truffles. Once ingested, psilocybin is rapidly metabolized to psilocin, which then acts on serotonin receptors in the brain. It’s chemical makeup is close to that of serotonin apparently. Which is why users usually get lots of good feelings, time distortion, hallucinations and so on.
This is where it gets interesting. The brain has something called the Default Mode Network. My understanding is that this contains your ego, autobiographical memories, feelings of self, likes, opinions and so on. It also seems to be an access point for the conscious to interface with the subconscious. Now, we also develop patterns of thinking which get ingrained over time, making it difficult not to think in that exact same way. So what psilocybin does is to depress activity in the DMN. This does 2 hugely important things; it suppresses the ego, and you can step outside and just see you as an observer. It also makes it easier to feel emotions, and disrupts the normal pattern of thoughts. The second thing it does is let parts of the brain talk to other bits of the brain they normally couldn’t.
This allows you to break away from those ingrained thought patterns, and let’s you see things in a totally different way. It has high success in treating depression, with patients reporting as depression free for over six months. In some cases the changes can become permanent, if the patient also continues to work on their mental health. I’ve seen scientific images showing how little the whole brain talks to itself before using psilocybin, during its effect and afterwards. There is literally an explosion of activity all over the brain and the whole thing lights up as the new connections are made.
I think it’s at this point during the experience you want to use that bit of your DMN to work on the observation I mentioned early. It can see you’re depressed or anxious and can look at the trains of ingrained thought, memories and so on. It can then rewire the brain with all these new connections, with different insights to see things in a totally different way.
This is where I think it’s really important to make a distinction at this point where therapeutic use differs from a straightforward trip. It’s really important to spend time thinking on intentions, trust exercises with other people, discussion with the therapists, micro dosing and a lot of breath work. And after the event, more work back at home to continue using those new changed pathways. It’s very much not laying back on your bed visualising goldfish and sharks on your ceiling!
So if it’s such a wonder drug, why is it illegal? I think pretty much it is illegal because it IS a wonder drug, which I remind you comes from 200+ species of fungi which grow freely in the UK. It’s not in the interests of, and I hate to use the expression, “big-pharma”, because this can knock out over half their products. That’s the minor point, the major one being successive government policies against some drugs deemed socially unacceptable to others like alcohol, which are. In actual fact, if you put all drugs in a scale of dangerous alcohol is right out on the dangerous side to hallucinogenics, which are far, far safer. Quite why psilocybin and mdma are in the same category as heroin and cocaine is ridiculous - hallucinogenics are not addictive (because biologically they don’t work so well if you take them too often) and as such you don’t end up dead having shot up once too often.
Are they entirely safe though? No, they’re not. If you do take far too much it can eventually cause serotonin problems, but that’s the case with anything taken to excess. There is certainly a lot less danger than you get with alcohol. The worst that will happen is a bad trip.
So I won’t be doing anything illegal, it’s being carefully worked out in advance, it’s as safe as anything else, it’s very successful in treating a wide range of mental conditions (including addictions!), and in a safe and structured environment. I was asked if I thought it was scary, or like brainwashing or something. I don’t feel like that though - it’s all in my mind, it’s only me doing it to me to change me! And that’s really what I want to do.
So there you go - a psilocybin FAQ! Congratulations if you made it all the way to the end. Im pretty sure the chemical and brain sections are correct, albeit it to a level I can just about grasp, but open to being corrected.

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