“She saw a sea of green and purple shapes, then a deep-space emptiness with a monolithic presence, similar to the Borg Collective from Star Trek. At one point, a series of Egyptian ships and Russian dolls paraded before her. As she laughed and wept, something popped out at her from the mental kaleidoscope: A small, creamy-white, animated crab.” Yes, Carol Vincent had quite magic mushroom trip. But her use of psilocybin wasn’t an effort to enhance a party experience or fully experience the Grateful Dead. It was part of a study to see if the active ingredient in mushrooms could help someone want to live. And the results of studies on Vincent and other cancer patients were quite promising. The trip was pleasantly strange, and its impact was remarkably long. From Olga Khazan in The Atlantic: The Life-Changing Magic of Mushrooms. (In retrospect, 2016 should have come with shrooms…)

+ WaPo: Three cancer patients explain how a psychedelic drug eased their fears.

+ From Newshour: Using Ecstasy to treat PTSD: “I felt like my soul snapped back into place.”