Why Paul Stamets Couldn’t Trip on Mushrooms with His Dying Father

I don't do edibles because I... That's hilarious. Well, I was in Kenyon College in 1973. My dad was coming to visit. And one of my people on the floor at this dormitory, they made some marijuana brownies. Oh, boy. And I had never... And the good story starts that way. I ate two brownies. I got my dad's coming in two or three hours, so what the heck? And I was so friggin' stoned. I could not believe it. And I could barely... My eyes were really... I was trying to maintain it, you know, how it is. You're trying to look like you're not stoned, but you're blitzed out of your gourd. And so my dad was like, you're looking at me really curiously. This is early 1970s. And so the next day, I said, Dad, I got to tell you something. I ate some marijuana brownies. And he goes, I knew something was wrong. I knew I could tell. I could tell. He goes, well, no shit, Sherlock. I'm practically on the floor. Yeah. But marijuana... Did he get mad at you? No. I was actually amused and delighted that I explained to him why I looked so stoned. Oh, well, that's great that you had that kind of communication. Yeah. Just before he died, he wanted to trip on mushrooms. And I turned him down, because he was close to the end of his life. And he was very religious. And I was concerned I would shake his reality tree so severely that he would question his entire life, because he was like a death of the salesman figure is a tragic life that he led. And the mushrooms could have helped him enormously. But I was a concerned that he would look back and go, so I wasted my life. Oh, man. And so that was too heavy for me. And maybe I'm being selfish, because I was trying to protect my own feelings. But he wanted to do it. He asked me, actually, he said, I want to do soul side mushrooms with you. And he wouldn't smoke pot. Do you have regrets about that, but not doing it with him? I do. I have a lot of regrets about that. So I have met several people in the past several weeks at Stanford Medical School, at these other conferences that I go to, which there's a Brain Mind Conference at Stanford Medical School. And the first two sentences, they mentioned psilocybin. 120 neuroscientists, you know, and $150 billion in the room. And psilocybin was immediately mentioned. But I met some people there that are intergenerational. Grandparent, parent, and 18, 19 year old child all journeyed with mushrooms together. And their interpersonal relationships, they told me, you know, there's no reason for us ever to get mad at each other. I just thought that was really powerful. Wow. Yeah, that is powerful. That sounds inconceivable to someone who's never experienced psychedelics, but someone who has, you go, yeah, I see how you could get there. Yeah, don't make mountains out of molehills. Yeah. You know, you can disagree without being angry, and you can be civil about it. Yeah. Well, that's a lesson the world could use right now. I think this is, in many ways, the antidote for some of the problems that we're seeing with social media. One of the problems we see with social media is this disconnect from the human experience, disconnect from communication, person to person communication, and this anger and vitriol and hate and rage. And people hiding behind screen names and trolls. You know, you're Joe Rogan, I'm Paul Stamets. Yeah. Well, who are these people hiding behind screen names? They're just... And at Great Ted Talk, which I did not understand, and the Ted Talk was fantastic, talking about why trolls do the things that they do, they do it because they get excitement. Sure. And the idea is just to disturb the fabric, and the more disturbance they get, that is a measure of their success. Yes. And provoking a response, even though they're not wedded to it. They just want to be able to cause a ripple in the pond. Yeah. Well, they don't feel significant, so they want to do something that they can get some sort of reaction. They have a rock, they see a window, they want to throw it. It's a natural inclination, but it's stupid. It's barbaric in some way. But it's a waste of fucking time. Yeah. You know, and some people celebrate it. I'm like, okay, I can celebrate it. You're not doing shit. You're not doing shit for yourself. You're not doing shit for other people. You're not improving whatever your art is, whatever it is that you try to do in this life to leave your mark, or to contribute, or to be creative. You're not doing that if you're trolling. You're just not. All trollers should eat mushrooms. Yes. Well, all angry people should eat mushrooms. Yeah, that's true. I really agree with that. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah.