🫠 Psychonaut POV

Welcome to Tricycle Day. We’re the psychedelics newsletter that won’t go down without a fight. Unless we’re talking about surrendering to the medicine. You only have to learn that lesson once. 🫠

Dante Liberato was determined to become a UFC champion, until an MDMA session changed everything. Now, he's channeling his warrior spirit into helping other fighters balance their competitive edge with deep healing, while training for an epic 500-mile run across Colorado.

We asked Dante how he uses psychedelics for athletic performance, what he discovered during his 100-mile ultramarathon on LSD, and how why he’s capturing his next adventure in a documentary.

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How did psychedelics influence your transition from professional MMA fighter to holistic coach?

Psychedelics were definitely the catalyst for that transition. In the MMA world, it's not uncommon to use mushrooms or other psychedelics while training and competing. My first relationship with psychedelics was just taking mushrooms before sparring—sometimes way too much, sometimes not enough.

The real turning point came when I had an MDMA therapy session. I was working with this therapist, and I showed up to her house with a leg brace after rupturing my quad in what would've been my first pro fight. During that 5-6 hour experience, I pretty much just wept in her arms and admitted that I didn't have it in me anymore to keep fighting. But I also realized I felt this deep desire to share what she had shared with me. I wanted to be able to provide that kind of healing for people instead of trying to hurt people all the time.

After that first MDMA journey, she introduced me to the idea of a grief ceremony, where I wrote a letter to fighting and burned it next to a fire. A couple months later, I did a psilocybin journey with her where she spent hours singing to each part of my body that had been injured. I felt like I was born again walking out of the woods. It took a while to come to grips with that realization and tell everybody, because from the time I was like 7 or 8 years old, I had been telling everyone I was going to be a UFC champion.

Now that you’re coaching other athletes, how do you think about integrating psychedelics into their training?

I've found that with psychedelics and fighters, there's a really fine line. You can do too much and kind of lose that edge that makes you a good fighter or athlete. But there's also just the right amount that can help you connect to your purpose and drive more deeply. The more somatically aware you are and the more you've processed everything in your past, the less of an edge you have that makes you dangerous in the ring. You need a little bit of a chip on your shoulder. Anger helps a lot.

I think if the goal is to be a world champion in fighting, you can't come do all this healing work we're doing as a community. You kind of have to keep your space in certain aspects. Like UFC fighter Sean Strickland said after winning the belt, "thank God for childhood trauma." It was funny in the moment but also kind of sad. I think a lot of these guys are aware that it's their pain that makes them able to fight at that level.

Last July, you ran 100 miles while working with LSD and psilocybin. What inspired you to take on that challenge, and what did you learn from it?

I signed up for my first ultra when I ruptured my quad in that last fight. I figured if I signed up for something requiring strong legs six months out, I'd take my recovery seriously. I'd done a couple 30-40 mile runs with buddies before, so 100 miles felt like the next step up. My intention was to experience what ultra runners call the "pain cave"—essentially, getting into a dark place mentally and being able to come out of it. I wanted to prove to myself I still had drive and grit even though I wasn't fighting anymore.

I wasn't initially planning on dosing throughout the race, but around mile 60 at 1AM, I was hurting bad. My mentor Kenny, who's a medicine worker, offered me some LSD saying it would help my stomach. I was resistant at first but finally took about half a tab. Within 20-30 minutes walking up to the highest point in the race, I realized I felt wide awake and amazing. All the pain was gone. When you run all night without psychedelics, it's just misery. You just want to lay down and sleep under your headlamp. But this was totally different.

Later I accidentally took a much larger dose when the dropper broke; it was probably 2-3 tabs worth, but I’ll never know for sure. I had one brief moment of anxiety but worked through it with breathing. After that, I was just on cloud nine. My running partner Jordan and I had been together for about 92 miles of the 115-mile course, but our energy levels were so different at this point that he encouraged me to go ahead without him. It was a super hard decision, but as soon as I crossed the finish line, I gathered our team and we went back out on the course to find him and our other teammate who was pacing him.

Finishing that race with my brother Jordan was super important to me. Ultimately, I think the medicine just allowed me to realize some potential that I know he had too. He just chose not to be on medicine that day.

Now you're preparing for a 500-mile run that's being captured in a documentary. What's driving you now? What are you hoping to share through this project?

Originally I just wanted to run across Colorado with my friends for a week and do something really difficult. One of the guys who'd been through a journey we facilitated had recently become a documentary filmmaker after living with Buddhist monks in Korea. He heard about the 500-mile run and approached me about filming it.

Through fighting and being an athlete, recognition and spotlight were always things that sounded exciting but that I never really got to experience. I never got to the level I wanted in martial arts. So this felt like a cool opportunity to lean into that. We're also using it to raise money for TheraPsych, a healing center being built in Manitou Springs focused on making psychedelic therapy accessible to people who couldn't otherwise afford it.

I also want to raise awareness for Couchmilk, a brand I helped start that's meant to support athletes navigate their use of psychedelics. There are so many athletes, runners, and fighters who have relationships with plant medicines but don't have places to talk about it or seek advice. We're trying to provide resources from therapy to holistic nutrition, while making sure all the passion athletes have is directed somewhere healthy when they're done competing and in that identity-shifting phase.

Many people might see fighting and healing as opposites. You’ve hinted at some tension there yourself. So how do you reconcile the two?

To be totally honest, I feel like somebody who has everything they need, who has integrated all their parts and is aware of how they're working—I don't think that person has a desire to lock themselves in a cage and compete at that level. I don't think that's true of any professional sport really, but especially fighting.

Acknowledging that, and knowing that really all I want for my fighters is for them to stop fighting and step into the next phase of their life that's more peaceful and fun, I'm just trying to recognize that for whatever reason, this is part of their path and their story. Because of the awareness and mindfulness training that our gym offers, I believe these guys have a better chance at an integrated life after they're done fighting.

Once that edge is gone, once you're healed enough, I feel like competitive fighting doesn't really have a place. But there's still something valuable in martial arts, feeling that intensity, and exchanging with other people. I'll still put gloves on and move around with my guys on Friday nights because mentally, I feel like I have more space after. Even though I don’t ever see myself competing again, it’s good to remind myself it's there if I need it.

Want more from Dante?

Find him at The Den in Colorado Springs, connect with other psychedelic athletes through Couchmilk, or sign up for updates on the documentary release.

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DISCLAIMER: This newsletter is for educational and informational purposes only and is not intended as a substitute for professional medical advice. The use, possession, and distribution of psychedelic drugs are illegal in most countries and may result in criminal prosecution.