The Women Are Plotting

Mind-Expanding Tales: Our Personal Psychedelic Experiences

Etienne Rose Olivier, Jane Gari, Heidi Willis Season 1 Episode 2

Our hosts share personal stories about their experiences with psychedelics, from accidental first trips to intentional journeys with shamans, including insights on therapeutic potential and safety.

• Etienne, Jane, and Heidi share their fun and/or interesting facts for this episode
• Jane's first LSD experience happened accidentally at a Grateful Dead concert at age 16
• Etienne's three-day acid trip at 21 with the "Ken Kesey acid" led to a surprising romance and creative epiphany
• Heidi didn't try psychedelics until age 50 but has had profound experiences with mushrooms and ayahuasca
• Ayahuasca ceremonies provided healing, visions of fractal patterns, and spirit guide encounters
• Recent research shows psychedelics' therapeutic potential despite their Schedule 1 classification
• Mushrooms rank as one of the safest substances, contradicting their legal status
• Safety tips: have trusted companions, a sober trip sitter, and approach with intention


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Email us at info@thewomenareplotting.com, and find us on all the socials. Be safe and be excellent to each other.

Etienne:

Welcome listeners. This is Women Are Plotting. I'm Etienne Rose Olivier, and I'm here with my friends and co-hosts, Heidi Willis and Jane Gari. On today's episode we're discussing psychedelics and our own personal experiences with them, and we are starting out our episodes with our little fun facts. And my fun fact for the day is about another very well, not another a successful author because I am not a yet successful author who had experiences with psychedelics, and that would be Ken Kesey, who wrote One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest and he accidentally got himself involved in the MK Ultra study, where they were using psychedelics to try to break people, and he used that experience, plus working at the Menlo Park Veterans Hospital in California, to write One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest. So that's my fun fact for the day.

Jane:

oh my gosh,

Etienne:

scary huh

Jane:

I love that book so much

Heidi:

yeah, yeah, my fun fact is reindeers and other animals sometimes deliberately eat hallucinogenic fungi in order to amuse themselves during long winters.

Etienne:

So wait, they really think they're doing it on purpose. It's not just oh, there's food,

Heidi:

they do it on purpose.

Etienne:

Wow

Jane:

reindeer-specific Is this why, Santa.

Etienne:

Is there footage of this Like is there actually video

Heidi:

there probably is.

Etienne:

There's got to be there's. No way is there's got to be Well.

Heidi:

I mean, I've seen video footage of squirrels or fox like getting into stuff and being super high and just weird.

Etienne:

Oh my God

Heidi:

there's several animals. Do it.

Jane:

That is nuts.

Heidi:

Yeah

Jane:

my husband makes fun of me for some of my Google searches and my Google search later is going to be reindeer getting high.

Etienne:

Oh my God, yes,

Jane:

Because

Jane:

I just need to see that.

Jane:

I'm just wondering if there's some

Etienne:

Reindeer high on mushrooms.

Jane:

Yes, and if there's a connection between that and reindeer, guiding Santa's sleigh and like flying and like all that.

Heidi:

We see them, we see them for real.

Jane:

If you're like what is the reindeer eating? And then somebody else ate them, and then they're just like did you know reindeer could fly, like maybe there's some kind of through line there between reindeer getting high.

Heidi:

That's where the myth came from.

Jane:

Yeah, because it is a weird thing. It's just like oh yeah, these things can, these things can fly. It's weird, and then we all believe it. So maybe there's a baseline that your brain produces without any aid, and science will catch up and we'll figure that out, because

Etienne:

I mean there, do you know that with DMT right?

Etienne:

I mean like that's supposedly what's released in the brain when you're dying, or yeah,

Jane:

yes

Etienne:

so

Jane:

I actually want

Heidi:

it's very interesting.

Jane:

We will talk about that, because the DMT it's a hell of a drug. It's just kind of interesting when they figure out the stuff that these two compounds need to be mixed together to produce these effects in your body. How did somebody figure that out? And maybe they watched a monkey. Do it Like someone watched reindeer. Oh, they're acting weird after that. I'll do that.

Jane:

But my fun fact,

Heidi:

they didn't die.

Jane:

Yeah, they didn't die.

Jane:

That's the thing you watch, but my fun, they didn't die. Yeah, so that's the thing you watch the animal eat the berry and you're like I can also eat the berry until you figure out they have something in their stomach you don't, I now you don't

Heidi:

want to know about the first person that licked that toad.

Jane:

You know

Heidi:

that lick the toad. What made them?

Etienne:

It had to be accidental that the toad flew with their face and their mouth was open, you know it happens.

Heidi:

It was the first human was like. I think I should lick this toad.

Jane:

And I think maybe it did happen by accident and actually my fun fact is about an accident like that so the discovery of LSD was accidental.

Heidi:

Yes

Jane:

so Albert Hoffman was a Swiss chemist and he accidentally discovered LSD in 1938 because he was working on a chemical derivative of ergot, which is a fungus that grows on rye like rye bread. He didn't realize that it had. Nobody knew it had psychoactive properties. I mean, he's working on it, with this stuff for years. I don't know what he was working on the fungus for, because nobody cares about that now. All they care about is now you can trip.

Jane:

Yeah

Etienne:

was this a penicillin type thing? Were they trying to grow more antibiotics?

Jane:

Yeah, maybe I should look that up too, but he was a chemist. He's working with this stuff for years, but he absorbed a small amount of the substance because it can. It gets on your skin or whatever. I know that some people take it. You know you put it under your tongue or you put it, but it doesn't have to be a mucosal thing. It can actually be absorbed through the skin and that's how he accidentally discovered it, because he then not right away, because it took, as we know, it takes like about 40 minutes or so, so it got on the skin. He's like riding home on his bike.

Heidi:

Yes

Etienne:

oh no

Heidi:

his bike

Jane:

Yes

Etienne:

this is a bad idea.

Jane:

He started.

Jane:

well, he didn't know and he just started having vivid hallucinations. And that is why that event the discovery of LSD is called bicycle day.

Etienne:

I did not know it was called bicycle day.

Jane:

I had heard someone make a reference to bicycle day because I did, in my youth, hang out with a lot of people who did psychedelics and I did not for a while. But I thought it was funny that I came across that fact because my first experience with LSD was also accidental. So yeah, I was at a Grateful Dead show with my friends who already were doing psychedelics and I was only 16. And I went to the bathroom I was at the Omni in Atlanta in 1988.

Jane:

And I went to the bathroom and as I was washing my hands, this guy came up to me and it was a bunch of hippies, it's a Grateful Dead show. And he had a little tiny water gun but it was a whale. They make them in fun shapes for kids or whatever. It's a bunch of hippies running around, a Grateful Dead show. And he just squirts me with it real quick and then he just laughs hysterically and says, have a nice trip, and then runs away. And I'm just sitting there washing my hands and I'm like what? And then this guy who saw it, not a guy like, yeah, it was a guy.

Jane:

Why were they in Okay?

Jane:

this is the part that did not occur to me to be weird until just now, me telling you guys this story.

Etienne:

Oh no

Jane:

what were they doing in the women's bathroom? Anyway, it women's bathroom, anyway, it's. Whatever. It's a grateful dead show. All bets are off. But another guy who's also in the bathroom? Maybe I was in the wrong bathroom, oh,

Etienne:

because there's two men in the bathroom

Jane:

yes, and I was

Etienne:

there any other women, or was it just? You.

Jane:

There were other women there weren't

Etienne:

sure it wasn't a communal bathroom.

Jane:

No, it was at the omni in atlanta. But, like I said, it was like hippies everywhere. It was kind of like you, you know, free for all. But anyway, this other guy was just like oh man, that guy just dosed you. I'm so jealous and I was like what does that mean? And then I

Heidi:

it's an OCD.

Heidi:

Jane was like what I'm about to be poisoned.

Jane:

And then he was just like put it on your arm. So now I'm vigorously washing my arm, but it's too late, it's already on me, but I have no idea. At least I probably diluted it a little bit, but yeah, so about 40 minutes later I was like oh, okay, thankfully, because it wasn't that much and it was through the skin and I washed a lot of it off. It wasn't too crazy. I know this just from later experiences, but definitely I was seeing sound and all of that kind of stuff, lots of trails, and it was actually enjoyable once I just kind of let go and went with it. The only thing that was really annoying about it is a couple hours later I was still feeling it when my friends dropped me off at my house.

Jane:

I could not get my key into the keyhole for a really long time Because every time I went to put the key in the keyhole it was like a telescopic thing where it seemed like the door handle kept reverting back into the door itself. But if anybody was watching, it was probably me just staring at the door for half an hour, just slowly and painfully, a millimeter at a time, getting closer and closer to the keyhole. But in my mind it was a very Alice in Wonderland situation. I was going into the door and that's how I finally got it open. Is that there was a second keyhole inside the door where I was? I don't know. I got inside the door is the point, and it was weird and it was accidental, just like bicycle day

Etienne:

oh my god, that's so cool that your first time was accidental.

Etienne:

Mine was not accidental, mine was 100% on purpose. I think this was my first time. I have to say this was during a time where I was doing a lot of just experimenting in general, so it's hard to like 100% remember, but I was 21. And I for some reason had this. Is this kind of like goes back to my fun fact.

Etienne:

I had a sheet of acid that supposedly was made by Ken Kesey and he was still alive at the time, because this was like 1992. He died just after the 21st century changeover there, right after 9-11, he died. I don't know if it was true that it really was Ken Kesey acid, but I was like, well, if I'm going to do it, I might as well do the first time as Ken Kesey acid. That makes sense to me.

Etienne:

I had this friend at the time who was very experienced with drugs and so I told her you come over to my house, I'm gonna do this. I was already living on my own, so I was like, yeah, come over to my apartment, we're gonna hang out, and we had the best time if you've ever just done drugs in general, where I mean even drinking you can get this way where you just feel like you're so tuned into each other. You feel like you're opening up your mind, and that really is what it felt like with this LSD experience, because I just I felt so connected to her and we kept listening to music. We were just doing a lot of music listening, or MTV was on, and it just seemed so like.

Etienne:

Oh my.

Etienne:

God, we were just talking about that. You know, like lots of situations like that were happening and we were basically microdosing because I was afraid of doing a full dose of Ken Kesey acid and she was also doing the same amount. We weren't going crazy with it or anything, so I wasn't having any hallucinations, I just felt awake and alive and open. I actually did it for three days straight.

Jane:

Oh wow

Etienne:

didn't stop. Yeah, she was supposed to leave and go to work. I was like, no, you just stay here and keep doing this with me, like we're not done, it's such a bad

Heidi:

three days.

Etienne:

We're both bad influences on each other.

Etienne:

And during this time too, because she and I had met at a party, at a guy's house that I was interested in but wasn't really dating or anything and we'd and at the same time I met her I met this other guy who I was like, oh my lord, this guy. Like I couldn't stop thinking about him, even though I didn't really like. I mean, I talked to him but we didn't like connect physically in any way. I knew he lived north of San Francisco, so it was just this one time I was seeing him and I just could not stop talking about him and thinking about him. And she's like you gotta get his phone number.

Etienne:

Now, this is during the time before cell phones, before the internet. This was difficult to get any kind of information on anything. So we started making phone calls. It took us three days and I finally got his phone number and I called him and he's like did you get my letter? And I'm like, wait, what You're calling? Because you got my letter. And I'm like what, what letter?

Etienne:

I did not check my mail often back in the day I don't do it much now either but the mailbox was on the exact opposite side of my building and not anywhere near where I walked, like I had to go specifically to get my mail. It wasn't near where I parked my car, it wasn't where I came into my building, it was nowhere near where I walked. I was like let me call you right back, because I'd hung up the phone and ran to my mailbox and got the letter and read it and was crying and it was this love letter. And he had his phone number in there and I don't even remember giving. I don't know how he got my address. Did I give it to him how?

Etienne:

did he even know where I lived, you know. I mean, this was Los Angeles. This is not a small place like you can't just find me. So, yeah, and I, and I call him right back and I'm like, oh my God, I can't believe this has been here. I've jumped through so many hoops to get your phone number and it was here the whole time and like I want to come see you, can I come see you? And he's like, yeah, you can come see me. But then I told him I've been doing acid for three days and he was like, well, okay, yes, come see me, but first I want you to sleep and then you can get in your car. Because it turns out this was like an eight hour drive and I was planning to do it by myself, which I did do by myself, but guess you didn't take a nap or a sleep of any kind before she got in her car, because she was so excited about this guy.

Etienne:

She decided I'm just gonna take Ken Kensey acid with me

Jane:

no

Etienne:

and just microdose the whole way while I'm driving, and it'll be fine, because I'm not hallucinating, I'm just awake,

Jane:

oh my god

Etienne:

yeah, so uh-huh, and this was also pretty sure it was january, because when I lived in LA for 16 years, every January it rained the entire month and it was raining the whole way and it was daytime, so at least I was driving in the daytime. But I mean, it was overcast, it was fucking pouring, and nothing bad technically happened, except that REM's drive was the most popular song at the time and it kept coming on the radio all the time and I was like I'm in hell, I'm in purgatory, I'm never getting there. How long have I been driving? It's never going to happen. This is where I live now.

Heidi:

I'm stuck in this car forever listening to Drive,

Etienne:

never calling

Jane:

That's so wild.

Heidi:

So what was your?

Heidi:

mindset like once you got there

Etienne:

oh well wait, one thing did happen, I have to add, before I got there,

Heidi:

okay

Etienne:

So I said I really was not hallucinating this for the whole three days. And then, as I'm driving I don't remember at what point on the five, because it was like the five all the way up the coast or all the way up the california, because he lived in chico, which is north of san francisco, and there was a big pile of moss in my lane of the road up ahead, like the size of my car, oh, blocking my lane, and I I was like, is that really there? I think it's there. All right, let's just be safe.

Etienne:

I'm, let's just be safe, me driving on the fourth day of acid taking, driving eight hours. Let's be safe, I'll just change lanes, let's just change lanes, and I'll go around the big pile of moss that's in the road. And I did. I changed lanes and I went around it and I didn't even look in the rear view, I don't think. I just was like we're just going to say it was there, I guess. I don't know, because there's no other cars around, so I couldn't look for other cars to see what they were doing. Like did they go around the pile of moss. So that was the only hallucination part, I think, because I don't think there was really a giant pile of moss in the freeway.

Etienne:

There's no way that existed, yeah, there would be something else there. There would be like police or barriers, or smashed in cars. I don't know, this is impossible. So, yeah, I finally got there and he was so shocked when I showed up because I shouldn't have been there that early, because I left as soon as I got off the phone with him I should have taken a sleep of some kind, you know, and he probably figured this was going to be a long sleep, which it should have been. So, yeah, we had our reunion time of making out whatever, and then I'm like I got to go to sleep. I'm so sorry, I'm so tired, go to sleep. He's like here, let's just, yes, go to sleep. You sleep as long as you like. I slept for 16 hours.

Jane:

Wow, at a dude's house that you really didn't know

Etienne:

I did not know him.

Etienne:

I hardly knew him at all. I mean, he was the same age as me. He was in college, that's all I knew. His name was Soren

Jane:

oh, that's a cool name.

Etienne:

He had a really cool name. I've tried to look him up. I can't find him, but he was so cool and beautiful hair. I remember he had cut his hair recently and he had the little ponytail holder of the hair. He still had long hair, but he cut some of it off and he had what he cut off. He kept it for some reason and when he showed it to me I was like, can I have this? And he's like, okay, sure, I kept that giant thing of hair for like years. I'm not even kidding, I had that thing for years. I think I'd explain to my next boyfriend why did you have, why do you have this? What is this is?

Etienne:

not your hair and there's no way this is your hair. But yeah, and another thing that happened when I was there, because I was there for like a few days staying with him before I decided to come home. But I called my mother while I was there because of course she couldn't go six hours without talking to me, so I had to call her while I was there so she wouldn't freak out because she hasn't heard from me in forever. And I said I told her I know what I want to do with my life. I want to be a writer. And she, I said I want to write books, I know this is what I want to do with my life. And she's like, okay, well, I'll see you when you get back. Like totally not believing me at all.

Etienne:

I mean, this was like 1992, so I didn't really start writing books until 96, so I still had four more years before I really tried. But yeah, I had this vision of like I want to be a writer and I walked away with that going I'm gonna be a writer. I think I'm definitely gonna be a writer, like I don't know. Yeah, so that was my big story of first time doing acid. Do it for three days and

Jane:

and it's a love story.

Jane:

It's epic.

Etienne:

It's a love story.

Etienne:

I wish I had that letter still, or that big giant thing of hair Cause I. They don't exist anymore in my life. I don't know where they went.

Jane:

That is so wild. Very epic. I like the epiphany at the end.

Heidi:

Yeah.

Jane:

So did you have any epiphanies, heidi, with your

Jane:

experience?

Heidi:

Oh, so many. I didn't try psychedelics well, mushrooms until age 50. So I was supposed to do it at my going away party right before I went into the Air Force. But my friends all psyched me out by saying are you sure, are you sure? And everybody was talking about their bad trips. So I just wasn't in the right mindset.

Heidi:

So I actually stayed sober for my entire going away party, while they all got trashed and were doing mushrooms and my mom is drunk and I'm like staying sober, trying to keep the house from burning down. Yeah, it was not a good time for me at my own going away party because everybody was telling me their horror stories about acid and mushrooms and their bad trips. I just was frightened of it for so long. So by the time I did it I had a trip sitter. I did it with friends. It was such a beautiful day. I'm just like man. This is the best stuff ever. Like. Why was I scared of it all these years? I love it now Like I want to grow it. I love mushrooms now Cause you, yeah, yeah, but they should be legal, like no plant should be illegal. But yeah, it was a very profound experience. And then, two months later, after trying mushrooms for the first time, I did ayahuasca for the first time and that was a life changing experience.

Heidi:

And

Etienne:

I heard that could be very like you can see God or you have very spiritual experiences on ayahuasca,

Heidi:

Yeah, it was a very spiritual experience so. I feel like doing mushrooms and ayahuasca, because I've done ayahuasca twice now the second time was even more incredible.

Heidi:

It was with a real. He was an incredible shaman like just I've. I feel so lucky that I got to experience that weekend with him and the people that were there.

Etienne:

Where was this at?

Etienne:

in the US?

Heidi:

Yeah, yeah, both times in the US.

Heidi:

First time was in Florida at SoulQuest and the second time was here in Iowa.

Heidi:

So, with a group here in Iowa and just life changing. Some of these psychedelic drugs are changing the lives of veterans. I witnessed that happening, like people that were really, really depressed and suicidal coming in that way and then leaving after the weekend and just having renewed hope, and so I just love them. I'm such a proponent like I. I get why timothy leary and all them were like yes, this stuff is, but I'm kind of mad at timothy leary because he's the one that got it to be a schedule one, because he was

Etienne:

was he?

Heidi:

yeah

Etienne:

or just like his shenanigans?

Heidi:

his shenanigans yeah, yeah, because it wasn't restricted.

Heidi:

Before he went on his nationwide tour of hey, everybody do this. What was his saying? Like drop in drop out.

Jane:

Tune in, turn on and drop out.

Heidi:

Yeah yeah, so he pissed off enough of the conservatives at the time and they were like you must not have fun.

Etienne:

And it was so easy to piss him off back then. It was just anything that caused joy. Yeah,

Jane:

I think it was Nixon.

Heidi:

It was Nixon, it was totally.

Heidi:

Nixon.

Jane:

Yeah, because and I think that it was. There was so much anti-war sentiment at the time that they were like we gotta, you can't have this many people thinking for themselves.

Jane:

Like we gotta shut this down,

Heidi:

we gotta squash these hippies now. But what's unfortunate is, once it became a Schedule 1, all research into the benefits Schedule 1 is supposed to be. There's an extreme level of addiction, high rate of addiction and also no therapeutic ability of this drug, and so that's a schedule one. Well, that's not true for mushrooms or psychedelics. There's therapeutic uses for it and it's not addictive. I looked at statistics last night and mushrooms are the safest drug out there. Like the safest, like alcohol is number one and then mushrooms are last.

Etienne:

Well, that's what I was wondering. I know people have said they've had bad trips on mushrooms. I've had bad trips on LSD, which is why I've only done them a few times, but mushrooms people have tried to put me on bad trips on mushrooms and it didn't work. I literally was laughing in their faces. This is not. You're wasting your time. I'm feeling too good here. You're just looking stupid to me.

Heidi:

I have yet to have a bad trip yet. I haven't done LSD yet. I'm waiting on that. But with mushrooms and even ayahuasca there were some scary experiences with the ayahuasca weekend. But they're kind of showing you what you need to work through. So, like, even bad trips can be therapeutic, can show you stuff. So I don't think that you know, no trip is worthless.

Heidi:

You should take advantage of the bad and good ones,

Jane:

but having a guide is helpful, because ayahuasca is nothing. I think that one of the things that people should

Heidi:

tell us about your ayahuasca experience?

Jane:

oh well,

Heidi:

because you got tricked with that one too

Jane:

I did

Etienne:

what

Jane:

I did

Etienne:

what you didn't know. It was ayahuasca?

Jane:

no, I thought it was just green tea that tasted like crap.

Jane:

My friend at the time

Heidi:

this could have gone so terribly.

Jane:

It could it could have. Thankfully it didn't. But I do recommend anybody experimenting with these things. You have to be. If you have any kind of mental illness, definitely don't do it that you know of, and if you're not mentally stable I wouldn't do it unless you're under like a guidance and you can have a lot of guided experiences right now. But my first experience with ayahuasca is I had a friend who had gotten back from peru and this is before information about it was like widely disseminated to people like oh yeah, you could do these guided experiences. My friend found out about it because he literally he went to Peru and he hiked the Inca Trail and he went to Machu Picchu and he met a shaman while he was in Peru. He was there for two months or something and he came back and he just brought some home with him in a thermos that he had done in Peru.

Etienne:

Wow, that's brave.

Jane:

Customs was a little bit lax back then because this was 1994, and I didn't know what it was.

Jane:

He just said hey, you want to go to the Arboretum, and this is on Long Island, and it was this beautiful Arboretum. So it was a beautiful setting, beautiful spring day, so those types of circumstances were good and I was with someone that I trusted. We were sitting under this tree it's called the Weeping Birch in the Planning Fields Arboretum on Long Island in Oyster Bay, and the leaves actually cascade down all the way to the ground under this tree and so when you go into it you feel like you're in a cave that's made by tree leaves. So it was beautiful, but nobody could see what we were doing. And he was just like hey, you want to have?

Jane:

some of this Peruvian tea. It's really special and I was like I'm like

Etienne:

I can't believe he just said Peruvian tea, it's special.

Jane:

He didn't tell me what was going to happen.

Etienne:

What the fuck, dude?

Jane:

Now, okay, so the history of my relationship with this particular person was he was a lot older than I was. In retrospect it was definitely kind of a weird dynamic. That's another story for another time. When we met, I was 17 and he was 31.

Etienne:

This sounds like grooming

Jane:

A little bit. We never dated he would have, but I was just no so we were just friends. At the time I had a boyfriend. He knew that we were just hanging out at the park and he did not ever try anything on me. It wasn't like, oh, ayahuasca, the new date rape drug. It was just he wanted to have this experience with me because I was hesitant to do psychedelics. He always wanted me to do them, but my only experience before that was that Grateful Dead experience.

Jane:

So it was just like yeah,

Etienne:

Wow. So both times accidentally.

Jane:

Yes, I had done ecstasy and he knew that, so he was just like. I wish you should do this.

Jane:

So I guess he was like have some tea.

Jane:

Anyway. So I drank the tea and then after I have the tea, he tells me what it is and he prepares me. He's like, okay, you're going to throw up a lot.

Jane:

And I was like wait, what

Etienne:

Did you throw up? Tea, Is this a tea? People like that

Etienne:

they buy?

Jane:

And then he tells me that he got it from a shaman and that I'm probably going to meet maybe my spirit animal or my higher self and like that, is this going to be like a therapeutic thing? And I was like I did not. I signed up for a walk and like literally a walk in the park and now I'm puking my guts out and I don't like puking.

Jane:

It's definitely one of my least favorite things to do and I puked a lot and he's explaining to me very scientifically. He's just like what's happening to your body right now Is because is an alkaloid and you can't process an alkaloid, you're going to throw up and then you're going to have your trip. I was terrified but then so I tried to calm down. But he was calm the whole time and I said you know what? I guess if it's happening, it's happening and at least I'm in one of my favorite places in the world. So we start walking around and there's a beautiful greenhouse there and that's when it starts to really kick in and I'm in this greenhouse and the greenhouse is it's fabulous High ceilings and big palm trees and exotic plants from all over the world. There's different rooms in the greenhouse and one of them just has cacti in it. This is when I start seeing the auras of all the different cacti that are in there, and the cacti are like wiggling a little bit.

Jane:

They're like come talk to me. And I'm just like, okay, you know, and I don't realize that there's a mom and like her two little kids in there because it's Saturday afternoon. I start laughing hysterically because this one cactus is kind of looking at me and doing this wiggly dance and it's just like come tickle me. And I was just like, okay, so I go up to it and I'm not going to touch the cactus, right, I was touching its aura. So what it looked like to this mother and her two children is me just touching the outline two inches from the cactus and caressing it, but with wiggle fingers, you know, because I'm tickling it, because the cactus told me to do this, and the cactus is like, oh, that tickles. So I'm saying to the cactus but all they see is me going. Does it tickle?

Etienne:

Oh no.

Etienne:

Did it not run out

Jane:

well, yes, she pulled her children to her really closely and starts scurrying them out, because it's kind of close quarters in that part of the greenhouse, like there's this huge room that's almost like a great hall of a greenhouse and then there's little offshoots that have different like a room just of orchids and like a room just of cacti, which is where we were. So she's to walk past me with her kids while I'm freaking out, you know just like, and I look at her go, I promise I'm not weird that's all she needed.

Etienne:

You mean, you are weird well,

Jane:

and it doesn't help that my friend dave is now laughing hysterically like he's on the floor laughing hysterically at me,

Etienne:

Did he

Jane:

yeah, totally

Etienne:

h god,

Jane:

he's out of his mind too.

Etienne:

Maybe somebody's been sober.

Jane:

No, no, no, no, no, no.

Etienne:

Oh no

Jane:

but Dave was like the type of person who could do a lot a lot of drugs at once and still look on the outside like he was keeping his cool. But meanwhile he's tripping out but you just wouldn't know it unless he told you. So he like so many circumstances like we could have a podcast just of my Dave stories. But this is not about Dave. This is about what he did to me.

Etienne:

Do you know, dave still? Can we bring

Etienne:

Dave on?

Jane:

I do know Dave still. Oh gosh, he's an interesting character. If we bring him on, though, none of us are going to get a word in edgewise. It'll just be like the Dave Show. But he Now he's had a very interesting life and he has like three different passports, he's lived everywhere and he's a whack job. So anyway, it did.

Etienne:

They have the same name on all the passports.

Jane:

Oh, yeah, yeah, yeah.

Jane:

It just has citizenship in three different countries and he speaks five different languages and he's one of the smartest people I've ever met. But emotional intelligence maybe a little bit challenge if you thought this was going to be totally cool, but maybe, I don't know, maybe it was. So it ended up being fine in the end and it was a transformative experience because then I did actually let go like I was then laughing that she was running away with her children and I looked at the cactus and I'm like she knows, you know, and the cactus was just dancing like everything was just amazing. And then I wanted to. We walked around the manicured grounds for a bit but then I wanted to just run in the woods and I ran with my eyes closed and I could see the infrared signature of everything in the woods. I was jumping over felled logs. I could see the heat signature not infrared like the heat signature of everything around me

Etienne:

with your eyes closed

Jane:

with my eyes closed, I didn't fall once and I was running full speed.

Jane:

I've never run so fast in my life and I was laughing and I was smiling and I felt amazing. And then we came to this part where there was, like, this huge tree, and then we laid down underneath it and Dave was like, hey, you want to put these? He had these glasses that you put over your eyes that had blinking colored lights on them, and then you put earplugs in so you wouldn't hear anything and then, supposedly, having these lights flashed on your closed eyelids would cause you to trip harder. And I was like I'm pretty sure I'm tripping hard enough right now. He wanted to enhance what was already happening.

Jane:

I had these glasses on for a total of 20 seconds and took them off because I said I felt like I was leaving my body. He goes well, that might actually happen anyway. So you already planted the seed of that thought.

Etienne:

Oh no

Jane:

I lay down under the tree and within maybe a minute or so I was above myself looking down at the two of us. I saw him and next to me, like laying down under this tree, and then, all of a sudden, I felt a suction and then I started flying. So I flew around for a little bit and then landed back in the tree and then I felt suction again and I was back in my body and I looked up and there was a bird there and the bird was just like was that fun, you know? Like the bird, let me, it was just wild.

Jane:

Anyway it was an amazing experience, I don't. I felt like super, super free. Then, the second time I did it and I'll do very cliff notes, it's just like that, also with the same person, because he was just like, I guess, he came home with a lot of this shit and we were like

Etienne:

the same exact batch.

Jane:

Yeah, it was the same, but now that I had already met my higher self and the spirits and all this other stuff, now this session we're going to work through some stuff.

Etienne:

Oh, wow

Jane:

no-transcript <p

Jane:

class="MsoNormal"> And we were playing hide and seek at Sunken Meadow Park on Long

Jane:

Island sound at dusk. Stupid in retrospect. So now the sun's going down, I'm

Jane:

by myself hiding, waiting for my friends to find me 'cause we're playing hide

Jane:

and seek. And I hear this voice nearby going like a real, your friends are never

Jane:

gonna find you.<o:p></o:p></p> <p

Jane:

class="MsoNormal"><o:p>&nbsp;</o:p></p> <p

Jane:

class="MsoNormal">And I was like, what? And, they're like, yeah, they're never gonna

Jane:

find you here. And then it was laughing like an evil sounding laugh. And so

Jane:

I started screaming. I was like, Dave Abba. 'cause I was like there with Dave

Jane:

and my boyfriend at the time, Abba. And, it just was<o:p></o:p></p> ,

Jane:

like a laughter. And it said you're all alone, which is one of my deepest, deepest fears. Right, and I don't have my glasses on and the sun is set and I can't see under the best of circumstances, much less this. And I just start running and screaming towards the water and I just got down on my knees and I was just weeping uncontrollably because I realized that they were.

Jane:

I knew that I wasn't and I started screaming I am not alone as hard as I possibly could and then broke down hysterically crying, but I felt like I released something, but it was terrifying because it wasn't just like a voice. I did see something scurrying around and it was like it was trying to show me this. It was like the incarnation of my deepest fear. Yeah, and the only way to vanquish it, if you would, would just to be like to tell it what I knew to be absolutely true, which is I am not alone yeah.

Etienne:

do you think you got rid of some of that fear of being alone from that?

Jane:

it was a good step forward.

Etienne:

Okay, yeah, wow, that's intense both of those

Heidi:

yeah

Etienne:

yeah, I want to have an experience like the one with you in the arboretum, or that just sounds amazing.

Heidi:

That's what I'm hoping for.

Etienne:

I don't mind, I'll go through the vomiting.

Heidi:

I'm hoping for a breakthrough like that with the LSD when I do that for the first time.

Etienne:

Heidi, was your ayahuasca experience? Did you have a similar experience that Jane had with what she saw and experienced?

Heidi:

So the second time I did ayahuasca was this this past fall, and the first night started a little late. We didn't even take our first dose until 10 30 at night.

Etienne:

That seems late. How long does this last?

Heidi:

It lasts for like four to six hours. So, um, it didn't kick in at first, so I went for a second cup and then, boom, it hit.

Heidi:

I started purging and then the musicians showed up and they kept everything really dark. So everybody was able to go inward and have their experiences. But they had just a little bit of light on them and they were playing beautifully and I saw them. It was all fractal like and I saw the energy, how we're all like, connected and they just because one moment there's no music and then the next moment they're playing and it's beautiful and there's just a little bit of light on them and I'm seeing them as these fractal angels. So i'm just swaying there. I watched them for hours. It was the most beautiful experience.

Heidi:

So the first night was just kind of experiencing the music and seeing how we're all connected. The second night I had kind of an ego death or became nothing but everything all at once. And then the third day, the final day, sunday it was yeah, I went under my covers like I was in a cocoon and I just went on like this. If you've ever seen those fractal things where you're going in and it just keeps going and going, that's what I was doing.

Jane:

Oh, that's awesome.

Heidi:

My guide, my spirit guide, that was with me, was just like now we're gonna tell you what you are

Jane:

whoa

Heidi:

yeah,

Etienne:

oh gosh

Heidi:

yeah, and everything's gonna be okay, no matter what, everything's gonna be okay.

Heidi:

And I felt like and it was so crazy, the music, the musicians were still there and they were like world-class musicians, just, oh, my god, beautiful. I felt so lucky. But the music went along with it right and I came out of my covers like I was being reborn and I don't know. It just was such an incredible experience. Talking about it and remembering it, I'm kind of reliving it right now and, yeah, it was a beautiful experience. It's not for everybody. There was a lot of throwing up and I don't like to throw up either, but I've done it twice now and it's worth it, because you feel like when you're purging, you're kind of getting rid of the demons I don't know like, yeah it does. It feels like you're getting rid of some stuff and then you're going through it. I met spirit animals that first time in Florida. Yeah, I kind of saw some past lives with that experience. Every time I've done ayahuasca, I've had an incredible experience.

Etienne:

Oh, my God.

Heidi:

Yeah, yeah. So I'm looking forward to seeing what LSD will do. I've done mushrooms so many times just by myself in my own place and I have profound experiences journaling and get some good stuff out of my system, work through some old traumas and stuff, so that's.

Heidi:

OK, yeah.

Etienne:

all right, so it's my turn to do the ayahuasca.

Jane:

Yes, we can all have our ayahuasca.

Etienne:

We'll have to revisit.

Heidi:

Now, do you guys know, is ecstasy kind of hallucinogenic? Because I might have had some hallucinations before doing mushrooms on ecstasy, like I did a lot one time and was hearing voices and all kinds of craziness

Jane:

a hundred percent.

Jane:

Okay, definitely, and not every time it depends. Like I've had really pure ecstasy and then I had an experience with mda. So it didn't have like it was an mdma, it was just mda, and then you don't have the speedy, energetic feeling so that part gets stripped away and you're not distracted by it and you don't have the speedy, energetic feeling.

Jane:

So that part gets stripped away and you're not distracted by it and you're just having the hallucinatory experience that was actually like super, super trippy. At that point I actually started turning into frog and it sounds so crazy to say it took me a really long time

Etienne:

is that a frog somebody can lick?

Jane:

uh, no, but like I definitely

Heidi:

were a bufo frog in your previous life

Jane:

I was hopping around.

Jane:

It took me a really long time to get down the stairs because I felt like I needed to go outside, because I was freaking out. I was like I'm metamorphosing and I and I was with.

Etienne:

You had to be outside for this. Yeah, because you were turning into a frog.

Heidi:

You're like, I got to get back to the water.

Jane:

I didn't know what I was turning into. I just knew that I needed to be outside to feel better.

Heidi:

This could be either horrifying or fun

Etienne:

Wow

Heidi:

It's like the fly.

Jane:

It was horrifying at the time I was trying to get down the stairs but kind of like the way that the key thing happened, the stairs were just endless. I just kept feeling how are there this many stairs? And I was climbing down them like I was climbing down a ladder.

Jane:

It's super slow and the ends of my fingers were getting bulbous. That's when I was like I'm turning in. Yeah, totally. That's how I knew that I was becoming a frog. But then, once I got to the bottom of the stairs, then I was really springy and and again,

Etienne:

really

Jane:

Okay, yeah, so similar to, and I was probably jumping like six inches off the ground, but I felt like I was jumping really high. But I know it probably wasn't. And my neighbor who had a baby, she was walking her baby in the stroller and I'm hopping around. So why are there always children around seeing me doing stupid things and I'm just hopping, you know? So as I'm hopping, I'm saying I'm doing it, I'm doing it.

Jane:

And my neighbor was just like

Etienne:

I would stop and stare until you took me away.

Jane:

Oh, she did. Oh, my neighbor, she goes, are you all right? And I was just like I'm doing it and she was just. She definitely knew I was messed up. You know, she was like okay, and I was saying hi to her baby. I was just like hi, like jumping and just being a lunatic, but I was laughing, I wasn't doing anything menacing, but I definitely in retrospect probably looked ridiculous and yeah.

Heidi:

And I'm just thinking your pupils are really like

Jane:

I'm sure.

Etienne:

It'd be like, yeah, no more Iris involved in this action here.

Jane:

And I definitely I've had situations where I've had to pay it forward, where, like, I've seen somebody else being a lunatic while they were tripping out, or being like an adult, seeing like a young person doing that multiple times.

Heidi:

That's why I've been really hesitant to do LSD, because that's the one where you can really not have a good time.

Heidi:

Well, and it's synthetic, it's synthetic. I feel like, if you've already done psilocybin, I would stick to the organics.

Etienne:

Yeah, I don't know why you have to do LSD. You could have the same trip from mushrooms. Yeah, I think you just do more mushrooms instead, just do extra, I don't know double it.

Heidi:

I feel like I'm being called to do it. So my friend megan talked about she tripped and didn't realize that they were doing a field trip that day and she got to trip hard and see these flamingo dancers that sounds incredible. I want that experience. So I'm trying to curate maybe a good first experience on it. So I'm kind of trying to figure out like what, what set and setting do I want?

Etienne:

and I guess I mean, I would just be worried about where you're gonna get it from.

Heidi:

Oh yeah, I've got good sources.

Etienne:

Okay, okay, yeah, like not just some rando, no

Heidi:

Safe

Heidi:

No, no, safe people yeah.

Etienne:

Okay. And safe people to do it with.

Etienne:

You have to have somebody who's not doing it, like you know, with you.

Heidi:

Yeah, a trip sitter. Yeah.

Jane:

I think that's key. That's where maybe, yeah,

Etienne:

you have to be safe.

Etienne:

I mean, the only way to be safe is to have somebody there who's sober and can take care of things

Heidi:

If you get nothing else out of this is have good friends around you If you're going to do this, and do it safely, and kind of go in it with intention, like don't do it just for fun, but kind of have an intention for your time on it and watch magic happen.

Heidi:

Magic will happen for you.

Etienne:

Oh, my God,

Heidi:

have you done?

Etienne:

and please don't drive, I'm so sorry that I did that.

Heidi:

Yeah, don't drive,

Etienne:

I'm so sorry, I would never do that today.

Heidi:

Yes, do not drive on this stuff. Make sure you're going to be somewhere for a few hours. Have you done mushrooms, though? You've done mushrooms, right, etty. Have you done mushrooms?

Etienne:

Yes.

Heidi:

because you haven't talked about.

Etienne:

Yes. No, I did. Yeah, I have. I went away from LSD pretty quickly and went on to mushrooms. Yeah, and then there was a long period of time. I had this really awesome trip on mushrooms back in like 1996, I think it was and then I didn't do them again for till like 10 years ago. So there was a huge gap of time where I would have done it if I'd had access to them, but they seemed impossible to find and once I found them again it was like yeah, yeah.

Etienne:

Then I did them a lot for a little bit and I'm just back to not doing anything. I've had some potent ones that are kept in ethanol. They're great. They're kept in grain alcohol. So when you take them, I have to prepare myself before I swallow it, because it's disgusting. My body wants to immediately eject it. So I know I have to, like, talk myself down. Do not throw this up, you're fine, you're fine, keep it in. Keep it in. And then you have the greatest experience on it. My favorite moment was when me and my old roommate we did it together one spring afternoon. It was beautiful outside, we sat on the back porch and she's like, oh my God, like something's happening with my skin. It looks so cool. Can you see what's happening? And I'm like, uh, no. And she's like wait, let me take a picture of it.

Heidi:

And I'm like trying to use a phone while you're tripping is like impossible.

Etienne:

I mean she really thought her camera was going to somehow capture what her mind was doing to her skin and I'm like, no, this is not gonna work, but that was so funny I laughed so hard.

Heidi:

I've done the same thing like are you seeing? Like the club I was in for a concert. It seemed like hieroglyphics were appearing on the ceiling and I was like do you guys? See that there's like special code.

Jane:

It's a message.

Heidi:

It's a message, yeah,

Etienne:

from the Great Beyond.

Heidi:

And I tried taking a picture of it for real,

Jane:

and then now you just have pictures of weird,

Etienne:

some weird.

Heidi:

But no, I could not figure out how to get my phone working. And then I realized I'm like what am I doing to myself, like I'm frustrating myself trying to get this phone to work and I'm like, forget it.

Jane:

I was in Puerto Rico with my ex-boyfriend and he brought a lot of ecstasy on that trip and he had plans. I guess

Etienne:

he had plans

Jane:

we had done we surfed, we hung out on the beach and we did ecstasy. That was that vacation. It was fun, we had a good time, but I had gotten him a video camera. This is the 90s. I got him a video camera as a present and so he brought that on the trip. We had been up for two days taking ecstasy periodically.

Etienne:

Oh, oh God, Sounds like my acid trip.

Jane:

Yes.

Jane:

I was taking like little doses but periodically. So I was just euphoric for, like I don't recommend, it's not good for you to do that.

Jane:

Don't do that.

Jane:

But I was young and stupid and I was up for like two days. On the second night of being up and euphoric, I was just convinced I kept seeing UFOs. So that was taking videos of the night sky and zooming in and zooming out. So there is a home from the trip we remembered. Oh my God, we took weird videos. And so we go back and we're looking at it's like stone cold sober and it's just 35 minutes of me going. Did you see that? And what's very clearly,

Etienne:

anything to see.

Jane:

No, it's the stars. It's me zooming in and out on stars and going, oh my God, and he's seeing it too. So he's just like I think that's something you know and it's just us being so. We were just laughing at ourselves zooming in and zooming out of stars and then we kept missing trying to film. There were humpback whales migrating. At that time it was February or March and we kept missing it and just seeing the splash. So our video is just UFOs that aren't there and just the splash after a whale jumps out of the water, it is the worst home videos ever.

Jane:

It's just so bad. Don't get high and then try to think you're going to capture the experience. Just be in the moment.

Heidi:

You are not going to capture it. Don't fool with technology.

Jane:

No one can see what you can see most likely.

Etienne:

Yeah, unless you can really describe it, then maybe you can force them into seeing it. Yeah.

Jane:

I mean, sometimes you're having a consensual experience with somebody, like a consensual hallucination experience, and that definitely has happened to me and that guy a bunch of times. That would be in a whole other episode. There's the episode of Dave's stories, there's the episode of Abba's stories, but we just saw things together where, like to this day, sometimes we're like, all right, was that a

Jane:

hallucination or did we see a UFO? That time and we had no video camera for the time we really were both convinced that we saw something. We just thought that being on ecstasy intensified it, but there was something going on, because we both experienced it in exactly the same way. Yeah, but we also might have just been on the same wavelength, but some of us sometimes we just think, you know, maybe and this is why I feel like psychedelics are involved in so many religious rituals Maybe it is opening up something in your brain like a little doorway to pulling the veil back and saying this stuff is really happening.

Heidi:

Oh, I've got a story for you guys, and it's not one that I personally had, and this is one of those stories that kept me from ever trying it for so long. So this guy I worked with in the Air Force, we would do spooky stories at night. We were on night shift and he said that he used to live with his drug dealer and at one of the parties the toilet paper roll holder had been pulled out of the wall and as he's using the restroom he sees this gremlin guy grab it and put and like do this? No, no, no. Like wagged its finger at him and then put the thing back into the wall. It freaked him out. He came running out and his drug dealer friend is like oh, isn't it really trippy when he comes out of the wall like that,

Etienne:

what? No

Heidi:

yes. So I'm like yeah, you must be seeing real things. That normal. When your brain isn't switched on like that, you're not seeing the stuff. So I I don't know.

Heidi:

I believe that it does kind of open a window into that world

Jane:

yeah, but you see what's already here, but you only have five senses and that's why there's a common thing about, like there's a name for the phenomenon it's escaping me now but where you can smell, sound and hear. Yeah, like it's

Etienne:

like synesthesia or something

Jane:

yes.

Jane:

Well, does that? Then? Are there the other senses that you just don't have.

Heidi:

Well, look at you running through the forest with your eyes closed.

Etienne:

Yeah, with your eyes closed, yeah, with your eyes yeah

Jane:

I know my eyes were closed, so yeah,

Heidi:

it unlocks some things in your brain, for sure, I think

Etienne:

well, it's possible that our whole multiverse is right on top of us that we can't see because we don't have the capacity to see them

Jane:

yeah, but I know, I really I do believe that and I do believe the little gremlin thing in the wall.

Jane:

I've had that and seen that. I know many people who have seen those, even on the ayahuasca, and the little thing behind the tree.

Jane:

You're all alone, your friends are never going to find you.

Heidi:

They call them DMT entities.

Jane:

Yes,

Etienne:

oh wow.

Jane:

Yes, yes. And the fact that we have DMT in our brain, naturally, the fact that, like almost every religion around the world, has some kind of thing where you need to open this doorway in order to have your ego death, like you were talking about, Heidi. Read Aldous Huxley's Doors of Perception. And how he felt about acid, and when he died he knew he was dying. I can't remember like he had a prolonged illness and he knew that he was in the death throes and he told his wife to dose him in the end of death so that he would just be 100% sure that that portal was open for him and that he would be not afraid but go into it willingly.

Jane:

Yeah, and there's actually a lot of talk about hospice using mushrooms to help people get over their fear of death, and I think that there's a lot to all of that and that's why I don't think that they should be taken lightly. In fact, early Christianity, they're finding out all of these different things about how there was potentially a psychedelic experience.

Jane:

Yeah, and the incense that people used in the cathedral. They were like burning hemp. They were burning other things too, but there's evidence that they were doing that. There's evidence that there was some kind of psychedelic substance in chalices where you'd be taking communion like all kinds of things.

Heidi:

They were ensuring that you would have a spiritual experience

Jane:

exactly.

Heidi:

In the church, yep.

Jane:

And then you add that with aboga and ayahuasca and like all of these other different compounds, what they all have in common, or peyote indigenous people around the world, and then even in Western cultures, it's all about. Hey, calm your ego down for a second. So you can see this other.

Heidi:

They're all connected.

Jane:

Yes, maybe that's how we solve the world's problems

Heidi:

mushrooms in the water

Etienne:

this sounds like a spider-man episode.

Etienne:

You're one of the evil masterminds, come on not everybody can do it, though unfortunately,

Jane:

that's true.

Jane:

that's true, and you don't want to do it to kids or anything like that.

Etienne:

No, oh my God, there has to be an instrument. Can?

Heidi:

you imagine

Jane:

no.

Jane:

No, they're already open.

Etienne:

Oh my God.

Etienne:

They're already open.

Heidi:

I'm thinking of story ideas. Right now I'm like, oh my gosh, Can you imagine a room full of kids tripping out?

Jane:

They're already naturally tripping out.

Heidi:

Yeah, that's true

Jane:

my daughter was little. She was just telling me and I remember doing this as a little kid, I think it just makes you go back to they're already open. Yeah, my daughter was like, let's go into the book. And we had the book open and she was swimming on the floor, she was in it and I almost started crying because she's there, yeah, and I want to be there, you know. And so I I was able to get there, not as intensely as she was, but I did think in that moment where I was like pretending to swim on the floor with my little girl and she was like blowing bubbles and looking at the book, and I just thought maybe that's why those experiences are so enticing, is because they get us closer to whatever it is whatever you want to call it

Heidi:

like a kid again, for sure, yeah,

Jane:

totally yeah, you're running through the woods with your eyes closed yeah, totally.

Jane:

I felt like a little kid

Heidi:

talking and tickling cactus

Jane:

yes, it's, aura

Etienne:

I wish I had a video of that of you tickling the cactus's aura. That could be a name of a short story or a band Tickling the cactus aura.

Jane:

Oh God, oh man, all right

Heidi:

and that's our show You've been listening to the Women Are Plotting. If you have a story you'd like to share or have any comments, we'd love to hear from you. Email us at info@ thewomenareplottingcom, and, of course, you can find us on all the socials. Thanks and until next time, be safe and be excellent to each other.

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