💧 This is your brain on shrooms

Happy Monday! Welcome back to The Drop In. We’re confused about where June and July went, and really can’t believe it’s August… WTF! If you haven’t taken a second to enjoy the beauty of summer — the fruits, flowers, and sunshine — make space in your calendar to do so this week. You deserve it. 🍉🌞

We have another assortment of interesting stories brought to you by the great journalists who write for DoubleBlind. Our featured story this week is about what happens to our brains when we eat psilocybin mushrooms. Contrary to Drug War propaganda, mushrooms (and most drugs) don’t turn our brains into sizzling, fried eggs. Quite the opposite, actually, if consumed responsibly. You can find that story immediately below!

We also have another installment of our Decolonizing Psychedelics series featuring a conversation with Victor Cabral about our relationship to power and how it can uphold systems of oppression—within us and in our homes. It’s a beautiful, thought-provoking piece that helps bring into focus actionable steps about how we can decolonize our lives and, thus, culture.

There’s a lot of great content in this newsletter if you keep scrolling down, including stories about music’s impact on the brain, Albino Penis Envy mushrooms, and kitty flipping. You can also join us for a workshop with guest speaker Mikaela de la Myco on Tripping Solo on August 11. You can learn more about it here!

🌞💕,

Mary Carreón
Senior Editor

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Our Latest

Victor Cabral, a systems thinker working at the intersection of education, policy, and therapeutic practice, focuses on creating decolonized systems of care for those most impacted by historical harms. In our latest installment of Decolonizing Psychedelics with Preeti Simran Sethi, Cabral discusses the influence of colonialism and white supremacy on all races and emphasizes the importance of inner transformation in the collective effort to decolonize psychedelics.

The Church of the Eagle and the Condor, after securing a settlement to use ayahuasca for religious purposes, is now seeking $2.2 million in legal fees, which the Department of Justice argues are excessively high and unnecessary. The DOJ claims the church could have obtained a religious exemption without litigation, while the church counters that legal precedents required a lawsuit to secure their rights.

Music profoundly impacts the brain, energizing, waking, disturbing, comforting, or calming you based on the selection. To enhance your psychedelic trips, create playlists tailored for different purposes: lifting your mood, delving deep into your subconscious, or calming you down if you get too high. Here are some songs to consider for a calming playlist. 

& More Must-Reads

• Albino Penis Envy (APE), one of the most potent psychedelic mushrooms, was partially the product of “dumb luck,” according to the man who created it.

• Ever heard of smoking banana peels? This “hoax” tricked federal officials, the FDA, mainstream newspapers—and countless psychonauts seeking a fruitful trip.

• Poets Gerd Stern, Allen Ginsberg, and Carl Solomon influenced a generation of psychedelic counterculture–they met in a psychiatric hospital.

Trip Tales

Have you had a profound experience with psychedelics before? Share your story with us for a chance to be featured in The Drop In. Submit your entry here.

Join Us

Embrace the Solo Trip with Mikaela de la Myco

Curious about journeying on psychedelics alone? While it can be deeply transformative, it also requires careful preparation. In our upcoming workshop, Mikaela de la Myco will explore the benefits and challenges of solo trips and share essential tips for a safe, meaningful experience.

Discover how solo journeys can help you dive deeper within yourself, reminding you of your inner strength and self-reliance.

Date & Time: August 11, 2024 at 3pm PT
Virtual Event: Tune in from anywhere or access the recording after

Register Now by signing up for a free trial of DoubleBlind+ and unlock the secrets to a powerful solo psychedelic journey.

Already a member? Click here to access the member calendar and sign up.

Learn with Us

🖌️ Pop Art's bucking of art conventions and defamiliarization of the everyday often gives it a psychedelic feel. Here are 6 eye-popping examples of psychedelic pop art.

😺 What is kitty flipping? How much you know about this popular combo says a lot about your familiarity with club drugs—and Jennifer Lopez movies.

🍄 If you're prepping for a drug test, the answer to how long shrooms "stay in your system" depends on how you're testing for the presence of the mushrooms' compounds.

💊 MDA is a cousin of MDMA and the sassafrass tree, but the "sass drug" engenders a different experience in its own right.

DoubleBlind Supports

DONATE: Supporting plant medicine by nurturing ecological wellbeing, including land rights activism, bolstering food security, and strengthening economic resilience: The Indigenous Reciprocity Initiative of the Americas (IRI) is a grassroots network of Indigenous community organizations fighting for land, water, food, medicine, and culture. Learn more and donate here. 

ATTEND: The People of Color Psychedelic Collective is hosting Vibration for Vitality: A Workshop on Liberating Our Voices on August 13. In this online experiential workshop, attendees will be led through a voice-activating meditation to develop a deeper connection with our voices and how we use them. You will also learn simple tuning exercises that can help calm the nervous system within minutes. Learn more and register.

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.

Together With…

Calling all near Berkeley, CA!

Join us on September 21-22 in Berkeley, CA, for Re:turn to Wholeness—a two-day conference on trauma treatment and psychedelic integration. 

Organized by DB+ Resident Facilitator, Dr. Ido Cohen, and The Integration Circle, this event is perfect for practitioners and passionate individuals who want to deepen their knowledge and skills in trauma treatment and psychospiritual approaches to psychedelic integration.

The conference features experienced practitioners who will delve into crucial topics such as:

• Working with sexual abuse in psychedelic states

• Inner child work and touch

• Jungian Psychology and psychedelic experiences

• Psychedelics and integration for couples

• And much more

These two days promise a rich, personal, and professional learning experience. Click here to get your ticket and use the code DB10 for a sweet discount available until August 10. We hope to see you there!

From the Magazine

Armenian photographer Karen Khachaturov manipulates human subjects just enough to make us doubt their humanity 

Three bodies dressed in soft pink garments sit atop the windowsills of cream-colored stable stalls, their faces enshrouded in elephant masks. Two of the human-elephants peer off into the distance, while the third seems to be looking straight at us. Both gently unsettling and vigorously intriguing, the image captures an essential characteristic of Yerevan-based photographer Karen Khachaturov’s aesthetic: its liminality. In stunningly vibrant photographs that almost always appear in pastel hues, Khachaturov manipulates human subjects just enough to make us doubt their humanity.

See the full photo essay in DoubleBlind Issue No. 3.

Ps. This back issue is almost sold out!

Latest Youtube Video

Step one of getting through a “bad trip” is not calling it a bad trip

Challenging experiences, under the influence of psychedelics, happen to the best of us. But with some simple steps, you may be able to get through it one breath at a time. DB’s Shelby Hartman is walking our YouTube community through how to navigate a challening trip in our latest.

Tune in!