Hallucinogenic retreats: “You go in dead, and come out alive”

“A woman in the village said that people go in dead to the retreat, and they come out alive.” For fans of the series Nine Perfect Strangers, you may think that this quote has been pulled from the pilot episode where some of the strangers hear about the transformative wonders of the elusive “Tranquillum” retreat and its guru-cult leader Masha Dmitrichenko. 

These are instead the words of Dr Judy Hanley, a British trainee facilitator at the psilocybin retreat MycoMeditations in Jamaica. She tells me how she, and other locals in Treasure Beach, have seen the resurrecting properties of psilocybin first-hand.

MycoMedtiations is part of a growing number of hallucinogenic retreats worldwide. As the benefits of psychedelics become more commonly understood, people are venturing to the Netherlands, Costa Rica, Peru, and Jamaica where relaxed drug laws allow people to take part in these hallucinogenic “wellness” retreats. 

But if you’re expecting a chillaxed schedule of morning yoga followed by a hot stone massage or an all-slurp and no-crunch diet, this is something quite different. These retreats offer a chance to “heal” by microdosing or macrodosing psychedelics to battle your inner demons, be it anxiety, depression or PTSD, and seek peace both internally and externally. 

“It’s not a vacation; people are here to do work,” says Justin Townsend, the CEO and head facilitator of MycoMeditations. “At MycoMeditations, we primarily treat individuals that have mental health issues, and especially those who have treatment-resistant depression who want to improve their lives.”

“We work a lot with PTSD and anxiety or someone with a terminal diagnosis who has end-of-life anxiety. From childhood abuse to war veterans to survivors of plane crashes, after their time here, these individuals tend to report a greater sense of connection to themselves.”

MycoMeditations was set up in 2014 and is Jamaica’s longest-running psilocybin retreat. It is a week-long, with three magic mushroom sessions interspersed between group therapy sessions. Depending on the visitor’s desired amenities, you can pay a sum of around $4,000 to upwards of $10,000-$12,000 for their “white-collar” experience. 

“Our guests span all walks of life,” says Townsend. “We have researchers, scientists, bankers as well as medical professionals. All of them have different socio-economic backgrounds. They span the ages of 20 to 85, and I’d say that 90 per cent come from the US whilst the other 10 per cent come from the rest of the world.” 

The MycoMeditation’s journey begins with a tough application form, which looks into the guests’ medical history, including past medications. They are then reviewed by a therapist and psychotherapist. Three conditions that are excluded are a “personal or family history of bipolar disorder”, “schizophrenia”, or “psychosis”, as psilocybin can have a triggering effect. 

“It’s just not worth the risk, for the guests nor for the company,” says Townsend. “We have to turn down an average of 10-12 per cent each time. Often bad trips require hospitalisation for a number of weeks.” 

Two weeks before someone joins, a WhatsApp group is set up so that the invitees can break the ice. Then the guests, who tend to be in groups of 12 to 16 at a time, arrive at Montego Bay. They are fast-tracked through customs, and put on a Covid-sanitised minibus which whisks them to the paradisiacal location of Treasure Beach. 

The guests are met at the villas by the entire team, including licensed therapists trained in working with trauma, a nurse, and licensed clinical social workers and trainee facilitators like Dr Hanley. 

The journey starts with dinner on Friday night. The following day, guests have breakfast and a talk about psychology, neuropsychology, and the science of psilocybin before explaining the reasons for why they’re there. 

Townsend says: “The first time the guests talk about why they have come to MycoMeditations often means there is never a dry eye in the room.” 

Afterwards, the guests take their first dose of psilocybin, which “allows them to dip their toes in the water”, as many of them would not have touched psychedelics before. There is no “one size fits all’ with psilocybin and so at MycoMeditations they start with a conservative dose of two to five grams and move it up through the week whilst always assessing the participants’ tolerance. 

“For example, someone who was in their late 60s who suffered from treatment-resistant depression would probably get a higher dose of psilocybin than someone in their 20s who has only suffered it for a year,” explains Townsend. 

Throughout the week, MycoMeditations embeds the three mushroom sessions with facilitated group “integration” sessions where the participants can then share their experiences and offer comfort and consolation to one another. After the guests leave, MycoMeditations keeps track of their progress through calls around a month after the retreat and a survey with a depression/anxiety scale is also dispersed. “Transformation isn’t a word I use lightly,” says Townsend. “But we see 90 to 95 per cent massively transformed. They will come in with social anxiety, won’t make eye contact with you and by the end, their shoulders are back, they look straight at you with a whole new lease of life.”

The team at MycoMeditations believe that psilocybin holds the key to unlocking mental health problems due to its transdiagnostic properties. “The great thing about it is that it cuts across and has multiple uses,” says Townsend. “It helps reset the default mode network in the brain, which is where your inner critic is and the substance gets rid of it. The psilocybin increases the cognitive plasticity which enables you to make long-term behavioural changes in your life.”

He continues: “When people go through trauma, dissociative amnesia often kicks in, and memories are relegated to the unconscious mind. Guests come here, explain what happened in their lives or in childhood, and when they take psilocybin, the ab-reactive process starts and the memories flood back. It can be a challenging dose, but once all those feelings have bubbled up, they’re out. Psilocybin brings it all to the surface so that people can go back into their life and thrive.” 

Dr Hanley believes that it is psilocybin’s “Aha moments” that create lasting change. “From what I see from a therapeutic point of view, is that psilocybin provokes an emotional and intellectual realisation of what is happening to them. The “Aha moment” emerges with the three doses of psilocybin, and it is instantaneous with the cases I’ve seen. Rigid ways of thinking are massaged, and this enables a clearer understanding of oneself.”

Jason Reed claims to have been free of depression since his visit to MycoMediations earlier this year. Reed works as an epidemiologist in Miami, Florida and has had a long-and-established history working with traditional Western medicine. However, after his sister Heather tragically died in a car crash, Reed suffered from debilitating anxiety and depression for two decades. As he neared 50, he decided to try a host of SSRI’s and even a costly course of ketamine infusions but neither had the transformative impact he needed.

“It all felt very clinical,” he recalls. “The ketamine infusions were opening up this doorway in my head, but once I could stand up and walk out, I felt very much on my own. There was never any aftercare. No “how do you feel?” or “did the experience seem relevant?” or “is there something you can learn from this?”. It was very much a “see you in two weeks” type of attitude.” 

After reading the infamous book How to Change Your Mind by Michael Pollan, Reed became interested in exploring alternative treatments that had a group framework. He saw that MycoMeditations offered everything he felt was lacking. “I saw that their approach was therapy-heavy and that there was a focus on group work, integration and support post-trip. Their mission statement aligned with a lot of things I didn’t have with ketamine, and so I figured it was a sign.” 

Reed admits that it was “unavoidably awkward” at first, as you have no idea what the experience will be like. He explains how the first group session, held in a breezy open-air thatched hut, gave them a chance to introduce themselves, why they were there, and what they hoped to achieve. “It wasn’t something I would describe as fun,” confesses Reed. “But in an interesting way, we all knew it was a necessary part of our experience.” 

For Reed, his first dose resulted in him feeling an “incredibly comforting sense of belonging and peace” and that the visions he experienced were nothing out of the ordinary, but he just felt deeply grateful. After a day of group therapy, it was time for his second dose, which was double the first. His trip began by imagining that he was in a church cathedral, along with a fellow female retreater. He soon realised they were both there for a funeral for their respective siblings. 

“She had said it was sad that I had remained unable to connect to the emotions of loss following Heather’s death, so I understood she was there to help me grieve.” Reed then felt as if he had “melted into buckets of tears.”

“I felt I had received more than I could have possibly hoped for from the retreat by going through Heather’s funeral, this time able to be fully emotionally present and expressive. The hurting felt so overdue and simultaneously like such a relief.”

After experiencing visions of his sister Heather and seeing all the other retreat guests at the illusory funeral, Reed purposefully paused the trip by taking off the eyeshades to sit up and talk to the counsellor. “I genuinely felt like the experience was complete,” said Reed. “She gently suggested I just allow the mushrooms to continue to do their work since I had only taken the dose a couple of hours earlier.”

Reed would go on reliving painful memories from his childhood, but eventually, as the song and the ceremony moved to completion, he felt the world’s weight had been lifted. “The grieving was mysteriously freeing, equal in intensity so that by the end, I had closure. It was by far the most emotional experience of my lifetime, and I’ve never had a more intense and authentic feeling of gratitude.” 

After his experience at MycoMeditations, Reed concluded that as much as psilocybin was a good fit for him neurochemically, it was the group dynamics and the way the retreat was structured that helped him fully grieve. “I not only had my three trips, but I experienced the trips of everyone else,” he tells me. “You get to experience so much more when it is through a communal experience. It was single-handedly the most profound experience of my life. If I could gift everyone one thing, this would be it.”  

For people like Jason, a visit to a retreat like MycoMeditations is often a last resort. Whether you fought in Afghanistan, or on the frontline during the peak of the pandemic, or suffered the tragic loss of a sibling, a life of depression and anxiety is a life not lived. 

So whatever your take is on the future use of psychedelics as a viable treatment for mental health, if people are arriving at these retreats “dead and leaving alive”, there is clearly something transformative in psilocybin-assisted therapy that is worthy of greater exploration.