Peyote contains mescaline – a psychedelic compound that can produce hallucinations similar to the effects of taking magic mushrooms. The discs taste "unspeakably bitter-sour" and "revolting" explains Myerhoff, but she adds that she lost her awareness of time, and instead started to skip from one vivid, self-contained dream to another. "Although I discovered that I couldn"t move, I was able to remain calm when it occurred to me that this was of no consequence because there was no other place that I wanted to be," she writes, noting that she found the experience not in the least scary, but deeply moving.