Joseph Emerson, the former Alaska Airlines pilot who shut down the engines of a San Francisco-bound plane last fall due to a severe and lengthy fungal trip, has given a new television interview.

Emerson and his wife Sarah Stretch were on Good morning America Friday morning, he gave a new interview about his case and their ongoing efforts to raise awareness about pilot mental health.

The incident occurred last October, and the flight from Everett, Washington to San Francisco was diverted after Emerson’s actions and had to make an emergency landing in Portland. As he explained in interviews last fall and in court hearings, Emerson had been on a trip with friends to remember his best friend Scott Pinney, a fellow pilot who died in 2018.

The group had been camping in Washington’s Methow Valley, and Emerson took psilocybin, or “magic” mushrooms, in hopes they might ease his lingering depression over his friend’s death. He said when a friend drove him to the airport two days later, he still didn’t feel well, but he was eager to be back home with his wife and children in Danville.

“I felt trapped, like, ‘Am I trapped in this plane and am I never going to come home?'” Emerson said. He said that as he sat in a jump seat in the cockpit – a privilege for pilots on standby – he kept feeling, “This isn’t real, I’m not really coming home … until I was completely convinced that none of this was real.”

He says he texted a friend about his mental state, and the friend responded by telling him to do breathing exercises. But the text was read into his headset, which apparently added to his sense of unreality, and he ripped the headset off his head.

“And then, when the pilots didn’t respond to my completely abnormal behavior in a way that I thought was realistic, I thought, ‘This isn’t real. I have to wake up,'” Emerson says.

To end the frightening, dream-like state he was in, Emerson reached for two red levers above him that he knew were fire suppression levers that cut off the gas supply to the engines. The two pilots were able to pull his hands away, and he was fortunately unable to shut down the engines.

Emerson now told ABC News: “I thought, ‘This is going to wake me up.’ I know what these levers do in a real airplane, and I need to wake up from this. You know, this is 30 seconds of my life that I would like to change, but I can’t.”

In the interview, he goes on to say that he was momentarily brought back to reality when the pilot grabbed his hand. But when he went back into the aircraft cabin after trying to drink coffee directly from a pot, his sense of distorted perception remained. He tried again to “wake up” by reaching for the cabin door handle, and the touch of a flight attendant snapped him back to reality – and he asked her to handcuff him, which she did.

Emerson says it wasn’t until Tuesday that he felt more normal and back to reality – four days after taking the mushrooms.

He later learned from a prison doctor in Portland, where he remained incarcerated for the next 45 days, that he likely suffered from hallucinogen persistence disorder (HPPD). This disorder can affect people who have never used hallucinogens before and can cause a trip to last several days longer than it should, resulting in prolonged hallucinations and difficulty perceiving reality.

Emerson also tells ABC News that he has overcome his alcoholism and that, while it may not have played a role in this incident, he had long tried to self-medicate his depression by, as he puts it, “taking a tranquilizer.”

Emerson now faces a possible trial in Portland this fall. The most serious charges against him – 83 counts of attempted murder – were dropped by prosecutors last December, but he still faces a number of federal and state charges, including 83 counts of reckless endangerment. A plea agreement remains possible.

And even though his pilot career is over, Emerson and his wife hope to make a difference through a nonprofit organization they founded in recent months called Clear Skies Ahead. The organization’s goal is to help pilots with mental illness – and to remove the stigma that sometimes prevents pilots from seeking treatment.

Emerson told ABC News, “Of course I want to fly again,” but he knows that may not be possible, adding, “It’s up to me to do what’s in front of me, to put myself in a position where that’s a possibility that it can happen.”

Previously: Former Alaska Airlines pilot accused of attempting to crash plane is released from prison pending trial