Telluride Mushroom Festival

News headlines, such as “Magic mushrooms expand the mind” (Time, January 2012) and “What your brain looks like on magic mushrooms” (Telegraph, UK, November 2014), give us a deceptively simple picture. This picture implies that at least most people will encounter but one canonical experience after ingesting psilocybin mushrooms. When you really get down to it, the details of experiences that people have after ingesting psilocybin are at least as varied as the individuals who may encounter them. We will review findings from laboratory studies as well as large-sample, online surveys conducted at the Johns Hopkins University School of Medicine that investigate the nature and inherent individual differences in both peak mystical experiences and profoundly challenging experiences that were encountered after ingesting psilocybin. We will also explore the relationship that these reported experiences might have to changes in the brain that may result from ingestion of psilocybin.