The dentist adjusts the set and setting of his drill. My teeth are numb but my body, mind and soul feel it all. I’ve eaten two grams of albino penis envy (APES) mushrooms and I’m about to get fillings. Dentist calls me an interesting guy. He has no idea how interesting I was about to get. At least to myself. The mycelium network is vibrating under the white lights and lab coats. I am calm. Don’t even need much novocaine. Rare for me. I have a high tolerance for all things. Including numbing agents. I remember needing several shots of the substance during previous dental visits. “Mmmmmaaaaaaahhhhhhh” the drill sings. I chuckle. The APES tell me the pain is only felt by my flesh body. So they take me elsewhere. “Spit please?” I spit. Then I contemplate all the hours spent by the various doctors and technicians learning and earning degrees to ask me to spit. They do good work truly. But I can’t help but think about our choices in life. 

I’ve done many challenging things in my life on and off of psychedelics. This being among the more difficult. “Doing ok?” Dr Dentist asks…I answer “yeah” in my head while also thinking “who asks someone a question while they have a drill In their mouth? I can’t give any kind of answer. Yeah I’m ok but that’s a nuanced question especially for me. I mean you’re drilling my face and…” The APES swing in, and I’m out of my body. I’m above the scene now. Looking down at my gaping mouth. My teeth look good. Everyone is in their element. Except me. I’m floating now. I visit the room next door. It’s empty, so I go through the drawers and cabinets like mom taught me to do when I’m alone in a doctors office. Float on. I can still hear the drill “mmmmwwwwwaaahhhh” but it doesn’t bother me. I then realize the Dentist is now an unwitting psychedelic facilitator. He can put that on his record. 

Psychedelics teach us to connect to one another by connecting to ourselves. And I am truly pushing the limits of my capabilities with this journey. Twinge of pain in the tooth jolts me back into my body. Breathe. Through the drill, through the lights, through my traumas. Diaphragmatic breathing helps but is difficult with my mouth propped open. I manage. I stay in the flow state. APES bring me to a memory of getting my van worked on, how I had to wait patiently for the mechanics to do their jobs. My body was now that van and I had to wait patiently for my flesh vehicle to be maintained. So I relax fully. Into the chair and into the air. I am space, I am the dentist, I am everything. All while having my mouth propped open, lights everywhere…”spit please?” I spit. This is a true lesson in meditation. There are individuals who can achieve all of this without the use of psychedelics. People who will take the time to engage themselves in transcendence before even arriving at their various invasive appointments. I can achieve this to a certain extent but I also do welcome the help of psychedelics when I can get it. For instance as I write this I can put myself back into that time and space in order to capture it word for word. I am also writing this on a microdose of mescaline. So there’s that. I digress…see I teach my kids, and engage with the love of my life on these modalities often. For someone like me who has committed extreme violence I find the connections psychedelics provide to be very comforting. Connections are very achievable with out them…but often we need a good kick start. This brings me to the challenge of going to get dental work on APES, arguably one of the strongest active mushrooms one can take. First, I’m a bit mad in comparison to most humans, second I love a challenge, third my body is very beat up so working out my mind is how I get that Arnold S. pump these days. “Spit?” I spit. “Do you need more novocaine?” I flail my tongue about and instead of nodding I say a full sentence best I can “nah I am good.” Can I get a blink once for yes line of communication going? No have to establish that out front. Better to embrace the awkwardness. “Imaalllgooddoc. Doyouthing.” Then the ego comes, “look at you Colin, fixing your teeth like a big boy.” I’m laughing under it all now. But yeah, look at me, I’m doing great, and I’m improving myself. Mentally and physically. Ego again, “you’re going to look great after this!” But…am I really doing this for me? Yes and no. I’m doing this so I can be healthy and so I will live a long life for my children. Dental issues can affect the heart and brain and I’m getting ahead of all that…more back patting. Pride swells then I am all of a sudden asked to look in a mirror so the dentist can point something out to me…my eyes open and I catch my reflection and just like that my ego has left the building. My dentist is talking but I don’t hear him. I’m staring into my own soul. My id, ego, and super-ego all vibrating singularly together. I am now my own Freud. In this brief moment of reflection I am spiraled and dissolved into hyphae. My self being completely melted down and reforged. 

Freud’s words resonate in my mind, “The functional importance of the ego is manifested in the fact that, normally, control over the approaches to motility devolves upon it. Thus, in its relation to the id, [the ego] is like a man on horseback, who has to hold in check the superior strength of the horse; with this difference, that the rider tries to do so with his own strength, while the ego uses borrowed forces. The analogy may be carried a little further. Often, a rider, if he is not to be parted from his horse, is obliged to guide [the horse] where it wants to go; so, in the same way, the ego is in the habit of transforming the id’s will into action, as if it were its own.”

My strength returns in a flash and instead of being scared of my reflection as I was when I first glanced, I am now empowered by my image. Not in an egotistical way but in a “I can do fucking anything” kind of way. Flooded with memory now…hitting a home run in little league, being called fire crotch and crying in the elementary school bathroom, swimming in Lake Chelan, Afghanistan, Afghanistan again, my love Cuqui and our children, my mom having a drill bit come off during a dentist visit and shoot into her face and then BAM I’m back in the dentist office. In the now. “Ok Colin great work, I think you fell asleep there for a minute ho ho,” The dentist jokes. He could never understand or know…I’ve never been so awake in my life. I leave the office and the sun hits my pearly cuspids. It was not only my teeth that were improved today. Capabilities have increased. All cavities filled. “Spit please?” I spit…all over these pages.

This is part one in an ongoing series in which I will document using psychedelics in not so ideal set and settings. Do not try this.