How Taking Magic Mushrooms In New Orleans Reduced My Anxiety
By: Megan Brown
Tags: Travel, Mental Health, The Bad Influence, Psychedelics, This Happened To Me

Does anything feel better than an orgasm?

For me, the answer is yes.

Think I’m full of shit? Oh, just you wait.

Taking magic mushrooms with some friends on a trip to New Orleans, Louisiana changed my brain permanently. It wasn’t my first trip to NOLA. It wasn’t my first psychedelic trip either. My hopes are high that it won’t be my last time doing either of those things. This trip was different, though.

Why? Well, because I inadvertently brushed against the cosmic clitoris during my travels. It felt delicious. Plus, this accidental discovery gave me the capacity to seek it again intentionally. And again. And again. Ahhh, yes.

So what is the cosmic clit? Where is it, for that matter?

I like to think of it as a little spot in your brain built for experiencing ultimate pleasure and fulfillment in life — sensual, mental, spiritual, and emotional. Mental illness can make it harder to find. Anyone dealing with long-term mental health struggles might contemplate whether the cosmic clit exists at all. That’s why it can be a good idea to use things like psychedelics, travel, or a combination of the two, for a little cosmic foreplay.

Just as the clitoris’s precise location within a vulva seems mysterious to many, the cosmic clit is also elusive. If you pay attention to what’s in front of you, though, you’ll realize it was there all along — plain as day. Kind of like, you know, a regular clit. A little to your left. Ugh. Your other left.

Coming up in Louis Armstrong Park

Tripping in public would not have been manageable if I hadn’t already taken mushrooms before in a more controlled environment. New Orleans is overwhelming enough without psilocybin. Sensory overload grips my shoulders and scrambles my brain in my skull like a Boggle grid each time I go. Besides that, I would not recommend a psychedelic trip in public in an unfamiliar city (or even in your hometown) unless you have a sober person you trust with you.

The four of us decided to take hallucinogens and take an Uber to the French Quarter. I had an eighth of mushrooms. So did my friend. My partner took two tabs of LSD. Thankfully, one of us stayed sober to make sure no one jumped into traffic or the Mississippi River. By the time we arrived in Louis Armstrong Park, we were starting to come up. The plan was to spend the most intense part of the trip in the park and then explore once we came down a bit.

A raindrop bypassed my glasses and landed in my eye the instant we stepped foot out of the car. The drops quickly became a drizzle. I realized almost immediately that I was about to shit myself. Nausea and intestinal discomfort are, unfortunately, typical side effects of taking mushrooms — their only downside, in my opinion. Suddenly it dawned on me that most places only allow paying customers to use their restroom. Anxiety set in. Was I about to poop my pants while tripping balls in an unfamiliar city?

Strangely, there was almost no one else in the park with us — except for one guy. He circled us on his bike, which made us all uneasy. One of us was brave enough to ask him if he knew of a place that had a public restroom we could use. I was immediately embarrassed and creeped out when he pointed across the park and said

“There’s an abandoned building. Why don’t you just take a shit in there? Hahahaha”

He coasted away on his bike, laughing maniacally. I immediately thought, “Oh my fucking god, how does he know I have to take a dump?”

He must have had a change of heart. A few minutes later, he rode back over and told us to try the café across from the park.

Shitting in a French café four minutes before closing

I felt dizzy entering the tiny café. Claustrophobia ensued. My whole house is 750 square feet, and this place was way smaller than my living room. The floor’s black and white tiles patterned and danced so much that I couldn’t even look down. I’m sure we looked and sounded unhinged.

The baristas behind the counter seemed very annoyed — and I can’t say that I blame them. Besides the fact that we were tripping, they could tell we were tourists. In my desperation, I asked for the bathroom anyway. To my horror, one of the baristas told us in a stern French accent that the café closed in four minutes. The tone of his voice and his facial expression implied a “no.” I pictured a cop handcuffing me after discovering me pooping in an alley. Then I resorted to begging. For whatever reason, he had mercy on me. I practically sprinted into the bathroom, which was behind the bar next to the kitchen. By the time I locked the door behind me, I was at the peak of my trip. I realized it was going to be a struggle to manage in public. Still, I felt excited at the thought of how much more adventurous I’d probably feel when I was less, well, full of shit.

As I sat on the toilet and looked around, everything appeared to be the wrong size somehow. I’m not sure how long I sat there, but it felt like it took a lifetime to blow up that bathroom.

Coronavirus panic buyers would have thought they’d found heaven. I’m not sure if I was tripping or if the staffed had stuffed 100 rolls of toilet paper into that tiny space. In my drug-addled mind, it made sense to squeeze a roll of TP in my purse. Once I finally succeeded, I immediately wondered what the hell I was doing and why. Then I spent another eternity taking the roll back out. I hadn’t even looked in the mirror yet.

Realizing I could control my anxiety

After FINALLY finishing my business and washing my hands with great difficulty as my fingers grew and shrank before my eyes, I lifted my head to look at my face.

Oh my god. So this is me, huh? Wow. I was a little disgusted, yet mesmerized.

“I’m just a moist flesh suit containing a spark of human consciousness,” I thought. “One day, this consciousness will extinguish and disappear into the ether rendering my flesh suit (and the expensive tattoos decorating it) completely useless.”

I tried to let my insignificance comfort me despite the rightfully cranky people waiting for me outside. My heart started racing. I was sweating. Suddenly, I heard a voice in my head say, “NO.” I realized it was my inner voice saying calmly, but firmly, “No. You don’t have to listen to your anxiety. Just tell it no. There’s another way through life if you go with the flow. You are part of everything.” I watched my pores breathe and move in patterns on my face.

I took a deep breath and closed my eyes. I splashed some water on my face as I imagined my restless pores as thousands of mouths gulping it down greedily. Then I thought to myself: “I’ve handled everything life has dished out up until now. What makes this situation any different? All I can do is my best. Plus, no one waiting outside that door would ever let anything happen to me.”

And then I felt calm. I looked at my massive, sweaty pores and smiled wildly at my reflection, ready to take on The Big Easy after having an existential crisis in a bathroom made of toilet paper. My pores smiled too. Wait; what?

I felt the familiar tightness gripping my chest again. My shoulders started to drift up toward my ears. “NO!” I thought. I imagined my muscles relaxing and letting go of their tension underneath my skin. My shoulders lowered as I exhaled.

That’s when I realized that a comfortable baseline existed within me — a calm, detached nothingness I could always return to when I felt scared or overwhelmed. This realization occurred because, suddenly and unexpectedly, I was there, inside the vacuum — I had found my “center” as they say. It was so spacious. I could breathe.

It was beautiful to be there rather than trapped in the claustrophobic coffin of anxiety, where I usually found myself in times of stress. This mental home base felt alien and familiar all at the same time, like a home I used to live in but one day abandoned for reasons I couldn’t quite recall. I cried.

I finally stepped out of the bathroom door. It was like that moment when Dorothy crashes into Oz out of a tornado and leaves her farmhouse. There she discovers that, yes, Aunt Em, colors other than grey do exist after all.

Watching the sunset in Jackson Square

We spent a few hours laughing and talking in our Airbnb. Our hallucinogens had mostly worn off, so we were finally feeling brave enough to go back to the French Quarter.

I wanted to take my friends to Café du Monde for beignets and black coffee with chicory, but it was too crowded to get a table. We were all hungry anyway, so we decided to find a restaurant without a long wait.

We entered Jackson Square just in time for the sunset. The sky made a gorgeous blue, orange, and yellow backdrop for the steeples of St. Louis Cathedral. The residual effects of the mushrooms I’d eaten seemed to make this pastel color palette shimmer with an iridescent halo. This halo followed my field of vision in a low, slow trail each time I turned my head to look at something new. And I turned my head a lot as Jackson Square during the weekend of Southern Decadence is a lot to take in — lots of denim booty shorts, rainbow flags, and glow sticks galore.

As I took in the view, enjoying the afterglow of my trip, I felt my stomach turning from the combination of scents in the muggy evening air — sickly sweet confection, smoky Cajun spiciness, and just a hint of weed. Suddenly I heard strange, ethereal music coming from somewhere nearby. With all the commotion, it was hard to pinpoint its location. It sounded almost like a harp but with more depth and range. Had I died and gone to heaven? What had I done to deserve being a part of a moment so beautiful? I usually get anxious in crowds, but after my shroom trip, I felt a sense of joy and wonder, marveling at how lucky I was to be a part of it all.

As the music continued, my eyes finally came back down to earth in search of its source. Then I noticed that Jackson Square was full of buskers, artist booths, fortune tellers, and tarot readers with candles glowing dimly at each table. As if being led by the hand by a firm but gentle invisible force, I left my group to find the otherworldly music’s source. It was a man playing one of the strangest looking instruments I’ve ever seen. I wasn’t even aware it existed.

We talked to him for long enough to find out that the instrument he was playing was called a Kora. It’s a West African instrument — a cross between a harp and a lute. It was one of the most beautiful sounds I’ve ever heard. I put a dollar in his tip jar. It was all I had. It almost seemed trite to try to exchange money for something so heavenly. He wore it on his chest like a backward backpack. It had what looked like a broad, cloth base and 27 strings. As we listened to him play, a woman got up and danced next to him in the yellow and pink sunset glow. It was a magical moment I’ll never forget. Perhaps I never would have experienced it without my newfound ability to “go with the flow.”

Photo by Martin Lostak on Unsplash

Finding the cosmic clit

We ended the night by getting palm and tarot readings in Jackson Square around midnight. As my reader concluded and I tipped her, her friend was packing up his table next to hers. He seemed to be able to sense that we had been on hallucinogens at some point during the day. Maybe I’m letting my imagination run away with me. Or, perhaps, New Orleans is just magical. Whatever the reason, he came over to regale us about the time he tripped on an entire half-sheet of LSD and lived to tell the tale coherently. He learned from his trip that the key to life is, in his words, “finding the cosmic clitoris.”

Although it was just a joke that some dirty old psychic told us, I couldn’t stop thinking about the concept. Maybe that guy was onto something. I like to think I found it that day in New Orleans through the use of psychedelics.

There’s a reason it took a seasoned intuitive an entire half-sheet of acid to find it. A lifetime of experiences viewed through the lens of our conditioning can make this a complicated process. Realizing your relative insignificance in the grand scheme of the cosmos allows you to let some of that conditioning go. Once you do, it’s easy to see that one’s perception of reality and attempted mastery over it can change experiences and the powerfully alter the trajectory of a life. And that’s when you’ll notice that the cosmic clit was sitting on your face all along.

Photo by Paola Galimberti on Unsplash

So what happens next?

You can exist comfortably within the world. Knowledge and acceptance of the universe in flux allows one to feel more joy and less terror. And who doesn’t need that these days?

There is nothing more satisfying than finding a comfortable baseline after struggling mentally for so long — not even a really good orgasm. If you’ve ever felt like anxiety and depression control your life, you know it’s true.

When you find it, you can drop the struggle in moments when you would usually have been anxious. Enjoy the waves of pure, transcendent pleasure as they wash over you. If you’re fortunate like I was, you’ll be in New Orleans when you find it — hearing the Mississippi River lapping lightly at its banks.