Seventy-five-year-old Ryna Mehr calls the day of her first psilocybin journey “Ryna’s rebirth day.” Introduced to mushrooms by her son, Dr. Seth Mehr, she describes the trip as deeply emotional, finding a peculiar comfort in facing her own mortality. “This is what it’s gonna be like when we die. It’s gonna be OK,” she recalls thinking. After that experience, she felt ready to embrace the next chapter of her life.

If you’ve had a life-changing experience with psilocybin mushrooms, you might be eager to introduce your parents to them. With its potential to break negative thinking patterns and alleviate end-of-life anxiety and depression, some adult children are hopeful it might improve the well-being of their elderly parents. 

Mehr, the founder of Cascade Psychedelic Medicine and Health and Safety Director at Innertrek psilocybin service center in Portland, Oregon, views psilocybin-assisted therapy as particularly beneficial for baby boomers, who are increasingly grappling with their mortality and its impact on their loved ones. “Also, their extensive life experience means they've grappled with existential anxieties far longer than younger people, so psilocybin may help address issues resistant to traditional talk therapy,” says Mehr, who’s a state-licensed psilocybin facilitator in Oregon.

If you plan on broaching the topic of mushrooms with a parent, Mehr suggests keeping the conversation casual and open-ended rather than overly direct or prescriptive. Finding ways to engage their interests can also make the discussion more effective.

“Think of ways your parent’s circumstances intersect with the field of psychedelic research. For instance, if your parent sustained a brain injury, you could initiate a conversation about organizations employing psilocybin in TBI therapies,” he says. “If they've served in the military, you could bring up psilocybin programs such as the Heroic Hearts Project.”

Frank Li, co-founder of the Portland-based psilocybin service center Immersive Therapies, observed the lingering psychological and emotional toll of the immigrant experience on his 84-year-old Taiwanese American father. Relocating to a new country, enduring poverty, and adjusting to a foreign culture fostered a scarcity mindset in Li’s father. 

“My dad never spent money on himself and always felt guilty about taking time for self-care. He bottled up his emotions and had a hard time expressing love to his wife and children,” says Li, who introduced the topic by talking to his parents about how psilocybin helped him work through his trauma and depression.“They could see I’d changed for the better, and this piqued their interest.” 

Inspired by Li's positive experience with psilocybin, his father participated in a guided session and experienced cathartic release, crying for the first time in years. Subsequently, he became more comfortable showing affection to his family members. 

“It was heartwarming to witness my dad release years of pent-up tears,” Li says. These days, Li and his father exchange “I love yous” at the end of their phone calls — a previously unimaginable occurrence according to Li. “Now my father allows me to treat him to a nice meal without complaining about the cost. He also suggested that we go on a road trip together.”

Licensed marriage and family therapist and Oregon-licensed psilocybin facilitator Mandy Miller’s father was spontaneous about his decision to take magic mushrooms. Miller and her 84-year-old father had occasionally chatted about the legalization of psilocybin and her work as a guide. He'd battled anxiety, PTSD, and depression for years, experimented with low doses of psilocybin as a young man, read Michael Pollan's How to Change Your Mind, and now wanted to try a therapeutic macrodose of mushrooms. 

“The ceremony was unplanned,” says Miller. “We were in a place where psilocybin was legal, and over dinner one night, my dad said, ‘I wanna do it tomorrow.’ So we did! It was not my preference to do it this way, but I trusted his decision and ability to deal with whatever would come up for him.” 

Miller facilitated the journey for her father. He vomited at the start of it, which worried her that he might be nauseated throughout, but that wasn’t the case. Looking back, Miller felt that his purging was a cleansing process that prepared him for a more enjoyable trip. After the experience, her father told her, “That was fun, but it didn't change me, I don’t think. But I’m glad I tried it.” 

However, four months later, he reported feeling less anxious and said he felt a more significant curiosity about the world and more enthusiasm for life. Miller, who is in her mid-50s, is comfortable with her relationship with her father and did not approach facilitating his journey with any motives to improve it. “I did it just to give him an experience he was curious about. Hopefully, it’ll help him experience more ease and comfort in his later years,” she says. 

“Psychedelics offer a bird's-eye view of your life, much like a topographic map highlighting peaks, valleys, obstacles, and various routes,” says Keith Gilmore, President of Portland Psychedelic Society. He introduced his parents to psychedelics by sharing his own positive experiences with mushrooms. “I talked about my own experiences a few times over a couple of years. One Christmas, I gave them microdose capsules as presents, explaining the benefits and how to take them if they wanted. After they started microdosing, the idea of having a deeper experience seemed like less of a stretch,” says Gilmore, whose hope was for his parents to find some peace around the inevitability of death. 

Similar to Miller, Gilmore also served as his 72-year-old father’s sitter. “I introduced him to the therapeutic process of lying down with closed eyes and listening to a curated musical playlist,” says Gilmore. This experience prompted his father to reunite with an estranged brother. “That was a few years ago, and now my dad and his brother have a good relationship,” he says, adding that the experience has also strengthened their father-son relationship.

The common thread among these approaches is that the choice to take psilocybin ultimately belongs to the parent. Mehr, who has treated patients in the ER who were unknowingly given psilocybin by their children or grandchildren, stresses that we consider the ethical issues of imposing personal agendas, manipulating parents into taking psychedelics, or exaggerating their benefits. 

Sharing information and resources about psilocybin is a good first step, but experts suggest that what truly matters is how you show up in your relationships after your own experiences. Gilmore says, “The positive changes your parents see in you after you’ve done medicine work will be more persuasive than anything you say.”

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