It’s golden hour on day two of the festival. You and your crew are sprawled out half naked and barefoot, a tangle of limbs and giggles, on a sun-warmed tapestry. Someone’s braiding hair. Someone’s snacking on berries. One friend is blissfully passed out in the sun, a half-smile stretched across their lips, two more are swooning and spooning in the closest tent…
From a stage nearishby, basslines drift across the field like sound~smoke.
Earlier, you all had a gummy, a cute cheers-like ritual to invoke some good grooves together. Nothing too wild or heavy, just to open up a little… and here you are; holding hands with your chosen family, in your feels, watching the kaleidoscopic sunrays dance on your shade structure.
Meanwhile, the music is rippling through the ground like a call to some sacred temple.
The mushrooms awaken all of your senses, they soften the edges of the outside world. Everything in your little orbit feels slow and golden.
The bass swells again, low and grounding, as if the forest itself was conjuring the music. You close your eyes. There’s a breeze carrying wafts of nag champa incense from a neighboring camp, nostalgic + comforting. The beats, now vibrating and goosebumpling your skin from the inside out, emerges a sudden swell of love that fills your whole chest… the kind that makes you want to gasp, sing, or cry..
“I love us,” someone says.
So true, you think…
The Mushroom Is a Social Technology
Psilocybin mushrooms grow in clusters; a poetic, and symbolic representation of some of the magic they weave in us when we work with them. These fungi are designed for communion. They thrive underground through mycelial networks, connecting trees, transferring nutrients, and facilitating forest-wide intelligence through all living things.
In the same way, when we ingest mushrooms with others, we can experience heightened empathy, shared insights, and synchronized emotional waves. [1] Research shows that psilocybin decreases activity in the brain’s Default Mode Network – the system responsible for ego chatter and separation. With intention, perceived boundaries dissolve and connection becomes inevitable.
In short: mushrooms make it easier to love on your people.
Set, Setting, and Support
Even in a container as amplified as a music festival, all the classic psychedelic principles apply.
Studies in psychedelic-assisted therapy highlight that a supportive environment ie: familiar faces + soothing spaces significantly reduce anxiety and can enhance outcomes.
Set = Your Mindset
- Open to the mystery. Leave all expectations behind. Remember, each trip is unique. Just lean into the experience + enjoy!
- Check your emotional weather: Mood Rules. Where are you at? Be honest. Are you grounding into presence, seeking escape, or ecstatic expression? Tell your friends so they can hold you exactly as you are.
- Name/claim it together: Maybe it’s joy, or freedom, or release. An anchoring word like this, can ripple through your entire experience.
Setting = The Scene
- Know your lay of the land. Where’s home base? Where’s the water and snacks? Where do you go if it gets too loud or overwhelming?
- Have a quiet place planned in case someone needs a break. Identify a meeting spot as a safe zone ie: The patch of grass behind the food trucks, or maybe it’s your home camp set up with cozy blankets, munchies and other accessories at hand for making art, or stretching.
Trip Sitter aka “The Rave Parent”
Every crew needs a grounded guide who stays sober (or just *lightly* elevated) to assist everyone else in the group going deep.
They are not here to control the journey or any one experience.
It’s about collective care, and tending to the energy of the group.
It’s a designated role who reminds everyone to drink water, take breathers, or senses when it’s time to shift the vibe, change the music, or find some shade.
A good trip sitter knows:
- When to intervene – like when someone’s caught in a panic spiral, or stuck in an emotional loop.
- When to simply hold space – when someone’s crying tears of beauty, awe, or just…being reborn on the dance floor.
- How to hold paradox – nodding calmly when someone shares,
“Everything is everything, and it’s also nothing, and we’re all mushrooms now.”
Not here to fix, or judge – just bring a peaceful presence.
Rave Responsibly
Safety can mean survival.
Bring the Essentials:
- Water & electrolytes (trust us, your future self will thank you)
- Snacks, all your faves to share.
- Sunglasses, gum/candy, a soft scarf, shawl or sarong
- Something grounding: stone, fidget tool or a familiar scent
- Earplugs or headphones if overstimulated
- Emergency contact plan (safety > spontaneity)
Test your substances. Know your dose, know your source. Don’t play party favour roulette with strangers, just don’t.
The Morning After: Integration
When the sun is blazing once again, reflecting all that glitter under your eyes, and you still feel bass in your kidneys, this is where the work of integration begins.
Talk about it!
What did the mushrooms show you?
What did the night teach you?
Not everything is going to be profound. Sometimes the deepest download is just, “I just smiled so big the whole night my face hurts!”
Festivals are fleeting.
What you bring back to your ‘real life’ is where the real gold is.
The group chat might fade… but the new neural pathways don’t – research shows that psychedelics like psilocybin promote long-lasting neuroplasticity, helping new emotional and cognitive patterns form [2] (Ly et al., 2018).
Psychedelics by nature, reveal connection.
They help us to lift the veil.
Break down the walls.
Stretch the edges of your known self.
And when you’re held in that space by people who get you, and see you,
The ones who hand you water without a word,
The ones who laugh beside you when the cosmos crack open and shit gets really real…
This is not just tripping.
It’s a syncing up.
Coherence of mind, body, spirit into something bigger than you, meaningful, collective and true.
That’s when it all is made sacred.
So, yes, this festival season, here is your FULL INVITATION to
Dose wisely.
Dance as your highest expression.
Cry for the collective grief that’s too heavy to carry alone.
Because it’s all about getting connected
Into your body.
Into your people.
Into the pulse of something ancient that wants to be remembered.
WE ARE ALL CONNECTED.
This is what the mushrooms teach us.
We are all responsible for each other.
We are the magic.
And that’s medicine.
——
References
- Carhart-Harris, R. L., et al. (2024). Psilocybin-induced changes in brain network dynamics are associated with ego dissolution. Nature. https://www.nature.com/articles/s41586-024-07624-5
- Ly, C., Greb, A. C., Cameron, L. P., Wong, J. M., Barragan, E. V., Wilson, P. C., … & Olson, D. E. (2018). Psychedelics promote structural and functional neural plasticity. Cell Reports, 23(11), 3170–3182. https://www.cell.com/cell-reports/fulltext/S2211-1247(18)30755-1
