“The Medicine Will Show You What You Need”: How A Week At A Psilocybin Retreat In Jamaica Rewired My Mind

The first sip hit my tongue – earthy and sweet – and immediately, a wave of anticipation and fear washed over me. I made eye contact with a few of my fellow journey-ers, all quiet, all expectant. We were surrounded by palm trees and tropical flowers, warm even with the sprinkle of light rain that would soon turn into a heavy shower. Candles flickered softly, casting shadows that seemed to dance in time with the percussion chiming in the breeze. In that moment, the world outside fell away. This wasn’t ordinary tea: it was a doorway. 

Thousands of years ago, psilocybin – the active compound in magic mushrooms – was used in sacred ceremonies for healing and transformation. Fast forward to now, and it’s having a 21st-century revival, not just in Silicon Valley microdosing circles but in serious mental health research. Researchers have launched over 200 clinical trials worldwide in 2025, with psilocybin accounting for more than 50% of them. In one landmark study, up to 67% of participants with treatment‑resistant depression experienced remission shortly after guided treatment. Still, the idea of sipping mushroom tea in the name of self-betterment sounds, to many, like a psychedelic punchline. 

And yet there I was, on a Tuesday afternoon in the lush hills of Jamaica, lying on a mattress beneath a canopy of trees, drinking tea brewed from a variety of Psilocybe cubensis delightfully (and unsettlingly) named Penis Envy. A fly on the wall would have seen a room of people lying or (in my case) wriggling around on a mattress with eye masks on, but inside my mind I was reexperiencing my life, my past lives, the lives of my ancestors, in perfect clarity – I could see, hear, smell and feel everything that came up. I cried, I laughed,and I broke through to the core of who I really am.

After Dua’s incredible conversation with the late Amanda Feilding on Season 3 of At Your Service, I was put in touch with her team at the Beckley Foundation – the UK-based think tank and UN-accredited NGO. For more than 25 years, Amanda and her team have been pioneering psychedelic research, and now, through Beckley Retreats, they run guided psilocybin programs in Jamaica and the Netherlands, where the substance is legal.

They invited me to join one of their upcoming retreats. At the time, I felt stuck; a cocktail of anxiety, overstimulation and self-doubt running on repeat. I reflected on their approach, which combines ancient plant medicine with cutting-edge neuroscience and one guiding question: what if healing doesn’t come from fixing ourselves, but from remembering who we are beneath the noise? This opportunity for real change, the kind that might crack open old patterns, was too enticing to pass up. 

I’ll admit, when I told friends and family I was heading to Jamaica for a psychedelic retreat, the reactions were unanimous – half raised eyebrows, half knowing smirks. “Of course you are,” they said, in the tone reserved for the eccentrically wellness inclined. And fair enough. Whether it’s plant medicine, full moon ceremonies, praying for my enemies or journalling, I’ll try anything in my commitment to personal development and nervous system regulation. Though this retreat did feel different, right from the beginning – it wasn’t a casual experiment or trialling something I’d seen on social media (anyone else currently doing the six-step lymphatic drainage massage doing the rounds?) – it is science-backed and done in a formalised way that brings accountability and community to such an individual experience.

“When I told friends I was heading to Jamaica for a psychedelic retreat, the reactions were unanimous. “Of course you are,” they said, in the tone reserved for the eccentrically wellness inclined. Though this felt different, right from the beginning”

The screening process for the retreat is rigorous – and necessarily so. Every applicant, myself included, undergoes thorough vetting to ensure they’re not only stable enough for the experience, but well-supported in the days and weeks that follow. They check everything: your mental health history, current medications, whether you’re in the midst of acute trauma, and whether you have a real support system in place. This isn’t a wellness trend – it’s deep work, and it requires a strong foundation. 

Still, I approached it with what I now recognise as naïve confidence. I’d dabbled in plant medicine before. I’m a “jump now, think later” kind of person, known among friends as the eccentric-aunt-slash-unsufferable-healing-girlie. I thought I knew what I was walking into. I didn’t. The depths this experience would reveal – and the way it would rearrange me – were far beyond what I’d imagined. This was no sunny afternoon mushroom trip in Hampstead Heath (nor should it be – that would, of course, be illegal).

After being accepted, we began four weeks of virtual preparation: guided meditations, readings and a handful of slightly awkward but grounding Zoom calls. At first, the whole thing felt more clinical than cosmic. But in hindsight, the structure was quietly transformative. Rich with insights into psilocybin’s benefits and possibilities, the preparation materials ensured we all arrived feeling informed, supported and, most importantly, ready. While I might have come in with more psychedelic experience than some, others had never touched anything that could be classified as a “drug”. And yet thanks to the the prep work, by the time we all arrived in Jamaica, we all stood on equal ground.

What gripped me most during the preparation wasn’t the guided meditations or group calls – it was the science. Specifically, the research into neuroplasticity: the brain’s remarkable ability to rewire itself. Studies show that psilocybin can temporarily loosen the grip of entrenched thought patterns – those default settings of behaviour, emotion and reaction we often mistake for personality. For two to six weeks after a guided psychedelic experience, the brain becomes more malleable, more open to change. It’s a rare neurological window. A chance to not just reflect but reshape the way we move through the world. A ceremony might spark the shift, but the real transformation happens in the quiet, disciplined weeks that follow. Change your mind, change your life. 

This potential has also reignited curiosity around the (controversial but compelling) Stoned Ape Theory, first proposed by Terence McKenna. He suggested that early humans who consumed psilocybin underwent a kind of cognitive evolution – one that catalysed creativity, abstract thought, empathy, maybe even language itself. While far from proven, modern neuroscience lends it some fresh intrigue. If psilocybin enhances mental flexibility today, could it have done the same for our ancestors? Whether or not the theory holds, the question itself feels powerful: what if growth – personal or collective – begins with a mushroom?

So, Zoom calls all out of the way, 13 of us arrived at Good Hope, a beautiful space nestled in the mountains of Jamaica, for a week of healing. From the moment we stepped onto the grounds, it was clear: this wasn’t just a retreat, it was a ceremony. The facilitators spoke of psilocybin as “medicine”, and their reverence for its power infused everything with a quiet, sacred weight. Nourishing, home-cooked food is eaten together as a group. Our days began with gentle morning yoga, meditation and plenty of downtime, which almost everyone spent together, without our devices – these stretched out into tech-free, communal afternoons. The pace was slow, deliberate; a collective exhale, and a return to something primal. 

There were two psilocybin ceremonies during the retreat week. The dosage for each was decided in a one-on-one session with a facilitator and, for most of us, the second ceremony involved a higher dose than the first.

Both ceremonies took place in the yoga shala at the far end of the garden – a quiet, open space surrounded by trees and flowers. Inside, the room was softly lit with candles around an altar in the middle of the room. A circle of mattresses, pillows and duvets created a nest-like feeling, giving each person their own cosy, private space. In one corner, a musician sat surrounded by instruments, which he played live through both ceremonies. To my own surprise, I started weeping the moment I stepped into the space for the first ceremony. I hadn’t expected it, but the realisation hit me hard: I was going to have to let go of control. Something I struggle with – often, and deeply. 

The specifics of my two journeys feel almost impossible to describe, and are probably about as interesting as listening to someone explain their dream (fascinating for the dreamer, less so for the listener), but both were hard and beautiful in equal measure. I re-lived memories long buried. I connected with ancestors. I revisited traumatic experiences through an entirely new vantage point. I felt a surge of profound gratitude and appreciation for my loved ones.  

During the first ceremony, I stayed within the boundaries of my mattress the entire time, as if travelling on a magic carpet. I weeped, I moved around, but my eye mask stayed on and I went deep past the limits of my experience and psyche. It was an experience of going backwards, meeting the children I didn’t have; the female friends who have supported me and who I feel spiritually woven to; members of my family and then further and further back, to my nomadic female ancestors, all the way back to Source. It felt healing and loving, and deeply personal.  

The second ceremony was a much more connected and human experience. Within an hour, I felt that I had to be outside, in nature – no-one could have made me keep on my eye mask and lie on a mattress if they tried. With my feet on the grass, I felt I could dive into the sky and swim through the dirt, full of so much love and gratitude for every person that was there. I experienced the most luxurious feeling that I think one could ever have – to want for nothing. I felt entirely complete. And while anyone who was observing me at the time would have probably attested to the fact that I was on a different level of consciousness, I can still tap into that feeling now, even though months have passed. It’s become a touchstone – to know what it feels like to want for nothing.  

I walked out of that shala changed. Not dramatically, not all at once – but with a quieter, deeper understanding of who I am and why I’m here. And in the days and weeks since, I’ve felt more present – and more myself – than I have in a very long time.

While we entered the space carrying varying degrees of nerves and uncertainty, we each left with a measure of insight and acceptance. Beneath all our differences, there was something deeply human about the experience itself – gathering in nature to heal in community, following rituals that echo ancient traditions. It felt like a return to something primal, something missing in the fast, tech-addicted blur of everyday life. That sacred energy continues to linger, long after the five or so hours spent lying on a mattress (or on the grass) in an altered state.

“The depths this experience would reveal – and the way it would rearrange me – were far beyond what I’d imagined”

Ultimately, psilocybin isn’t a passive form of healing. At some point, you’re likely to be shown something you’d rather not face. But as one of the facilitators often reminded us, it’s a return journey – no matter what unfolds during the ceremony, you will come back to your mat, and back to yourself, eventually. My strategy going into it was to hold on to the words from a wise friend: let go of preferences. I tried to resist labelling anything as good or bad. Instead, I let the experience move through me.

This looked like fully accepting all of the emotions that were making themselves known, as they came. If I was experiencing something that felt uncomfortable or scary, I tried to lean into it rather than run away, not worrying about what it might mean beyond the experience I was in. Rather than getting caught up in interpreting meaning mid-journey, I focused on the feeling and clarity that would emerge from it, breathing deeply and trusting that this too shall pass. If these emotions are showing up, it means they need to be addressed – and what better place to let that happen that in this beautiful room, surrounded by facilitators whose job it is to keep us safe?

Having been through this experience, I can see how psilocybin, in a supported and intentional setting, holds potential for deep reflection and healing. But it’s not easy, and it’s not predictable. It asks something of you – a willingness to face discomfort, to let go of control, to sit with what arises without trying to wrestle it into meaning.

For me, some of what surfaced was painful, familiar and long avoided. But meeting it again, with care and support, opened the door to seeing it differently. Not to erase it, but to hold it with a little more compassion.

Months later, what stays with me isn’t a sense of having been transformed, but of having touched something essential – quiet, steady and real. Not an escape or revelation, but a deepening. I’ve come to realise that it was never about fixing or changing who I am. It was about peeling back the layers – uncovering what’s already there. Giving myself permission to feel fully, to heal deeply and to grow into something more expansive. That kind of homecoming is a rare gift. A reminder, also, that healing isn’t always about doing more, but about learning to stay present with what’s already here. That kind of presence doesn’t fix everything. But it can change the way you move through the world.