好英语网“迷幻剂导师”教人以迷幻药来规划职业生涯
Paul Austin and Matt Gillespie are trying to retrace their steps along a path shrouded by redwood trees.
保罗‧奥斯汀（Pau Austin ）和马特‧吉莱斯派（Matt Gillespie）在一条红杉树蔽荫的森林中想找到往回走的小路。
All things considered, the conditions for being lost in the forest are pretty ideal: there’s still about an hour of daylight left, and the weather is unusually pleasant for December in Oakland, California.
他们在森林迷路之时，一切看来都很好，还有大约一个小时太阳才会落山，加州奥克兰的12月天气也异常的温暖宜人。
服用“微剂量迷幻药”正成为一种潮流。服用者吸入微量迷幻药以提高自己的创新能力和工作表现。
Plus, the two 29-year-olds are in noticeably good spirits. Austin, a psychedelics coach, feels confident his guidance helped his client, Gillespie, make some real progress today. And Gillespie, brushing his palm across a tree as he takes another muddy step forward, seems all but concerned about the unplanned detour.
此外，这两位29岁的年轻人精神也很高昂。奥斯丁是一位教人如何服用迷幻药的导师。他满怀信心，相信自己能帮助客户吉莱斯派在这一天的远足有所进步。吉莱斯派在泥泞的路上往前迈了一步，手掌轻轻略过身边的一棵树，似乎对意外的迷路并不担心。
“How often do you let yourself get lost?” he asks. It’s tough to tell if Gillespie is really that enchanted by the redwoods around him – or if he’s still feeling the dose of psychedelic drugs he took a few hours back.
他问奥斯汀，“你迷过多少次路?”很难说吉莱斯派是真的被他周围的红杉树迷住了，或者是他几小时前服用的迷幻药还在起作用。
‘That really helped me understand my potential’
“这真的帮助我了解到自己的潜力”
Psychedelics have seen a surge in popularity within the last decade. These mind-altering substances, which include psilocybin (or ‘magic mushrooms’) and LSD, are best known for their hallucinogenic effects. Most notably, they’re associated with 1960s counterculture.
迷幻药在过去十年东山再起，重新流行起来。这些能改变人的心智的致幻物质，包括裸盖菇素（或称迷幻蘑菇）和LSD（一种半人工的强烈致幻剂），以让人产生幻觉而闻名。而更为众所周知的是20世纪60年代反主流文化的嬉皮士曾吸食迷幻药成风。
But today, they’re fixtures in Silicon Valley’s tech-heavy and success-obsessed culture. The excitement over these psychedelics is less about recreation and more about optimisation – specifically, their alleged ability to help users level up in their careers.
但如今，迷幻药已成了美国硅谷看重高科技痴迷成功之文化的重要成分。硅谷人对这些迷幻药感兴趣与其说是为了消遣，不如说是为了优化完善自己的职业，具体而言之，是他们相信迷幻药可助服用者提升职业能力。
Gillespie subscribes to this idea – and has for years. He credits much of his professional success to his first dose of LSD, taken with his best friend when they were teenagers in the US state of Ohio.
吉莱斯派对此观点是支持的，而且身体力行已有多年。他把自己事业上的成功很大程度上归功于他和他最好的朋友一起时首次服用的迷幻药LSD，那时两人还是美国俄亥俄州的青少年。
“In that altered state, it became much more real that I didn’t know anything about the world,” says Gillespie. “We realised how ignorant we were and how much growth we had left in our lives. It was, in a strange way, very humbling but also very liberating. That really helped me understand my potential.”
吉莱斯派说，“吸食后精神状态为之一变，我才更明白到我对世界是无知的。我们意识到自己是井底之蛙，意识到我们还需要长大成人。迷幻药以一种奇怪的方式，既让人感到谦卑，又让人感到解放。这真的帮助我了解到自己的潜力。”
Before his experience with LSD, he thought his future was already written: he would attend a local university and find a job in his hometown of Cincinnati. But after experimenting with the drug, Gillespie decided to pursue a degree in industrial design. He ended up working abroad in Germany and Switzerland before returning to the US to work at a solar energy start-up.
在服用迷幻药之前，他认为自己的未来已经注定：他将进入当地的一所大学，在家乡辛辛那提找到一份工作。但是在体验了迷幻药的功效后，他决定改读工业设计学位。他后来在德国和瑞士工作，然后回到美国，在一家太阳能初创企业工作。
Now, approaching 30 and in the throes of a new entrepreneurial effort, Gillespie has found himself turning to psychedelics for guidance once again. After abstaining from the substances through much of his early career, he became intrigued by microdosing, or the practice of taking a low dose of the drugs in an attempt to improve creativity, productivity and general well-being.
如今，吉莱斯派年近30,正处于草创事业的艰苦时期，不由自主地再一次求助于迷幻剂。在他早期职业生涯的大部分时间里，他都避免接触迷幻药，之后他开始对微剂量服用产生了兴趣，这即是说，靠服用低剂量的迷幻药以提高自己的创意、工作效能和整体的幸福感。
Even though there is little data to back up these claims, the concept of using psychedelics to enhance personal and professional performance has been rising throughout the past few years.
尽管几乎没有科学数据证实上述说法，但过去几年使用迷幻药可提高个人能力和职业表现的说法已越来越流行。
This is particularly the case within Silicon Valley, which has long embraced these ideas. In his book on psychedelics, How to Change Your Mind, Michael Pollan traces this history back to the 1950s, when engineers used LSD’s hallucinogenic effects to visualise new concepts, such as computer chips. Tech titans including Steve Jobs are also known to have dabbled in psychedelics. Jobs reportedly even once disparaged fellow founder Bill Gates as “unimaginative”, noting he would be “broader” if he took LSD (Gates has, actually, alluded to his own LSD use).
这在硅谷尤其如此，硅谷人长期以来一直信奉这一理念。迈克尔•波伦（Michael Pollan）在其探讨迷幻药的著作《致幻剂如何改变你的心智》中，回顾了迷幻药在上世纪50年代兴起的历史，当时工程人员以LSD产生的迷幻效果来诱发新的概念，比如电脑芯片。甚至史蒂夫•乔布斯（Steve Jobs）这样的科技巨头也曾涉足迷幻药。据报道，乔布斯甚至曾经贬低另一位科技巨头比尔·盖茨，说他“缺乏想象力”，并指出如果他服用了LSD，他的眼界会更开阔。事实上，比尔·盖茨曾暗示自己服用过LSD。
A guided trip
迷幻之旅引领而行
For Gillespie, finding an effective way to use psychedelics was difficult – he describes his early attempts at microdosing as “flailing”, saying he had a tough time determining how much of the drugs to take and how to best take advantage of his altered state.
对吉莱斯派来说，很难找到使用迷幻药的有效之法。他说自己早期的服用是“胡乱尝试”，自己很难决定要服用多少剂量，以及如何最好地利用他迷幻状态的心智。
“Finding that right balance and that right place in my life took a little help,” he elaborates. “And that’s where Paul [Austin] comes in.”
他解释说，“在我的生活中找到正确的平衡和位置需要一点助力，所以我求助于保罗（奥斯汀）。”
Like Gillespie, Austin’s first psychedelic experience happened in his late teens – a psilocybin trip. Later that year, he took LSD “maybe 20 times”. Psychedelics have been a fixture in his personal life ever since, and he sees educating others about them as his professional mission.
和吉莱斯派一样，奥斯汀首次服用迷幻剂是他十几，近二十岁的时候，服用的是裸盖菇素。其后在这一年，他又服食LSD，“可能有20次”。自此，迷幻药就成了他个人生活的一部分，甚至把辅导他人如何使用迷幻药作为自己的正当职业。
Austin started The Third Wave, an online community for psychedelics education, and offers coaching sessions to help people integrate them into their lives in a safe, meaningful way. Since moving to Oakland last year, he’s developed a roster of regular clients – “almost exclusively founders or entrepreneurs” – guiding their drug trips by setting goals and intentions, often focusing on their professional paths.
奥斯汀在网上建立了一个称之为“第三波浪潮”的迷幻药教育在线社区，提供迷幻药辅导课程，帮助人们以一种安全、有意义的方式将迷幻剂融入他们的生活。他去年搬到奥克兰以来，已经开发了一份固定客户名单，“几乎都是创业者或企业家”，帮助他们设定目标和意图，以引导他们的迷幻之旅，而辅导通常专注于客户的职业路向。
“I feel like the reason clients come to me is often times to go into these deeper questions of, ‘Why are we doing what we’re doing? Why does the work that we’re doing matter to us’?” says Austin. “I think psychedelics are really helping people with that process more than anything.”
奥斯丁说，“我觉得客户来找我往往是为了深入探讨这些更深层次的问题，比如‘我们为什么要做我们正在做的事情？为什么我们所做的工作对我们很重要？’我认为迷幻药在这个过程中比任何东西都更能帮助人们。”
‘Hike-rodosing’
迷幻药微剂量徒步之行
When Gillespie arrives to today’s session, he’s already taken a microdose of psilocybin. Since psychedelics are illegal in the US, Austin does not provide them to his patients, but he notes that they have become much easier to come by since being decriminalised in Oakland earlier this year.
吉莱斯派来上这天的辅导课时，已经服用了微量的裸盖菇素。由于致幻剂在美国是非法的，奥斯汀不会提供给他的病人，但他指出，2019年早些时候迷幻药在奥克兰合法化后，已很容易获得。
After a short drive away from the skyscrapers of San Francisco and into the towering redwoods of Joaquin Miller Park,the two pick a random path, and the ‘hike-rodosing’ session begins. Austin slips into coaching mode, asking Gillespie to state his goals for the day.
离开旧金山的摩天大楼，开一短程路之后，两人进入华金·米勒国家公（Joaquin Miller Park）高耸的红杉森林，然后随便选了一条林道，开始“迷幻药微剂量徒步之行”。奥斯汀进入辅导模式，要求吉莱斯派陈述他当天的目的。
On the surface, much of the conversation seems quite similar to what one would expect from a typical career counselling session. But Austin believes the psychedelics make this process more effective by helping clients achieve a sort of objectivity about themselves.
表面看来，对话的大部分内容似乎与人们从典型的职业咨询课程中期待的内容非常相似。但奥斯汀认为，使用迷幻药可帮助客户认清自己的职业生涯目标，因而使咨询课程更加有效。
“It makes it easier to come to awareness about certain things,” he says. “Psychedelics just help us be a bit more malleable. They help us be more honest and open.”
他说：“这更容易认识到某些特定事情。迷幻药只是让我们多了一些灵活柔韧，帮助我们变得更加诚实和心胸开放。”
It’s not just Austin’s hunch: in a recent study from the Imperial College of London, researchers scanned the brains of patients on LSD and found the drug does induce a change in how users relate to the world around them. Lead researcher Dr Robin Carhart-Harris describes it as a more “unified” brain, meaning networks that typically function separately start working in a more integrated way. He says this relates to the phenomenon of “ego-dissolution” in the users, which is a feeling of renewed connection within themselves and with their surroundings.
这不只是奥斯汀个人的直觉。在伦敦帝国理工学院最近的一项研究中，研究人员扫描了服用LSD的病人的大脑，发现这种致幻剂确实会改变服用者与周遭世界的关系。首席研究员罗宾·卡哈特-哈里斯博士（Dr Robin Carhart-Harris） 将服用后的心智描述为一个更为“一体化”的大脑，意思是指，通常是彼此较分割独立运作的神经网络开始以较协调综合的方式运作。他说，这与服药者的“自我消解”现象有关。所谓自我消解是一种在他们自体内部以及与周遭环境重新建立联系的感觉。
Studies like Carhart-Harris’ are beginning to shed new light on the potential medical uses of psychedelics, which were made illegal and classed decades ago in the US as Schedule 1 drugs with no medicinal value.
像卡哈特-哈里斯这样的研究开始为迷幻药的潜在医疗用途带来新的曙光。几十年前，迷幻药被列为非法药物，在美国被列为没有药用价值的附表1药物。
Today, the US Food and Drug Administration (FDA) has granted two psychedelics, psilocybin and MDMA, ‘breakthrough’ designations allowing them to be clinically researched after showing promising potential in treating patients with mental health conditions. Other early research has looked at the positive impacts of psychedelics in treating addiction and even easing headaches.
今天，美国食品和药物管理局（FDA）在发现两种致幻剂裸盖菇素和摇头丸（MDMA）有治疗精神疾病患者的巨大药效后，将其认定为“突破性药物”，允许对这两种致幻剂进行临床医学研究。其他早期的研究关注了迷幻药在治疗成瘾甚至缓解头痛方面的有效作用。
Caroline Dorsen, a substance use researcher and assistant professor at New York University’s Meyers College of Nursing, has focused her work on how people are using psychedelics to heal childhood trauma and improve their physical and mental health. Something important she observed in having a productive psychedelic session is having some sort of figure – whether that’s a doctor, a coach or a spiritual leader – to help the user through this experience.
纽约大学迈耶斯护理学院的药物使用研究员、助理教授卡罗琳·托尔森（Caroline Dorsen） 一直致力于研究如何使用迷幻药治愈童年创伤及改善身心健康。她观察到，要使迷幻剂治疗卓有成效，一个重要因素是，需要一个导师类的人物帮助患者度过治疗期，不论此人物是医生、辅导者，还是精神导师。
“Having a trained and well-prepared guide is an essential part of ensuring physical and emotional safety during therapeutic psychedelic experiences which can range from blissful to sad; unsettling or scary,” says Dorsen. “After psychedelic ceremonies, guides serve the essential role of helping participants make sense of the experience and integrate what they learned into their everyday lives.”
托尔森说，“在迷幻药治疗体验期间，有一个训练有素、准备充分的引导人非常重要，可以确保患者身体和情感的安全，因为处于迷幻状态的病人情绪会剧烈波动，可以从幸福感跌落到悲伤、不安或恐惧。在迷幻感觉消失之后，导师的主要作用是帮助参与者理解迷幻体验，并将他们在迷幻精神状态中学到的东西融入他们的日常生活。”
Anecdotally, Dorsen says she has heard many stories of people experiencing “epiphanies” during psychedelic sessions that lead to a change in careers. But, she cautions, users can’t force these sorts of realisations out of the drugs. “In my research participants often explained that they have minimal control over the experience they are going to have while taking psychedelics,” she says. “The plants are going to give you the experience you need.”
托尔森说，她听过很多人在迷幻药治疗期间经历“顿悟”的故事，从而导致职业生涯的改变。但是她又警告说，使用者不能强迫这些顿悟的意识离开致幻剂。她说：“在我的研究中，参与者经常解释说，他们在服用迷幻药时对自己的体验几乎没有控制力。迷幻剂会给你所需的体验。”
Revealing the best path forward
揭示最佳的前行道路
Since he started working with Austin, Gillespie says he has set fairer prices for his consulting work, and made significant steps forward in launching his business.
吉莱斯派说，自从他与奥斯汀合作以来，他为自己的咨询工作设定了更公平的价格，并在启动业务方面取得了重大进展。
“A lot of what Paul helps me with is getting over a lot of these limiting beliefs around my own value and my own competency,” says Gillespie.
吉莱斯派说：“保罗让我获益良多，助我克服了很多限制我自身价值和能力的想法。”
He previously tried working with ‘accountability groups’, in which members share goals and report back on progress, but felt the experience wasn’t as beneficial. With Austin it’s “deeper”, he believes, as the coach pushes him to get more introspective and honest about his “why”, or what really drives him in his work and personal life.
他之前曾尝试参与一些“互助问责小组”。所谓互助问责小组是一群人互相分享自己的人生目标并随时相互汇报进展，以起到相互督促的作用。但吉莱斯派觉得这种问责小组经验并没有那么有效。他相信，与奥斯汀合作“更深入”他的内在，因为导师奥斯汀促使他更加内省和诚实地面对自己的“为什么”，以及他工作和个人生活真正的驱动力是什么。
Working with Austin isn’t cheap: he requires a minimum three-month commitment for coaching with a $1,000 to $2,000 per month price tag (£765 to £1530). But Gillespie is confident that continuing to work with Austin – and psychedelics – will reveal his best path forward.
与奥斯汀合作并不便宜。他必须签至少三个月的培训合同，每月付费1000至2000美元（765至1530英镑）。但吉莱斯派深信，继续与奥斯汀合作和服用迷幻剂，将为他找出最佳的人生道路。
Confident enough that, in a few days, he plans to participate in an ayahuasca ceremony for the first time, where he’ll try the potent psychedelic tea known to induce intense visions, and, often, physical sickness. He’s excited about this opportunity, and spends much of the latter half of today’s session with Austin discussing it. Eventually, as they talk, the pair finally finds the way back to their car.
因为对迷幻剂深信不疑，几天后，他计划第一次参加饮用死藤水（ayahuasca）的仪式。死藤水是南美洲原住民一种有强效迷幻作用的茶，引用后会引发强烈的幻觉，而且还经常引发身体的不适感。吉莱斯派对有幸参与感到很兴奋，次日后半段的大部分时间他都在和奥斯丁讨论这个问题。最后，在两人讨论不休的时候，终于找到了回到他们停车的那条路。