“Where did all the time go?” That is the ubiquitous question every patient asks after a treatment. They ingest the medicine at 9 a.m. and, after what seems like perhaps an hour or so but was actually five or six, and once the eye mask comes off there is bewilderment as to just how much time has passed. Of course, this is all built on the bedrock notion in Western culture that time is a straight line and linear manifestation. And that there is such a thing as time! Stepping out of existing paradigms, even if for a brief “time” can be eye opening while your eyes are closed. Traditional Native American cultures have long believed that time is a circular phenomenon. Remotely like the movie Groundhog Day suggests, every day is very similar and reoccurring like the last. In indigenous worldviews, the sun rises and the sun sets, routinely; we always have a predictable reset of sorts, the start of what we call a “new day,” or what Arapahos called “sleeps,” both reflecting measurements of time.

Mystical experiences are states of grace when the bodymind system tunes its usual frequency to the primary field of Being, what the Pueblo mystic, Beautiful Painted Arrow, calls the Vast Self. In that bigger field there is a vast accumulation of stored knowledge (knowings) which previously had been difficult to detect. In this morphogenetic field, as Robert Sheldrake calls it, all the past experiences of the human race are contained. To enter this expansive library of practical relationship wisdom, MDMA, sometimes, can be a gatekeeper.

With so many anecdotes about the dramatic experiences folks have had with entheogens and psychedelics, a person may struggle when the impact of MDMA is, for the most part, subtle or under the radar. Does this mean it wasn’t working on/in my brain? Why wasn’t my experience more like Timothy Leary’s or the Beatle’s – Lucy in the sky with diamonds? Did I not prepare myself well enough? Some people lay quietly for hours in a deep calm state detecting little of what may be transpiring. Being without a racing brain (a default state of anxiety) feels alien and discombobulating (a neuroscience term). And, sometimes, that can be unsettling, even frightening. When quieting occurs it can be confused with “nothing’s happening.” Quite the opposite is usually the case. Any shift in the brain state from flying with eagles, talking with a deceased ancestor, or to quietude – whether subtle or resounding -- represent change. And change is what is being sought, moving out of stuck.

It may be difficult to review your life story without admitting a few broken rules along the way. When sequestered from the agents of propaganda, and during an MDMA treatment, the full truth can be revealed from deep within yourself. Old rule-breaking behavior might better be reframed as healthy resistance to a previously unhealthy world that surrounded you -- a world characterized by soul suffocation. But when out of self-respect you fight back by defying your oppressors, you may sound like this: “Tell me I can’t speak out…just watch me. From this point on I get to be me.” That was the clarion call of Muhammad Ali, “I don’t have to be what you want me to be. I’m free to be who I am.” Or, in the words of Gandhi: “The only tyrant I accept is the ‘still small voice’ within me. Even though I have to face the prospect of being a minority of one, I humbly believe I have the courage to be in such minority.” In Native American culture Raven and Coyote have long been regarded as trickster figures.

You are your medicine. You are your doctor. Perhaps for years you have been looking in all the wrong places for healing medicine, what shamans prefer to call living in harmony. MDMA prefers to make only a few house calls. After that you are on your own, so you don’t become dependent on external chemicals for happiness. Along comes the realization that, “I am the chairman of my own wellbeing.” Some of the entheogens and empathogens awaken divine powers already residing within us. That is the medicine’s fundamental teaching. If we don’t get that message and live it, there may be an eternal quest for ingesting and titrating just the “right” amounts of “this and that,” plant and chemical cocktails, which presumably can assure an unruffled existence through life’s travails.

Repeatedly I have been asked if only one partner in a relationship explores the medicine will there be a significant risk that the two might become distant from each other. Is it likely that one person will start to grow out of the partnership? While the prospects are quite broad and not perfectly clear, there are some familiar reactions. I will address some of them. Occasionally a partner will misconstrue ecstasy or Molly for 100 percent MDMA. With the public’s limited education on empathogens, and with the attention given to feverish raves, many uninformed people think the medicine escalates the sex drive. With that concern, the nonparticipating partner can fear his/her partner will no longer be satisfied with their sexuality and look for someone else. Quite simply, it doesn’t work that way. Empathy and compassion may increase, but this is not a libido escalating drug. Clinical grade MDMA is more like a love drug than a sex drug.

In this article I am going to move into the area of hopeful speculation. Sometimes unusual and challenging hypotheses can lead us toward a much-needed paradigm shift. And with new thinking, new discoveries can be made. Buckle up for this ride. Many people seeking relief from relational stress find that “the problem is not the problem.” Marital difficulties, for example, may arise when there is underlying trauma that has never been addressed, trauma that may have arisen outside the relationship, perhaps going as far back as childhood. The notion I am positing is that many unhappy people turn to antidepressants and antianxiety drugs to merely subdue the symptoms of their underlying problem. And both types of medication typically wreak havoc on a person’s sexual libido, mental clarity, and emotional aliveness, which can diminish the opportunity for sexual intimacy with its attendant oxytocin release. They also can undermine good communication and healthy bonding with a safe partner.

Almost six decades ago a leader in the field of Third Force (humanistic) Psychology wrote about an interesting phenomenon, the peak-experience. Abraham Maslow, in his book, Religions, Values, and Peak-experiences shared observations of patients who underwent awakenings characterized by awe, rapture, and transcendence, none of which were drug-induced. What is very striking about his early research is that it appears to capture the same experiences commonly reported by individuals following MDMA psychotherapy-assisted treatments. Maslow realized that the sacred wasn’t only found in the venue of cathedrals nor was it the sole responsibility of priests. Rather it was often a highly personal and truly natural excursion into one’s private religion developed out of private revelations. And often the sacred followed the profane, a way of saying trauma is often followed by post-traumatic growth (PTG).

There is a great deal of confusion about what MDMA (an empathogen) and psilocybin, LSD, and DMT (psychedelics) can do to heal a person. All of them can have near immediate effects and all can have lingering effects. But what is realistic to expect, especially from the more subtle MDMA? MDMA is thought of as a relational trauma medicine. It can often reset a person to a pre-trauma state and enhance socialization. It is notoriously effective when there has been an interpersonal trauma. And betrayal – via deception, lying, trickery, and/or gaslighting -- is at the core of these traumas. Domestic violence, sexual abuse, religious abuse, family disloyalties, and suicide are common examples.