Music for Mushrooms (and the Nearly-Lost Art of Being Moved by Music)

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Music for Mushrooms (and the Nearly-Lost Art of Being Moved by Music) | East Forest

Whatever our relationship to music may be in our daily sober lives, it is undeniable to those who have experienced it—and increasingly recognized by the scientific community—that music plays an incredible role in altering and guiding our states of awareness under the effects of psychedelics.

This of course, represents something unique about psychedelics, but more so it represents something special about music; something powerful and important about music and what it can offer us in both its creation and it’s active participation through appreciation and listening; something powerful and important about the role music both ‘is playing’ and ‘has played’ in the evolution of what it is to be human and the many cultural ways we learned to express that humanity; something powerful and important that it seems us modern humans are slowly losing our contact with as we increasingly take music for granted, as music has transformed from something exclusively made in participatory, community events, to simply a part of the ever streaming background distractions we perpetuate to protect us from the shadows lurking in silence.

Linking back to psychedelics, being touched by the power and potency of music in a psychedelic experience is a great reminder for that power and potency of music in general—in how that music touches us and guides us to touch life beyond us.

Furthermore, the acute awareness of the impact of music on psychedelic experiences reveals to us something about what music can offer us when we’re open to it, and it invites some of us to learn how to make music that support our inner potentials for healing, transformation, and spiritual awakening—be psychedelics involved or otherwise.

It is with that preamble, that I am happy to introduce our guest for this episode of the podcast: East Forest.

East Forest (Krishna-Trevor Oswalt) is a musician and documentary filmmaker exploring the intersection of music and psychedelic consciousness. He’s best known for his Soundtrack For The Psychedelic Practitioner series, with the latest volume “Lovingly, vol. III” being a 6+ hour album recorded live inside psilocybin ceremonies between 2020-2024. His music has been used in clinical psilocybin research at UCSF and Johns Hopkins. His feature-length documentary “Music for Mushrooms” weaves together cutting-edge psychedelic science, indigenous wisdom, and interviews with figures like Ram Dass and leading researchers, exploring how music and psychedelics can facilitate healing and transformation. Since 2008, he’s released over 30 albums and serves as faculty at the Esalen Institute.

East Forest joins us on this episode of Adventures Through The Mind to talk about what music really is and why it matters so much for our inner journeys.

We discuss how many of us have lost our connection to music as it has transformed from artwork at the forefront of our attention to content streaming in the background; how active listening is a skill that awakens the true potency of music, but is slowly being lost; what it is that we might lose when most of the music we hear is being made by AI; why music speaks to us in the language of feelings.

East Forest also opens up about what it’s like to play live music during psilocybin ceremonies and how those experiences have taught him that music can be a bridge to something deeper—though he’s also seen how psychedelics can sometimes make our egos and divisions worse.

We also talk about his wonderful documentary “Music for Mushrooms,“; the unexpected intelligence of the mushrooms; and how psychedelic experiences might help us face the overwhelming crises of our modern world.

As well as exploring his hopes and worries for where the psychedelic movement is headed; the lessons mushrooms have taught him about saying less; and why psychedelics aren’t just tools, but they’re teachers helping us remember what actually matters.

Enjoy.

Relevant Links

🍄 WATCH MUSIC FOR MUSHROOMS 👀
East Forest’s 2025/26 tour | Listen to East Forest’s Music
Suggested Albums: Lovingly | Ram Dass | Lovingly – Guided

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Episode Breakdown and Time Stamps

(05:08) Interview begins
(05:15) I am Loving Awareness, James’ entry into East Forest
(08:37) What is music?
(11:22) Music as a lifeline
(15:00) What makes the difference between “music” and “sound”
(16:54) Beauty, music, and emotional richness
(19:30) Humanity’s lost its connection with music due to patterns of consumption over creation
(28:14) The creative act of active listening
(33:41) Music as a technology for psychedelic ceremony
(37:21) Music in psychedelic space as a bridge to the non-dual for the growth of our souls
(38:52) How psychedelics can worsen separation, ego, and division
(42:06) Introducing Music for Mushrooms, film
(45:50) What it feels like to be “the soundtrack” for psychedelic experiences
(50:55) Why he started making music for mushroom experiences
(58:40) Patreon thanks
(1:02:49) The musician’s experience when playing for a mushroom ceremony
(1:09:15) The intelligence of the mushrooms
(1:10:56) Psychedelics, the poly crisis, the constant background noise of dread
(1:19:43) Reflecting on “the whole 2012 thing” in the context of AI technologies
(1:21:35) Something is Coming
(1:32:24) Mushroom lessons, say less
(1:34:57) Hope and Concern for what’s happening with Psychedelics globally
(1:36:26) Music For Mushrooms, the documentary—what, and who, it’s for
(1:39:13) Outro