Speaker 1: Welcome to the Psychology Podcast, where we give you insights
Speaker 1: into the mind, brain, behavior, and creativity. I'm doctor Scott
Speaker 1: Barry Kaufman, and in each episode I have a conversation
Speaker 1: with a guest. He will stimulate your mind and give
Speaker 1: you a greater understanding of yourself, others, and the world
Speaker 1: to live in. Hopefully we'll also provide a glimpse into
Speaker 1: human possibility. Thanks for listening and enjoy the podcast today.
Speaker 1: It's great to have David Yeayden on the podcast. Doctor
Speaker 1: Yeayden is a postdoctoral research fellow at Johns Hopkins Medicine.
Speaker 1: His research focus is on the psychology, neuroscience, and pharmacology
Speaker 1: of transformative and self transcendent experiences. He is currently focusing
Speaker 1: on the therapeutic potential of psychedelics. His scientific and scholarly
Speaker 1: work has been covered by The New York Times, The
Speaker 1: Wallstreet Journal, The Washington Post, New York Magazine, and MPR.
Speaker 1: And in addition to one of my most valued colleagues,
Speaker 1: I'm also honored to call him a friend. Hey, David,
Speaker 1: thanks so much for being on the podcast today. Hey,
Speaker 1: thanks for having me. This was a long time in
Speaker 1: the coming, wasn't it. Yeah, we've been talking about this
Speaker 1: for years. I think now we sure have. Well, it's
Speaker 1: about time we start to talk about your work on here,
Speaker 1: because it's it's really transformative work, and it truly is,
Speaker 1: and I think it'll be helpful to a lot of
Speaker 1: people in this day and age where they're they're all,
Speaker 1: they're all, we're all stuck in the insecurity, anxiety kind
Speaker 1: of level of Maslow's hierarchy of needs, you know, and
Speaker 1: let's let's help them transcend. How about that? I like that? Yeah,
Speaker 1: I like that idea. I'm curious whether you think that
Speaker 1: there is any applicability of transcendent experiences in terms of
Speaker 1: what's going on right now. So I'm I'm usually pretty
Speaker 1: skeptical that my work can be applied in any kind
Speaker 1: of straightforward way, but I just had a conversation with
Speaker 1: my wife where she thinks that these kinds of experiences
Speaker 1: might be really important right now, that when a lot
Speaker 1: of people are isolated, Yeah, when people are isolated, they
Speaker 1: start to get in their head a lot, and so
Speaker 1: people get in the state they start catastrophizing, right, Yeah,
Speaker 1: I think so, And what goes along with any kind
Speaker 1: of depressive or anxious style rumination is a lot of
Speaker 1: self focus. So a lot of these catastrophizing thoughts are
Speaker 1: very much oriented around oneself. And we know that when
Speaker 1: you're focused on yourself a lot in a negative way,
Speaker 1: that well being is reduced and even depression or anxiety
Speaker 1: can follow. So I think in that sense, self transcendent
Speaker 1: experiences do orient us outward beyond the self, which could
Speaker 1: be helpful. Whoa, whoa, whoa David, So you said self
Speaker 1: transcendent experiences, we haven't defined that yet? Now, can can
Speaker 1: you define that? You wrote this one of my favorite
Speaker 1: papers ever? Your lead author of this great paper, maybe
Speaker 1: you could talk abotle about who your co authors were
Speaker 1: and how you how you found them, Like, how did
Speaker 1: how did you all come together to write this review
Speaker 1: paper on self treansent experiences and and kind of come
Speaker 1: with a consensus definition. Yeah, thanks for saying that that.
Speaker 1: That was a long time in coming, that that paper.
Speaker 1: I worked on that for years actually, and it really
Speaker 1: was an honor to work with these researchers. My co
Speaker 1: author is on that paper. They're kind of a dream
Speaker 1: team I think on the topic, and I learned a
Speaker 1: lot about even just how to write an academic paper.
Speaker 1: But certainly a ton about self transcendent experiences. So the
Speaker 1: second author on the paper is Jonathan Height, who I'm
Speaker 1: guessing you've had on here before. Yes, yes, you know
Speaker 1: he's He's thought and written a lot about why we
Speaker 1: have these self transcendent experiences from sort of an evolutionary perspective.
Speaker 1: He's also defined several emotions that involve a self transcendent aspect.
Speaker 1: There was Ralph Hood, who was one of the earliest
Speaker 1: researchers to study mystical experiences which involve a deep sense
Speaker 1: of unity or feeling completely at one with all things.
Speaker 1: Dave Vago who does a lot of the neuroscience of Okay, great,
Speaker 1: and then lastly Andrew Newberg who's on here too. Okay great.
Speaker 1: So you know all these people and what we did
Speaker 1: was well talk all about Andrew Neuberg's work, if you
Speaker 1: don't mind. Yeah. So I've worked a lot with Andy Neuberg.
Speaker 1: He's a radiologist and he was really pioneering. He was
Speaker 1: one of the first scientists to put meditators and veteran
Speaker 1: contemplatives into a neuroimaging scanner and to see what's going
Speaker 1: on in the brain during deep states of unity. So
Speaker 1: we're writing a book together at the moment that will
Speaker 1: describe self transcendent and spiritual experiences from the perspectives of
Speaker 1: psychology and neuroscience. So in this paper, what we did
Speaker 1: was we defined self transcendent experience. So we said, these
Speaker 1: are transient mental states that involved decreased attention to the
Speaker 1: self and deep feelings of connectedness. And we then went
Speaker 1: through the psychological literature identified existing mental states measurable constructs
Speaker 1: that involve decreased attention of the self and increased feelings
Speaker 1: of connectedness, things like mindfulness, flow, AWE, peak experience, and
Speaker 1: mystical experience. So these states differ in a lot of ways,
Speaker 1: but they are united in that they each involve decreased
Speaker 1: attention to the self and increased feelings of connectedness, and
Speaker 1: they exist on a spectrum of intensity. So obviously mindfulness
Speaker 1: and flow are not as intense or as potentially transformative
Speaker 1: as something like a peak experience or a mystical experience,
Speaker 1: which involves deep feelings of unity. So in order to
Speaker 1: in order to trigger these transcendent experiences, do you have
Speaker 1: to reduce your focus on yourself? Like like have you
Speaker 1: done the study to show that those who scribe score
Speaker 1: high in narcissism tend to report less transcendent experiences in
Speaker 1: their lives. That would be a neat study, right, Yeah, well,
Speaker 1: I think actually in your work speaks to that at
Speaker 1: least a little bit. I think that you found that
Speaker 1: people who scored high on yourself actualization scale, yes, were
Speaker 1: more likely to have had one of these self transcendent
Speaker 1: experiences or what Maslow would call a peak experience. You know,
Speaker 1: there's so many different terms that have been thrown around
Speaker 1: to describe these experiences. You know, William James one hundred
Speaker 1: years ago called them mystical experiences, and you know, we
Speaker 1: call them self transcendent experiences, and of course Maslow called
Speaker 1: them peak experiences. You know, I think Maslow had a
Speaker 1: really important role in the history of psychology on this
Speaker 1: topic too, because William James, you know, he's the person
Speaker 1: that I usually go to in terms of a philosophical
Speaker 1: foundation for studying these kinds of experiences. But you've really
Speaker 1: highlighted how important Maslow is on this topic for me.
Speaker 1: And I think what Maslow did was he took away
Speaker 1: the explicitly religious or spiritual terminology from this topic and
Speaker 1: really emphasize the fact that believers and non believers have
Speaker 1: these experiences, and that religious or spiritual beliefs aren't a
Speaker 1: necessary component of having one of these profound self transcendent experiences. Wow.
Speaker 1: So even before William James, I mean, the history has
Speaker 1: not treated self transcend experiences very kindly. Right. So Freud,
Speaker 1: I forget what the quote is, but someone asked him about,
Speaker 1: you know, what are these these kind of oceanic experiences
Speaker 1: that I'm experiencing? And Freud's is something like it's an
Speaker 1: erotic return to the womb or something that. Yeah. Yeah,
Speaker 1: And that was even after William James had published The
Speaker 1: Varieties of Religious Experience, and so Freud was kind of
Speaker 1: out there in left field doing his own thing, you know.
Speaker 1: And in this chapter where Freud talks about these as
Speaker 1: and you're right, you know, he calls them these oceanic
Speaker 1: feelings of boundlessness and he says, you know, personally, I've
Speaker 1: never had one of these experiences, but they're very strange.
Speaker 1: They sound strange, and something like they fit poorly in
Speaker 1: our idea of psychology something like that, where he just said,
Speaker 1: these seems strange and they don't seem to fit with
Speaker 1: his notion of normalcy and so he just sort of
Speaker 1: reflexively branded them as pathological, and that was very influential.
Speaker 1: It was very influential. Yeah, and even William James's notion
Speaker 1: of these things, he tended to focus more on the
Speaker 1: religious aspects surrounding it. I feel like what your work
Speaker 1: is really contributing in one way, and it contributes in
Speaker 1: a lot of ways, But in one way, is your
Speaker 1: secularizing spirituality right? You're showing that these trends and experiences
Speaker 1: can happen, we can, any of us can access them,
Speaker 1: regardless of what God we believe in. Is that right?
Speaker 1: That's right? And I see my work as very descriptive,
Speaker 1: like people are already having these experiences across all belief
Speaker 1: and non belief systems, so across every religion, among agnostic
Speaker 1: and among atheists. You know, Sam Harris talks about his
Speaker 1: self transcendent or even spiritual. I think he calls it experience,
Speaker 1: and of course he's very much an atheist. So I
Speaker 1: think that that's right, that these experiences do occur across
Speaker 1: belief systems, and in some ways they are equal opportunity.
Speaker 1: In that way, they're equal opportunity. And also I really
Speaker 1: love this this phrase. You say that the all experience awe,
Speaker 1: and I always have trouble pronouncing that word, but the
Speaker 1: all experience is the every person's spiritual experience. Is that right?
Speaker 1: Is that what you call it? Yeah? I like that term.
Speaker 1: You know. When I am giving lectures, I will often
Speaker 1: ask the audience the same questions that Gallup puts out,
Speaker 1: and you know this big polling company. Gallup will say,
Speaker 1: have you ever felt a religious or mystical experience that
Speaker 1: changed your life? Questions like this, and they're phrased slightly
Speaker 1: different in different years, but generally, very reliably, you'll get
Speaker 1: about thirty percent of people saying I completely agree with
Speaker 1: that statement. I've definitely had a really intense life changing experience.
Speaker 1: But you know, and my interest is to explain and
Speaker 1: explore and study those really intense experiences. But that leaves
Speaker 1: a lot of people out. And so right after that,
Speaker 1: usually I say, okay, who here has had an experience
Speaker 1: of AWE from you know, a mind blowing idea sweeping
Speaker 1: natural scenery, amazing art or music. And then usually every
Speaker 1: hand in the audience goes up. And so I think
Speaker 1: aw gives a sense for what these experiences are all about,
Speaker 1: because probably right now about a third of your listeners
Speaker 1: are saying, yes, I've had one of these experiences, please
Speaker 1: tell me more. And then two thirds of your listeners
Speaker 1: might be saying, what are you talking about? What on
Speaker 1: earth is this experience? And so all I think helps
Speaker 1: to give a sense for what these very intense experiences
Speaker 1: can feel like. Hey, everyone, if you find the themes
Speaker 1: we cover on the Psychology Podcast interesting and enlightening, you
Speaker 1: might be interested in my new book, Transcend, The New
Speaker 1: Science of Self Actualization. The book is the culmination of
Speaker 1: my journey to scientifically discover the factors that can lead
Speaker 1: us to optimal health, growth, creativity, peak experiences, and deep fulfillment.
Speaker 1: I believe we could still manage to have peak experiences,
Speaker 1: the most wondrous moments that make life worth living, regardless
Speaker 1: of our current life circumstances. We can choose growth. For more.
Speaker 1: You can visit Transcend hyphenbook dot com. A's transcend hyphenbook
Speaker 1: dot com with a hyphen between the word transcend and
Speaker 1: the word book. If you get a chance to read
Speaker 1: the book, it'd be great if you could leave a
Speaker 1: review on Amazon, tweet about it, or share the book
Speaker 1: with friends. I truly hope this book can help people
Speaker 1: get through these tough times and realize that we all
Speaker 1: have greater resiliency, creativity, and potential within us than we
Speaker 1: ever realized. Okay, now back to the show. Yeah, so, all, Well,
Speaker 1: I've had the great pleasure of working with you a
Speaker 1: little bit on this topic and trying to understand how
Speaker 1: we could capture it scientifically. I think both William James
Speaker 1: and Masow would have been very proud of us, I
Speaker 1: hope in the spirit upon which we did it. Can
Speaker 1: you describe a little bit about this research on all like,
Speaker 1: where are we at right now? What's the current state
Speaker 1: of research on all? Well? Yeah, so I want to
Speaker 1: I think just contextualize that a little bit. So self
Speaker 1: transcendent experiences the way I've described them as this umbrella
Speaker 1: term that includes this spectrum of intensity and AWE is
Speaker 1: what we'd call a variety of self transcendent experience, So
Speaker 1: just to position it on this spectrum our scale, which
Speaker 1: we also worked with Daker Keltner, who's one of the
Speaker 1: real amazing researchers on AWE and helped to kickstart this
Speaker 1: whole little subfield on this very interesting emotion. I think
Speaker 1: what we were trying to do there is to get
Speaker 1: away from measures that simply say have you felt awe
Speaker 1: or are you feeling awe and using that particular term,
Speaker 1: because then so much rides on one's own interpretation of
Speaker 1: that particular term. So our scale, I think it's thirty items,
Speaker 1: six different factors, and it never once mentions the word awe,
Speaker 1: and it captures all of these really interesting components that
Speaker 1: are involved in the experience of awe, which is this
Speaker 1: very rich experience. You know, people call it a complex
Speaker 1: emotion because it's not merely positive or negative. It's am
Speaker 1: be valent. It's both positive and negative. Even though we
Speaker 1: find that usually people report positive experiences of awe, there's
Speaker 1: at least this little feeling of being overwhelmed or even
Speaker 1: slightly fearful sometimes. Yeah, you found that there was a
Speaker 1: correlation with the emotion fearful rate or anxious. Yeah, which
Speaker 1: is really unusual in emotion research to have those both
Speaker 1: of those things happening. So AWE is generally defined as
Speaker 1: in terms of its appraisal dimensions, Like what triggers awe
Speaker 1: is a perception of vastness and a need for accommodation,
Speaker 1: And so that perception of vastness can be perceptual like
Speaker 1: seeing the Grand Canyon, for example, or conceptual like listening
Speaker 1: to a mind blowing ted talk or one of your
Speaker 1: other podcasts episodes hopefully awe inducing for some people, and
Speaker 1: then a need to accommodate that so to mentally process
Speaker 1: it in some way. And so that was part of
Speaker 1: the definition that John Hyde and Daker Keltner stipulated when
Speaker 1: they defined AWE. But we also include in this six
Speaker 1: factor measure other dimensions of the experience of AWE, like
Speaker 1: altered time perception, so time feels like it dilates during
Speaker 1: these experiences or slows down, physiological changes, the eyes slightly widened,
Speaker 1: the jaw slightly loosened. You might feel some chills or goosebumps,
Speaker 1: not a feverish way, no, no, in it chills up
Speaker 1: your spine, you know, after an amazing movie kind of experience, okay,
Speaker 1: And then crucially diminished attention to the self and increased
Speaker 1: feelings of connectedness. And those last two are what make
Speaker 1: it a self transcendent experience. And so I think people
Speaker 1: can can take this measure on your website. Yeah, yeah,
Speaker 1: they go self actualization tests dot com. Yeah, it should
Speaker 1: be listed there. Do you like that. Yeah, that's great. No,
Speaker 1: that's exactly right. They could take the all experience questionnaire.
Speaker 1: So how does all differ from like, from flow? It
Speaker 1: seems like there's some subtle differences there. Not all, not
Speaker 1: all self transent experiences are equal, right, Yeah, I think
Speaker 1: there a lot of these various mental states that we
Speaker 1: put under this umbrella of self transcendent experience are more
Speaker 1: different than alike. So if a flow experience, you know,
Speaker 1: generally you're engaging in a challenging task and you're absorbed
Speaker 1: in that task, and some people who are experiencing flow
Speaker 1: say that time speeds up, So there seems to be
Speaker 1: some difference in the time is altered in both cases,
Speaker 1: but maybe in different directions. Well that's really interesting, it is. Yeah,
Speaker 1: and I'm not an expert on flow as much, but
Speaker 1: there does seem to be at least a similar kind
Speaker 1: of altered time perception. There does seem to be this
Speaker 1: decrease of attention on the self. And then in flow,
Speaker 1: you know, there's not much evidence on feelings of connectedness
Speaker 1: beyond the self to other people, but you do see
Speaker 1: a little bit of evidence about flow in a communal
Speaker 1: kind of context being potentially more impactful than experiencing flow alone.
Speaker 1: I think there's just one paper on that, so I
Speaker 1: wouldn't focus too much on that. Well, flow in groups, right.
Speaker 1: Oh that's well, that's interesting, especially considering our current state
Speaker 1: as the day that this is recorded is in March
Speaker 1: twenty eighth, and people are self isolating in the room
Speaker 1: and trying to get into a full experience. And I
Speaker 1: wonder how they can use virtual technologies like all just
Speaker 1: being like online, you know, to to increase increase that
Speaker 1: in a group sort of way. Yeah, I think that's
Speaker 1: really interesting. I mean, seeking out community digitally I think
Speaker 1: will be really important during this time. But I think
Speaker 1: also unplugging deliberately will be important during this time as well.
Speaker 1: You know, most self transcendent experiences are triggered when people
Speaker 1: are alone, and so the way in which I often
Speaker 1: have a mini self transcendent experience is just going for
Speaker 1: a walk along the river. I miss going on walks
Speaker 1: with you, David. I know, usually we'd have these conversations
Speaker 1: sitting on a park bench in Rittenhouse Square in Philly. Yeah. Well,
Speaker 1: things have really have really changed in the world since then,
Speaker 1: since those days. Let's I just want to talk more
Speaker 1: about these triggers of self transcending, Like, what can we do?
Speaker 1: Let's try to just like make this as practical as
Speaker 1: possible for listeners who want to have trends and experiences
Speaker 1: and feel like it's not possible under such situations that
Speaker 1: they're under. Can you give some people some hope that
Speaker 1: it is possible. I don't know that I can. Yeah,
Speaker 1: I don't want to be glib during this time and
Speaker 1: suggest that it's just a great time to experience self transcendence.
Speaker 1: And like I said, a lot of times, I'm very
Speaker 1: skeptical that my work can be applied in a straightforward
Speaker 1: way at least, so I usually see my work as
Speaker 1: very descriptive, like I'm trying to understand these experiences that
Speaker 1: people are already having and to do the research that's
Speaker 1: possible to do on them and to understand them, and
Speaker 1: to help people understand themselves after they've had one of
Speaker 1: these experiences. So I don't think a lot about application.
Speaker 1: And so sometimes the question, you know, how can we
Speaker 1: have these experiences in our everyday life worries me because
Speaker 1: there hasn't been a lot of great research on interventions
Speaker 1: that induce self transcending experiences in a day to day
Speaker 1: kind of way. You know. I think that there are
Speaker 1: ways in which we can seek out awe, little moments
Speaker 1: of awe right through the day, even like little moments
Speaker 1: of gratitude, little moments of gratitude. I think practicing mindfulness.
Speaker 1: I mean, for me, that's one of the few practices
Speaker 1: that just very reliably makes me feel better afterwards. And
Speaker 1: I never want to do it, but I'm always glad
Speaker 1: that I did. Well. Yeah, like me too, Me too. Yeah,
Speaker 1: we've we've kind of you and I have tried to
Speaker 1: get each other, I think, to continue that practice and exercise.
Speaker 1: I think we've we've texted each other to encourage that practice.
Speaker 1: We have we have. Okay, So psychedelics there, this is
Speaker 1: a really hot topic in psychology and and and really
Speaker 1: making there's some rapid progress being made with even some
Speaker 1: of the colleagues you'll be working with or that you
Speaker 1: do work with at Johns Hopkins Medicine. Is that right?
Speaker 1: Can you? Can you talk a lot about your colleagues
Speaker 1: there and what they're doing on the front lines of
Speaker 1: psychedelic experiences. The science of psychedelic experiences. Sound sounds sexy,
Speaker 1: doesn't it. That sounds great? Yeah, it's it's it's such
Speaker 1: fascinating work. And I've I've cited this research from this
Speaker 1: lab at Johns Hopkins for years because they've seemingly done
Speaker 1: what I thought was impossible. You know, Like I said,
Speaker 1: there's just not good evidence on interventions to induce self
Speaker 1: transcendent experience. And while I was at the University of
Speaker 1: Pennsylvania doing my doctorate, I did several studies trying to
Speaker 1: induce self transcendent experiences in the lab, you know, awe videos,
Speaker 1: virtual reality study, even non invasive brain stimulation, and none
Speaker 1: of them really worked because they're all so subtle and real.
Speaker 1: Self transcendent experiences are dramatic and often transformative. And this
Speaker 1: lab at Johns Hopkins has been administering a psychedelic substance,
Speaker 1: which is psilocybin, and what they've found is that they
Speaker 1: can very reliably induce very intense self transcendent experiences, which
Speaker 1: they call mystical experiences because they're at that intense end
Speaker 1: of the spectrum. Subjects in these studies will report feelings
Speaker 1: of complete unity and the self momentarily disappearing entirely, and
Speaker 1: very very intense subjective experiences, and the experiences their affects
Speaker 1: seem to really persist over time, So at two months
Speaker 1: and even eighteen month follow ups, you have increases in
Speaker 1: well being, in pro social behavior, and in less addictive
Speaker 1: behavior and less depression. So these seem like they're the
Speaker 1: most powerful positive intervention that's been discovered so far, and
Speaker 1: the results seem to be highly replicable. They've done over
Speaker 1: a dozen studies, So I'm really excited to have joined
Speaker 1: this team at Hopkins now and to help understand why
Speaker 1: these experiences seem to have such long lasting beneficial impacts
Speaker 1: on those people who have had them. I can't wait
Speaker 1: to see what you discover and to get you back
Speaker 1: on the podcast someday to further elaborate on what you've
Speaker 1: just got you and your colleagues have discovered. Yeah, the
Speaker 1: psychedelics is so interesting. Some of the research I've seen
Speaker 1: shows that the best combination is psychedelics with mindfulness, meditation,
Speaker 1: or some sort of cognitive processing where you integrate it
Speaker 1: into your life in some way. So Katherine MacLean has
Speaker 1: quit her academic position I believe in is devoting her
Speaker 1: life to helping people integrate those experiences into their lives. Yeah,
Speaker 1: So I mean it's a psychopharmacology lab, and so to
Speaker 1: get up to speed with psychopharmacology, I'm reading textbooks on
Speaker 1: psychopharmacology and the first one that I read was Catherine Maclean's,
Speaker 1: and I have all the marginalia from her underlining certain things.
Speaker 1: I've never met her, but I feel like I know
Speaker 1: her a little bit from her underlinings. She was on
Speaker 1: this podcast. Oh wow, great, So you already know everybody.
Speaker 1: I know everybody who's worth knowing that. That's right. Yeah,
Speaker 1: I mean, I think that this area just has an
Speaker 1: extraordinary amount of potential for transforming psychiatry and psychotherapy in
Speaker 1: the next decade. You know. I think that within the
Speaker 1: next five to ten years, you're psychiatrist will be able
Speaker 1: to prescribe a psychedelic session. So I talk a lot
Speaker 1: about this with my wife because she's a psychiatrist, and I,
Speaker 1: you know, it's just such an extraordinary experience and intervention.
Speaker 1: And I think we're at a very precarious point in
Speaker 1: the research because I think that it needs to be
Speaker 1: done extremely carefully, and the Johns Hopkins group has done
Speaker 1: such an incredible job of keeping it very very rigorous
Speaker 1: and doing you know, only randomized controlled trials. And I
Speaker 1: just really hope that that degree of rigor remains, and
Speaker 1: more than anything, I hope that it helps us to
Speaker 1: understand just why self transcendent experiences are so psychologically beneficial.
Speaker 1: Good good, Yeah, I want to know why they are.
Speaker 1: I want to know what is this link here between
Speaker 1: these experiences and lowering your fear of death like that.
Speaker 1: It seems like that's a common theme, right, that people
Speaker 1: who go through these experiences suddenly don't aren't so fearful
Speaker 1: of losing their self forever. Yeah, it's a really interesting
Speaker 1: you know, Michael Pollin's book How to Change Your Mind
Speaker 1: was really impactful, I think on a cultural level in
Speaker 1: terms of communicating the science of the psychedelic research. And
Speaker 1: what he comes down on is he says that the
Speaker 1: sense of self loss is what's really important this kind
Speaker 1: of ego dissolution. But what I'm finding in my research,
Speaker 1: and what we've found you and I in some of
Speaker 1: our studies, is that it's not so much the self loss,
Speaker 1: but rather the connectedness that seems to be driving the
Speaker 1: well being. And you know, a lot of this is
Speaker 1: still correlational, so it's difficult to tease these mediators apart.
Speaker 1: But a lot of my recent research is focused on this,
Speaker 1: and these experiences involve both less attention on the self
Speaker 1: and increased feelings of connection. They're highly correlated, but only
Speaker 1: connection seems to be really correlated with beneficial outcomes related
Speaker 1: to well being, and that's surprising, I think, and I
Speaker 1: think that Michael Pollen and a lot of researchers are
Speaker 1: maybe barking up the wrong tree in terms of ego dissolution,
Speaker 1: and that really this feeling of social connectedness is where
Speaker 1: the real action is at. I agree. Yeah, they focus
Speaker 1: so much on the default mode network and silencing that network,
Speaker 1: and that's one of my favorite networks in the brain.
Speaker 1: I call it the imagination network, you know, or the
Speaker 1: social imagination network. They seem to think that if we
Speaker 1: quell that, then we're stopping with our self narratives. But
Speaker 1: there's lots of positive things to have those aspects of
Speaker 1: the self for creativity and meaning making, right. Yeah, you know,
Speaker 1: I think we're at such an early phase of the
Speaker 1: research that we're doing a lot of extrapolation from very
Speaker 1: preliminary evidence, and so I agree that the focus on
Speaker 1: the default mode network, I think, is something that will
Speaker 1: probably not continue to be very helpful in terms of
Speaker 1: scientifically understanding just why these experiences are so beneficial. My
Speaker 1: prediction is that we'll see that these processes related to
Speaker 1: social connectedness and attachment will end up being the real
Speaker 1: mediator of at least some of the therapeutic benefits. What
Speaker 1: is connection in that model, it seems to me more
Speaker 1: having to do with like a universal connection with the
Speaker 1: human species. Then you're in group connection. Have you teased
Speaker 1: that a part at all? Yeah, it is spoken about
Speaker 1: in that way, and we do see really high correlations
Speaker 1: with Yeah, when people say I feel this pervading sense
Speaker 1: of connectedness, you know, usually well, if they're religious, they
Speaker 1: mean including God. If they're not religious, then not. But
Speaker 1: usually this feeling of connectedness with the world, with all
Speaker 1: of life, with all of humanity, and with close others.
Speaker 1: But interestingly, if you do a path model, which is
Speaker 1: something I did in my dissertation, and you control for
Speaker 1: all these different kinds of connectedness, the remaining predictor is
Speaker 1: feelings of connectedness with close others. So we talk about
Speaker 1: this really global, big, far out kind of connectedness in
Speaker 1: terms of these experiences, but I think that the benefit
Speaker 1: probably lies much closer to home than we realize, you know,
Speaker 1: how do these kinds of experiences reset or reinvigorate the
Speaker 1: kinds of connections that we already have with loved ones,
Speaker 1: with friends and family. That's something that I think I'd
Speaker 1: really like to investigate in the next few years, is
Speaker 1: how these experiences impact our connection with close others. Let's say,
Speaker 1: when you read some of the accounts of these experiences
Speaker 1: with that in mind, it really begins to stand out
Speaker 1: how much people talk about feeling grateful for their friends
Speaker 1: and their family as a result of these experiences. And
Speaker 1: I think we might be glossing over that a little
Speaker 1: bit and focusing more on the really far out subjective
Speaker 1: phenomenological fireworks associated with the experience and forgetting about the
Speaker 1: stuff that's really close to home. That's that's exactly right. Yeah, No,
Speaker 1: I agree that sometimes we focus on psychedelic the experience
Speaker 1: of like hallucinating and seeing fairies and I don't know,
Speaker 1: whatever the things you see? Have you so have you done?
Speaker 1: Have you done? LSD David? And what was the experience
Speaker 1: like for you? Well? Yeah, well, I want to follow
Speaker 1: up on your your first thing there. I think the
Speaker 1: aesthetics of psychedelia, I think are really changing from you
Speaker 1: know what you're talking about, and in terms of seeing
Speaker 1: things or this whole far out tied I kind of
Speaker 1: aesthetic will be more and more about everyday this, you know,
Speaker 1: treatment rooms, hardwood floors, taking time to watch sunsets, I
Speaker 1: don't know, basic everyday nos and deep appreciation of that.
Speaker 1: At least that's how my sense of the aesthetics of
Speaker 1: psychedelics has changed after learning more about the research and
Speaker 1: the therapeutic potential. Can you tell me about your quite
Speaker 1: transformative experience that you did have and when you were
Speaker 1: in college, which in a lot of ways lead to
Speaker 1: an interest in this studying this topic. Yeah, so, you know,
Speaker 1: I have sort of complicated feelings about talking about this
Speaker 1: experience because I don't want the impression to be that
Speaker 1: I have some kind of authority on the topic just
Speaker 1: because I happened to have one of these experiences. Instead,
Speaker 1: I think talking about my experience can be helpful in
Speaker 1: that it just demonstrates why I study what I study,
Speaker 1: and that it's born out of this deep sense of curiosity,
Speaker 1: rather than me trying to prove anything one way or
Speaker 1: the other. In terms of whether there's some religious or
Speaker 1: spiritual import of these experiences. Or whether they're delusions because
Speaker 1: a lot of people, a lot of scientists who study
Speaker 1: this topic, their bias is very clear and they almost
Speaker 1: wear it on their sleeve. Yeah, okay, Okay, that caveat aside.
Speaker 1: Just tell us, tell us. I mean, I appreciate, I
Speaker 1: appreciate the spirit upon what you're doing. But I think
Speaker 1: anyone who knows you or is listening to you for
Speaker 1: more than five minutes knows you're a real, genuine scientist
Speaker 1: who is interested in this. So tell the story. Okay. So, yeah,
Speaker 1: this was during my college years, during undergrad and it
Speaker 1: you know, the general context, you know, I was sort
Speaker 1: of searching for myself in some way. I was trying
Speaker 1: to decide what to do with my life, you know,
Speaker 1: as a lot of people are during that time. And
Speaker 1: so I always wonder whether how much the context really matters,
Speaker 1: But it definitely did feel as if the experience came
Speaker 1: on spontaneously, and so it really I was lying on
Speaker 1: my dorm room bed and I start to feel this
Speaker 1: heat in my chest, which I initially think is heartburn
Speaker 1: or something very physical. But this heat slowly begins to
Speaker 1: spread over my entire body. Eventually, and at some point
Speaker 1: in my mind, I hear the words this is love,
Speaker 1: and so at that point I went entirely into my mind,
Speaker 1: sort of felt like I went out of my body
Speaker 1: in some ways, and felt like I could just see
Speaker 1: three hundred and sixty degrees around myself and I was
Speaker 1: completely part of this intricate fabric that spread out in
Speaker 1: every direction. And that feeling, that that warmth, especially in
Speaker 1: my chest, it felt like it just reached the boiling point.
Speaker 1: And after what was probably just a minute or two
Speaker 1: but felt like days, I opened my eyes and my
Speaker 1: body was laughing and crying at the same time. And
Speaker 1: so immediately I feel this sort of wave of love
Speaker 1: towards everyone around me, especially friends, thinking of family. Everything
Speaker 1: seemed new, life seemed fa fascinating, and future possibilities opened
Speaker 1: up in my mind, you know, all of this really
Speaker 1: amazing stuff. It was just an incredibly profound and meaningful moment.
Speaker 1: But more than anything, I was wondering what the hell
Speaker 1: just happened to me? That was the dominant thought. And
Speaker 1: you know, I wondered, am I going crazy? Because I
Speaker 1: had never heard about this experience. I'd never at that
Speaker 1: point heard anyone talk about this kind of experience. I'd
Speaker 1: never even read about it, and that launched me on
Speaker 1: a several year journey of reading as much as I
Speaker 1: possibly could about this topic, from religious studies, philosophy, neuroscience, psychology,
Speaker 1: and really I'm still reading, you know, I'm still at it.
Speaker 1: I'm very much still reading about this six experience is
Speaker 1: just now I'm also doing research on it myself. And
Speaker 1: what I found is that I'm not alone. You know,
Speaker 1: a lot of people have these experiences. Like I was
Speaker 1: saying before, you know, probably about a third of your
Speaker 1: listeners will will say I've had something along those lines.
Speaker 1: You know, that's what the Gallup polls suggest. You know,
Speaker 1: William James and Maslow have written books where they included
Speaker 1: dozens and dozens of accounts of people having these experiences.
Speaker 1: So that was incredibly comforting for me to know that
Speaker 1: I wasn't alone. And that's one message I think that
Speaker 1: I really want to get out there, is that if
Speaker 1: you've had one of these experiences, you're not alone, You're
Speaker 1: not going crazy. That these experiences are actually pretty prevalent
Speaker 1: and usually associated with very positive outcomes. Yeah, so important
Speaker 1: to emphasize that, and I think your story illustrates that.
Speaker 1: And I'm just struck by the similarities between the description
Speaker 1: of your experience and when Catherine McLean. Katherine McLean was
Speaker 1: on my podcast. The name of that episode, if people
Speaker 1: want to see it, is, or I guess hear it
Speaker 1: is open wide and say awe with Katherine McLean listen
Speaker 1: to that. Yeah, I think that's also the title of
Speaker 1: a ted X talk she gave, but that's the title
Speaker 1: of our podcast chat as well, and she there's such
Speaker 1: a similarity there in the description of the experience, and
Speaker 1: it is such a personally, such a personal thing. So,
Speaker 1: first of all, thank you for being vulnerable enough to
Speaker 1: tell that story. I get that, and I understand why
Speaker 1: you might have some hesitation about telling that story to
Speaker 1: too many scientists. But you have to understand that scientists
Speaker 1: aren't the only ones in this world. You know, we
Speaker 1: have lots of people listening to this podcast that are
Speaker 1: just everyday human beings that that you know, that that
Speaker 1: might be terrified by a sort of experience they may have.
Speaker 1: They just can't comprehend it or understand it, and it
Speaker 1: might be very comforting for them to hear someone else
Speaker 1: who's gone through it and can say that it's okay. Like,
Speaker 1: first of all, you're not crazy. And I think that's
Speaker 1: a big thing, is just in itself saying it doesn't
Speaker 1: mean that you're crazy. You know, would the DSM at
Speaker 1: any point of the history of the DSM have classified
Speaker 1: this kind of experience as a mental illness? Yeah, you know,
Speaker 1: I think there's still some of this sort of Freudian
Speaker 1: hangover suspiciousness about these kinds of experiences. There is a
Speaker 1: category in the DSM called dissociative experiences, and this is
Speaker 1: a very broad category, and really any kind of mental
Speaker 1: state that intrudes onto conscious this and is in any
Speaker 1: way strange and produces feelings, suffering and dysfunction for people
Speaker 1: can fall under this category. And so you know, it's
Speaker 1: important to note that not all altered states of consciousness
Speaker 1: are positive or beneficial, and dissociative experiences and self transcendent
Speaker 1: experiences require more theoretical empirical work to differentiate them, I think.
Speaker 1: But the biggest differentiator is if you're suffering or feeling dysfunction.
Speaker 1: And I should say that if you do have one
Speaker 1: of these experiences, or any kind of experience that causes
Speaker 1: substantial suffering and dysfunction, then the best thing you can
Speaker 1: do is to reach out to a mental health professional
Speaker 1: and to talk about this experience and what might be
Speaker 1: going on. Are there going to be psycho counselors at
Speaker 1: some point? Like are there the psychotherapists who specialize in this?
Speaker 1: I think that there are starting to be, you know,
Speaker 1: JOHNS Hopkins has a number of individuals who have various
Speaker 1: degrees of clinical training helping people to undergo psychedelic experiences
Speaker 1: and to process the experience and to explain it to
Speaker 1: them beforehand. But it's also pioneering at this point, and
Speaker 1: so I don't think it's been systematized the way that
Speaker 1: it will be and will need to be going forward.
Speaker 1: And so I hope to play a role in helping
Speaker 1: to create a more systematic approach to what people might
Speaker 1: expect from these experiences and how they can best integrate
Speaker 1: them into their lives. And I do think you're you're
Speaker 1: interested in how to trigger them. I think think you
Speaker 1: sold yourself short there earlier in our conversation when you
Speaker 1: said you're not you don't bother yourself that much with
Speaker 1: the practical applications because you've you've you've put a virtual
Speaker 1: reality headset on me and had me go fly into
Speaker 1: space and it transformed me. So I think that you know,
Speaker 1: you are interested in the intervention aspect of it, right,
Speaker 1: I think you're right. I think I think I'm fascinated,
Speaker 1: particularly with what's happening with psychedelic research. But you know,
Speaker 1: my main interest with that VR study was to just
Speaker 1: model it in the lab to understand it better tell
Speaker 1: us about the study. I mean, not everyone has read it.
Speaker 1: Who's listening to this podcast? Yeah, well so so this
Speaker 1: in this study, we we had people come into our
Speaker 1: virtual reality lab at the University of Pennsylvania and put
Speaker 1: on a headset. And what you would see when you
Speaker 1: put the headset on is that you'd be floating over
Speaker 1: the building that the research study was actually being conducted in,
Speaker 1: and then you would slowly zoom out so that you
Speaker 1: could see you know, the city block, then all of Philadelphia,
Speaker 1: than the state, than the country, than the whole world,
Speaker 1: and you would be you know, in orbit looking looking
Speaker 1: at Earth. And we did get people to say uh
Speaker 1: awe to open up and say ah, you know you
Speaker 1: see their jaw literally drop, and people would say things
Speaker 1: like wow, and and it it is onspiring and virtual
Speaker 1: reality research, I think is fascinating. And you know, Facebook
Speaker 1: has bought oculus. So I think that all of us
Speaker 1: will be experiencing a lot more virtual reality in the
Speaker 1: decades to come, which will be interesting. But you know,
Speaker 1: notably that that study didn't work. I mean, it induced awe,
Speaker 1: but it didn't significantly increase well being or pro social behavior.
Speaker 1: And so I'm I'm very skeptical of very subtle, small
Speaker 1: interventions and their capacity to have a real impact on
Speaker 1: people's lives. But didn't. Churichio Alice Churchio's work shown more
Speaker 1: positive effects of virtual reality on creativity and stuff. Yeah, yeah,
Speaker 1: she has shown some stuff on creativity, which I think
Speaker 1: is interesting. Yeah, I mean I think that there these
Speaker 1: are interesting areas and and you know, some people get
Speaker 1: effects using on inspiring videos that didn't work for me
Speaker 1: as well, So so basic. I think my work at
Speaker 1: the University of Pennsylvania was useful in terms of the
Speaker 1: work that I did in terms of measurement. But what
Speaker 1: I'm really excited about now moving to JOHNS Hopkins, is
Speaker 1: the capacity to study intense interventions, not not subtle interventions,
Speaker 1: not you know, not watching five or ten minutes of
Speaker 1: an on inspiring YouTube clip or or even or even
Speaker 1: putting on VR goggles, but to have a truly transformative
Speaker 1: experience on the couch in the lab, you know, that's
Speaker 1: that's just groundbreaking. I think to study self transcendent experience,
Speaker 1: I agree, and I think that that would that's a great,
Speaker 1: an important line of research. So let's just conclude here
Speaker 1: with your interest in the psychology of philosophy, this is
Speaker 1: an area that you're you ventured into. Can you tell
Speaker 1: us a little bit about that. Yeah, So, you know,
Speaker 1: there's this movement in psychology to do work on samples
Speaker 1: beyond just college undergraduates or m turk. You know, this
Speaker 1: common way that researchers gather data. And so I've gathered
Speaker 1: a couple of interesting samples, one from the Hadza, which
Speaker 1: is a hunter gatherer tribe in Tanzania that my colleague
Speaker 1: Chris Smith gathered there whether they've had experience self transcendent experiences.
Speaker 1: And the other group is professors of philosophy. And so
Speaker 1: I was interested in how many of these individuals have
Speaker 1: had self transcendent experiences. We measured a whole lot of
Speaker 1: other psychological traits like personality and well being for example,
Speaker 1: and numeracy, and to see how those psychological numeracy, how
Speaker 1: interested you are in numbers, so how comfortable you are
Speaker 1: dividing fractions? And when you read an article, do you
Speaker 1: look at the data or do you just read the words?
Speaker 1: And so then we looked at how those psychological traits
Speaker 1: on the one hand impact their philosophical views on the
Speaker 1: other to see if there are any correlations between those things,
Speaker 1: and one of the strongest that we found was less
Speaker 1: well being associated with not believing in free will. So
Speaker 1: if you don't believe in free will, you have less
Speaker 1: well being. That was one of our stronger findings. We
Speaker 1: found a substantial number of philosophers report having had a
Speaker 1: transformative experience self transcendent experience, and about one out of
Speaker 1: every four philosophers is taken a psychedelic substance. Well, I'm
Speaker 1: not surprised with that, but do you found that using
Speaker 1: substances such as psychedelics and marijuana predict non realist and
Speaker 1: subjectivist subjectivist views of morality anesthetics? What does that even mean?
Speaker 1: What does that mean? Well, so an objectivist view would
Speaker 1: be that there is some fact of the matter. So
Speaker 1: whether a particular piece of artwork, for example, is beautiful
Speaker 1: or not, is that's just true? It's a universal truth.
Speaker 1: It's true for all humans, and it didn't be true
Speaker 1: even if human beings no human beings existed. Whereas a
Speaker 1: subjective aesthetics is the idea that what is beautiful changes
Speaker 1: between people and across cultures. Okay, so your findings translating
Speaker 1: this into everyday language, your findings found, findings found. Your
Speaker 1: findings showed that philosophy professors who do marijuana or psychedelics
Speaker 1: are more likely to have a very flexible view of morality,
Speaker 1: an aesthetics, and aesthetics. Because you also found that in
Speaker 1: morality in the morality to mean right, so that means
Speaker 1: like subjective, like subjectives view of morality. That sounds like
Speaker 1: the Joker has a subjectivist view of morality. Yeah. I
Speaker 1: don't think that believing that we make that we construct
Speaker 1: moral views, and that we don't receive them from some
Speaker 1: divine plan or or from some part of reality that's
Speaker 1: already constructed in terms of morality, I don't think that
Speaker 1: that means all of a sudden you go out and
Speaker 1: become an immoral person. I don't think. Yeah, but well,
Speaker 1: the philosopher Laurie Paul had a really good point about
Speaker 1: these issues, where if you understand that your state of
Speaker 1: consciousness is flexible, and you see that demonstrated by using
Speaker 1: a particular substance, then I think it's it's easier to
Speaker 1: make the imaginative leap that different people see things differently.
Speaker 1: So to put it in simple terms, my wife had
Speaker 1: had a great metaphor where she's like, when you're on
Speaker 1: a drug, if you see that house plant and it
Speaker 1: looks like the most beautiful thing ever, and then the
Speaker 1: next day, when you're not on the drug, it just
Speaker 1: looks normal, then then you've personally demonstrated to yourself that
Speaker 1: beauty is to some extent malleable according to your mental state. Yeah. No,
Speaker 1: I love that. And does that Is that at odds
Speaker 1: with the belief that there are evolutionary psychology principles of
Speaker 1: certain modules that we evolved over the course of human evolution,
Speaker 1: that we all have certain moral intuitions that we that
Speaker 1: we share. Would that be an objectivist account? Can you
Speaker 1: have a subjectivist account and still believe that there are
Speaker 1: evolutionary principles at play here that it's not all completely subjective?
Speaker 1: I don't know, is my questch Does my question even
Speaker 1: make sense? Well, let's see, I think most people who
Speaker 1: think that our moral and aesthetic faculties evolved to fit
Speaker 1: with a particular environment. Would would usually be subjectivists about
Speaker 1: aesthetics and morality, but not necessarily, because you could imagine
Speaker 1: that our capacity to sense aesthetic and moral truths is
Speaker 1: actually tracking something in the real world. You know, that
Speaker 1: we've evolved to be able to detect something that is
Speaker 1: objectively true, in this case, what's right and what's beautiful. Okay,
Speaker 1: So that's great. I think that's really cool that you're
Speaker 1: trying to to integrate these these fields and we'll get
Speaker 1: even individual differences in traits that might predict different views
Speaker 1: within a completely different field than psychology, not completely different. Yeah,
Speaker 1: well I'm learning a lot. You know. I wanted to
Speaker 1: learn about contempt issues in contemporary analytic philosophy, and my
Speaker 1: guide through this was my childhood friend who's a philosophy professor,
Speaker 1: Derek Anderson. You know, he sort of was my tutor
Speaker 1: in helping to understand what each of these views mean,
Speaker 1: and we conducted this study together. Well, you have a
Speaker 1: lot of great collaborators, which is a testament to you
Speaker 1: and your integrity and the thought that you put into
Speaker 1: your work and care that you put into your science. David.
Speaker 1: It was a real pleasure talking you today, and I'm
Speaker 1: really excited to get your research out there to a
Speaker 1: large audience because it really is important and I think
Speaker 1: a lot of people will benefit from it. Thank you,
Speaker 1: and you do such a great job of communicating this
Speaker 1: complicated stuff. It's an honor to be here. So thanks Scott,
Speaker 1: Thanks David, Thanks for listening to this episode of the
Speaker 1: Psychology Podcast. If you'd like to react in some way
Speaker 1: to something you heard, I encourage you to join in
Speaker 1: the discussion at the Psychology podcast dot com. That's the
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Speaker 1: the mind, brain, behavior, and creativity.