Psilocybin

You first wondered about this when you were 12. Then you put it aside while you made your first million. Now you have some breathing room and can consider existential questions once again:

“When we have what we call ‘an experience’ how much is that experience a reflection of what’s actually out there in the world, how much is refraction of the world based on our ‘intentions, projects and purposes’ in that world, and how much is a projection of our cerebral architecture onto that world?”

You probably already suspect that it is a ‘little bit’ of all three and that’s likely true. But it leaves unanswered, “How little is a little?” In other words, what portion of our experience is reflected, what part refracted, what projected? And how can we be sure which is which?

Recent experiments with a hallucinogen known as ‘sillycybin’ have shed new light on this existential problem. Whenever crazy philosophy types (like me) persuade otherwise sensible people (like you) to think more deeply about the nature of experience, three aspects of experience seem to catch everyone’s attention:

1. Events seem to occur in space,

2. Events seem to occur in time,

3. Events seem to be experienced from a unique perspective we call ‘the self’.

   
   

Only academic philosophers waste time thinking about what it’s like to be ‘blue’, but most everyone at some time or other wonders about the nature of space, time, and self. The last time you got high on psychedelics, did you notice rectilinear, Cartesian space getting all gooey? 

“Professor, how am I supposed to measure things down to the fourth decimal if everything is continuously moving…and my ruler is some sort of squiggly snake?” And time? “How long have I been sitting on this beach? Did I just get here? Or have I been here all day? How to tell – check how sunburned I am. Ouch! That’s going to peel.”

And who is this ‘I’ that’s been sitting on this beach all day? “I am the sand, the ocean waves, and the sunlight; I am the sparsely scattered sunbathers kindly sharing their beach with me.  Where do I begin and end? What’s me and what’s not? And why am I channeling Walt Whitman?”

On an ordinary Monday, the neurons in your brain fire in coordinated waves. You experience these waves as thoughts or perceptions. In our culture at least that experience is likely to include a spatial aspect and a temporal aspect and a sense of self.

But come Friday, you have a date with some psilocybin. When we take hallucinogens, neurons desynchronize and some stop firing altogether. But at the same time, our neural networks become less distinct from one another: the boundaries between them blur. The walls of ‘the box’ just got thinner, so now it’s easier for us to think ‘outside’ it. Overall, the brain’s process becomes more chaotic while its output becomes more creative. 

As a result we may struggle to perform habitual tasks (like tying shoelaces) but we may also generate amazing new ideas and gain insights into seemingly intractable problems. This experience is also likely to challenge your everyday conception of space, time, and self.

Note that the effects of psilocybin are a double edged sword. If we were high all day (like in the ‘60s), we would have neither the motivation nor the ability to get much done (like in the 60s). But if we never got high (like in the 50s), we’d sacrifice a lot of creativity…  

As is often the case with living organisms, the sweet spot is a happy medium. But how to make that happen? Hint: we didn’t have to wait for Timothy Leary; evolution takes care of us…though it takes its sweet time. 

The human genome evolved to include CYP2D6, a gene that allows our bodies to synthesize certain psychoactive substances, including psilocybin, naturally. Recent studies have shown that psilocybin enhances cognitive function. It would have sharpened early humans’ visual skills, supporting their hunting and gathering activities. 

The compound also could have boosted sexual stimulation, thereby increasing chances of mating, a boon to reproductive rates. Consequently, natural selection ensured that the ability to generate psilocybin would be hard wired in the human genome. 

So human beings get high naturally! Deal with it. Everyone’s microdosing on psilocybin all the time…or at least they could be. Even Grannie! 

But ‘some’ is never enough for us apex predators; we always want more! More money, more power, more drugs. Early hominids—our extinct ancestors—picked “magic mushrooms” as far back as six million years ago. 

Mushrooms originally evolved to produce psychoactive substances as a defense against pests and predators; humans repurposed them. Now those in the know rely on them for protection against cognitive pests and emotional predators.

Among human cultures, there is an almost universal sense that there is more to this world than meets the eye. Nietzsche notwithstanding, something transcends the world as we perceive it. Call it Aletheia, noumena, dialectics, the Upside Down (Stranger Things), or God (Torah), there are more things in heaven and earth than are dreamt of in our philosophies.   

Perhaps organically synthesized psilocybin gave our species its first look at the Transcendent. That would likely have spurred us to attempt even deeper raids on the ineffable. Shamanic practices and religious rituals, sometimes preceded by a ‘tiptoe through the tubers’, allow those who ingest the fungi to have experiences we would otherwise never know. Today, a well-attended church in Colorado Springs offers members of its contribution the option of a consuming magic mushroom before the services.

This is another case of convergent evolution. Fungi evolved the ability to secrete psylocibin as a survival mechanism, humans did the same but for entirely different adaptive and reproductive advantages. 

Wanting more, early humans foraged for the precious caps, no doubt spreading spores far and wide in the process. Later, humans cultivated these same mushrooms and took steps to protect their habitats. Finally, hippies consumed them, ensuring a market and securing the funding needed to keep the cycle humming. So, if I decide to take a ‘trip’ someday, would you care to join me?

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