Meet the Psychedelic Boom’s First Responders
verything was insane and fine. The walls had begun to bend, the grain in the floorboards was starting to run. Jeff Greenberg's body had blown apart into particles, pleasantly so. When he closed his eyes, chrysanthemums blossomed.
A tech executive of 54, Greenberg had eaten 5 grams of psychedelic mushrooms that afternoon. He, like your cousin and your coworker and maybe you yourself, had discovered in recent years the world-expanding powers of psilocybin. But world expansion can be dicey. At some point that afternoon, Greenberg's thoughts took a dark turn, and soon dark melted into horrifying.
The psychiatrist Stanislav Grof called psychedelics “nonspecific amplifiers” of the psyche. Any thoughts, feelings, or memories on hand are subject to unplanned wild magnification. Frequently that results in a thrillingly revelatory experience. Occasionally it toggles over into indescribable terror, which in turn comes in many flavors: Paranoia. Ghastly hallucinations. Intense grief. Fear of insanity, fear of death.
