Mind Manifesting Mushroom Musings
Unusual Mycological Facts, Stories and Questions
Since I wrote the piece about how music promotes mushroom growth, I’ve had a slight case of mushroom mania, although not as severe as The Last of Us. However, as the rainy season begins in Oaxaca, I swear I can hear the mycelia growing up in the mountains. The unusual relationship mushrooms enjoy between music, thunder and lightning provokes intriguing questions.
Impact of Low-Frequency Sounds on Mushrooms
Random questions emerged during my mushroom meditations:
Do mushrooms that listen to music or thunder have more psychedelic potency?
When psilocin (psilocybin’s metabolite) is in the bloodstream, what happens in the brain during a thunderstorm?
Can music, thunder and/or lightning activate and/or elevate the potency of psilocybin and/or psilocin in the human body?
Do mushrooms grant metaphysical benefits?
Sound, Frequency and Vibration
As my thoughts cascaded, two more thoughts washed out. A lot of scientific focus and effort is moving towards studying sound, frequency and vibration. The mainstream scientific community has shunned research of sound, frequency and vibration for a long time, and now things are changing posthaste. Remember what Nikola Tesla said.
Ayahuasca also came to mind. Spend time in the ayahuasca community, and you’ll hear shamans and ayahuasceros often share the same wisdom, “the music activates the medicine.”
Does Music Activate Medicine?
If you trust anecdotal evidence, here are a couple of examples. Have you ever listened to a gong performance during an ayahuasca ceremony? The gong bath made my soul feel as majestic and mystical as the Alhambra in Granada, Spain.
Speaking of Spain, I got caught in a thunderstorm once in the Sierra de Guadarrama mountains. My friends and I drove a few hours north of Madrid and we hiked up to a mountaintop. The three of us ate mushrooms on the mountain, which almost became a fatal decision.
Not long into the trip, a thunderstorm blew over us, unleashing bombs and crashing bolts. I think being on a mountaintop during a thunderstorm gets you kicked out of Boy Scouts. Thank god, there was a “rock house” up there.
A bunch of semi-flat boulders leaned up against a giant rock outcropping, forming an A-frame shape. Underneath the space created a small tunnel, providing perfect shelter from the storm. I don’t think I ever heard thunder so close to me in my life. The symphony I heard makes the 1812 Overture blush.
Did the interplay of thunder, lightning and psilocybin make that journey more awesome? Because it was awesome- terror and beauty at the same time. That psychedelic audio experience goes down in the history books. I’m not joking.
Years later, I read For Whom the Bell Tolls and had a mind manifesting moment. A passage from the book describes the exact place where I was at in the Sierra de Guadarrama mountains.
Music and low-frequency sounds enhancing psilocybin/psilocin post-ingestion doesn’t seem far-fetched. Keep in mind that mushrooms are weird, bizarre, and strange creatures.
Weird Aspects of Mushrooms
Mushrooms possess their own kingdom in taxonomic classification. Mushrooms are neither plant nor animal, but both. The separate mushroom classification is called the Eumycota or Fungi kingdom.
Are mushrooms from outer space? “The late ethnobotanist Terence McKenna suggested that mushrooms are responsible for human intelligence as we know it. His theory hypothesized that mushroom spores possess all of the necessary requirements to travel on space currents. Furthermore, they could have settled in the brain matter of primitive humanoids and, following the lines of modern day hallucinogenic mushrooms, directly contributed to our modern day intelligence and self awareness.”
Humans and mushrooms share a common ancestor dated to around 1.3 billion years ago. Although our brain can’t comprehend that timespan, think about this. Over a billion years ago predates the development of land plants and many organisms.
Plant and Mushroom Mythology and Lore
In my aforementioned Substack, Music Promotes Mushroom Growth, I noted: “The rain-lightning god and his dwarf servants may explain the symbolic association of mushrooms to “holy children” often depicted as dwarfs.” This refers to Tlaloc and his tloloques. Do the tlaloques cultivate, nurture or plant mushrooms, with the help of lightning perhaps? Are the tlaloques colleagues, or another version, of a duende or a chaneque? This would make perfect sense. Duendes and chaneques are Mexican forest spirits, akin to dwarfs and gnomes. If gnomes wear red felt hats and sit atop mushrooms, I bet the tlaloques aren’t far behind.
Stories and lore of lightning affecting plants, trees in particular, rate high among favorite legends. The 1984 Robert Redford movie, The Natural, provides pop culture’s best example. The baseball bat Roy Hobbs uses is made from the splintered wood of a tree struck by lightning. If lightning activates psilocybin in the human brain, maybe the physilogical process looks like the final scene of the movie.
The Peculiarity of Plants and Trees
Keep in mind the mushroom is half plant.
Joseph Campbell believed that plant heliotropism is a form of consciousness. Joseph Campbell is the man, the myth, and the legend behind the hero’s journey.
The 2019 documentary Fantastic Fungi described the symbiotic relationship between trees and mycelium. Tree roots and mycelium communicate with each other and exchange nutrients, through mycorrhizal association. Can tree roots pass along electricity? What’s happening to the mycelia underground attached to a tree struck by lightning? Does the mycelia get lit up like a Christmas tree?
A biologist in my neighborhood shared a story not long ago. He said he saw a man cured of his diabetes in Mexico, by taking a hot, herbal bath. If this is true, plants have unique properties we know almost nothing about in the West.
Plants enjoying a positive response to music is no secret. For the record, plants like stringed music, as well as jazz and other meditative music the most.
To be honest, after reading about the performance for the plants at the Barcelona Opera House, I’m ready to go marching off into the Sierra Madre and play some music for the mushrooms, and drink a little mezcal too, because that’s plant medicine of course.
Maybe, I just have this all backwards. Are the mushrooms playing us like a fiddle? Perhaps I need to go to the mountains and listen to the music the mushrooms are playing.
Plantwave- Mushrooms Making Music for Humans
Enter the myco musicians making music for human consumption.
Yeah that’s right, mushrooms play music. What does this mean? Can mushrooms and their music spur human brain development? Does listening to mushroom music improve neuroplasticity? Should we all be doing forest baths while listening to mushroom music to prevent cognitive decline?
How do all these miscellaneous facts tie together? How do the dots connect?
I don’t have any of the answers to these questions. However one thing is certain.
Mushrooms have seized public consciousness. Which makes you wonder.
Who is really in control, man or mushroom?
