When 65-year-old Estalyn Walcoff took psilocybin, the active ingredient in psychedelic “magic” mushrooms, her worst fears and pains came up to the surface. Then, they transformed into a profound “feeling of connectedness that runs through all of us,” she said in a video. Walcoff called the experience, “the most precious thing I’ve ever known.”
Five years prior to her mushroom experience, when she was 60, Walcoff was diagnosed with an aggressive form of cancer and experienced severe, unending anxiety. As Business Insider put it in a recent article, “even on good days, her constant feelings of worry and fear hung in the back of her mind like a dark curtain.”
Walcoff took mushrooms in a living room-like setting under the surveillance of trained psychologist, Jeffrey Guss and psychotherapist, Seema Desai, as part of a New York University clinical trial assessing the impact of psilocybin on cancer patients with anxiety and depression.
Walcoff described the experience in a video clip, available below. She said at first she felt anxious, then she experienced more physical pain, then she realized that the pain was “actually a level of [her] mind. And underneath that I began to feel great emotional pain.” She worked through the underlying emotions, sobbing for hours. After her psilocybin experience, the anxiety was almost entirely gone, and she said she has since felt at peace.
Walcoff’s experience is not isolated. Several studies assessing psilocybin’s impact on the brain have come up with similar results across research subjects. Many report significant and lasting improvements to anxiety and depression symptoms following psilocybin-assisted therapy. A recent study concluded that psilocybin alters the brain’s organizational framework, creating links between parts of the brain that don’t typically communicate. These shifts, scientists theorize, are behind the drug’s apparent ability to reverse anxiety and depression.
Watch Walcoff describe her experience with psilocybin below:
A Patient Speaks from Patrick H. Murphy on Vimeo.
Our cousins the fungi have lots to share.
Love the story, but please stop using verbiage like ‘Magic Mushrooms’ and ‘Mushroom Trip’ (or similar). These are medicines and sacraments and should be referred-to as such (respected as such). We must all try to move the regressive dialogue away-from these things as ‘drugs’ and that means careful consideration of our words when referencing them. Thanks.
I wish it said something more like “What Happened When a 65-Year-Old Worked with Plant Medicine” – it’s less denigrating to the medicine that way.
I don’t think there’s anything inherently denigrating about the term “trip.” It evokes a journey. And “magic mushrooms” certainly isn’t a negative term, it’s a term of endearment for many, many plant medicine explorers and patients. Part of our mission is to get the word out to a wider audience, and using familiar terminology helps us to do that in a way that reaches not just our community, but those who wouldn’t have otherwise taken the time to become educated about “plant medicine.” We have to use language that a larger pool of people respond and relate to. -April
I think you’ll find that if you try magic mushrooms, you’ll realize why they’re called that. It’s an amazing fungus.
yeah, makes you so exhausted to go through it you anxiety disappears, no shit
This story is sooo fantastic! This type of story excites me! It is very important to know that this plant used seriously for spiritual practices, or certain types of medical issues have very positive responses! If this type of response continues, we are talking potential medical uses here and possibly legal ceremonies!! This fungus can literally change the world!! Positive changes! I would love for this to come about legally and discussed throughout the world!! This vid is one step towards this as well as a few hun
dered others who had this treatment!! I pray for the future of psychedelic movement!!