Friend’s cabin in the woods, near Big Sur

I went in with some reverence this time. It was my fifth journey with mushrooms, but the first with Golden Teachers. I’d heard people say they were gentle, wise, like an old friend with cosmic insight. The plan was simple: take the dose, lie back on the couch, and let it take me. The cabin was perfect — wood stove crackling, forest sounds bleeding through the open window, incense burning, and Elena nearby with tea and blankets. I swallowed the dose around 2:30 p.m. with some dark chocolate to mask the taste. Classic approach.

About 45 minutes in, I felt the come-up crawling through my body — that unmistakable mushroom body load, like gravity turning up a notch. The visuals started soft. Breathing walls, morphing shadows. I closed my eyes and saw color explosions, shifting fractals, patterns that moved with my breath. My body started to melt into the couch.

Then it hit. Not a slap, not a shove — more like a subtle but firm eviction.It was like the old me got kicked off the throne, and something completely new was sitting there, calling the shots

I wasn’t expecting ego death. Honestly, I thought I knew what ego death was. But this was different — like my whole identity, my normal narrator, just left the building. I felt like my usual self was pushed aside, with this new presence stepping in, feeling completely separate from who I’d always known. And it wasn’t scary. It felt… right. This new consciousness wasn’t judgmental or dramatic — it was calm, observing, ancient-feeling. Like it had always been waiting for me to move out of the way. My ego felt like it had been overthrown, with this strange new awareness just sitting there, taking over like it had always been in charge.

I kept thinking, “Who is this voice?” It was still me, but not the usual me. More like a version stripped of all the performance and defense mechanisms. Just raw, seeing clearly.

Time stopped existing for a while. I saw my life like a blueprint laid out before me — all the ways I’d held myself back, all the masks I’d worn. And in that space, those flaws… they didn’t seem fixed. I saw my flaws as removable parts, and I just let them fall away, that was big, like a warm sensation you know. No judgment. Just release. Years of tension leaving my chest in one long exhale. I’m thankful for that, for like tossing out old, rusty pieces of myself.  wept for a while, silent tears rolling down my face. Elena just rubbed my shoulder and let me be. No words were needed.

After what felt like a thousand years of inner work, the peak started to fade. The visuals softened, the voice retreated, and I slowly started coming back. That’s when I noticed how messy I felt — like a house after a storm. Once the visuals subsided, I felt like I was putting myself back together, like picking up the pieces after a storm. It wasn’t instant. I sat there for a long time, eyes closed, breathing deep. Letting the pieces come back. I could feel my mind clicking back into place, piece by piece, like rebuilding a puzzle I’d almost lost. There was this moment when I realized how scattered I’d become in life, how fragmented. And coming down, I literally felt like I wasr eorganizing myself. I felt like I was collecting all the scattered parts of me, wasn’t easy after all that I can tell.

By the end, the “old me” was back — but lighter, more open. Something fundamental had shifted. It wasn’t just a cool trip. It was work. Inner surgery. Emotional defragmentation. A deep, unflinching look in the mirror and the courage to say, “Alright, let’s rebuild.”

I journaled that night for two straight hours. Haven’t looked at the pages since. But I know something changed. And the Golden Teachers? They really do live up to their name.