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Photo of the Day: I HAVE BECOME THE HORSE

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Birth Control Works7/09/2014 6:30:21 am PDT

SCHROOMS!!!!

The news: Magic mushrooms don’t just make you see the sound of a distant airplane ripple across your living room wall. They also calm the ego and boost your sense of optimism, according to a new study.

So how does a psychedelic mushroom actually change your brain? It sounds crazy, but shrooms’ mind-altering compound (psilocybin) helps unlock mental states that are normally only active when we sleep, inducing a state of wakeful dreaming with which many users should be more than familiar.

The more mind-blowing part, though, is not how the drug amplifies some sections of the brain, but how it mutes others. When the emotional centers of the brain light up with activity, the action in the regions responsible for higher-level thinking and our sense of self, or ego, become hushed.

The drug’s long-term effects seem far more pleasant than the terrifying, mind-bending trips that can be brought on by too high a dose.