"The study points to how serious these adverse effects can be with the hallucinogens," Shurtleff said. "This was done in a highly controlled environment, and there were still adverse effects."
Some participants reported unpleasant experiences, including feelings of terror, sadness and paranoia. The study quoted one volunteer who recalled "the profound grief I experienced, as if all of the pain and sadness of the world were passing through me, cell by cell, tearing apart my being."
But many described life-changing mystical experiences of the sort typically reported by monks, saints and other devoutly religious. Even those who experienced fear or sadness rated the experience as spiritually important, and no one reported long-lasting negative effects.
Osborn participated in the study when she was 59, during a period of soul-searching after a divorce and the terrorist attacks of Sept. 11, 2001.
She estimated that her psilocybin session lasted eight hours. "I felt like my heart was being torn open," she said in a phone interview yesterday. "Once I got by the sensory titillation, the colors and the sounds - the pain was a very strong physical pain, but it was nothing I was afraid of.
"It was a combination of sweet and painful," she said. "There is so much joy in being alive and there is so much pain in being alive. We usually don't feel it because we are so armored."
She credited the experiment with lasting effects, including helping her better cope with fear. "I became more aware of when I was afraid or when my heart would become closed up," she said. "I began asking myself what I would do if I wasn't afraid. When I felt myself tensing up, I would breathe a little deeper."
Sandy Lundahl, 55, of Bowie said her interest in the research was piqued by acquaintances who had already participated in Griffiths' experiments. Like Osborn's, her experiences ranged from odd to profound. "At first I saw these figures that looked like little harlequins opening a curtain, trying to show me all these colorful things," she said, "but they weren't really important."
As the effects of the drug became stronger, she said, she wrestled with emotions rooted in her personal relationships and sadness about her father's death. "I had no idea what I had been repressing with regards to my father's death," she said. "I had to process the truth about it."
She also feels a lingering sense of "oneness" often associated with religious awakenings. "There is a bigger explanation for everything," she said. "You know that there is something beyond your everyday reality. I knew that the world was going to be fine."
Griffiths suggested that these insights might help people with life-threatening diseases cope with the related anxiety and depression. He is now enrolling cancer patients in a psilocybin trial approved by the Food and Drug Administration, as part of their psychiatric counseling.
chris.emery@baltsun.com
