In this conversational interview, Derek Loudermilk explains his metaphor of psychedelics—particularly mushrooms and DMT—as keys that open doorways to alternate dimensions of the universe, where one encounters beings and gains insights. He emphasizes the necessity of a guide to help reintegrate the fragmented self after such journeys, warning that improper reintegration can be fatal. Tyler Wagner shares his personal history: extensive mushroom use in youth, a terrifying later trip that felt like a near‑death experience, and lingering trauma. He expresses a strong desire to try DMT but insists he would only do so with a qualified guide, believing a guide could have mitigated the earlier damage and would make the experience safer and more meaningful.
like they'd be like, holy shit. So that would be incredible. Okay.
So mushrooms, mushrooms and psychedelics in general are, those are doorways. So the journey isn't the, the physical substances that are within the plants. Those are the keys. Those are the keys to the doorways. And then when you ingest them, allows you to step through the doorway, and you're, you're basically moving into a different part of the universe, different dimensions of the universe. And then you meet, meet beings, and you have experiences, and you learn things, and you get insights. And then you have to basically reintegrate all the pieces of you which have shot across the universe. You have to bring them all back to this so that you're whole again when you, when you come back. That's why you have to have a guide when you do these things, because if you make a mistake and you don't put yourself back together properly, you could die. So you need to have someone to help put you back together if you don't have that skill yourself. And it takes practice. To have that skill.
Yeah. On that, yeah, I, I totally agree. Like I, I actually, I really want to try DMT really bad and I still haven't yet. And if I did, I would totally want to do it with like a guide and I wouldn't feel comfortable otherwise. And it's weird how like when I was younger, I've done, I did mushrooms a decent amount of times, always pretty much always had a great time, but then as I got older, like I had one terrible trip and I'm just terrified of it now. Like, and yeah, it was like, I literally, I like, I think I did die. Like I, yeah, I basically, I felt like I died and I had to accept it cuz I couldn't get out of it. And then once the trip ended, I was okay. But there was some damage done for sure. Like there was definitely damage. And if I had a guide when I did it, you know, working through that, whatever mental thing I was going through at the time, uh, would've been, I'm sure it just would've been different. It would've been easier.
Uh, well, what I'm talking about, just to be clear,