Hello all!
I stumbled across this forum while searching for help for a family member with tinnitus and figured I should share my own profound personal experience. I will include some background details that may seem unimportant to most but felt like significant markers in my journey.
To start, I believe personality type greatly affects one's experience with drugs, particularly psychedelics. In my experience, people with a looser, more easygoing personality tend to have an easier time letting go during a psychedelic experience compared to those with more rigid, uptight personalities. For those unfamiliar with psychedelics, "letting go" can be described as the point where the experience begins to take effect. There is often a mental resistance—a kind of dam—holding onto reality (common with rigid personalities), which prevents the natural flow of the experience. Sometimes, taking a few long, slow, deep breaths and acknowledging the experience is enough to break down that mental resistance and allow the trip to proceed in a relaxed way. This is where preparation, including setting and the days leading up to the experience, can play a crucial role.
I first noticed my tinnitus in September 2019 while sitting in quietness on vacation. There was a mild white noise, ringing, or wind-like sound in my right ear that I had not noticed before. Initially, I did not think much of it, but it progressively became more noticeable. I eventually went for a hearing test, which showed significant high-frequency hearing loss in my right ear. This might have been from an old sports injury, but the difference between my ears prompted an MRI. The MRI was clear, and I was told there was not much more that could be done.
My symptoms were mild to moderate but varied greatly in frequency and severity. I also had high levels of work stress, which had been building over a few years. To cope, I would regularly drink alcohol (sometimes up to three drinks) or smoke weed. At the time, I thought it helped, but in reality, it added to my stress. I noticed that after drinking, my tinnitus would often manifest as a clear, loud heartbeat in my ear when I woke up hungover.
Over the years, I experimented recreationally with mushrooms, LSD, and DMT. While I tend to be a bit uptight, I almost always had positive experiences with psychedelics. My trips were usually less visual than those of my friends, sometimes with barely any visuals at all. However, I always found the mental clarity at the end of a trip and in the following days felt like a "spring cleaning" for my brain.
In November 2019, I took a long weekend to celebrate my wedding anniversary. Despite my usual high stress levels, those few days of relaxation brought my stress way down. This led to an unplanned mushroom trip at home. I prepared a lower dose (approximately 1 to 2 grams) as tea by grinding dried mushrooms, steeping them in boiling water for 10 to 15 minutes, and filtering the liquid through a coffee cone with an herbal teabag and honey. I prefer tea for a few reasons: it filters out the mushroom grinds, which reduces nausea, it tastes better with herbal tea and honey, and it tends to produce a faster but shorter experience.
The trip started mildly, with closed-eye visuals but no open-eye visuals. Feeling unsettled, I walked around the house and eventually went out onto my deck to relax.
Now, bear with me because this next part may sound unbelievable to some.
As I stepped onto the deck, I glanced at a tree a few houses away and suddenly heard a voice in my head—a crow from the tree—ask, "What do you want?" Without hesitation, I mentally responded, "I want this ringing in my ear to go away," and then lay down on a bench, not giving much thought to what had just happened.
As I lay there with my eyes closed, my visuals shifted from chaotic to peaceful after I took a few deep breaths to relax. Meanwhile, in another tree about 50 to 100 feet away, a crow began cawing repeatedly. Each time it called, 5 or 6 more crows flew into the tree, and this happened 7 or 8 times. Soon, around 20 to 30 crows had gathered, although they were hidden from view until one hopped onto a visible branch.
As I looked at this crow, I felt a small ball of energy hit the center of my chest. Startled, I mentally asked, "What is going on?" Two smaller crows on a branch behind the first one responded, "Relax, he is the surgeon, here to fix your ear."
In disbelief but curious, I remained still to see what would happen. The energy moved up my spine, into my head, and out toward my right ear. When it reached my ear, I felt it pop, followed by six light taps on my outer ear. My friend asked me a question during this, but I was too afraid to move or respond because "I was in surgery." Once the energy dissipated and the three crows flew away, I finally explained to my friend what had happened, though it took me three hours to process it.
Since that afternoon, my tinnitus has been almost entirely gone. In complete silence or after drinking heavily, I might hear faint white noise, ringing, or a heartbeat, but otherwise, it is gone.
Final thoughts:
I know many will dismiss this as a hallucination, but I cannot deny what I experienced. The crows were real, the energy felt real, and the disappearance of my tinnitus is real. I believe psychedelics, in the right setting and mindset, can open doors to healing mental and physical health issues. However, they are not for everyone. Those with severe psychological disorders should be cautious and likely avoid them until more is understood.
If you are interested in trying psychedelics, start with small doses (around 1 gram) and always have a trusted trip sitter, especially for the first few times. Everyone's journey is different—maybe it takes multiple trips, or maybe I just got very lucky.
I hope my story helps and that others can find relief.
Side note:
My wife, a nurse, mentioned that dural arteriovenous fistula is often mistaken for tinnitus. A CT scan is needed to rule it out, and it can be treated surgically.
