unity” such that death, “instead of being seen as the absolute end of
everything and a step into nothingness, appears suddenly as a transition
into another type of existence . . . The idea of possible continuity of
consciousness beyond physical death becomes much more plausible than
the opposite.”
• • •
VOLUNTEERS IN THE NYU psilocybin trial are required to write an account
of their journey soon after its completion, and Patrick Mettes, who
worked in journalism, took the assignment seriously. His wife, Lisa, said
that after his Friday session Patrick labored all weekend to make sense of
the experience and write it down. Lisa agreed to share his account with
me and also gave Patrick’s therapist, Tony Bossis, permission to show me
the notes he took during the session, as well as his notes from several
follow-up psychotherapy sessions.
Lisa, who at the time worked as a marketing executive for a cookware
company, had an important meeting on that January morning in 2011, so
Patrick came by himself to the treatment room in the NYU dental school
on First Avenue and Twenty-fourth Street, taking the subway from their
apartment in Brooklyn. (The treatment room was in the dental college
because, at the time, both Bellevue and NYU’s cancer center wanted to
keep their distance from a trial involving psychedelics.) Tony Bossis and
Krystallia Kalliontzi, his guides, greeted him, reviewed the day’s plans,
and then at 9:00 a.m. presented Patrick with a chalice containing the pill;
whether it contained psilocybin or the placebo, none of them would know
for at least thirty minutes. Patrick was asked to state his intention, which
he said was to learn to cope better with the anxiety and depression he felt
about his cancer and to work on what he called his “regret in life.” He
placed a few photographs around the room, of himself and Lisa on their
wedding day and of their dog, Arlo.
At 9:30, Patrick lay down on the couch, put on the headphones and
eyeshades, and fell quiet. In his account, Patrick likened the start of the
journey to the launch of a space shuttle: “a physically violent and rather
clunky liftoff which eventually gave way to the blissful serenity of
weightlessness.”