Happy Monday! Welcome back to The Drop In, DoubleBlind’s trippy newsletter on all things psychedelics. Today we have a lot of juicy stories to share with you so we’re going to jump right in 🥳

Our featured piece today is about how people are dealing with election stress. The political climate has everyone’s nerve endings frayed, and one way people are coping is by going to therapy, particularly psychedelic-assisted sessions. Many psychedelic therapists — both mentioned in our story and not — have told us that they’re busier than ever in the wake of the election. Some have even said that they’re booked out until the end of the year! Can psychedelic therapy help ease the political stress in the US? You’ll have to read to find out!

If you keep scrolling, you’ll also find stories on elite golfers leaning on mushrooms and ayahuasca as performance enhancers, the case for raves as healing ceremonies, and a breakdown of everything you need to know about sassafras.

Stay grounded this week 🫶,

Mary Carreón
Senior Editor

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Elite golfers are taking psychedelics to the fairway… and winning. (We imagine it’s because it makes the little hole look 6 miles wide). But is this really new? Or are they just now admitting it because it’s culturally permissible? Read more about the trend of pro-athletes using mushrooms and ayahuasca as performance-enhancing drugs.

In the Indigenous Nahuatl language of Mexico, these psychedelic mushrooms are called “little children”. Despite (likely) being the original species Gordon Wasson ate with María Sabina in 1955, P. aztecorum is largely overlooked by today’s trippy mycologists. Get the full history, use, and cultivation tips in our guide.

Join us for a free webinar with the godfather of Microdosing, Jim Fadiman.

In the last 5 years, the phenomenon of microdosing has exploded into mainstream awareness. And it’s all thanks to one man: Jim Fadiman. His book The Psychedelic Explorer’s Guide was the first-ever discussion of how to use sub-perceptual doses of psychedelics to enhance your life.

But a lot has changed since 2011. Get Jim’s latest thinking on how to use microdosing for health, healing, and enhanced performance. He will be joined by researcher Dr. Conor Murray, Ph.D. founders of the Microdosing Facilitator Training, Danielle Nova and Adam Bramlage, DoubleBlind’s Senior Editor Mary Carreón, and host Monica Cadena.

It starts Sunday, November 17 at 6 PM PST. 

Best of all? It’s FREE for anyone to join.

Register to join the webinar here.

🌿 There’s a sexy psychoactive hiding in the supplement aisle. Here’s how to use it, smoke it, mix it, and enhance sensual pleasure.

💊 Both derived from the sassafras tree, MDA is known as MDMA’s psychedelic cousin. That one little “meth” group (the second M in MDMA) changes the dosage, duration, and effects. Here’s the full story on “Sass”.

⏳ Ever wonder why acid trips seem to go on F O R E V E R? Us too! Here’s everything you ever wanted to know about what influences the length of an acid trip. Read it here.

🕳️ If you haven’t actually been there, a K-hole can appear to turn someone into a catatonic zombie. But there’s more to it than that—good and bad. Get the full scoop in “WTF is a K-Hole?”.

Get Support: Feel like you could use a little extra support these days (and don’t we all?), check out Mushwomb. They offer mushroom journeywork and support for mothers, partners, families and more. It’s run by Mikaela de la Myco, a mother, educator, folk herbalist, organizer, and entheogen facilitator. We think she might be an angel disguised as a human. 

Some of the topics Mushwomb focuses on include psychedelic motherhood relationships, intimacy & pleasure, decolonizing spirituality, earth medicines, womb wisdom, equity and inclusion. 

Mushwomb is also doing citizen science, open-source research on psychedelics and mothers! If you’re a psychedelic mom, fill out this survey here.

At DoubleBlind, we believe in reciprocity—the idea that everything in the world is interconnected and that we have a responsibility to uplift a psychedelic ecosystem that centers equity, inclusivity, and healing for all. Through our work, we hope to help our community participate in this effort with us.

Save 50% On International Flights (and maybe win a prize, too)

Adventures into the wilds of the world can be just as transformative as inner ones with psychedelics. So when we found this travel giveaway, we had to share it with you.

The prizes are great and all, but we are absolutely smitten with the free membership. They have ridiculous discounts on international flights. 

Enter this AirBnB Travel giveaway with Dollar Flight Club. 

Probably John Lilly. Pushing the boundaries of psychedelic self-experimentation, he invented sensory deprivation float tanks specifically for taking massive doses of LSD and ketamine. 

And that’s where it starts getting weird. In this video, we dig into Lilly’s bizarre experiments with dolphins, encounters with cosmic bureaucracy, and Sega Genesis. Watch it here