Laughing Dragon: [00:00:01] It's the believing that there is a duality that makes it so. And so people subscribing to that belief, they're actually creating it through their attention. So what I'm saying is reordering the belief system to make sure that you have the highest unconditional love possible at all moments in time. That's what I try to do. My name is the Laughing Dragon, and this is the Life Stylist Podcast.

Luke Storey: [00:00:05] Yeah, buddy. Here we are. So we're sitting here in Venice, California, sipping on some Amanita muscaria mushroom tea.

Laughing Dragon: [00:00:15] Amanita tea.

Luke Storey: [00:00:16] Which our guest here, you guys, instructed me not to drink too much of if I want to actually be able to complete the podcast. So brother, tell me a little bit about your early life before you decided to take the sojourn of the shamanic path in South America.

Laughing Dragon: [00:00:36] Well, I had a pretty challenging childhood. And I had a very hard family life, and when I entered adulthood, I had post-traumatic stress disorder from things that had happened while I was a teenager and many other things. And I had chronic insomnia, and I had just all sorts of issues. And I had tried very hard to find solutions just to be well. I just wanted to be happy and have a nice life. But there was really nothing that was working.  

I tried all these medications through doctors, and depression, all the meds they have. And it didn't really help, and therapy didn't really help. And it was just all this stuff that just didn't work. And I never felt well. I never felt like my life was meaningful from doing those things. 

And so it just accumulated to the point where one day I was like, I just got to redefine my whole life because if I have been living in a way that did not make me happy, did not give me meaning or fulfillment, and I based that on ideas that were fed to me by my culture, then I got to start over. And so I did. I just dropped everything. I sold all my stuff, quit my job, and everything I did in the US, and I just moved to South America, speaking no Spanish and not knowing anyone there.

Luke Storey: [00:02:16] What country did you--

Laughing Dragon: [00:02:17] I started bouncing around a bit. I was in Chile, a little bit of time in Peru, Argentina. And then I ended up living in Argentina for about a year and a half.

Luke Storey: [00:02:26] How did you know where to go? What led you to Chile as the first stop?

Laughing Dragon: [00:02:30] It was just intuitive. So I had bounced around for a few weeks when I first got there. I had a, I don't know if it was a dream or if it was a waking intuition, but I saw a picture of this beautiful mountain with a sunset, and I was like, oh, that's where I need to go. And so I started looking around, not specifically for mountains but just for other places that I could do work exchange.  

And I ended up in this little town called Merlo, Argentina, and it's the most beautiful little town ever. It's in the middle of nowhere in the center of Argentina. And it has this just absolutely perfectly quiet mountain range. And you go up there late in the day, and when the sun is setting, it's below the mountain. And it's just so beautiful the way that the sun would set there. And so I lived there very peacefully for a few years.

Luke Storey: [00:03:29] And then you ended up in Brazil.

Laughing Dragon: [00:03:31] Yeah. And then after a while, I was like, yeah, this place is safe and beautiful, and great, and I've made progress here, but I got to get back to real life a little bit. So I had reset myself, moved myself to Brazil, had some challenges there as well, adapting to a new language and another place I didn't understand the culture. The cultures are not so similar to Brazil.

Luke Storey: [00:03:53] Where were you in Brazil? 

Laughing Dragon: [00:03:55] Well, I spent most of my time in the South. Yeah, mostly Florianopolis. It's the best place in the world. It's amazing there.

Luke Storey: [00:04:02] I love Brazil. I've not been there yet. And at what point did you start to venture into the realms of plant medicines, psychedelics, etc?

Laughing Dragon: [00:04:12] Yeah. Well, I had accidentally gotten into it through friends and stuff in Argentina and a little bit in Brazil, but never in a serious way. What ended up happening was that at the age of about 31, I had spent many years trying to reconstruct my life, and just move on, and just be happy, and all that, and build this whole new life for myself in South America. At that time, I had been there for seven years in South America. And my life was coming to a point where it was like, this isn't working.  

At that point, even after I had made all these great efforts, I still had a lot of traumas, and triggers, and all sorts of problems, and emotional issues, and whatever, and I just couldn't do anything to stop it. And I also at that point had chronic illnesses. So I had two chronic illnesses at that point. I had chronic fatigue, and I had an intestinal parasite. And there was no getting rid of those either. 

And I was like, well, I'm out of money. I'm out of options. And I'm like, I'm just going to-- I'm done. And in my mind, I had set a date. I was like, this day, I'm going to end my life because I'm just tired. It was just too hard. Family's all fucked up. And then I go out and try to fix it, and it doesn't work. And I'm just like, I just can't. And out of nowhere, a person I didn't know invited me to an ayahuasca ceremony. 

And had never taken ayahuasca, or psilocybin, or any DMT thing before that. I was like, all right, might as well. I'm going to do it anyways. And this was two days before I had planned on actually doing it. And in this ceremony, I had a vision that was so powerful that it completely changed the course of my life. It was a vision of the future of the Earth and my future as well. It was so perfect, and so harmonious, and just unbelievable. It was unbelievably beautiful. And I saw all of this. And I knew that I had an important role to play in it.  

And it was like, if you want this to happen, you have to commit. I mean, it was obvious to me. And I was like, whoa. I mean, I had a fucked up life, but if that's the future, I'll do anything to make that real. I don't care how hard it is. And from that day forward, I set out on a path of shamanism 100%. All I did all the time was going deeper into understanding spirituality, into my own spiritual practices in the way using psychedelics and trying to find truth, real truth, real meaning in things. And try to find an answer, something I could bring to humanity that would be good, that would be beautiful. So once I discovered that, it was just psychedelics. 

Luke Storey: [00:07:35] Game on.

Laughing Dragon: [00:07:35] Game on. Yes, exactly. And still going.

Luke Storey: [00:07:38] At what point in your journey did you start to find relief from the chronic fatigue, parasites, and insomnia? Which, by the way, I mean, I've never had a clinically diagnosed chronic fatigue. I'm sure I've had parasites at different points, but even if somebody just has true insomnia, I mean, that's a recipe for insanity.

Luke Storey: [00:08:01] Oh, absolutely.

Laughing Dragon: [00:08:02] If I go a couple days with bad sleep, I mean, my quality of life diminishes so quickly, which is why I've spent the past many years really focusing on ways to improve my sleep. And it's like the more I do that, the more my life is enriched. And I think back to times, I'd never had a long spell of it, but different times just going through emotional problems and things like that similar to you, just unresolved trauma, and PTSD, and just childhood wounds, and all this stuff where I would get triggered, like in a relationship, let's say a breakup or a fight or something like that. 

And there would be days where I couldn't sleep, and I would start to become so much less sane and just able to cope with day-to-day life. So it's incredible to me that you had this going on for a long period of time. So when did you start to turn the corner on some of those things that you hadn't been able to achieve wellness in before?

Laughing Dragon: [00:08:55] Yeah. I mean, you just nailed it. I mean, sleep is foundational for everything every single human thing you do. People ignore it in our society for some reason. When you don't sleep well, you're irritable, your memory doesn't work. I mean, it's hard to do anything when you haven't slept well. Anything. So how are you supposed to manage your whole stressful life plus your own emotional stuff when you don't sleep? It's impossible. And it's also connected to things with diet.  

I worked as a weight loss coach for a long time. One of the main factors in obesity is just sleep insomnia. People not sleeping well. Connected with every illness. So yeah, it's foundational foundational. And for me, I had chronic insomnia for 20 years, from the age of 13 up to about 32, 33.

Luke Storey: [00:09:51] Wow. No wonder you wanted to check out.

Laughing Dragon: [00:09:53] No kidding. Yeah.

Luke Storey: [00:09:55] I mean, I get three days, and I'm in real bad shape. It doesn't happen often. Had you tried other Western or alternative methods of healing that stuff before?

Laughing Dragon: [00:10:09] Everything. GABA, melatonin, all the herbal stuff, all the tinctures, and lavender oil, and everything. And it's just like nothing was working. It was helpful sometimes, but not fixing it, until I discovered Amanita. Amanita completely eradicated this problem for me. 100%. I microdose, Amanita, I sleep really well, deeply, every night. I mean, for me, it was like, oh my God, I've discovered a miraculous substance. And so I discovered it accidentally wandering through a forest in Brazil where I wasn't supposed to even be.

Luke Storey: [00:10:53] Really?

Laughing Dragon: [00:10:54] Yes.

Luke Storey: [00:10:55] Had heard of Amanita?

Laughing Dragon: [00:10:57] Yes, I had heard of and seen pictures of it.

Luke Storey: [00:10:59] Amanita muscaria. Explain to people what that is because that's going to really be the gist of this conversation. And then I want to jump back to you wandering in the forest going, oh, there it is. But just give people an elevator pitch on what we're going to be getting into.

Laughing Dragon: [00:11:14] Yeah. So Amanita muscaria, it's a legal mushroom that is considered psychoactive. I tend to use the term psychoactive or psychedelic interchangeably with it because if you do use it at certain dosages, it is definitely psychedelic. However, basically what it is is just a forest-growing mushroom. It's the red mushroom that you've seen in Mario. You see it in the emojis on WhatsApp and wherever else.  

And it's just commonly known. people just know what it is. They know what it looks like, but they don't know anything about it or use it. And it's just very odd because it's also legal. And so it's like, I don't know why anyone isn't exploring this more. And so I just started being-- I was like, I'm going to do it. And so I just started investigating it as much as I could, taking it all the time, very high doses, medium doses, everything, smoking it, doing it every which manner.

Luke Storey: [00:12:11] I want to get into the pharmacological aspect of it, and the mythology, and all that too, but take me back to you being in a forest in Brazil where you weren't supposed to be.

Laughing Dragon: [00:12:25] Oh, the story. Okay. This was right after I had completed an ayahuasca diet, and that one had gone on for two and a half months. And that was with [Inaudible]. After that was completed, I needed some time to myself and just-- you go on a ayahuasca diet, it's intense for a while.

Luke Storey: [00:12:50] So when you did this two-month diet or dieta, how many ceremonies took place during the course of that time?

Laughing Dragon: [00:12:58] Oh, probably about 30.

Luke Storey: [00:13:02] Oh, wow.

Laughing Dragon: [00:13:02] Yeah, it was quite a lot. I mean, I do quite a lot of ceremonies. The first year that I started taking ayahuasca, I did a bit over 100 ceremonies that year.

Luke Storey: [00:13:14] Holy shit.

Laughing Dragon: [00:13:15] Yeah. It's just all the time going deep, going deep, going deep as much as I can to access the deepest knowledge and try to use it.

Luke Storey: [00:13:22] And still, even throughout those experiences, the insomnia would persist. What about the what about the chronic fatigue?

Laughing Dragon: [00:13:29] It stuck.

Luke Storey: [00:13:31] Oh, wow. God, it's so interesting because so many of us, myself included, and I've done nowhere near 100 ayahuasca ceremonies in the six or so years or something that I've been working with that, but there have been times where I've been able to go into that quantum medicine realm and actually heal things and fix things with intention. And many people have those experiences. 

So it's interesting that you're deeply committed to that path yet still. It's almost like, and I'm sure you've thought about this in some way, that it's like, what if the other medicines you had worked with with such dedication had alleviated all of those symptoms? It's possible that you might not have been led to the forest that day to discover the Amanita.

Laughing Dragon: [00:14:19] Yeah. Steps. Yeah, for sure. Once I found Amanita, it was like the insomnia was gone. I still had some issues, health issues, but that became resolved when I came back to the US. And I was doing trainings with a partner of mine, and through a combination of meditative techniques I was using and stuff we were training on together, and diet, and a very, very, very strict protocol, I was able to, using basically willpower, overpower the illnesses, and they're gone.

Luke Storey: [00:15:02] When you went out on that first accidental foraging journey and collected your first batch of the Amanita mushrooms, since there seems to be so little information out there and so much misinformation around them being poisonous, and we'll get into all that, how did you know how to prepare them and how much to use? And were there experiences where you accidentally journeyed versus microdosing? What was your first getting to know it, and how did you figure out the preparation, and dosing, and all of that?

Laughing Dragon: [00:15:36] Yeah. So when I first found it, I had finished this diet. I went up to the mountains, and I was just taking pictures of stuff. I saw this forest, and I was just like, oh, I'm just going to go take pictures and move on. Beautiful mountain scenery. And so as soon as I walked in the forest, I saw this, like, red carpet. It was full of Amanitas. It was like grass. There was so much. And I was like, whoa. I knew what it was. And I was like, okay, what do I do?  

So I took off my sweater, and I tied it into a bunch of knots, and so it was like a bag. And I just stuffed it full of Amanitas and carried it off with me. And then I went deeply into researching, what do I do now? Trying to figure out how to dry it and then use it. And I made a lot of mistakes in the beginning through research and then practicing on my own, using it.

Luke Storey: [00:16:27] Okay, so there was some information online about boil this many grams in this much water for this long.

Laughing Dragon: [00:16:32] Yeah. There's some general stuff. There's only one person out there who even talks about Amanita, really. And so there's not a ton of information that most people know about. The dosage thing is not like psilocybin. So 3 to 5g is a micro dose. From that to about 12g is an intermediate dose. And when you go over that, you're getting into high dose, and 20g and up is like, don't do that unless you really know what you're doing, and you trained for it, and you have some guidance. That stuff is intense.

Luke Storey: [00:17:05] It sounds like Amanita, working with it ceremonially, based on what you're describing about the dosage, that unlike some other plant teachers, and fungi, and whatnot-- I guess what I'm getting at is you could go to an ayahuasca ceremony and never have used it, and you're going to get two big cups, and you're going to have the full send, and you didn't need to microdose it and work your way up and do smaller doses. 

You just go full on, or 5-MeO, or something. It's just like, oh, here. Boom. You're in it. So it sounds like with this, there's a little more of a courting period, and a dating, and building a relationship with it before it's useful and safe to have the full experience.

Laughing Dragon: [00:17:51] Yes, that is how--

Luke Storey: [00:17:53] Which is it's unique in that.

Laughing Dragon: [00:17:53] In that way. Amanita is unique in many ways. It doesn't have anything DMT-like. So yeah, that is how it works. It needs to work with you for a time. It needs to accumulate and pass you messages in these subconscious ways. Amanita works a lot on your sleep, as I've mentioned. And so what actually happens with Amanita is when you go into an intermediate dose trip or a high dose trip, it will force you to sleep. It induces sleep, and you will then enter into a dream, which is actually a trip caused by the Amanita.  

So it's that level of disconnect from your physical body when you're on Amanita. As much disconnected as you are in a dream, that's how it is on Amanita experience. So for many people, I think they need to have this, to have an experience without their physical body, and to experience something that's just-- who knows what it is?

Luke Storey: [00:18:45] What's up with the pharmacological mechanism of action? So it's not psilocybin. It's not DMT. What are the active ingredients that provide the experience?

Laughing Dragon: [00:18:57] It's muscimol, is the primary one. Muscimol, which is converted out of ibotenic acid. And ibotenic acid is the poison. So this is why it's listed as deadly. Because if you go take raw Amanitas and you don't prepare them or anything, you just consume them, then it can be dangerous because you don't want to take too much ibotenic acid. It's very hard on your liver.  

However, after they have been dried and properly prepared, at high heat, for tea, you have to boil it a minimum of 30 minutes at a simmer. At least a simmering, boil for 30 minutes or more. That converts the ibotenic acid into muscimol, which is then okay. There are other things in it as well. Muscarine, and some other things that do affect it in the compounds, but the primary one is muscimol.

Luke Storey: [00:19:45] It's interesting that I was researching a bit more this morning in preparation for this conversation that animals have been known to eat it. I was watching some videos of reindeer just scarfing it up, and it was like an old BBC footage, and they're like, well, we don't know if it's psychoactive for them. But I was looking at them. Their eyes looked pretty funny. And then there's a video that's a popular meme of a bear, what appears to be Amanita mushrooms, scarfing a bunch of them. And he's like, totally high. I don't know if you've seen that meme.

Laughing Dragon: [00:20:18] I want to see it.

Luke Storey: [00:20:18] So but we also know that different animals, including the human animal, metabolize toxins differently too. Do you think it's possible that-- well, I guess it's possible because all the deer aren't dying or getting incredibly ill, but maybe their ruminant digestive system has a different way of processing that acid than ours, and they can hang.

Laughing Dragon: [00:20:38] Well, the thing is that for a human to die of consuming raw Amanita, you would have to be really trying because you'd have to consume pounds and pounds and pounds of it. And it's raw, and it doesn't taste good. And so you can't really accidentally do that. Now, I have, myself, witnessed many animals eating Amanita, including foxes. I saw a fox once carrying Amanita.

Luke Storey: [00:21:03] Really?

Laughing Dragon: [00:21:04] Yes. I have pictures of a squirrel that took on Amanita and ate it. So I think many animals consume it. And additionally, when I was in Brazil, I had heard stories about this, and eventually, I found videos of jaguars that consume, B. caapi, the vine that makes ayahuasca. And they would eat it, and then they would roll around on the ground and have a whole experience. And so animals, they certainly have a spiritual aspect to them, obviously.  

But I believe that has been theorized, that from animals consuming psychedelics, it leads to breakthroughs in evolution that then changes somehow their behavior in a way that they discover some new way of living in their environment that they didn't know about before, and then they somehow can-- this leads to changes in ecosystems. I believe that's the case.

Luke Storey: [00:21:59] Wow. Interesting. And it makes sense that not only animals would have a different way to metabolize the different constituents of this mushroom, but also there's so much smaller. So maybe that fox is getting high, and he's only eating a couple.

Laughing Dragon: [00:22:18] Yeah.

Luke Storey: [00:22:20] A human, just our stature necessitates much higher doses to go into the psychoactive or journey space with it.

Laughing Dragon: [00:22:26] Yeah. As well, you can eat some raw Amanita. That's okay. Even when you make tea, you're consuming a bit of ibotenic acid, unless you do a very, very intense scientific laboratory boil of the tea. But yeah. I mean, you're always going to take a little bit. So if you eat a raw cap of Amanita dry, it gives you like a centered focus, a clarity of mind, and a concentration that's a million times better than a cup of coffee.

Luke Storey: [00:22:58] Wow.

Laughing Dragon: [00:22:58] Yeah. Jitteriness.

Luke Storey: [00:23:01] Are there other mushrooms that look very similar that are more dangerous? I know there's the mockery of nature. So there are often plants and different mushrooms that look very much alike, but they're not, and some are more dangerous. Are there impostor, dangerous, Amanita-looking mushrooms out there that people would want to be mindful of?

Laughing Dragon: [00:23:25] Not too red Amanita muscaria mushrooms. As long as it has white spots on the top of it, and a red cap, and the veil, there's-- I mean, it depends what region of the world you're in, so I don't know every mushroom in the world. I don't know.

Luke Storey: [00:23:40] There's tens of thousands of them.

Laughing Dragon: [00:23:42] Maybe some country I haven't been to there's Amanitas and something similar. I don't know. In Brazil and in North America, where I have been, there wasn't anything remarkably similar that I had seen. Just definitely, people need to be careful if they're picking something that is yellow, especially if it has brown spots. And I would say honestly, for yellow mushrooms in North America, just don't pick it. There are some Amanita guessowii and gemmatas that have this color. They can look similar to some very deadly ones.

Luke Storey: [00:24:17] Okay. Noted. What is up with it being legal? I find this really intriguing since the powers that be seem to only want us to use substances that dim our consciousness, such as alcohol, for example. And no offense to people that enjoy alcohol. I don't work with that particular substance. I used to quite a bit, and it definitely muted my consciousness, and my pain, which I needed at the time. But it seems that the powers that be really have sought to stifle anything that allows people to access higher states of consciousness. And it's so interesting to me that they've left this one alone. What the hell?

Laughing Dragon: [00:25:00] Yeah.

Luke Storey: [00:25:01] Why? I mean, I'm thrilled. I'm so glad. But it's just strange.

Laughing Dragon: [00:25:04] I hear you on that one. I mean, we don't have all the answers, but my general running theory on that is that when the Soviet Union came about, they killed every type of shamanistic activity that there was, and they would just go kill everyone in a village. That was how they did things. And they wiped out all of the shamanistic culture around Amanita muscaria because they controlled the majority of where that culture came from. And I'm sure remnants of it still exist throughout Europe.  

However, somehow, it just became unknown after that point since the 1940s, I guess. It's just this-- nobody knows about it. I'm sure there was still people using other psychedelics in different parts of the world. And so when it came time to make all the psychedelics illegal in the US, and they went on this war against drugs, and they made psilocybin illegal and everything else, no one had heard of Amanita muscaria because the culture had been destroyed.

Luke Storey: [00:26:05] Oh, that's so interesting.

Laughing Dragon: [00:26:07] So it's now getting a chance of revival because of that. That's how I see it.

Luke Storey: [00:26:12] Well, there's another really fascinating part of this that I'd like to get into, the mythology around that. And upon doing some research, all these pieces were coming together. And one, I think that's really interesting that the word shaman is of Russian origin. And oftentimes we, I think in the West, have a perception that only brown people in South America, Native American people, know about shamanism or have their own version of it. 

And this comes up a lot. What I observe is this idea of cultural appropriation. And if you're walking around calling yourself a shaman or participating in shamanic activities or practices, that you're somehow stealing from those people and whatnot. And meanwhile, it's like the word comes from Russia, in Siberia, and in Lapland, and northern Finland, and these shamanic traditions were called shamanism. And all of these people were practicing it there too. So it's interesting that truly no one owns shamanism. It's something that is available to all of humanity. And I find that to be a really healthy way to approach it. 

It's interesting that the shamanism, the original shamanism, that area seems very much focused on this particular mushroom, which is trippy, and like they did in Russia, of squelching out that culture, the colonialism, I guess you could say broadly, the empire also went around to other parts of the world, including where we are in North America, and went, no more peyote, to South America or wherever, wherever they've come in and wanted to steal the resources and subjugate those people. So it's like the oppression of spiritual practices, and belief systems, and what we broadly call shamanism has been worldwide.

Luke Storey: [00:28:10] The powers that be have tried to put those fires out all over the place, which is, of course, sad, but thanks to people like you and other people I have on this show, I think it's a beautiful invitation for us to embrace the true unity and the beauty of all of these micro cultures throughout history and all of their ways and begin to honor them and bring them forth with the reverence that they deserve.  

And I just say that because there's so much tribalism and weird social justice stuff around this. And I can understand why people care about people that have been exploited and they want to protect them. That's great. But there's a much broader picture and a bigger story, I think, here than many people are aware of, because we just see something like shamanism through the lens of social media and podcasts and not realizing like, oh, that was a Russian thing, at least when they called it that.  

Other cultures had a different language, so they called it something different, but it's all one thing. It's like a medicine person, a healer, someone who whose role and gift is to connect with the divine, and find, and use sacrament, and practices, and ceremony that bring people in their tribe or in their community together with that same purpose. And I think if we don't have that, we don't have anything. So anyway, that's my observation on that piece but-- 

Laughing Dragon: [00:29:38] Well, I think it's important to place some explanation of what shamanism is for people because it's just a vague word, at least in my opinion. The purpose of shamanism is just to bring peace and love to the world. That's basically the idea. You do it in whichever way works for you and try to do it with your energy and through the way you are and the way you be. And I think that's really the purpose of it, is just being it, being a person who is caring, being a person who is loving, and just trying your best to make that happen.

Luke Storey: [00:30:17] Absolutely. So with the folklore here, tell us about Santa Claus, the Christmas trees, all of those pieces, reindeer. The cultural framework that we've built around Christmas and Santa and stuff, I don't think anyone's aware that there are also origins having to do with Amanita. That's super fascinating to me. It's just like, what? It all makes perfect sense.

Laughing Dragon: [00:30:46] Yeah. So a lot of people have heard this by now, but the whole Amanita muscaria story is that shamans in Eastern Europe and Russia, they would consume Amanita and go into trips with people where they'd have a shared experience. And this would allow the shaman to work on the person, or give them healing, or knowledge, or whatever, and in return, they would feed them.  

And so as a joke, I guess they call them fat because the shaman would eat so much and be on his way. And there's a whole thing about their houses would be snowed in, and so they'd have to come in through the chimney. Amanita muscaria is red and has white spots, Santa Claus's colors.

Luke Storey: [00:31:34] And it only grows under pine trees. 

Laughing Dragon: [00:31:36] Only grows under pine trees. So you wake up on Christmas morning, you go down beneath your pine tree, and you get your present, just like foraging for Amanita.

Luke Storey: [00:31:44] Right. And our presents are often wrapped in red and white wrapping paper.

Laughing Dragon: [00:31:49] Yes. And it's all about pine trees. And it's all about Amanita muscaria, consumption. It's really strange that no one has noticed this.

Luke Storey: [00:31:55] And also I was reading about how these Russian and Siberian shaman would dry them out by laying them on the branches of the pine tree. And that's where ornaments come from. 

Laughing Dragon: [00:32:10] That's right. They would hang it.

Luke Storey: [00:32:11] Yeah. It's like, what?

Laughing Dragon: [00:32:13] Yes.

Luke Storey: [00:32:14] How the hell did we miss this?

Laughing Dragon: [00:32:15] It's very fascinating. And so I don't know. I don't have the answer to that. All I can say is that this reality is really complicated, and a lot of stuff needs to change. I think that's--

Luke Storey: [00:32:32] Absolutely. You alluded to this earlier, but I feel beholden when I have people that are carrying messages like you are today. And when I talk about psychedelics and things, I mean, I'm very enthusiastic about it and have had so much success in the past few years in those realms, but could you talk about some of the risks involved with any psychedelic journeys, Amanita included? 

Laughing Dragon: [00:33:02] Yeah, for sure.

Luke Storey: [00:33:04] Before people get too hyped and excited about it, let's pump the brakes and go-- well, let's create a container of safety around that practice.

Laughing Dragon: [00:33:12] Okay, so with microdosing of Amanita, you have very little chance of anything going wrong unless you're going to go drive a car immediately. It makes you drowsy and puts you in a sleepy feeling. It is going to be the best option for most people. Most people just need help with their sleep. They don't need to go do some crazy intense experience, and that's fine. That's really the best thing for most people. You'll still get some interesting dreams here and there, and you can play with that however you like.  

Now, if you're going above five grams, that's when things can get messy. So you can get a trip induced at around seven grams all the way up to anything higher than that. And when you start getting effects on Amanita, you can get things like muscle spasms. You can get some difficulty of coordination as well. If you're on a very high dose, there's this effect called the drops, where you have this state where you're passing out and then waking up again. It's very surreal. You pass out, and then you're awake again. You're 100% awake.  

And it's like this knocking sensation. It's very weird. You don't want to have that happen and go drive a car or something. So yeah, I mean, don't walk around. It can also cause nausea, and so you can get issues with that. You can vomit if you take a little bit too much of it or your diet's off when you take it. But it's not the same purging as ayahuasca where it's like a body purge. It's not really like that. Usually, it's just one and done. And I mean, other than that about Amanita--

Luke Storey: [00:34:53] What about the presence of a sitter or guide and the intentionality in the higher range, or in the journey dose range? 

Laughing Dragon: [00:35:05] Yeah. Okay. For higher dose, you definitely need somebody to watch over you. The thing about the high doses of Amanita, as I've said, it's not like other psychedelics. And so when you get into high doses of Amanita, which I don't ever recommend, your perception of time dramatically shifts, and you end up in trips which can last for centuries.  

You can end up in trips that last for decades, centuries, millennias. And I've experienced this. And if you're not mentally good, if you're not firm, you wouldn't come back okay. I think you'd spend so much time down there that you wouldn't associate with this reality anymore. This almost happened to me. So it's something that you want to be cool with. Just do it at your own pace. Do it at your own pace. Do it in a way that works for you, and no need to push the limits into this interdimensional stuff.

Luke Storey: [00:36:13] Great. Thank you for that. And I would say that's a good blanket recommendation for all types of psychedelic work. I mean, I've had friends personally that got a little overzealous and had dark nights of the soul as a result of just not really preparing and being very intentional and having some prudence. I love the word prudence. It means rational concern without worry. So it's not fear. It's a respectful attentiveness. And that's luckily how I've been with these experiences myself. And it's like when I know it's time to do it, I know it's time to do it. And if it's a maybe, it's usually a no.  

Actually, it's always a no if it's a maybe. It's got to be an f yes. And also just the safety, energetically, of the other people present and whoever's trip-sitting or more actively facilitating. I have to really vibe with the environment and the people within that environment in order to feel safe in the event that it got squirrely and I needed help. Sometimes it's just someone to hold your hand and go, no, you're cool. You're good. That's all you need to hear sometimes from someone that you know is ideally, probably in most cases, not also on medicine.

Laughing Dragon: [00:37:34] Problem with Amanita, though--

Luke Storey: [00:37:35] You're fine. You're lying on a mat. Everything's cool.

Laughing Dragon: [00:37:36] Yeah. The problem with Amanita, though, is that a person can't do that because you're unconscious. That's the issue. That's why I'm saying, you go in, you got to be ready. And so you're unconscious. You're not aware of your physical body anymore. Every time I did high dose Amanita, I was certain I was dead on the earth, every single time.

Luke Storey: [00:37:52] Really?

Laughing Dragon: [00:37:52] Oh, yes. High on high dose. This is what happens. You go through this death sequence, and every time, you just have to go through it, and then other stuff changes, and you have to go through that sequence, and you end up exploring the multiverse.

Luke Storey: [00:38:05] You talked about how your insomnia was eliminated, the chronic fatigue, other physical issues you had. What are some of the insights you've received at varying degrees of dosage that have shaped your worldview or helped you to realize who you are, and what you're here to do, and how you interact with consciousness, and all of that?

Laughing Dragon: [00:38:29] Yeah. My whole reality is pretty much based off of what I learned from psychedelic experiences at this point. I do them every day in doses that are considered to be high.

Luke Storey: [00:38:45] Really?

Laughing Dragon: [00:38:45] Well, yes. I mean, I'll do intermediate doses every day basically. This is a higher version of micro dose and different substances and different combinations of things. Nothing that is manmade. I don't consume anything that's manmade. Only things that come from nature and that I know verifiably are pure, and good energy, and all that. I mean, I could go on forever about this.

Luke Storey: [00:39:07] We've got time.

Laughing Dragon: [00:39:09] All right. I'll just say that right after I had this vision on ayahuasca of my future and the future of the Earth, every time I took psychedelics after that was like taking a college class, and I was handed a lesson or several lessons for each for each time I did a ceremony. And it ended up being a very clear understanding of how consciousness works. And so I was going in these trips to study consciousness and how it operates and manifests reality, because it is because of consciousness that there is existence.  

So it comes from consciousness. So if you understand how it works, you can change existence. And I spent all my time doing this and trying to find better, and more complex, and more ordered ways to use this skill. And essentially, all it is is that attention causes existence. And so the way in which you focus your attention causes the reality of you experience. So if you want to change your experience, you have to change your internal perception of how you look at life.

Luke Storey: [00:40:23] Yes, sir. I find it really intriguing that you work with psychedelics on a daily basis. I mean, I think probably many times a week I'm doing microdosing of something, but definitely not to the point of it being perceptual or having a journey. For example, at home, a friend of mine makes probably something similar to Changa, but it's like a smokeable ayahuasca. And it's very short acting, and it's the full thing. But it's five, 10, 15 minutes you're in, you're super far in, and then you're out.  

And when I first got that, I was like, ooh, I'm going to start to work with this maybe once a week, or something, and just work on things. And worked with it a couple of times and was just like, whoa. I don't think it's going to work out like that. At least not right now. It was like it's on the altar, and it's just chilling there. And I look at it sometimes, I'm like, ah.  

But I  had the thought, like what you're describing, is like, wow. Well, if I've been meditating for 26 years, and doing breathwork, and Kundalini yoga, and all these things, and if I could integrate those with the assistance of some of these different plant teachers and whatnot, I could probably really get some great work done. And I find that there's an internal governor that regulates me, that is, maybe that's not what I meant to do at this particular time.

Laughing Dragon: [00:41:51] Absolutely. There is.

Luke Storey: [00:41:51] What was your morning like this morning?

Laughing Dragon: [00:41:53] Yeah. Well, let me respond a little bit to what you said, but yeah, you're absolutely right. People should do what they feel with psychedelics. Follow your intuition when it comes to what you should take and when. I am an exception because my entire life is built around this purpose. And so I take this quite seriously.  

My entire life is built around this. I have a diet, and all that stuff. And so like this morning, I woke up. I took a medium dose of Amanita five, six grams, and then smoked some cannabis, some very, very potent stuff, and then meditated for about two hours. After that, I came out of it, did a few hits of Changa, and then I went to the park and did Qigong.

Luke Storey: [00:42:51] Could you describe for people what Changa is?

Laughing Dragon: [00:42:54] Okay. Changa is a slow acting form of DMT. It's very close to DMT. Yeah. All of that. Doing a routine like this, pretty much every day. My day changes a lot because I have to drive a lot and whatnot. But my practice is always the same, which is that the goal is always to hold attention firm.  

And so what happens is the following, that because your attention isn't firm, you start to think about things that are negative, and so your imagination becomes contaminated with negative things. And this energy impacts your life in real ways, very real ways. And so my goal is always to hold attention focused and make sure it's as firm and clear as possible so that I can live a peaceful and aligned life.

Luke Storey: [00:43:52] You talked about how during some of the higher dose Amanita experiences time folded and all of this earth time elapsed. And I think many of us have experience of that when we dream. When we dream, it's hours and hours. But on the clock, it might be two minutes or something. A similar thing. What is some of the craziest shit that you've seen in that space if that much time is passing in what I call folded time?  

I don't know if that's the right word, but that's how I think about it. It's just like timelines collapsing and folding so that they know they no longer are in a linear sequence or a linear limited framework. What have been some of the realizations or just wild stuff that has transpired? Is it past lives? What's going on during those centuries of time over a 10-hour experience or something?

Laughing Dragon: [00:44:43] That's going to be a long answer.

Luke Storey: [00:44:45] That's good. We got time, brother.

Laughing Dragon: [00:44:46] All right.

Luke Storey: [00:44:47] We're only 46 minutes in. We're just getting warmed up.

Laughing Dragon: [00:44:51] So the first thing I have to say is that-- you've heard of the multiverse, right?

Luke Storey: [00:44:58] Yeah.

Laughing Dragon: [00:44:58] Okay. So my general running--

Luke Storey: [00:45:00] Heard of it. We're in it.

Laughing Dragon: [00:45:01] We're in it. Yes. Just the concept.

Luke Storey: [00:45:03] Yeah, totally.

Laughing Dragon: [00:45:04] But is that when you know a little bit about how things work, you can actually navigate it. So there is only the present moment. That's because, as I mentioned, consciousness causes existence. So there's only one thing happening ever at all times. And a higher dimension or a lower dimension is a different place in time that is actually occurring right now because it's all the present moment. So what that means is that if you have a certain skill set and the right training, you can go into the multiverse and have a life experience from a different timeline. A full one. That's what I do. Yes.

Luke Storey: [00:45:59] And do you experience those different timelines and lifetimes as your single current individual expression of consciousness, or are you a different version of yourself with a different narrative of a different life?

Laughing Dragon: [00:46:15] It's a different narrative and different everything. So the first thing when you go in is you go through this death sequence. Then you go through another sequence of deconstructing of your memories and your personality. And depending on how well you handle that stage determines where you'll end up. Because eventually, if you're willing to be totally broken to the point that you are annihilated, you end up accessing stuff that's from other lifetimes.  

And so you can end up in places which give you very good insights about this lifetime because it's all correlated. And so you can see what you're doing in other places, and how life is, and what are things like, etc. And you come back and use that knowledge here. I mean, honestly, man, just a few years ago, my personality was tremendously different, even just six months ago, my personality was tremendously different. I really believe that because of these trips I'm doing, I'm actually experiencing more time that I'm then taking back into this lifetime as memories, and that's making me more functional as a person.

Luke Storey: [00:47:27] Wow, that's so interesting. It makes sense to me that the way we're created as we're incarnated here is with the sense of amnesia of our past incarnations. If you just think about it logically, it's like, dude, we can barely hold this incarnation and the things that transpired throughout our lives, and all of those emotional and mental imprints, and just the wiring of our brain and how we consolidate memory.

Laughing Dragon: [00:47:53] Yes.

Luke Storey: [00:47:54] I don't have any desire to be in touch with all of these other timelines because it's enough. Just get along with your parents, or your relationship, your career. Be productive. The task here is challenging as it is, just thinking we were born on this certain date, and now we're X age, and this is who we are under the name that we were given at birth. 

But it also seems very likely, and it sounds like based on your experience, that at least taking time to unplug from that matrix pod that is the limited perception of who we are in this lifetime, that accessing those other ones, if you have the capacity to hold all of that in your waking state as you or anyone, that access to that information could be very useful.

Laughing Dragon: [00:48:50] Yes.

Luke Storey: [00:48:50] I've not been a big past life person. I've not done like regression or any of that, but I did have one. Actually, it was right in that room in there the first time I sat with 5-MeO-DMT, and that was the only time where I had these past lives whizzing by at one point. And it was probably the most deep morning that I've ever felt and expressed. I mean, I was just waling, waling, crying, breaking crystal glasses noise.  

And it's like the details of them weren't there, but what I saw was that there had been many, many lifetimes of me as someone who was seeking God and devoting my life to God. And these all happened to transpire in India. It was so clear. It was there. And just seeing my body burned on the Ganges over and over and over and over and over again, and it was so painful to mourn those deaths and attempts to find my way.

Laughing Dragon: [00:50:04] So you're seeing how the pain is transferring to this lifestyle?

Luke Storey: [00:50:06] Yeah. And I had the opportunity to release that pain, and then, ultimately, it peaked in this immense appreciation and gratitude for myself as my soul for the work that had been put in and a recognition that I fucking made it. I did it. I'm here. It's happening. And I remember asking God as that was all happening, just a moment of surrender, and I just said, I want it all. I want to go the whole way, the whole way back to God, I guess you could say. And that gnosis voice is like, you're already here. 

You're done. There's nowhere to go. You just have to acknowledge where you are. And this probably took place in five minutes. But like you said, the timelines collapse and it's lifetimes, and the grieving of the lifetimes, and then the realization of, like, shit, all of those lifetimes have culminated in me laying here on this mat going, you don't have to keep searching. You just have to keep allowing what is already present to express, and be mindful of the things that create distortions around that expression, and be willing to surrender them and identify them as they come up and stuff.  

So in my subjective experience, there definitely is something very useful about being able to hold all of those timelines and experience them. But I've gone nowhere near what you're describing, which is a whole other thing. So I guess I can extract a question out of that. Have there been times when you're here being Dragon and driving your truck up to Oregon to forage mushrooms and doing whatever you're doing that there's some lapses in this reality, or you mentioned as like, I'm able to be a more functional person?

Laughing Dragon: [00:52:03] Constantly.

Luke Storey: [00:52:05] I imagine one could get fractured so that it actually becomes more difficult to operate in this reality, as you in this incarnation. But you're saying that you've gained more mastery over your ability to function as an adult and play the game of being an American guy doing stuff. Are there moments where that falls apart and you get squirrely?

Laughing Dragon: [00:52:27] Yes. One of the hardest parts of some of the trainings that I went through was bridging that problem of where is imagination, and where is reality, and where do you bridge it? A lot of stuff happening, like you said, a big part of what I do, when I'm driving, is that I force myself into a meditative state where I cannot be distracted. The goal of it is to focus concentration that it becomes the goal of the driving actually. 

It's like I'm driving, and I'm just driving at the speed limit, just paying attention, just alert. And so even though I have to do it all the time because of my work, forging Amanitas, I turn this into a spiritual practice. Because obviously when you're driving, all sorts of negative things can come in from other drivers, and people talking bad, or whatever, and it's just about, no, just stay focused. 

What I'm getting at with this is that you go really deep, like I'm talking about, and you do these crazy deep trips and stuff, eventually, what you start to see are synchronicities between what you experience there and what you experience in this reality. And when I was able to get this presence built to where I can maintain my focus much more clearly. I'm not hindered by intrusive thoughts anymore, PTSD stuff is gone, and so it's just like I can sense things.  

And after a while, you spend basically no time planning. All of your energy is spent on presence. Because if your presence is deeper, your vibration is stronger, which means that you can attract things more easily. It works similar to chemistry. Your vibration is an aura, and so you generate that with your feelings, and that sets the circumstances. And so trying to just manage this as best as possible in all circumstances, regardless of which reality I'm in, always works.  

The point I'm getting to is that the best way to navigate life is to have unconditional love in your heart. Under all circumstances, all conditions, all people, this is the goal. I try so hard to do it. I can't always do it, but I try harder every day. And I believe that that right there could really change our society.

Luke Storey: [00:55:12] I agree 100%. And that's really, I would say, the foundational principle of this podcast. And sometimes we're talking about the material, physical world, the body, and sometimes we're talking about the metaphysical, but this is also my guiding principle. I think that many people, anyone who's sane and somewhat healthy mentally sees that as a viable goal.  

But I think many people, like I used to, think about unconditional love more as love for other people of like, oh, I don't like that person. I'm going to love them unconditionally. But what mine has evolved into and continues to, which is so expansive, is it's an unconditional love for all of reality.

Laughing Dragon: [00:55:58] Yes. Precisely.

Luke Storey: [00:55:59] What's your perspective on that versus, like, oh, I love all people, and animals, and whatever? It's how about love of the cosmos?

Laughing Dragon: [00:56:07] Yeah. I rejoice in the glory of existence. Yes. It's I exist, therefore it is good. That's it. And so if you have this in your mind, you start to realize that the circumstances don't really matter because your existence in your life is always going to change, and it might change a lot more in the coming years. Okay. What's the problem with that? And including death.  

Death is a type of change. Ancient cultures didn't regard death as bad. A lot of them didn't. And they're just like, no, it's just part of-- we're born, and then, yeah, you die. And so it's the negativity that we place onto things that's keeping us stuck at this level of consciousness where everything is hard in our society.

Luke Storey: [00:56:55] And the resistance to reality. I think the key for me is that unconditional love of all reality is inclusive of everything in totality, on a good day. Even the things that the intellect, the internal judge judges as shouldn't be, or should be, or is right, or wrong. It's non-duality. Unconditional love is just-- you mentioned earlier, there's only one thing happening all the time, which is consciousness.  

Because we're encased in a body that experiences consciousness through our senses, it appears that there's a this over here, and a that over there, and this is right, and this is wrong, and that's black, and that's white. But it's really just, at the level of consciousness, all one thing. That's the one thing that we can love unconditionally, right?

Laughing Dragon: [00:57:45] Yeah, I totally agree that it's the believing that there is a duality that makes it so. And so people subscribing to that belief, they're actually creating it through their attention. So what I'm saying is reordering the belief system to make sure that you have the highest unconditional love possible at all moments in time. That's what I try to do. How can I reorder my thinking, and my beliefs, and my emotions to do it stronger, and faster, and more efficiently all the time?  

And I think that this is what everybody should try. It makes life better. You have more fun. You have better experiences. You meet more friends. Like how we met. This was totally synchrony. There was nothing about this planned. Nothing. So it's just stuff like this happens, and I think it's just when you you're willing to step out and just be like, yeah, I trust. I trust life.

Luke Storey: [00:58:40] Mm-hmm. And within that trusting of life is a trusting of oneself as a part of life, right?

Laughing Dragon: [00:58:46] Yeah. Precisely. That you don't have to see yourself as separate. I mean, we are all God, everything is part of God. I mean, obviously. And so you're not separate.

Luke Storey: [00:58:56] Obviously, to some.

Laughing Dragon: [00:58:57] Okay, sorry. All right. I'm just saying--

Luke Storey: [00:59:00] It was obvious to me for the first half--

Laughing Dragon: [00:59:01] I mean, we're part of the universe, I guess. We're a part of life. And so I mean, everything that's in the universe obviously affects you and has some impact on you, so we're all part of it. And I think people have to stop thinking about God as something that's out there. God is out there, and I'm down here. And it's like, no. You were part of it. So let's just be part of it instead of trying to put it somewhere else and chase it.

Luke Storey: [00:59:28] I was talking to Harry last night, and a friend of mine was asking him, he said, man, what have you eaten? Have you done hundreds of mushroom journeys? Because he facilitates, and Harry Thorn, he said, no, I haven't worked with mushrooms actually myself that many times. He said, I don't know, maybe 30 or something, just guessing. And then he said, which I've heard before, but in that moment, it was very meaningful, he said, you know what? 

He's talking to my boy Elliott. Shout-out to Elliott. He said, Elliott, at this point, I am the medicine. It's like, we are the guru. And the work I did with Peter yesterday was very much around that. And Peter also framed it as we were talking about psychedelics, and he said that there's a certain point of understanding and development where you're not even using psychedelics in the context of something outside of yourself that's doing something for you or to you.  

It's that your inner guru, your higher self, however you want to frame it, is that medicine. Therefore, you are that medicine. And then it tied into what Harry was saying. Everyone has their own path around this, and I know people that have worked with medicine for a long time and then don't, and they're good. And there's people like you that are full fucking on 24/7, and there's people like me that dip in when I feel like I'm forgetting what's true or that I'm believing that all of this is true too much and that I need to be reminded, like, oh yeah, this is all true, and it's also not true. And sometimes I just need to shake it up and go, okay. All right. I'm back in a closer--

Laughing Dragon: [01:01:14] Just got to feel it.

Luke Storey: [01:01:15] Version of reality.

Laughing Dragon: [01:01:16] Yeah.

Luke Storey: [01:01:16] I mean, do you look at Amanita or any of the other medicines you work with as an ally, or friend, or teacher that exists outside of you that's coming into your field to help you, or do you view it as just something internally that is being activated by that stimuli?

Laughing Dragon: [01:01:32] That's an interesting question. I would say that usually when I'm starting off with a psychedelic, it feels a little foreign, but then after I've taken it for a while, it feels more like a friend kind of a vibe. Amanita feels like my best friend. Like I was meant to meet this being, and include it in my life, and carry it to people. But other psychedelics, I've also had interesting experiences with where it does seem there's some relationship, the plant has an intention with me.  

Ayahuasca, it has sent me messages that made it clear that it had certain intentions. And I always thought that was interesting. I do think plants are conscious and have their own spirits in existence. And so I think that they can interact with people. This is one of the reasons I don't like manmade things because you're taking the energy of that person instead of what came from nature.

Luke Storey: [01:02:25] When you were shown in that first ayahuasca ceremony that there was another way other than ending your physical life, you said you had it planned. What was the plan?

Laughing Dragon: [01:02:38] Probably won't talk about that, but I mean, what happened--

Luke Storey: [01:02:43] You were serious about it.

Laughing Dragon: [01:02:44] I was 100% serious. I hadn't told anybody. I was like, I'm out, because I didn't have any close friends. I didn't have any real family. And I was just like, I got nothing. And what ended up-- I did the first ceremony two days before, and this vision came. And then two days later, the day that I had planned on doing it, instead of doing that, I did another ayahuasca ceremony.  

And in that one, that was a lot of stuff, complicated stuff to explain, but essentially a group of entities came in fairly early, and they were like, okay, you can do what you wanted to do if you still would like to, or you can take this other path. And they said, this is what you're going to have to do. This is who you're going to have to be. It was all written. And I was like, okay. All right, let's do it.

Luke Storey: [01:03:38] What would you say to someone listening who, right now as they hear this, is having those thoughts, that it's just too much, it's not worth it, I'm out, it's too hard, it's too painful, it's hopeless? Which I've felt many times in my life.

Laughing Dragon: [01:03:54] Absolutely. What I'd like to say to those people is that I really know how dark life can get. I have been in some of the darkest places a person can be in their mind. You don't know what's going to happen when you do that. You really don't. No matter how much you try to convince yourself that it's going to be better and that it's going to solve your problems, it is not going to. You cannot actually stop existing. So if you die that way, you're going to wake up in another lifetime that's going to be a lot worse. 

If you don't believe that, it's okay, but try something. Because there are things in life that are nice and beautiful that are better than suicide. There's definitely something you can try right now if that's going through your mind that would be better. Even if it's something that may be somewhat detrimental in the short term, like, okay, but at least you're still going. Do what you can to just keep things a little bit better, a little bit elevated, a little bit more positive. Do what you can. And definitely try psychedelics. Absolutely. Try them. Try something.  

If you're on that last day where you're like, I can't go anymore, take something. Whatever psychedelic you can find, take it. It's a 1,000 times better than ending your life. A million times better. And I wasn't planning on sharing this. I am actually a survivor of a suicide. My older brother committed suicide, and so I know very intimately what happens to you after you go through that, what other people around you have to experience it. God, it is awful. 

Please don't do that to people. And we just have to take care of ourselves in this lifetime. You're not responsible for everything. You're not responsible for this world being crazy. Life's circumstances are probably not even under your control either. So just flow with it, and just be who you are.

Luke Storey: [01:06:10] Thank you. It seems to me, I want to see what your take is on this, that as we travel through these different incarnations here, that we have this spectrum of experience available to us in this duality wherein we can experience things in our life that we would perceive to be negative, where we're victimized, or hurt, or we make mistakes, and we're able to undo karma through that. And we also have the opportunity to elevate our consciousness in numerous ways, many of which we've been describing today.  

And so we're in a perfect school where you can start out at one level, and by the time you leave your body, you can be at a much higher level of consciousness. And I suspect that if one succumbs to the temptation of suicide, because suicide is one of the lowest levels of consciousness, I mean, you're down in apathy. You are at rock bottom of the human level of consciousness. 

I mean, you could say like a carnivorous, violent animal might be at a lower level. But I look at that place having experienced it myself many, many times. A lot of the time when I was a kid, I felt that way. I have a sense that if you check out at that level, that when you come back, you're going to come back at that level--

Laughing Dragon: [01:07:43] Or you go down.

Luke Storey: [01:07:44] You go down.

Laughing Dragon: [01:07:45] You go down a lot. Yeah, this is one of the things that I've learned through understanding how consciousness works and how it expands and fractalizes. Basically, if you commit suicide, you are essentially stating that you know to a certainty that life is terrible, so bad that it's not even worth finishing it out. And as I have talked about a little bit earlier, you saying that makes it so. Like the life I had, where I had all these chronic illnesses and couldn't make anything work, that's because of my mentality. 

I understand that I was victimized as a child, but so what? It's about, what do I do with that? And so it's really important that people know that the way that you see things is making them so. And so like you were saying earlier, you were talking about we think things should be a certain way, should be not a certain way. Listen, if you see life as good, or the universe as good, or you believe in God, it is the same thing. All of these are versions of faith.  

And so a person who commits suicide has zero faith. And because they don't have faith in a higher power, that actually stops existing for them. And at that point, their existence will permanently be set that way. So they always have an experience after that which is lacking anything spiritual. They become a being that will always go down. This is what spiritual teachers have warned about. And so this happens due to the momentum, that inertia they generate from this lifetime. And this is why it's so important that we have love in our hearts. It's quite serious.

Luke Storey: [01:09:34] Brutal. And conversely, if you can make it out of that like you have, and I have, and hopefully many people listening, and you engage in a commitment to your own evolution as a soul, seems to me, again, I don't know for sure, but I've a pretty strong inclination that when I drop this body at a certain level of consciousness, a certain level of spiritual development, that when and if I come back, I'm going to have the benefit and gift of returning at that same level and not having to start over at the bottom or be even worse than before, as you described, that I'm going to come back in and have a much more rich experience of life and a much more God-conscious experience because I checked out at a certain grade. 

Like 12th grade, I checked out. So when I come back, I come back at 12th grade versus what you're describing in suicide is you check out at fifth grade and you come back at kindergarten or whatever.

Laughing Dragon: [01:10:36] You're reversing.

Luke Storey: [01:10:37] Yeah. It's like, whew, man. So thank you for sharing your experience with that. I'm curious when you go out, and you take your truck from LA next week, or whatever, and you go to-- it's foraging season. By the way, what's the season for Amanita?

Laughing Dragon: [01:10:51] Oh, it's between April all the way up to December. But you got to go down to different regions, grows in different places depending on the time.

Luke Storey: [01:10:57] So when you go out there, are you going on national forest land? Do you know property owners that let you on their land, or are you just pull your car over and go, there's pine trees, I'm walking up there?

Laughing Dragon: [01:11:09] Well, I don't do that anymore because I'm not in Brazil, where you can get away with it in Brazil because on the mountains, there's no people. But yeah, up here, pretty much just forest areas, national forests, and trails, and most of the park areas. I don't go into private property to do that. That's not smart in the US.

Luke Storey: [01:11:32] Yeah. We're armed.

Laughing Dragon: [01:11:34] Yeah, everyone has guns here.

Luke Storey: [01:11:37] As this becomes more widely known and hopefully remains legal, do you see any issues with sustainability? We were talking earlier about chaga mushrooms, and now, because there's a monetary incentive for people to harvest chaga mushrooms, there are some people who fear that the supply is going to run out because they take so long to grow, which is obviously a much different type of mushroom. A tree mushroom does take whatever it is, 20 or 30 years to grow into its full harvestable size, whereas these are coming back every year. What's the deal with sustainability with this particular strain of mushroom?

Laughing Dragon: [01:12:14] Well, it would be impossible to ever wipe it out because Amanita muscaria grows in combination with pine trees, and pine trees are some of the most proliferous on the earth. But once it has formed a connection with the pine tree root, it basically can't be removed unless you burn the whole forest down. So it will just spread throughout the forest year after year. And once it's in the roots, it's there, even if you pick all the mushrooms.  

The mushrooms is really just like an excess part of it. It's a flower that it creates to be picked. And what a lot of people don't understand really about mushrooms is that the main body of a mushroom is actually the mycelium which goes underneath the soil. And so you don't have to worry that much about taking the mushrooms because it doesn't reduce its growth, not significantly.  

And so yeah, it's actually beneficial to go picking them because when you dig into the soil, you're loosening up the mycelium which allows it to grow more. This is a very poorly known trick among foragers. It's not well known among-- sorry, it's not well known. But yes, foragers know that if you disturb the mycelium, you help the mycelium to grow.

Luke Storey: [01:13:32] Wow. Interesting. And do you have spots where you go back to each season and it regrows in the same spot, or does that mycelial network change locations to a different part of the forest and things?

Laughing Dragon: [01:13:46] No. I mean, it's going to be the same areas pretty much every time, and with gradual expansion over many years and whatnot. But you can't grow it at home, so you got to go find it.

Luke Storey: [01:13:57] That's the interesting thing about it. Unlike psilocybin-containing mushrooms, which can be cultivated in your freaking closet, I mean, I know people, they send me pictures of like, oh, look. They grow 4 pounds of mushrooms in a short period of time too. But you can't do that. Even the highest levels of science can't accomplish this, right?

Laughing Dragon: [01:14:16] No. They have tried to grow Amanitas so many times in labs and stuff, and they just can't figure it out. It has to have this connection with the pine tree, and it takes, once the spores have hit a pine tree root, 2 to 3 years before it will actually start blooming Amanita mushrooms. And so it's really exhausting. It would be really impossible to factory-produce this. You'd have to have a whole factory with a roof, and climate control, and it would be really, really expensive.

Luke Storey: [01:14:47] You have to build a factory around a forest.

Laughing Dragon: [01:14:50] Yeah, around a pine forest.

Luke Storey: [01:14:51] I like that. That's cool that nature went, we're going to give you this thing, but we're not going to make it that easy and not let you screw it up, basically. In terms of the preparation, is there any guide out there that tells you, okay, this much raw material needs to be boiled in this much water for this long, and this is how much you would dose? I mean, is there any information like that out there for people?  

Because I'm assuming, I mean, the vast majority of people listening will just be like, oh, that's interesting. I'm probably never going to see that, but there definitely will be some people that are like, I got pine trees in my hill back there. Is there a definitive or an accurate guide to teach us how to forage, process, and ingest these things?

Laughing Dragon: [01:15:34] So there's nothing that's hugely mainstream. You have to dig a little bit. Through my personal use and experience in trying different things from learning it online and also trying it on my own, the dosage thing that I had mentioned earlier is about right. 3 to 5 is a micro dose. Up of that, to 12, is an intermediate, and over that is high. And the preparation method, you need to boil it  between 90 and 100°C for a minimum of 30 minutes with a squeeze of lemon. I think I forgot to mention that.

Luke Storey: [01:16:07] Oh yeah.

Laughing Dragon: [01:16:08] With a squeeze of lemon to increase the potency. You can also bake it. Bake it at the same temperature. But I haven't done a lot of baking because you can't know the thickness of the Amanita, so you don't know exactly the right temperature to use, and so don't really mess with it. It's too difficult.

Luke Storey: [01:16:23] And I'm sure there are different sizes, with different levels of density. So it's not gift.

Laughing Dragon: [01:16:26] You don't know how long to cook it for.

Luke Storey: [01:16:27] And this tea that I've been sipping on here, you said, maybe don't drink the whole thing, because it was, what, 5 to 7?

Laughing Dragon: [01:16:33] Yeah, it's probably five grams. Yeah.

Luke Storey: [01:16:35] And I'm a little over half way through. I feel lovely. I feel like I could drive a car easily. I'm not going to pound the rest because I want to save the rest for before bed tonight and see if I can get my REM score up, which I'm curious to see. Isn't there some relationship to GABA?

Laughing Dragon: [01:16:51] Oh yeah.

Luke Storey: [01:16:51] What's up with that? Why does it help with sleep and insomnia in your case?

Laughing Dragon: [01:16:56] So essentially, Amanita, they're not 100% sure how it operates. How does it cause the effects that it does? They don't really know. What they know is that it is a GABA agonist. So you have four predominant neurotransmitters GABA, serotonin, acetylcholine, and dopamine. And these regulate your general mood and your general way of feeling. GABA makes you relaxed and focused. And so by increasing GABA, it's giving you this feeling. This is a really good energy for concentration under some certain circumstances, but it's also good for sleeping.  

Now you have to have GABA in order to relax. So for most people, they're so stressed, and they're so wound up with all the tension from their life that they don't really they're not really producing it, and they need something to push them a little bit, help that get going. So the muscimol molecule actually does that. It somehow makes it so that GABA is more easily absorbed, and this causes the relaxation effect.

Luke Storey: [01:17:59] Wow. So cool. Yeah. John Lieurance was telling me that he's been microdosing, drinking the tea before bed, and that he's having a skyrocket-- can I have a taste?

Laughing Dragon: [01:18:10] Oh, sure. Yeah.

Luke Storey: [01:18:10] He's having skyrocketing levels of REM sleep, which is always something that's a little elusive for me. Seems like I get pretty good deep sleep, but sometimes the REM is way off, and I'm always looking at ways-- lion's mane is really good for that. High dose lion's mane will reliably bring up my REM sleep.

Laughing Dragon: [01:18:28] Yeah. Amanita is fantastic for REM sleep. If you want to sleep deep, man, that stuff is awesome. You wake up feeling so energized. With all the stuff you try for sleep, you always have some side effect. You know what I'm saying? You always have some thing happen, or you can't take it forever. Oh, I didn't even mention this. So with Amanita, you cannot develop tolerance.

Luke Storey: [01:18:53] Really?

Laughing Dragon: [01:18:54] It's impossible. Yeah. Because the way that muscimol works. So muscimol can't be digested by your body. It has to excrete it. This is why you've heard these stories about the guys drinking pee. Because you can pee it out.

Luke Storey: [01:19:05] Oh, drinking the reindeer pee after they've eaten a bunch of these mushrooms.

Laughing Dragon: [01:19:08] That's right. Because the muscimol doesn't break down, so you can drink it, and it still works on you. And so what ends up happening is that if you're taking it as a micro dose, it accumulates in your body, not severely with the microdosing, but it will accumulate a little bit so that the effect lingers a little bit. And so if you're just taking a little bit each day, you're just keeping the lingering Amanita effect that helps you sleep and stay relaxed all the time. And you never have to change your dosing. Some people have issues when they prepare it incorrectly, but that's-- 

Luke Storey: [01:19:44] That's so cool.

Laughing Dragon: [01:19:45] Yeah.

Luke Storey: [01:19:45] So I'm sure people listening are wondering, well, two things. They're wondering what is this pipe you guys are you guys are hitting, which you can explain in a second. But also what's happening with the retail availability of products? I'm aware of one. I forget the name of the company offhand, but their product is called Calm, and it's a tincture.  

And I've tried it, and I didn't notice any substantial effects from it. I guess my question is, what's up with tinctures versus tea? And also do you foresee in the near future websites popping up, purveyors popping up where people like you are supplying the raw materials, and then this is going to be available where someone can actually go online and--

Laughing Dragon: [01:20:34] Oh yeah, it's already available.

Luke Storey: [01:20:36] Really?

Laughing Dragon: [01:20:36] Oh yeah. I mean, I had a company up until recently selling it, and so recently, I'm transitioning to something else, so I'm having to switch everything. But yeah, you can sell it online. There's lots of shops that sell it. Myself, I'm going to go foraging soon and have another stock that I'll be selling.

Luke Storey: [01:20:52] Cool.

Laughing Dragon: [01:20:53] Yeah.

Luke Storey: [01:20:53] By the time this comes out, you'll have an Instagram because you don't have an Instagram--

Laughing Dragon: [01:20:56] Yeah. Sure.

Luke Storey: [01:20:57] At the time of recording.

Laughing Dragon: [01:20:59] Starting from zero here.

Luke Storey: [01:21:00] So people, it sounds weird, but then I'm like, oh, no, that's legal. I'm like, oh, we'll talk about it off mic. I'm like, no, we can actually talk about it. So when you have your new Instagram, I'll put that in the show notes and whatnot that people could effectively reach out to you and be like, hey.

Laughing Dragon: [01:21:18] Absolutely. Yeah. And I talk about a lot of woo woo spiritual stuff. I know that I'm very strange as a person.

Luke Storey: [01:21:26] Not on this show.

Laughing Dragon: [01:21:27] Oh, thank you. That's good.

Luke Storey: [01:21:28] Maybe on a more mainstream.

Laughing Dragon: [01:21:29] Maybe on a more mainstream.

Luke Storey: [01:21:30] Yeah. If you were on Ellen or something, it might be weird. Here, we're all about it.

Laughing Dragon: [01:21:34] Cool. I just want to say, I think for most people, the benefit of Amanita really is like the health benefits in the reduction in anxiety, the cutting through the stress. You take this stuff, you just feel calm and good. No bullshit. No side effects. You know what I'm saying? You just take a little bit of it, and you're like, okay, the stress is gone. Just that, for most people, oh my God. Look how much stress--

Luke Storey: [01:22:00] I want that.

Laughing Dragon: [01:22:01] Yeah. Everyone is stressed.

Luke Storey: [01:22:03] I have a really great life, and I might bite the shit out of my fingernails, even on great days.

Laughing Dragon: [01:22:09] Yeah. This is a stressful dimension.

Luke Storey: [01:22:12] I do have my moments of overwhelm, and things like that. So you guys that are watching the video, you've seen us taking some pulls off this really beautiful giant pipe that Dragon had with him today, and we're smoking some really lovely mapacho tobacco. After you've taken your dose there, would you tell us about the origins of this beautiful pipe, and where you got it, and what's in it?

Laughing Dragon: [01:22:45] Yeah. So I got this pipe from a shaman in Brazil, and the way that he works is he'll take micro doses of ayahuasca, and then he works on his art as he's doing that. So he's getting these superior connections with the art. And the guy was really interesting because he lived in this corner of the island I lived on, Florianopolis. He lived in the corner of this island where there were no people, and he had this tiny little shop in a room in the side of his house.  

And he was just like, yeah, this is my stuff. And he was explaining to me that when he was making each thing, he said that each item, he would know who it was for. And so he would do his work, and he would just have maybe 5 to 10 items in stock. And when the person showed up and bought it, he would, okay. And this was just how he worked. And he's like, I've been doing this for decades.

Luke Storey: [01:23:34] Wow.

Laughing Dragon: [01:23:35] Yeah, really interesting guy.

Luke Storey: [01:23:36] I mean, that is such a cool piece of art.

Laughing Dragon: [01:23:40] I think it's beautiful.

Luke Storey: [01:23:41] Oh, it's insane.

Laughing Dragon: [01:23:42] I'm so lucky to have it. So lucky that it was offered to me.

Luke Storey: [01:23:45] Yeah, it really is. And that tobacco is really nice too. Yeah. I haven't been smoking any tobacco for quite a long time. And today I was like, you know what? I think I can get myself a pass and enjoy this. How did you get your name?

Laughing Dragon: [01:23:58] Ooh, all right. So we're going to have to go back to talk about that second ayahuasca ceremony I did. This is not a complete answer to the question, but I'm going to give you some pieces. During the ceremony and slightly before it, I had seen in my peripheral vision, this green dragon around. And this was something that you look in the corner and there's nothing there kind of thing, and you're like, I'm sure I saw something there. And it was happening frequently.  

And I was like, all right, whatever. My imagination is going off, or whatever. And during the second ayahuasca ceremony, after these entities appeared and they made this commitment with me, sometime after that, a lot of stuff happened during that ceremony that I won't go into, but I took quite a lot of ayahuasca. I took about five doses, and this is good grade Brazilian-quality ayahuasca.  

And I had this feeling like everything was going to go wrong. And I was like, oh God, what do I do to fix it? What do I do? What do I do? What do I do? And I was like, running around the ceremony trying to find out-- get help from someone. I didn't know what the fuck to do, but I was freaking out. I was having a panic attack. I'd be like, help me, help me, and the people would be like, can't help you. 

So I ended up just like, okay, just like you had said earlier. I was like, I'm just going to let go, lie down, and if this doesn't work out for some reason, okay, whatever. I tried. And so I went and laid down. And I was down there for a while, and the ceremony ended, and I was having this weird sense of energy building up. It's like a deep building of energy. And the ceremony ended, the people started leaving, and at some point, I started getting these movements in my body that I wasn't controlling.  

And I was feeling this energy coming towards me. And then all of a sudden, I had this vision of a green dragon that was flying-- exactly like the Chinese dragon with the short arms, and the short wings, and the big wavy mustache thing. And it came at me, and it was like, ra. And it jumped into my body from the astral. And at that point, there was this explosion of energy. And I started moving in ways that I don't know how.  

I started dancing. I don't know how to dance. I just didn't at the time anyways, and it was like doing this crazy dance. And I was speaking as well in a language that I don't know what it was. It was this guttural language, and the only thing I could say in English that entire time was I am the laughing Dragon. I am the laughing dragon. And I kept saying, I am the laughing dragon. It's who I am. I was in a state at that time of just letting go because I knew I had to let go of my old life because it was bad. I didn't want it anymore.  

And I was like, okay, I'm going to accept whatever's going on here. I don't know what this is for or why, but it's an ayahuasca ceremony. These people can handle it. I'll have to do this. And it was this very crazy experience, very powerful. And for weeks after that, months, actually, I had the most profound insights and intuitions about things, and abilities of perceiving, feeling another person's emotions or energy without talking to them.  

All sorts of intuitive capabilities opening up. And I saw all of this, and I was like, all right, I guess I just got to go with this. What else am I going to do? What else am I going to do at this point? I'll just go with this. It took a while. It took like six months for me to be comfortable introducing myself as Laughing Dragon. It was so weird.

Luke Storey: [01:28:37] I can imagine.

Laughing Dragon: [01:28:38] And it still gets weird sometimes, but I'm just like, I don't care. This is who I am. This is what I understand about myself, and this is who I'm going to be. So yeah.

Luke Storey: [01:28:47] Wow. Well, congratulations for embracing it. And it makes for a great podcast title. It's like, I would want to listen to that Laughing Dragon. Who's this guy?

Laughing Dragon: [01:28:55] I'm glad it was that name because that's a cool sounding name. I'm glad it wasn't something weird or--

Luke Storey: [01:29:01] I have met people and interviewed people. There was a woman who, God rest her soul, passed, and her spiritual name was Guru Jagat, and her teacher had given her that name, and she hated it and was mortified by it. And it took her a very long time to be able to sit with it and be comfortable using the name because there were many things about it that were triggering to her. Lucky for me, I've not had to had the opportunity to go through that. Yeah. I'm just Luke. It's easy. But yeah, respect, dude. 

Well, hot damn, man. Thank you so much for sharing your experience. Thank you for coming over here. A special thanks to our mutual friend Harry for letting us use his beautiful backyard here. It's been nice soaking up some California sun and green plants that I don't have back home in Texas and meeting people like you. There's one question I have for you before we get out of here, and that is, who are three teachers or teachings that have influenced your life and your work that you'd like to share with us?

Laughing Dragon: [01:30:00] The most important for me was investigating the life of Sri Ramana Maharshi. And I still keep a photo of him above my driver's seat thing there, so he's with me. This man was incredible. Man, look into his life. There's a very good YouTube channel by a man named David Godwin who has documented everything that is known about this man.

Luke Storey: [01:30:26] Really?

Laughing Dragon: [01:30:27] He died in 1960 or something like that. And he was a fantastic, just incredible being. Just an incredible being. And so I looked at what he did because he didn't leave written or spoken teachings. Really. He had some, but not very much, hardly at all. And he said no, everything is encompassed in I am. As long as you can answer the question of who am I, you're fine. And so he had a very, very deep philosophy that I loved. 

I also liked Sadhguru for a time period. I did like a lot of his stuff. A lot of investigating into that philosophy, I think, can get people through important stages. Yeah. For me, it was an important stage. Who's someone else? I mean, other than that, I have gathered spiritual knowledge from anything I could, from every type of literature, from every type of philosophy, and religion, and just trying to find the ways in which they are similar and the ways in which they do synchronize and work together. 

And I mean, all of put together has made a big influence on me. Although, I would say actually, one person I would like to give credit to is my training partner. She was invaluable in me getting to this stage and being able to even be here talking to you with any amount of success. So I'm very grateful for all the work that we did together and that got me here as well. That was a very important person for me.

Luke Storey: [01:32:12] Awesome, man. Thank you. Well, you're a nomadic forager of these truly magic mushrooms, so we're not going to send people to your website, but I will make some show notes for this, and we'll call it lukestorey.com/dragon, which is easy to remember. And by then, we'll put your Instagram in there and have ways for people to get in touch with you, other people that want to interview you, or just learn from you and explore your world. So thank you so much for making the time today.

Laughing Dragon: [01:32:39] Awesome. Thank you for having me.

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