Kanu Caplash was lying on a futon in a medical center in Connecticut, wearing an eye mask and listening to music. But his mind was far away, tunneling down through layer upon layer of his experiences. As part of a study of MDMA, a psychedelic drug also known as molly or ecstasy, Caplash was on an inner journey to try to ease his symptoms of post-traumatic stress disorder.
On this particular trip, Caplash, now 22, returned to the locked bathroom door of his childhood home. As a kid, he used to lock himself in to escape the yelling adults outside. But now, he was both outside the locked door, knocking, and inside, as his younger, frightened self.
He started talking to his younger self. “I open the door, and my big version picks up my younger version of myself, and literally carries me out,” he says. “I carried myself out of there and drove away.”
That self-rescue brought Caplash peace. “I got out of there. I’m alive. It’s all right. I’m OK.” For years, Caplash had experienced flashbacks, nightmares and insomnia from childhood trauma. He thought constantly about killing himself, he says. His experiences while on MDMA changed his perspective. “I still have the memory, but that anger and pain is not there anymore.”
Caplash’s transcendent experiences, spurred by three therapy sessions on MDMA, happened in 2018 as part of a research project on PTSD. Along with a handful of other studies, that research suggests that when coupled with psychotherapy, mind-altering drugs bring some people immediate, powerful and durable relief.
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