How psilocybin mushrooms change the way your brain processes fear, and even death. 

By Matthew Hayes   

To Battle! 

That’s a bold statement. Conquering fear. To conquer is to imply complete control, dominion over something, someone, someplace. But in this context, it makes perfect sense. I’m an unabashed lover of Conan the Barbarian, so to illustrate this point of conquering fear, let’s take a little journey.  

Detach yourself for a moment, and let your imagination take over, as we melt away into that long-forgotten era of the Hyborian Age… 

…Clutching the mighty two-handed broadsword in your hands, you gaze across the sweeping slopes of the Cimmerian Plains. Craggy peaks of black rock cut through the gunmetal-grey skies casting doubt over the land.  You’re Conan the Barbarian, black hair flowing free, battle-scars thick and calloused. Or, you’re Red Sonja and your fiery-red locks shimmer with defiance, even in the grayness of the day. Your companions are at your side. All steely-eyed, all fearless. They’ll follow you wherever you go. They’re with you, no matter what.  

You look towards the distance, at the churning, writhing mass gathering like the high tide of an oily ocean. The Black Army howls mad curses and chants, stomping the muddied ground with cloven hooves, smashing rusted axes against tattered shields, swinging flayed banners. 

At the head of the Black Army is Lord Fear, the evil, ancient enemy of all humanity. The Black Lord sits high on a horse made of iron, rust, and decay. You can hear his raspy, grating laughter over the din of noise, as he whips his fear-loving denizens into a frenzy. 

But there is no fear. You hold your sword high, a signal. The ground rumbles and shakes. At your back, a hundred-thousand-strong army of warrior’s charges forward from unseen positions, driven by the heart-beat pounding of drums and bellowing war horns. Eager for battle. Eager to drive away the invading army of Blackness, once and for all. You look to your companions and smile as they smile back. Finally, this war is coming to an end. 

With all-knowing confidence, you charge into the fray, sights set on Lord Fear.

The Black Army was doomed before they ever knew it… 

VICTORY!!

Pretty dramatic, I know, but that’s psilocybin. That’s what mushrooms are, that’s what they do. They’re your stalwart battle buddies, your hundred-thousand-strong army of fearless warriors, ready to battle back the darkness for you. They’re your gleaming broad sword and wind of freedom blowing against your face. 

Psilocybin conquers fear. But how? And why does it matter? We’ll get to that. But first, let’s take a look at fear. 

Driven by Fear 

We all know fear. We’ve all felt fear, sensed fear. Fear throttles your body wide open like a whining supercharger, driving us towards what W.B. Cannon coined, the “fight-or-flight” response². 

Fear has guided humanity through the jungles and woodlands and plains; across the oceans, over the mountains and across the deserts; fear keeping us alive by keeping us alert. Allowing us to hunt and forage and survive. Fear is the most powerful emotion an animal, a human can experience. 

And now fear has swept us into the 21st century, bringing all of our primitive drives, instincts, habits with it; old fears taking new, modified forms, twisting into confusion in an ever-changing technological age of detachment. 

And until fear is completely manufactured out of us with the inevitable implant that’ll do just that, we’ll have to accept and understand these parts of ourselves, our emotions, and how they activate the body from the top-down. 

To Fight, or to Flee. That is the Question… isn’t it? 

A mother fearing for the safety of her child has two choices -- stay, fight -- allowing anger to steel her will as she stands against the perceived threat. Or, flee in hopes of finding safety for both. Death, a possible outcome either way. 

But she stays to fight, teeth bared, putting her survival at risk to keep her child safe. With primordial instructions pulsing across her cerebral cortex, her amygdala sends a signal to her hypothalamus, releasing hormones like CRH (Corticotropin-releasing hormone), which then stimulates the pituitary gland, releasing more hormones like ACTH (Adrenocorticotropic hormone.) Both of these hormones are released in response to stress and fear, real or imagined.

Even fears you haven’t experienced before but have seen on TV, or in an image; fear or anger on someone’s face⁴, even an unpleasant memory-recall can trigger the fear-happy amygdala. That’s how biologically wired we are to respond to fear.

But it doesn’t stop there for the mother.

Cortisol and adrenaline flood her veins, increasing her heart-rate, dilating her pupils; her sight picture narrowing into an infinitely long tunnel of hyper-focused vision, perception of time slowing just a fraction; palms, brows, slick with a sheen of sweat.  

She’ll fight to protect hers, or die trying… 

Recently, I wrote an account of a personally significant firefight I was involved in. In the account I attempted to describe that switch-over happening as my body primed itself, long before any rounds were fired. But in a combat zone, that charged feeling never really goes away, it just hovers at different levels of hyper-awareness and arousal. Predator/Prey drive stays full tilt like a stuck transmission: 

“Men – young and old – leer at us through weary, dark eyes. No women. Odd, but not uncommon. Still though, a red flag raises in the back of my mind. Keying my handheld, I relay what I’m seeing, what I feel. Everyone’s on the same page. We always are. Neck hairs bristle. A subtle shift occurs, preternatural perceptions gained from past experiences. Primal instinct, like when an animal feels threatened by something lurking in the dark. We’ve learned to trust those instincts. Something’s off…” 

Of course, now I know the physiological processes that were occurring. As a survival mechanism, we’ve been wired to read faces. Faces that look angry, depressed, suspicious, tick off the amygdala, and the cascade effect kicks-in, even if only for a few seconds.  

So, if fear is such an embedded part of who we are, what can we do about it? How could we do anything about it, without say, needing to receive an implant out of an episode of Black Mirror…?  

Uh, yeah, no thanks, mom!

Imagine this. Let’s say you were dying, you had terminal cancer. (Which is the reality for many of the participants in the two studies we’ll be examining, below). Imagine the amount of fear that’d bog you down, as you start regretting all those things you wish you would’ve done, wondering what’s coming next. Time, the passage of it, would be terrifying. Imagine the depression it’d bring in by the oceans full. The detachment from life that’d inevitably haunt you. 

The greatest collective fear of humanity is the fear of dying, the fear of death.  

But what if there was something that could even banish that fear? Or, at the very least, ease that fear to a manageable, even, negligible level. Could you imagine the implications of such a thing…? 

Well there is an answer. And it can be found in nature. A gift born from a mycelial network with knowledge older than man. Encoded healing from mushrooms, specifically, psilocybin cubensis. What follows is a look at a pair of studies published in the Journal of Pharmacology, which explores how psilocybin can defeat fear, once and for all. 

Riding the New Wave of Psychedelic Research 

“…By 1965 there were more than 1,000 published clinical studies that reported promising therapeutic effects in over 40,000 subjects. LSD, psilocybin and, sporadically, ketamine have been reported to have therapeutic effects in patients with anxiety and obsessive–compulsive disorders (OCD), depression, sexual dysfunction and alcohol addiction, and to relieve pain and anxiety in patients with terminal cancer.” (Vollenweider, F.X. and Kometer, M. 2010, p. 642) 

After laying dormant for nearly 40 years, psychedelic research has experienced a renaissance^1,8,10, science confirming what’s already been known across the world, for millennia; there’s curative power in psilocybin mushrooms. Following this untapped potential of science, Dr.’s Stephen Ross and Roland Griffiths recently conducted collaborative studies on how psilocybin mushrooms eases cancer-related fear and anxiety^5,9. 

Psychedelics like psilocybin are 5-HT2A receptor agonists¹², meaning, they stimulate that receptor. Why is this important? Because, the 5-HT family of receptors, better known as serotonin, are integral in the release of numerous chemical neuro-transmitters and hormones that influence things like aggression and anxiety, learning, memory, mood, and sleep⁷. 

“The most recent work has provided compelling evidence that classical hallucinogens primarily act as agonists of serotonin (5-hydroxytryptamine) 2A (5-HT2A) receptors and mimic mainly the so-called positive symptoms (hallucinations and thought disorder) of schizophrenia…” (Vollenweider, F.X. and Kometer, M. 2010, p. 642) 

 Many current anti-depressant medications seek to target these receptors as well, though taking weeks to illicit any type of noticeable effect, and may actually make symptoms worse³! Besides, the long-term ramifications of pharmaceuticals are still unknown. (Gibb, B.J. 2007, p. 145.) 

So, let’s Science the S*^t out of this!

Each study more-or-less followed the same protocols, eliminating as many influential variables as possible. Both used a double-blind, cross-over method, meaning, neither subjects nor researches knew what was being received or administered. Also, there was a “cross-over” period, meaning, those that’d received the placebo the first go-around, would then receive psilocybin, (after the prescribed number of weeks went by), and vice-versa. The only major difference between the two studies were the placebo. Dr. Ross’s study used a niacin-placebo while Dr. Griffiths’ study tested a low, “placebo-like” dose of psilocybin vs. a higher dose of psilocybin.  

Between the two studies, a total of 80 patients were involved. (Dr. Griffiths study also included a wide variety of variables to determine the effects of psilocybin on overall well-being in conjunction with therapy, e.g., phone interviews with family members, friends, work colleagues, and ratings of “mystical-type” experiences). 

In each study, roughly half of all participants had never used psychedelics, and safety and efficacy were monitored. So, what did they find? We’ll focus on Dr. Ross’s study, and compare/contrast with the study led by Dr. Griffiths.  

Fig. 1. Study flow diagram from Dr. Ross's study.   

Findings:

Researchers found that the group receiving psilocybin first, as opposed to the niacin-placebo, experienced immediate reduction in clinically-diagnosed symptoms of depression and anxiety following administration and therapy session, showing that a “magnitude of difference between the psilocybin and control groups was large across the primary outcome measures, assessed at 1 day/2 weeks/6 weeks/7 weeks post-dose 1.” (See Fig. 2 below). 

Fig. 2. Pre-crossover. Prior to the crossover, large drops are shown between psilocybin-first group as compared to placebo-first group, despite experiencing same therapeutic sessions and environment.

The psilocybin-first group maintained these reductions even after receiving the placebo at the 7-week cross-over. (More on that in the conclusion.)

Prior to cross-over, the placebo-group didn’t experience any significant drops in anxiety and depression, but, after the placebo-group received psilocybin at the 7-week cross-over period, an immediate reduction in clinically diagnosed symptoms of depression and anxiety were shown. (As Fig. 3 below shows.)

Fig. 3. Post-crossover. Significant drops in anxiety and depression for placebo groups after receiving a high-dose of psilocybin, after crossover.

Fig.4 shows huge gains across the board in well-being. Participants rated their high-dose psilocybin experience as one of the most personally meaningful, experiencing positive behavioral changes and increased well-being/satisfaction. Not only were these increases in quality-of-life significant, but the duration for which the effects lasted were also just as incredible. Positive changes in outlook and attitude continued all the way up to the 6.5 month-check-up! That’s huge!!

Fig. 4. After both groups received high-doses of psilocybin, spectrum's for quality of life across the board dramatically increased. Remember, these are terminally-ill cancer patients. Unfortunately, a few of the participants passed away due to their illness.

In Dr. Griffiths complimentary study, findings mirrored those of Dr. Ross’s. In Dr. Griffiths’ study, the group receiving a high dose of psilocybin first, experienced immediate reductions in clinically-diagnosed depression and anxiety, compared to the placebo group. 

But, when the placebo group received the high dose of psilocybin, all variations collapsed, just as they did in Dr. Ross’s study. Meaning, that after both groups received (high-dose) psilocybin at the cross-over, all parameters for measuring depression, anxiety and well-being were the same in both groups. Both studies proving that a (high-dose) of psilocybin was not only effective at reducing fear of death, anxiety, and depression, but that those effects lasted for up to 8 months!! Read it again. 8 months…! 

Implications for Mental Health and Overall Well-being 

People, people, people. The results of these two studies are absolutely incredible. I challenge you to find a current pharmaceutical medication that can not only change the way you feel, the way you think about life and death – conventional wisdom stating that our personalities are set in stone – but with just ONE dose in a therapeutic environment, causes profound and enduring change. 

Nearly 60-80% of participants stated that their experience with psilocybin (high-dose) was one of the most meaningful and significant experiences of their life, comparing it to the birth of a child, marriage and other positive-impact moments. 

That same number, (60-80%), also MAINTAINED this positive outlook for up to 8 months!! Some, up to a year. Fundamentally altering, (for the better), their outlook on life, viewing death differently. To top it all off, there were no negative side-effects, and as stated by the researchers, psilocybin has shown, time and again, to be a safe and highly tolerable compound when used in the proper setting. 

My grandmother passed away due to breast cancer. I watched her suffer as she slowly rotted away from the radiation and chemo treatments. I wish she could have had something like this to ease that suffering...

I’ve also discussed in previous posts my own positive, life-changing experiences with psilocybin, and how it’s helping me with my own depression, anxiety, PTSD. But you don’t have to take my word for it. The proof is in the pudding, as they say. 

I’ll end our little journey with a quote, taken from Dr. Roland Griffiths recent TedTalk on psychedelics¹¹. 

 “Excitingly, exploration of the psilocybin-occasioned mystical experience seems to provide a model system for rigorous and prospective investigation of these awakening experiences. Further research will surely reveal the underlying biological mechanisms of action, will likely result in an array of therapeutic applications. And, more importantly, because such experiences are foundationally related to our moral, and our ethical understandings, further research may ultimately prove to be crucial to the very survival of our species.” 

Want to learn more or be more involved? Check out these organizations pushing for the education, research and therapeutic use of psychedelics. 

MAPS (Multidisciplinary Association for Psychedelic Studies) 

Heffter Research institute 

Erowid 

Veterans for Entheogenic Therapy INC   

Reference List: 

¹ Brodwin, E. (2017, December 11) Peter Thiel is betting on magic mushrooms to treat depression — and he's not the only one. Business Insider. Retrieved from http://www.businessinsider.com/peter-thiel-magic-mushrooms-psychedelics-depression-science-2017-12  

² Cannon, W.B. (1915) Bodily Changes in Pain, Hunger, Fear and Rage: An Account of Recent Researches into the Function of Emotional Excitement. 187-189. Retrieved from https://archive.org/stream/cu31924022542470#page/n201/mode/2up/search/flight  

³ Dockrill, P. (2018, January 8) Magic Mushrooms Do the Opposite of Anti-Depressants, But That May Be Why They Work. Science Alert. Retrieved from https://www.sciencealert.com/scientists-discovered-how-magic-mushrooms-alleviate-depression-antidepressants-psilocybin-amygdala 

⁴ Gibb. B.J. (2007) The Rough Guide to the Brain. Strand, London. Rough Guides Ltd. 97-99. 

⁵ Griffiths, R. R. Johnson M.W. Carducci M.A. Umbricht A. Richards W.A. Richards B.D. Cosimano M.P. Klinedinst M.A. (2016) Psilocybin produces substantial and sustained decreases in depression and anxiety in patients with life-threatening cancer: A randomized double-blind trial. Journal of Psychopharmacology 30(12) 1181-1197 DOI: 10.1177/0269881116675513 http://journals.sagepub.com/doi/10.1177/0269881116675513 

⁶ Lamia, M. (2011, December 15) The Complexity of Fear: Are you experiencing anxiety, or is it fear? Psychology Today. Retrieved from https://www.psychologytoday.com/blog/intense-emotions-and-strong-feelings/201112/the-complexity-fear 

⁷ McIntosh, J. (2016, April 29) Serotonin: Facts, What Does Serotonin Do? Medical New Today. Retrieved from https://www.medicalnewstoday.com/kc/serotonin-facts-232248  

⁸ McRae, M. (2017, July 8) Research Shows Magic Mushrooms Can Offer Real Benefits in Depression Therapy. Science Alert. Retrieved from https://www.sciencealert.com/therapy-for-depression-gets-a-significant-boost-when-combined-with-psilocybin  

⁹ Ross, S. Bossis, A. Guss J. Agin-Liebes, G. Malone, T. Cohen B.  Mennenga, S. E. Belser, A.  Kalliontzi, K. Babb, J. Su, Z. Corby, P. Schmidt, B. L. (2016) Rapid and sustained symptom reduction following psilocybin treatment for anxiety and depression in patients with life-threatening cancer: a randomized controlled trial. Journal of Psychopharmacology 30(12) 1165-1180 DOI: 10.1177/0269881116675512 http://journals.sagepub.com/doi/10.1177/0269881116675512  

¹⁰ Schiffman, R. (2016, December 1) Psilocybin: A Journey Beyond the Fear of Death? Scientific American. Retrieved from https://www.scientificamerican.com/article/psilocybin-a-journey-beyond-the-fear-of-death/  

¹¹ TedMed (2016, April 20) The science of psilocybin and its use to relieve suffering. [Video file]. Retrieved from https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=81-v8ePXPd4  

¹² Vollenweider, F.X. Kometer, M. (2010, September) The neurobiology of psychedelic drugs: implications for the treatment of mood disorders. Nature Reviews: Neuroscience. 11(9) 642-651. Retrieved from http://www.biblioteca.cij.gob.mx/Archivos/Materiales_de_consulta/Drogas_de_Abuso/Articulos/neurobilogypsychedelicdrugs.pdf    

Image Credits: (in order of appearance) 

Conan poster (Original art by Renato Casato) Retrieved from https://ihaveanawesomename.deviantart.com/art/Conan-The-Barbarian-Hi-Res-Textless-Poster-479678094  

Darkwolf (Fire and Ice). (Original art by Frank Frazetta). Retrieved from https://www.pinterest.com/pin/409194316128831309/  

Jvnkfood (Creator). (2014, March 6). Fight or flight response. [Digital image]. Retrieved from https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/9/96/The_Fight_or_Flight_Response.png 

Neep, E. (Photographer). (2011, May 18) Back off. [Digital image]. Retrieved from http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-1388234/Mother-knows-best-The-dramatic-moment-lioness-protects-son-father-gets-bit-competitive.html  

Kalohoridis, C. (Photographer). (2017, December 21) Black Mirror [Digital image]. Retrieved from http://www.vulture.com/2017/12/black-mirror-season-4-review.html  

PilotBrent(Photographer). (2017, December 3) Tombstones. [Digital image]. Retrieved from https://pixabay.com/en/tombstones-graveyard-graves-tomb-3031047/  

Wilcox, T. (Artist). (2008) Magic Mushroom. [Digital image/art]. Retrieved from https://tomwilcox.deviantart.com/art/Magic-Mushroom-87788535 

Figures 1-4 retrieved from http://journals.sagepub.com/doi/full/10.1177/0269881116675512