Psychedelic Science 2025
Geared for Weird
I haven’t traveled anywhere in some time, so life’s random design put an end to my inertia. A stroke of serendipity hit and I’ll be going to Psychedelic Science 2025. I’m feeling excited, anxious, and knowing I have to be geared for weird.
A Parade of Humans
I have to brace myself to meet a parade of humans. I’m already a bit amped up about all the people I’ll get to know at Psychedelic Science. I’ll have a chance to meet a lot of colleagues for the first time, make new friends, and bump into new people.
I’m quite interested to see who will be in attendance, aside from announced speakers. I know there will be some surprises for sure. I’m bound to meet one or two, unexpected people of note. More on that to come.
I also get to kill 3 birds with 1 stone. I’ll be visiting family outside of Denver. Above all, I get to see a best friend I haven’t seen in over 10 years. I haven’t felt this excited about socializing in years, and it’s been longer since I’ve been to a mega event.
Psychedelic Science- Mega Event?
I possess a robust resume of global, mega events I’ve attended. I’ve been to Oktoberfest, the Running of the Bulls, Burning Man, and a Superbowl to name a few. The last big event I went to was South by Southwest back-to-back years in the late 2010s.
I don’t think an event has to have a shit ton of people to qualify as “mega,” although it helps a lot with media coverage. In 2023, Psychedelic Science had over 11,000 attendees. This isn’t a lot of people. Burning man draws 70,000 attendees, SouthbySouthwest gets 500,000, and the Running of the Bulls attracts over a million.
However, I think Psychedelic Science carries a lot more weight and significance despite smaller attendance. Psychedelic Science could be one of the critical events trying to provide answers to 21st century problems. I’m curious how much I’ll hear about psychedelics to treat the mental health crisis, occupy our spiritual void, and/or upset the status quo systems causing many of our worst problems today.
An Outside-In Sneak Peek
The last time I was in the States was September of 2023. A lot has changed in a short period of time. The collective mood or egregore, doesn’t look flattering from my vantage point, and I’m no stranger to an odd vibe.
I moved to Spain in 2006, about a year after George W. Bush entered office the second time. I think I was in Spain at least a couple of years before I took a trip back to the States. I returned during the height of the Middle East war madness. Mired in simultaneous wars in Afghanistan and Iraq, the country was on a manic mission to find bin Laden.
I went from drinking a beer and eating paella on the Mediterranean to getting steamrolled by a war machine. This time around will have its own distinct feel. Who knows, it might be worse. One way or another, I’ll get an outside-in sneak peek at the state of the nation, which always provides a rare experience that might get weird.
Geared for Weird- Reverse Culture Shock
I’ll be taking the pulse of the States from my front row seat with an outsider’s perspective. Burning Man for the white collar crowd may not be the most equitable American pulse point. Although shirtcockers may not lurk in the crowds at Psychedelic Science, things could take a turn for the unusual, thanks to reverse culture shock.
I experienced this when I moved back to the States from Spain. I won’t be in Colorado long enough to have a significant dose of reverse culture shock, and I know I’ll be wide eyed at times. Food quality and sugar come to mind. Mexico uses cash, the United States uses cards. Mexico walks a lot, the United States drives. How much will Americans be on their phones compared to Mexicans? How much homelessness will I see? Yet another stark contrast is public bathrooms.
Mexican public bathrooms charge a small fee, and you have to buy toilet paper. Don’t ever be the hapless soul who enters a Mexican bathroom without toilet paper. I’ve witnessed that walk of shame and it’s a miserable display. Worse yet, some Mexican toilets don’t even have seats. Don’t ever take your commode for granted.
After backpacking through Mexico once for 5 months, the first public bathroom in the States I entered was at a CVS. The bathroom gleamed like the halls of Atlantis, and boasted an embarrassment of riches. A stack of toilet paper rolls soared skyward as high as the Statue of Liberty. I could even flush the toilet paper! In Mexico, toilet paper goes into a waste bin. Give me bathroom liberty, or give me death.
Since shit grows flowers, and I know they’ll be blooming in Colorado in June, I’m confident some unexpected beauty springs forth, as I have a knack for manifesting trippy encounters.
Geared for Weird- Sipping on the Limelight
Life’s random design has gifted me with abundant pronoia. Pronoia is the belief that the universe is secretly conspiring to shower you with blessings. Pronoia provides a vital tenet that keeps me sane nowadays. I’d rather believe people are working together to help me and bring me good things, than anything else. Pronoia flirts with me on occasion and often leads to sipping on the limelight.
Charlie Hustle
My encounters with celebrities began at a young age. I was somewhere around 10 or 12 years old, and made my mom take me to a baseball card convention. My mom was an avid reader and couldn’t care less about baseball, except for my interest in it at the time. I waited in line to get an autograph, so my mom detoured to a coffee shop in the hotel.
After getting my autograph, I found my mom and she said, “I think I was just talking with some well-known guy. I don’t know his name, but he’s a big player.” My mom didn’t have a clue, and odds are she was more focused on reading a Stephen King book.
“He’s still sitting at the booth where I was at.”
“You talked with him?”
“Yeah, I wasn’t very interested though.”
“Who was it? Is he still there?”
“Yeah, he’s over there,” my mom said pointing through a window.
I looked through the window, and saw a man sitting by himself at a booth in the coffee shop.
That man was Pete Rose.
I was flabbergasted. I don’t know what shocked me more; my mom not knowing who Pete Rose was, or that she had a casual chit chat with him. A few years later, I realized that there was a good chance Pete was flirting with my mom.
15 Olympic Minutes of Fame
Many years later, I flirted with fame again, this time of my own making. I went to the 1996 Olympics in Atlanta. Good, bad, and ugly things happened at those Olympics. This resulted in some chaos at times. At one point, my friend and I found ourselves threatened by another bomb scare, after the dreadful event of the previous day.
We stood in Centennial Park and learned that all public transportation shut down. As my friend and I discussed how to navigate our way back home, I overheard a woman. The young woman was talking about a story she needed to get. I glanced over my shoulder, saw her holding a mic and talking with a camera guy. I turned to my friend and asked, “Do you want to be on TV?”
“What? What are you talking about?”
“Just answer the question. Do you want to be on TV?”
His face contorted in befuddlement, my friend replied, “Uh…yeah sure?”
“Ok, just follow my lead.”
I began to talk quite loud and projected my voice, as I complained about the ignominious events taking place. Then I heard the woman say, “C’mon, we’ve got our story. Let’s go talk with those two guys.”
The woman interviewed the two of us for about 5 minutes. The next day, I was able at last to contact my mom and relieve her existential dread that I may be dead. Then she told me that just about every family relative called her that morning. Why?
My friend and I ended up on national TV on the program Good Morning America. I went viral before anyone knew what that word meant. Sometimes it’s not about making magic, it’s just about being in the right place, at the right time, and having your head in the game.
Close Encounters of the Trippy Kind
I’ve had more celebrity encounters than the average person, whether professional athletes, musicians, and/or movie stars. Most of these random meetings took place in Chicago, and after crossing paths with celebs, I learned something.
Often when celebs aren’t on TV, on stage, or in the limelight, most people either don’t know who they are, or just don’t have observational awareness. I value observational awareness to a high degree. I’ve said for years, “Get your head in the game, before the game gets in your head.” That’s to say, “Be present. Feel, look, see, smell, sense what is happening around you.”
When I just observe and just am, sometimes the external world’s Jack-in-the-box pops up in my face. Take an event in Austin, Texas for example, when I had a brush with psychedelic royalty.
Years ago I worked at an event there called PaleoFX. The event reflected Austin to perfection, as it overlapped health, wellness and working out, with holistic healing, spirituality and psychedelics. I was wandering the floor one afternoon, lost in my own world, when I saw a man approaching me through the crowd. He was alone, and nobody nearby recognized him.
“Holy shit,” I thought to myself. “There’s no way.” I kept on walking towards the elderly gentleman. His white beard, glasses and jovial look give him a sense of warmth and approachability. He kept walking right towards me, as we were about to have a showdown at high noon on the convention floor.
“Dennis? Dennis McKenna?”
“Yes, that’s me. Can you help me find my way to this classroom?”
“Yes sir, yes I can. Right this way.”
Without hesitation I escorted Dennis to his classroom where he was delivering a plant medicine lecture. I didn’t even chat with him about psychedelics. We just made small talk about the convention crowd.
A similar thing happened last year at the psychedelic conference in Mexico City. Robin Carhartt Harris was standing in the lobby with his son. I wanted to introduce myself to Robin, and I didn’t want to interrupt his family time. So I stood a few feet away, looking conspicuous, as I waited for a brief moment to say hello.
I caught the eye of a group of three women. They saw me standing around in an odd way, then looked at who was standing next to me, and wasted no time pulling out their cameras, walked right up to Robin and asked him for a selfie.
Often celebrities say they live a nightmare because they don’t have anonymity in public. While I think this is true, they might also not realize how many times the public doesn’t have their head in the game. This benefits me because I’ve met numerous high profile people, thanks to no one around them realizing who they were.
I’m not even fazed by celebrity encounters anymore. When I lived in Austin. I saw Scott Ian of Anthrax and Kerry King of Slayer at the airport. I didn’t even bother to take a picture. They don’t want to be fawned over all the time. They’re human just like us. Why do I know? Because I saw Kerry King playing Candy Crush on the airplane. Candy Crush might be bad for Slayer’s brand.
Staying a Mile High on a Sinking Ship?
Given my track record, I’m amped up to see what goes down at Psychedelic Science. I will go in without expectations, as that always helps interesting things to happen. When you want it, and look for it, it doesn’t happen. It’s all about effortless effort.
Above all, I’m a mile high to make a ton of new friends, see a dear, old one, and visit family while I’m in Denver. I’m also looking forward to spending some high-quality nature time in the Rockies. I need it to fortify my soul.
I won’t lie though. Going back to the States will make me feel restless. Perhaps I’ll feel like a foreigner in a strange land at times, and maybe worse. I’ve seen a comment circulating in YouTube comments as of late, that I find unsettling.
“The United States is like the Titanic. Too big to turn, too slow to react, in denial about sinking, and there aren't enough lifeboats for every passenger except the 1% ultra rich.”
Although, if we’re all the ocean in a drop, then riding some turbulent waves can’t sink my spirit of the high seas.
Colorado will welcome you with wildflowers and peak-crested raptors. Some of her denizens don't own phones, drive only when necessary, and shit in the woods without trace. Just to say you may feel more at home than you think. Find the signal, quiet the noise. Also? Of course Pete Rose was flirting with your mom.