A Metamorphosis Through Time

On a rather unconventional Christmas Day in India, I ate two grams of magic mushrooms instead of roast Turkey. As I came up, I looked at myself in the mirror of my guest house, and watched my face morph into an elderly woman. She was just like me, only there were deep lines in her face, her eyes drooped, and her locks gray. My face then morphed in time into the 24-year-old I was familiar with. Then back-and-forth, back-and-forth, a recurring metamorphosis between my current and future self.  

I wasn’t so concerned about this strange, mutating cycle, having been fairly accustomed to the bizarre scenarios that can occur in the mirror on psychedelics. Yet I was met with a deep sense of terror. 

Over two years later, I’ve returned to this memory. I’ve been recently looking in the mirror and noticing new lines and blemishes. I’m met with a discomfort that feels like echoes of the fear. Were the mushrooms trying to reveal a predicament to my own future? 

And so, in something of a belated integration, I began asking others about how psychedelics have influenced their relationship to ageing.

One woman, Jenny, kindly reached out to me on WhatsApp. She shared a similar experience of looking in the mirror on psilocybin and feeling a sense of dread. She wisely reflected that this unease could have been a projection of societal values, rather than something from within. 

“It’s like death seemed fine, but ageing was in some way not okay. I saw that very clearly on my face, seeing this very clear, horrible, wasting-away-looking body. It was very unpleasant,” she said. “All the stories we absorb from the culture about not being good enough I was feeling in my body and seeing them in the mirror.”

From a young age, we are constantly exposed to aggressive marketing from the beauty industry. Anti-ageing products dominate billboards and social media, and typically feature airbrushed models with unrealistically smooth, line-free faces. It is a huge global industry, having accounted for more than a third of North America’s market revenue in 2024. 

Given the relentless anti-ageing messaging, it’s hardly surprising that ageing is feared in modern culture. And it was potentially this fearmongering that was revealed on my own mushroom journey. 

Another psychedelic mirror story was relayed to me by a good friend, Hannah. She had a rather different emotional experience.

“Looking at myself in the mirror, I saw the beauty and maturity of my mother. It made me excited to step into that, becoming a more mature woman. It was empowering. It was like me coming into that which is strong and powerful,” she said.

Hannah named her reflection the “baby wild woman.” The face before her was much older, yet it still emanated a youthful spark and playfulness. She acknowledged that though we may age physically, we always retain our inner child. 

This sense of connecting to a childlike state is frequently reported among psychedelic users. I, for one, have several memories of acting aged six and below on trips – bashing things with sticks for no apparent reason, making up ridiculous characters. Consistent with this felt regression, psychedelic substances actually create a neurological state closer to that of a child, as revealed in brain scanning experiments. 

As we grow and learn, the brain becomes increasingly guided by prior experiences, concepts, and expectations that help us interpret the world efficiently. These mechanisms help form a coherent view of reality, but also limit our perception and the possibilities of perceiving things differently. Psychedelics can relax such constraints. They can reawaken an enchantment with the world, and remind us of our childlike essence from which we came. 

“They certainly awaken a child within,” another friend, Tom, commented.

Tom explained how psychedelic journeys have helped him reframe what it means to step into maturity. Like with beauty standards, he recognises that what society pressures us to think about life goals may not reflect what, deep down, feels true. 

“I feel like psychedelic experiences might have soothed the urgency to quickly achieve what would be stereotypical adult life goals,” he said. “They’ve helped give a more balanced and less materialistic approach to going through life. The concept of material things and owning things, like a house, becomes actually quite weird.”

Modernity often teaches that our 30s are about financial stability, getting a mortgage and settling down. However, psychedelic experiences may open the possibility that we can live life differently. They induce a state of flexibility in the brain, where new neural connections may align with new ways of perceiving, thinking, and being. 

Such changing narratives can inspire people to make changes in their lifestyles, often to help others more and live in closer alignment with the natural world. The 40K salary life may seem superfluous to what’s been described as more meaningful values.  

Yet, it’s important not to glamorise psychedelics here. While they can drive purposeful pursuits, this reframing can also be terribly destabilising. People may start questioning what they’ve set out to achieve their whole lives, leaving them confused, demoralised, and unsure how to move forward. It’s for reasons like these that guidance and integration are essential. 

I had the privilege of speaking with Heather Lee, a psychedelic-assisted therapist whose work centres on this form of support. Heather runs psychedelic retreats for older women navigating major life transitions, such as divorce, retirement, or becoming a grandmother. She helps women process their experiences in a grounded way.

A major theme among the women she works with is empty nesting – the stage of life when children have grown up and moved out of the family home.

“I’ve worked with all big life transitions and empty nesting is a big marker in women’s lives. So many women are identified as their role with mum so there’s this whole restepping back into a life outside of being mum and taking care of other people’s needs. We’re changing our role and psilocybin helps us relook at own path and our own passions. This is a big part of the work that I do.”

Now in her 60s, Heather is clearly ageing with Grace, exuberating vitality through the Zoom call. She is approaching later life with reverence, and attributes her own psychedelic journeys for helping frame her attitudes. 

“There’s so much cultural messaging about ageing being a decline, but psilocybin gives us an opportunity to reclaim that. There’s a cognitive flexibility that helps us reframe cultural attitudes and recognise that I have all this cumulative wisdom at my fingertips and my preoccupation with being perfect has turned into greater self-acceptance and comfort in my skin.” 

Heather sees her retreats almost as a rite of passage for older women to step into the “age of the sage.” 

Resonant with Heather’s perspectives, I came across an inspiring article by a man who had used psychedelics for the first time at midlife. He found that psychedelic experiences helped him connect to an essence that lay beneath the identity of his career and role as father. 

He writes, “Today, I’m more alive than I’ve ever been. My fifties are not about decline, they’re about discovery. I’m not nearing my end; I’m starting again every single day…Ageing doesn’t mean giving up, it means growing into your new self.”

As well as potentially helping shape our path and priorities in later life, psychedelics may also have neurological benefits that protect against age-related cognitive decline. I remember a friend of mine discussing his encounter with Albert Hofmann, the scientist who famously discovered LSD. He said that while Hofmann was in his 90s, he was “sharp as anything.”

Brain scans suggest that in old age, there’s a reduction in brain volume in regions associated with learning and memory. Over time, the immune system, the body’s natural defence system, can also become disrupted. This can interfere with electrical signalling in the brain, leading to problems in mental function.

Cellular research suggests that many psychedelic compounds, including psilocybin and DMT, have anti-inflammatory effects. They may help reduce immune-related damage and, by promoting neuroplasticity, support the restoration of damaged neural connections. Given these benefits, scientists have proposed that psychedelic compounds could be useful in treating dementia and other cognitive conditions associated with ageing.

Outside the brain, psychedelic compounds may also improve the longevity of other organs throughout the body. A recently published study in Nature found that psilocin, a byproduct of psilocybin, extended the lifespan of skin and lung cells by more than 50%. The same study showed psilocybin increased the lifespan of older mice by 30%. 

However, the potential of psychedelics in supporting longevity sits within a much larger picture. Lifespan is shaped by factors such as social connection, physical activity, and overall lifestyle. If a psychedelic experience prompts someone to reassess unhealthy habits, it is these resulting lifestyle changes, rather than the substance itself, that are likely to have the greatest impact on living a long and healthy life. 

Importantly, not everyone feels a desire to extend their time here on Earth. And, for some, psychedelics offer something different: a greater peace with mortality. Rather than encouraging a clinging to the physical body or a drive to outlive oneself, these experiences can promote acceptance of death and shift the focus toward living more fully in the time that is already here.

I was once in a psychedelic ceremony, and the facilitator asked us to imagine that we were on our deathbed, in the final moments of our life. At first, I felt rather annoyed that he’d asked us to reflect on such a prospect. Yet, as I lay down and relaxed my body, I began to reflect on all the memories across my life and felt a deep sense of gratitude. I have had all the joys of experiencing life as a human being, with the ability to dance, sing, laugh, and navigate across such a miraculously complex piece of art as planet Earth. 

I felt completely content with the notion that this journey was complete. 

Like me, Jenny also experienced a strong sense of peace when imagining her own death during a psychedelic journey. It was extremely pertinent in her case, having attended a guided mushroom retreat following the diagnosis of skin cancer. 

“The strong intention was to welcome what the mushrooms wanted to teach me about death. I had an experience of spending a lot of time with the earth and imagining my body being decomposed by insects,” she said.

Jenny didn’t feel afraid of what might happen next, whether her test results would show if her condition was terminal or not. Without fear, she was successfully treated and is now clear of cancer.

In subsequent psychedelic journeys, Jenny continued to experience a peacefulness in letting go, relinquishing her attachment to life. However, despite such tranquillity, she noted difficulty regrounding and returning to her body. 

“I found that the letting go habit became so strong that it was making it more difficult to be present in the here and now. It became painful and frightening to go back into the present moment,” she said. 

Her most recent trip involved exploring this pain. While incredibly challenging, she recognised a momentum of life force that continues no matter what struggles human life endures. “Despite the pain, life force carries on,” she said. 

A recurring theme on psychedelics is experiencing this life force, the thing that exists beneath and beyond our physical form. Some people equate it with the soul, and others with energy. However it’s framed, it’s a prospect of something that helps us come to terms with mortality because it’s something that continues to exist after the body has died. 

Tom recounted experiencing this force in his first-ever DMT trip, which occurred on the top floor of a university accommodation after a psytrance rave:

“I saw my consciousness float away from my body like a helium balloon, watching myself get smaller and smaller. Firstly, it felt like I travelled through time when my DNA was inhabited in a more primitive version of evolution. Then I don’t really remember how, but I travelled forward in time through the DNA and experienced what it felt like to be a form of energy, a laser beam being cradled by a tron-looking guy. It felt like the soul’s progression.

Something about that felt like I was going to be there one day, conscious of it. It felt like I looked like the afterlife or death in a comforting way. That there’s no sense of nothingness. 

It’s not like I’m going to live forever, but this might not be the only rodeo for consciousness.”

The increased acceptance of death is well characterised in the psychedelic literature. Several studies show that psychedelic-assisted therapies decrease death anxiety in patients with terminal illnesses. In some countries, hospice patients can now access psychedelic therapy through special programs based on such findings. 

Like Jenny, Heather also took a large dose of psychedelics after a cancer diagnosis. She told me, “I now don’t have a fear of what’s next because I know that there is a next.”

All of these conversations have been invaluable in helping me process my mushroom journey, and, more importantly, my relationship to ageing. If the mushrooms revealed a predicament about my future, it is simply this: my body will age, but the awareness witnessing that process does not necessarily have to. In some ways, I’m grateful that the fear arose so viscerally, because I feel more committed to approaching ageing with curiosity and acceptance rather than resistance.

Simply having these conversations has softened something in me. While this article explores how psychedelics can shape our relationship to ageing, what feels most alive is the realisation that, actually, just speaking openly with others has been incredibly powerful. Yes, psychedelic experiences can be potent teachers, but what I think is possibly even more valuable is to actually open a dialogue about such matters with our fellow mortal humans.

Martha is one of our community bloggers here at Chemical Collective. If you’re interested in joining our blogging team and getting paid to write about subjects you’re passionate about, please reach out to Sam via email at [email protected]