Autistic Psychedelic Stories: “The Mushrooms Had Something to Teach Me” by Dan
Shared anonymously to autismonacid@gmail.com. Reshared here, with permission. More about this topic @ http://autisticpsychedelic.com & http://autismonacid.com
More Autistic Psychedelic Stories on Medium:
- “The Wave” by Thomas
- “New Colours” by “J”
- “Autism on Ayahuasca” by Ian
- “The Mushrooms Had Something to Teach Me” by Dan
“The Mushrooms Had Something to Teach Me” by Dan
I first met Dan via twitter, then had the pleasure of Emailing back & forth with him. Here is one of his response Emails—a questionnaire he completed—shared here on Medium with his expressed consent.
1. Bio (age, home country, occupations, hobbies, diagnosis if applicable)
I’m 35 years old, was born in and still live in the United States. I grew up in the suburbs of New York City and have been living in Brooklyn for the last 15 years. I work as a software engineer.
For my entire childhood and much of my adulthood my hobby interests were a good match to the nerd stereotype. Really liked sci-fi and fantasy fiction. Really liked video games, board games, and collectible card games (I was medium successful at competitive Magic: the Gathering when I was younger). As I’ve matured the nerd identity has shifted into the background a lot more. I still enjoy most of that stuff but have found other things drawing my attention more. At this point I’m not actually sure what my hobbies are.
I was diagnosed as on the Autism Spectrum as an adult by a therapist. She was reluctant to label me at all because she wasn’t sure it would be helpful, but we did go through the DSM inventory for ASD traits and I’m a pretty clear match for high-functioning autism (the type that used to be called Asperger’s Syndrome). I had a lot of the classic symptoms of social communication disorder, and also a lot of the classical neuro-atypical sensory weirdness. I’m extremely sensitive to light, sound, and touch. Learning about that stuff contextualized so many of the childhood meltdown incidents. I was reacting to sensory overstimulation. It was really helpful for me to understand that with this context.
2. How did u find out about Autism on Acid?
You reached out to me on Twitter.
3. How you think you felt / behaved in the years before your elucidogenic experiences, growing up, socially, with family, etc
I’m not familiar with the word “elucidogenic”. I think you’re using that to mean “experiences that elucidated something important to you”. Or maybe that was just a typo/autocorrect for hallucinogenic. In any case I would definitely describe my most significant psychedelic trips as elucidating.
I was a very weird kid. Socially awkward. Misunderstood. Poorly socialized. Had a lot of trouble making friends. Was prone to meltdowns and strange behavior that adults in my life didn’t understand. When I was a child I had extreme touch sensitivity issues. I had to cut tags off of clothing because I couldn’t tolerate feeling it against my skin. I would sometimes startle when someone tried to hug me. I had trouble with normal eye contact, either doing way too much of it or way too little of it. Couldn’t find the socially acceptable level. I had problems with dressing myself in socially acceptable ways. Similarly with grooming. I was constantly wearing ragged clothes or ill-fitting or mismatched outfits. I was constantly unkempt and unpresentable.
I’ve always been bright and a fast learner and a creative thinker. This was noticed at school and there were some attempts to get me into honors classes and other similar things, but it never really stuck because I was so extremely alienated and unmotivated. I was able to use my natural intelligence to avoid working very hard. Common pattern with many bright kids with social difficulties.
I could say a lot more here but maybe we should save that for a phone conversation. I’ll just point out that the weirdness and social maladaptation persisted well into my young adulthood. I didn’t really start healing from it and developing good coping behavior and learning skills I missed as a child.
5. Details of your first meaningful experience(s)
My first meaningful psychedelic trip happened when I was 19 years old and away from home at an undergraduate college in Massachusetts. I took 3.5g of psilocybin mushrooms and had a mind blowing experience. This is another thing I could say a lot more about but would prefer to save the details for a call.
6. Initial reaction to the your psychedelic experience(s)
I had an extremely positive reaction to my early experiences. I didn’t stop with just that one trip, but probably tripped about a dozen times between the ages of 19 and 21. Some of the trips were challenging or unpleasant but most of them were incredibly beautiful and opening. I had trouble understanding what was happening though and it didn’t match the worldview I held at the time (think Richard Dawkins style atheist materialist, a view I no longer hold). Despite the difficulty understanding the experiences I knew it was something important and the memory stayed with me.
7. Feelings toward the psychedelic experience(s) over time
I dropped out of that school in Massachusetts (eventually got a degree in Computer Science at a different college in New York) and didn’t have another psychedelic experience for about 11 years. I held on to those memories of my initial tripping experience like a precious jewel though. After taking a long break I felt the call again in 2016, right in the middle of a bit of a psychic crisis. I had been suffering in a deep depression for many years at that point and the walls around my psyche started to crumble. It was scary but it prompted me to finally get the help I needed to start my healing process. I found a talk therapist, found a psychedelic guide, and started tripping again (both solo and guided trips). It was probably the best thing I ever did for myself.
8. Risks & challenges of your experiences
I’m a naturally cautious person so I did lots of research and made sure I had the support I needed to integrate my psychedelic use appropriately. I was taking high doses (3 or 4 grams of psilocybin was typical) about once a month for about 18 months straight beginning in 2016 and ending in 2017. I still use psychedelics but not at the same frequency or intensity as that phase.
Most of those trips were challenging in one way or another. Lots of beautiful and uplifting experiences too but there was really an intense focus on confronting my shadow, unlearning a lot of really bad habits of thought, and repatterning my self-image and relationship with the world and other people. It was a deep transformation.
9. Perceived or lasting Benefits of your psychedelic experiences
I can’t really disentangle the psychedelic element of my path from everything else I was doing, it’s all of a piece, but the psychedelics were a necessary catalyst to make it work, and in a short time frame as well. Like rocket fuel for personal development. The lasting benefits of this have been seeing myself and the world much more clearly. Dramatically reduced neurosis and anxiety. Dramatically improved social instincts. Dropping a lot of bad habits. Deeply accepting some of my weirdness and quirks. It also helped me to develop a spiritual practice and I’ve been studying Buddhism and practicing meditation for the last 4 years.
10. In one sentence, how would you summarize what happened & why it is important?
Psychedelic experiences provided an instrument that I could use to examine my own mind and learn from direct experience what my own conscious experience is like. This was a necessary tool for me to be able to develop effective coping mechanisms, cultivate self-acceptance, and understand my own memories and the events of my life.
11. What’s next for you in this exploration?
Continuing to explore the possibilities of psychedelic experience, integrate them into my spiritual practice, and working to develop community.
Shared anonymously to autismonacid@gmail.com. Reshared here, with permission. More about this topic @ http://autisticpsychedelic.com & http://autismonacid.com
More Autistic Psychedelic Stories on Medium:
