WEEKEND ESSAY
Intrigued by the medical potential of psychoactive drugs and the ‘microdosing’ trend, Emma Duncan joined a consciousness-altering retreat in Amsterdam
The Times,
It was in an artist’s retreat in the Dutch countryside somewhere near Groeningen that I saw The Truth. Until then, I had seen life through a glass, darkly; suddenly, I was born again, experiencing the world with the wide-eyed wonder of a baby. A much more beautiful, majestic, and, well, real reality had been unveiled to me. And it wasn’t just one new reality: there were layers and layers of them, each one lovelier than the last, and as they were revealed one after the other it seemed that I was being let in on a great cosmic joke. I laughed and laughed. But although I was exhilarated, I was also troubled: how, I asked one of my companions, was I ever going to be…