Inside a Magic Mushroom Trip in Bushwick, Brooklyn

Jeanie Loretta, putting on makeup in her Bushwick apartment. She does this before consuming the mushrooms because she knows that she likely won’t be up for it once the experience begins.

Jeanie holds the psychedelic mushrooms she’s about to consume.

Jeanie begins to eat her mushrooms. In order to ensure that the strength of the trip is manageable for her, she saves some for after they begin to kick in so that she can get a sense of the potency. Altogether, she’ll be consuming about 2.5 grams.

Magic mushrooms contain a powerful psychedelic drug called psilocybin. While Westerners only began to consume these fungi for recreational and medicinal use in the 1950’s, it is theorized that their use by humans dates back to prehistoric times.

While she waits for the effects to begin to take hold, Jeanie does her full yoga routine. Jeanie, a Bushwick resident, spends her weekdays working in marketing at a tech company. But almost every weekend, she explores the inner dimensions of her consciousness through the use of different psychedelic drugs.

As a part of her ritual, Jeanie lights incense and meditates as she waits for the mushrooms to kick in.

Jeanie giggles, and the trip begins.

As the trip commences, it becomes clear that Jeanie will express her experiences through hand motions when words are insufficient.

“Healing,” says Jeanie, when asked why she uses psychedelics. Healing as a theme of this trip emerges, as Jeanie periodically asks questions like, “How can we truly heal? How can we help the world heal itself?”

About an hour and and a half after consuming the mushrooms, Jeanie lays down as the trip becomes more serious and contemplative.

Jeanie begins to trace her fingers along her blanket, leaving an ever-changing trail.

Laughter regularly emerges during Jeanie’s trip, generally upon one of her many experiential realizations.

Laughter is also quick to depart, as Jeanie shifts from from ironic realizations to somber reflections, and back again.

“Justice. Justice and reason,” says Jeanie when asked what she is currently experiencing.

Slowly, the effect of the drug begins to wear off, and the trip comes to an end.