Speaker 1: Welcome Stuff to Blow your Mind, a production of I
Speaker 1: Heart Radios How Stuff Works. Hey, you welcome to Stuff
Speaker 1: to Blow your Mind. My name is Robert Lamb and
Speaker 1: I'm Joe McCormick, and stay. I wanted to start with
Speaker 1: one of those great naval gazers. Are you ready? Let's
Speaker 1: do it? Okay? So the question is we know how
Speaker 1: to describe what we see when we look at things.
Speaker 1: You know, you can look at the room you're in
Speaker 1: right now and write down the features, or you can
Speaker 1: try to describe a great landscape that you remember from
Speaker 1: some trip you took. But when somebody asks you to
Speaker 1: look inside yourself, how do you begin to describe what
Speaker 1: you see in your own mind? I mean, in a way,
Speaker 1: you are forced to resort to metaphors. You know, we
Speaker 1: talked about this a lot. They are like concrete metaphors
Speaker 1: for abstract mental properties. And so maybe you think of
Speaker 1: your mind if you you try to examine it as
Speaker 1: something like a uh, you know, like a castle or building,
Speaker 1: a solid landscape you can walk through that has features
Speaker 1: you could describe, or maybe you think about it like
Speaker 1: a weather pattern that's constantly transient and changing, or maybe
Speaker 1: you can't really think of it in in comparison to
Speaker 1: any physical object at all, in which case, how would
Speaker 1: you ever even be able to describe what you're looking at?
Speaker 1: And how different of a person would you be if
Speaker 1: you had the tools to see more clearly what's inside
Speaker 1: your own mind? Well, even in this we're using terms
Speaker 1: of about about seeing in visualization and uh. And certainly
Speaker 1: I think a lot of us fall back on cinematic
Speaker 1: interpretations of the inner mind states and you know, identity
Speaker 1: and who we are. But but there's you know, there's
Speaker 1: more going on there. Like I I sometimes when I'm
Speaker 1: more self conscious of what stays going to stay is
Speaker 1: going on in my you know, default mode network, it
Speaker 1: it won't even be visual Like my visual world will
Speaker 1: be just wrapped up in whatever I doing, say driving
Speaker 1: down the road. But it's uh, it's this non visual
Speaker 1: world that is wrapped up in like voices of the
Speaker 1: past and perceived you know, possible future. Would you like
Speaker 1: to think about death and about all the ways in
Speaker 1: which you have failed? Yeah, exactly that sort of thing,
Speaker 1: you know, and that and they may be flashes of
Speaker 1: visualizations in there, but but but often not, at least
Speaker 1: in my case. Uh. And of course in all the
Speaker 1: things concerning the the inner mind. This is going to
Speaker 1: change from individual to individual. Yeah, totally. And so today
Speaker 1: we are embarking on a multi part episode series that
Speaker 1: we're gonna be doing here on stuff to blow your mind,
Speaker 1: looking at the general topic of psychedelics and most specifically,
Speaker 1: I think, with it with a strong focus on the
Speaker 1: fungal domain there on, on psilocybin, mushrooms and related species
Speaker 1: and compounds. Yeah. Yeah, not only about you know, to
Speaker 1: our point earlier, not only about what they seem to
Speaker 1: change in human perception and cognition, but what they reveal
Speaker 1: about human perception and cognition, how they factor into our past,
Speaker 1: how they factor into our present, and how they may
Speaker 1: well factor into our future. Yeah, that's right now. I
Speaker 1: think maybe one thing that has pushed us in this
Speaker 1: direction is some books we've been reading recently, So maybe
Speaker 1: we should mention them at the top. I know we've
Speaker 1: both been reading, uh, Michael Pollen's most recent book, How
Speaker 1: to Change Your Mind, which is all about psychedelics and
Speaker 1: about uh, you know, the concept of spirituality and mental
Speaker 1: life and why this is so elucidated by and associated
Speaker 1: with psychedelic compounds. Right, and it is just an excellent book.
Speaker 1: You know, It's gotten rave reviews for for for excellent reasons.
Speaker 1: It's it's one of these where you can pick it
Speaker 1: up without knowing anything really about psychedelic culture or you know,
Speaker 1: or the you know, the nineteen sixties, or or or
Speaker 1: botany and ethnobotany. You know, you don't really have to
Speaker 1: have a background in any of these things. And Pollen,
Speaker 1: as with his other major works, and it just really
Speaker 1: walks you through. It adds in personal experiences and is
Speaker 1: very much approaching it as an older individual who did
Speaker 1: not have a lot of experiences with psychedelic substances. And
Speaker 1: I think that's a very interesting and appropriate treatment because
Speaker 1: a lot of what I've at least learned recently about
Speaker 1: psychedelics makes it seem like psychedelics maybe of much greater
Speaker 1: use and a much greater interest actually to older, more
Speaker 1: mature people dealing with thoughts of life and death and
Speaker 1: the meaning of life and all that than as say,
Speaker 1: as it is often presented as sort of a party
Speaker 1: drug to you know, experience by teenagers. Right, yeah, I
Speaker 1: think I can't remember it was Paulin said this, or
Speaker 1: who's quoting somebody else? Is saying that psychedelics are are
Speaker 1: wasted on the young. It might have been Carl Young.
Speaker 1: Was it Carl Young that said? Okay, maybe Paulin was
Speaker 1: counting with quoting Young on that, but but yeah, I
Speaker 1: can see there being an argument to that to a
Speaker 1: certain extent. However, that's not to discount the possible benefits
Speaker 1: to younger individuals as well. Um, but we'll get into
Speaker 1: all that as we proceed. Well, I just think it
Speaker 1: seems very plausible to me that it's actually much more
Speaker 1: useful in general for older people to be given tools
Speaker 1: to when they're doing that mental introspection, you know, looking
Speaker 1: through the window into their own mind, to have the
Speaker 1: tools to see more clearly what's inside and to go
Speaker 1: in and move the furniture around right, or to sort
Speaker 1: of knock the barnacles off the hull of the ship,
Speaker 1: because that's that's one way of looking at it is
Speaker 1: just the the younger vessel may have fewer barnacles or
Speaker 1: or or at least for a lot of people, when
Speaker 1: you were younger, perhaps you were fortunate enough, privileged enough
Speaker 1: to not have that many psychic barnacles that need to
Speaker 1: be dislodged, or could conceivably be dislodged, etcetera. Yeah. Uh, though,
Speaker 1: despite everything we're saying right now, I also want to
Speaker 1: make clear that our approach over these following episodes is
Speaker 1: going to be mainly a sort of like descriptive and
Speaker 1: and analytical discussion, not one where we are advocating any
Speaker 1: sort of personal course of action. So we're not going
Speaker 1: to tell you to take psychedelics. We're not going to
Speaker 1: tell you not to take psychedelics. That that's not our goal. Instead,
Speaker 1: we want to talk about what they can do and
Speaker 1: what they mean. Right. But in addition to mentioning Poullen's book,
Speaker 1: another important book that I haven't read but that you
Speaker 1: have and I've read about is a book by Terrence
Speaker 1: McKenna that I know you've been enjoying greatly, which I
Speaker 1: think is out in uh maybe is uh you might say,
Speaker 1: on less solid footing or a little squishy or territory,
Speaker 1: but it's also very interesting. Well. Yeah, one thing about
Speaker 1: about Fit of the Gods. First of all, it's book,
Speaker 1: so a lot of time has passed since it came out.
Speaker 1: And then also it is it is kind of a mixture,
Speaker 1: you know, so McKenna, you know brings his background and ethnobotany, ecology,
Speaker 1: and an understanding of shamanism uh into this uh this book,
Speaker 1: and he's ultimately making a rather grand hypothesis that that
Speaker 1: I'll talk about here in a bit. But yeah, I
Speaker 1: feel like with With the Food of the Gods, one
Speaker 1: has to be a little bit choosy and what what
Speaker 1: you really like grab onto, But but he has a
Speaker 1: lot of very interesting things to say, some wonderful insight
Speaker 1: that still stands up to this day. But it is
Speaker 1: a book I think needs to be appreciated alongside aside
Speaker 1: other sources, especially today. Well yeah, I mean, I think,
Speaker 1: especially in the kind of perspective we tend to present
Speaker 1: on the show, I feel like there's a lot of
Speaker 1: great literature in the realm of psychedelia that falls into
Speaker 1: this category where it's stuff written by people who are
Speaker 1: genuine experts, who you know, really do know what they're
Speaker 1: talking about in the realm of psych psychedelic compounds, the chemistry,
Speaker 1: the botany, the cultural practices and all of that, and
Speaker 1: have great things to say on those subjects, but then
Speaker 1: also tend to be prone, I would say, much more
Speaker 1: often than people in other subject domains to kind of
Speaker 1: get out into highly speculative and even seemingly supernatural territory. Right,
Speaker 1: So you have that tendency, but also just the you know,
Speaker 1: the post nineteen sixties taboo aspect of the subject, where
Speaker 1: for for as we'll discuss, for decades, uh, it was
Speaker 1: not something that was in an accepted area of study.
Speaker 1: It was left to the fringes and the counterculture, and
Speaker 1: so there was a lot of baggage. Are you know
Speaker 1: the both of those those things can sort of hurt
Speaker 1: in individuals work in this area. But another sort of
Speaker 1: compelling inspiration for these episodes is of when I attended
Speaker 1: the recent World Science Festival in New York. There was
Speaker 1: a panel on psychedelics as well. Oh yeah, when eduard O.
Speaker 1: Cone was on. Yes, Cohne was on here. This is
Speaker 1: where I learned about him and his work, plus a
Speaker 1: few other individuals that will discuss as we proceed. So
Speaker 1: obviously we've covered psychedelics and stuff to bliw your mind
Speaker 1: numerous times in the past, discussing LSD, SO cybin as
Speaker 1: well as such counterculture figures as tom As, Timothy Leary,
Speaker 1: and John C. Lily, And we've we've been meaning to
Speaker 1: come back to psychedelics for a deeper die for a while.
Speaker 1: But one of the real reasons that we're reaching back
Speaker 1: into the subject right now is that we are living
Speaker 1: in a very exciting time as far as these substances
Speaker 1: are concerned, because in research terms, in research terms, yeah,
Speaker 1: because basically, these are substances that modern Western medicine explored
Speaker 1: for a brief time in the mid twentie cent tree
Speaker 1: and then and then, and when they were looking at them, um,
Speaker 1: they were encountering many promising results indicating how they might
Speaker 1: be used to treat addiction, address psychological problems, and even
Speaker 1: unlock a better understanding of the human mind. But due
Speaker 1: to political and societal pressures, uh, they were all in
Speaker 1: turn declared illegal substances Schedule one drugs in the United States.
Speaker 1: I think it was psilocybin. I think was made illegal
Speaker 1: in the United States in nineteen sixty eight, and then
Speaker 1: made a Schedule one substance in I think nineteen seventy. Yeah,
Speaker 1: I believe that that was the timeline. And uh, and
Speaker 1: of course this also in in you know, involved LSD
Speaker 1: and various other substances. But basically the result was that
Speaker 1: decades of potential explora floration were lost when modern science
Speaker 1: had scarcely explored, you know, more than what ancient people's
Speaker 1: understood about the substances involved, or you know, to a
Speaker 1: certain extent, understood them less well, uh compared to ancient societies. So,
Speaker 1: I mean we're talking three plus decades during which these
Speaker 1: powerful substances were purely the domains of counterculture and illegal
Speaker 1: activity in the West. You know, no nobody was studying
Speaker 1: so well, there was some study, but it was sort
Speaker 1: of driven underground or not taken very seriously in the
Speaker 1: academic community, right. It was it was considered like risky
Speaker 1: to propose, say a psilocybin study for a while. Yeah,
Speaker 1: like if you're a pharmacologist, psychopharmacologists pursuing uh, psilocybin, it
Speaker 1: could be a bad career move, right yeah. I mean,
Speaker 1: so it was almost treated as if all of these
Speaker 1: substances were dead ends, as if you know, would reach
Speaker 1: the point where it was like, oh, well, this is
Speaker 1: a this is just a poison that you know, for
Speaker 1: that that some people are going to dangerously use for
Speaker 1: recreational purposes, which you know, as as will explore, is
Speaker 1: wrong in two ways, Like it's wrong in the historical
Speaker 1: context when you see how substances like this have been
Speaker 1: used for thousands of years and it's wrong on the
Speaker 1: medical research front. Yeah, I mean one of the funny
Speaker 1: things is, given our view of the very like square
Speaker 1: buttoned up nineteen fifties, the nineteen fifties were relatively a
Speaker 1: time of uh, you know, abundant research and permissiveness exploring
Speaker 1: these topics. So yeah, there were some decades there, some
Speaker 1: some pretty dry decades as far as psychedelic research was concerned.
Speaker 1: But as we emerged from the nineteen nineties, the culture
Speaker 1: began to shift and we began to see new experimentation
Speaker 1: into how especially psilocybin could be used to treat specific conditions.
Speaker 1: And you know, this is what we've covered in the
Speaker 1: past on the show and what you've you've heard covered
Speaker 1: a lot elsewhere. You know, the studies here and there
Speaker 1: that reveal new potential and perhaps point the way for
Speaker 1: greater and renewed study and even decriminalization at least for
Speaker 1: clinical uses, you know, in study and studies if nothing else.
Speaker 1: And so as Michael Pollen points out and how to
Speaker 1: Change your Mind, you know, we're living in a true
Speaker 1: renaissance of psychedelic study. And I don't think that's you know,
Speaker 1: an overstatement to say that. I think, especially since around
Speaker 1: the year two thousand six when there was a big
Speaker 1: seminal research paper out about psilocybin that we will talk
Speaker 1: about in detail in a later episode in the series. Right,
Speaker 1: And I'm not and I'm not referring to say, like
Speaker 1: what Colorado efforts in Colorado to decriminalize them for you know,
Speaker 1: perhaps with with recreational usage in mind. Uh, you know,
Speaker 1: I'm talking about like clinical uses. The potential benefits here
Speaker 1: are profound, and if the trends of you know, continue here,
Speaker 1: you know, modern medical science has a has a lot
Speaker 1: to gain from it. You know, it's it's it's frustrating
Speaker 1: to to think about those decades in which you know,
Speaker 1: less was being done with them. But but you know,
Speaker 1: we could have easily remained in kind of a dark
Speaker 1: age and had several more decades in which these substances
Speaker 1: of not being studied. So it's a remarkable time really.
Speaker 1: All Right, Well, I think before we dive into especially
Speaker 1: psilocybin the psychedelics in general, maybe we should do a
Speaker 1: little foundation work because I know one thing that you
Speaker 1: were talking to me about that Terence mckennag gets into
Speaker 1: a good bit and in his work is the idea
Speaker 1: of like what is a drug? What are drug and
Speaker 1: what do people see as drugs? Yeah, yeah, he he
Speaker 1: had a lot of great thoughts on this, on this
Speaker 1: matter that I think I really good sort of disrupting
Speaker 1: the sort of like mental concrete that ends up getting
Speaker 1: embedded in our head regarding the different substances that we
Speaker 1: take into our body. So yeah, let's I think we
Speaker 1: should talk about like what a drug is, because, for instance,
Speaker 1: if you look at just a basics, say Webster's definition,
Speaker 1: a drug is a medicine or other substance which has
Speaker 1: a physiological effect when ingested or otherwise introduced into the body.
Speaker 1: Now how this certainly applies to say cocaine or ibuprofen.
Speaker 1: It also applies to coffee and alcohol. It applies to melotonin,
Speaker 1: herbal supplements, chocolate, tea, wheat, grass shots, camerameal, sugar, licorice, oatmeal,
Speaker 1: you name it. Yeah, we were talking the other day,
Speaker 1: I know about it. Was it was it melotonin supplements.
Speaker 1: You were looking at that? Oh no, I heard uh
Speaker 1: an ad on the radio for them. Yeah that we're
Speaker 1: calling them drug free and all these drugs people take
Speaker 1: that advertise themselves a drug free, which I think is
Speaker 1: just I'm not sure what people mean by that. I
Speaker 1: think they mean maybe like not containing synthetically or lab
Speaker 1: isolated chemicals that you can't pronounce the names of. Yeah,
Speaker 1: it's you know, all natural or something. Well. Yeah, it's
Speaker 1: weird how we we use the term drug to sort
Speaker 1: of refer to things that are either in the domain
Speaker 1: of the illegal is in like the War on drugs,
Speaker 1: or something that is in the domain of medical professionals. Yeah,
Speaker 1: maybe something that requires a prescription is produced by the
Speaker 1: pharmaceutical industry. Yeah, but yeah, I don't see any reason
Speaker 1: why these all natural substances are not drugs. They certainly
Speaker 1: are drugs. I mean, I'm doing drugs right now. I've
Speaker 1: got my coffee cup next to me, And the whole
Speaker 1: drug free thing kind of reminds me of like the
Speaker 1: people who say I don't put any chemicals in my body.
Speaker 1: I know what they're talking about, Like they you know,
Speaker 1: they want to eat sort of like all natural whole foods.
Speaker 1: You know, I I'll eat an apple. I'm not going
Speaker 1: to eat an apple bar that was made in a
Speaker 1: factory and has all these chemical ingredients listed that I
Speaker 1: can't renounce. You know, I don't know what that stuff is,
Speaker 1: so I mean I understand that. And of course you know,
Speaker 1: there there are some reasons that you might in truth
Speaker 1: want to avoid certain kinds of industrial food additives. But
Speaker 1: the whole idea that you don't put any chemicals in
Speaker 1: your body is ridiculous. Yeah, And and of course we're
Speaker 1: not arguing that one should put everything into your body
Speaker 1: by any means that you know. And ultimately we all
Speaker 1: have to draw lines in the sand concerning the sort
Speaker 1: of thing and those those lines may you know, not
Speaker 1: make you know, a whole lot of sense if you
Speaker 1: really analyze them. But I think one of the important
Speaker 1: things is to be able to realize where we're drawing
Speaker 1: the line in the sand, and where that line is
Speaker 1: being drawn for us by you know, other other parties
Speaker 1: in society. But anyway, this is one of the the
Speaker 1: the ideas that Terence McKenna discusses and Food of the Gods,
Speaker 1: and I think before we go any any further, I
Speaker 1: should just go ahead and like summarize like what this
Speaker 1: book is about. It's kind of about a lot of things,
Speaker 1: but but ultimately he has this central hypothesis that he's pushing. Um.
Speaker 1: You know, he makes a passionate case for not only
Speaker 1: humanities connection with psychedelic substances and the promise of their power,
Speaker 1: but also with the notion that they played a role
Speaker 1: in the emergence of consciousness. Yeah. Well, and sort of
Speaker 1: like in language and and human intellectual abilities, right right, right,
Speaker 1: UM's self reflection and language in particular. And Michael Paulan
Speaker 1: actually mentions it in his book as well. He refers
Speaker 1: to it as quote the epitome of all mico centric speculation. Right. Uh.
Speaker 1: And really, you do encounter some people in this world
Speaker 1: who maybe their enthusiasm for for psilocybin and the effects
Speaker 1: of these psychoactive mushrooms or psychedelic mushrooms. Uh, you get
Speaker 1: the sense that they have had such positive experiences with
Speaker 1: them that it drives them to think about, you know,
Speaker 1: mushrooms as a sort of like center of everything good
Speaker 1: and holy in the world. I mean, in a way
Speaker 1: that might be unfair. Maybe that's over psychologizing their their
Speaker 1: hypotheses and points of view. But like for example, the
Speaker 1: mycologist Pulse s Dame It's or Stammits who comes up
Speaker 1: in Michael Pollan's book, who we've talked about on the
Speaker 1: show before. I think we talked about him in our
Speaker 1: Dune episode because I think he was friends with Frank Herbert. Yes,
Speaker 1: I believe so. But you know, he's got a very
Speaker 1: like mushrooms centric view of the world, where in a
Speaker 1: way sort of mushrooms rule everything, and that the mushrooms
Speaker 1: are like trying to communicate with us through these compounds
Speaker 1: and all that, and mckennic kind of falls in this
Speaker 1: category to he sort of like sees the mushroom regime
Speaker 1: everywhere on Earth. Yeah, I think that's that's undeniable. At
Speaker 1: the same time, I mean, he does make a very mean,
Speaker 1: in a very robust case in this book. Again books,
Speaker 1: so you know, a lot has happened since then. But
Speaker 1: but as Michael Pollan also points out, you know, it's
Speaker 1: ultimately not something that's not really susceptible to proof or disproof,
Speaker 1: and ultimately McKinnon never really fills in the blanks on
Speaker 1: how this would have actually affected biological evolution, right, So
Speaker 1: you probably can't put a lot of stock in his
Speaker 1: hypothesis being correct barring some other evidence that we're not
Speaker 1: aware or yet. But basically you know, his idea is that, like, well,
Speaker 1: humanity owes its mental and cognitive capacities to mushrooms because,
Speaker 1: for example, I know, one of the arguments he adduces
Speaker 1: is that because psilocybin, mushrooms caused the experience of synesthesia,
Speaker 1: you know, the cross pollination of senses, so like colors
Speaker 1: have sounds or or music has colors or whatever. You know, uh,
Speaker 1: sounds have a taste or something. That this led to
Speaker 1: the creation of language, because the language is a sort
Speaker 1: of cross pollination between the idea of a sound and
Speaker 1: the idea of a concept. And so this kind of
Speaker 1: like uh, a mental boundary crossing that wouldn't have been
Speaker 1: useful in animals, uh, suddenly is spurred by ingestion of
Speaker 1: psychedelic substances in this case, I think psilocybin, and then
Speaker 1: that leads to humans creating language. Again, I don't know
Speaker 1: what the direct evidence for this would be. It's it's
Speaker 1: like an interesting speculation, but I don't know how you
Speaker 1: would prove it, right, Yeah, I think it. Ultimately you
Speaker 1: would not be able to prove it or really disprove it,
Speaker 1: and which makes it, I guess, kind of a safe
Speaker 1: hypothesis in that regard, but also a hypothesis that will
Speaker 1: probably never evolve beyond the hypothesis level. Yeah, this is
Speaker 1: kind of stuck at the interesting speculation station. Yeah, and
Speaker 1: it is interesting speculation. But anyway, I just want to
Speaker 1: go ahead and describe what that is because I feel
Speaker 1: like with McKinnes, especially depending on what you know about
Speaker 1: him and his work, you might enter into it thinking
Speaker 1: only about same machine elves and the time wave zero
Speaker 1: and some of the the you know, the fringier things
Speaker 1: that he discussed, the thing and you know, his discussion
Speaker 1: two of things that he saw saying on d MT.
Speaker 1: But but on the other hand, you know, he was
Speaker 1: that was an accomplished ethnobotanist, and when he was talking
Speaker 1: about about mushrooms, he certainly knew what he was talking about.
Speaker 1: And uh, and he also just had a lot of
Speaker 1: wonderful insight into just what was culturally going on and
Speaker 1: had been going on at this point in time, especially
Speaker 1: in the United States, concerning the separate of drugs. So
Speaker 1: he points out that drug is a you know, is
Speaker 1: at times an amorphous term that we used to apply
Speaker 1: to certain substances, you know, especially if we want to
Speaker 1: demonize one substance or elevate another exclusively to the domain
Speaker 1: and control of medical professionals. But he writes this quote,
Speaker 1: eating a plant or an animal is a way of
Speaker 1: claiming its power, a way of assimilating its magic to
Speaker 1: one's self. In the minds of preliterate people, the lines
Speaker 1: between drugs, foods, and spices are rarely clearly drawn. The
Speaker 1: shaman who gorges himself on chili peppers to raise inner
Speaker 1: heat is hardly in a less altered state than the
Speaker 1: nitrous oxide enthusiast after a long inhalation. In our perception
Speaker 1: of flavor, in our pursuit of variety, in the sensation
Speaker 1: of eating, we are markedly different from even our primate cousins.
Speaker 1: Somewhere along the line, our new omnivorous eating habits and
Speaker 1: our evolving brain, with its capacity to process sensory data,
Speaker 1: were united in the happy no shin that food can
Speaker 1: be experienced. Gastronomy was born, born to join pharmacology, which
Speaker 1: must surely have preceded it, since maintenance of health through
Speaker 1: regulation of diet is seen among many animals. That offers
Speaker 1: you a little bit of a glimpse that you know.
Speaker 1: McKenna has a fantastic way with words, and I think
Speaker 1: he's also a fantastic public speaker. If you've ever seen
Speaker 1: videos of him giving hists, you know which are you know,
Speaker 1: he's one of those people who I think is able
Speaker 1: to put things in a way that's captivating that maybe
Speaker 1: makes the ideas uh shine as if they have more
Speaker 1: merit than they would have put in a less captivating
Speaker 1: way by another speaker. Yeah, yeah, absolutely, And you know
Speaker 1: he's certainly there's a little bit of shamanistic flavor at
Speaker 1: the beginning of that passage. But I think what he's
Speaker 1: saying here, we can we can all really agree with.
Speaker 1: I mean, we are what we eat in so many
Speaker 1: many ways. You know, we're continually rebuilding our ephemeral bodies
Speaker 1: out of the materials we consume, the chemicals and the nutrients.
Speaker 1: And Kennal also said, quote the strategy of early hominid
Speaker 1: omnivores was to eat everything that seemed food like in
Speaker 1: to vomit whatever was unpalatable. Plants, insects, and small animals
Speaker 1: found edible by this method were then inculcated into their diet.
Speaker 1: I mean, that's certainly I see that in other animals.
Speaker 1: You know, you think about the way even domestic dogs
Speaker 1: who are tend to be quite well fed, you know,
Speaker 1: like it's not like they're lacking for nutrition. But it's
Speaker 1: just like if there's a thing that even might be,
Speaker 1: they're gonna try to eat it. They're gonna give it
Speaker 1: a shot, and if it doesn't work out, they just
Speaker 1: vomit it up. Yeah, I mean, it's this is one
Speaker 1: of those areas that it is I think, really remarkable
Speaker 1: when we stop and try to imagine the process of
Speaker 1: human beings, especially figuring out what they can eat, what
Speaker 1: they can't eat, what what substances they can use just
Speaker 1: to the right amount of and not kill themselves and
Speaker 1: potentially you know, have some sort of benish official effect,
Speaker 1: medicinal culinaria or otherwise. Uh, you know, because ultimately we're
Speaker 1: talking about a long, multigenerational process of human beings figuring
Speaker 1: out the properties of plants in their immediate surrounding and
Speaker 1: then passing that knowledge on. And it's you know, it's
Speaker 1: really it's it's enough to tempt us with the tales
Speaker 1: of ancient astronauts, you know, the idea there was surely
Speaker 1: some other force, some alien or some angel came to
Speaker 1: us and told us what we could eat, but resist
Speaker 1: that impulse. No, you're looking at real scientific labor in
Speaker 1: the ancient world. Yeah, the kind of scientific labor that
Speaker 1: was on the subject of the self and like putting
Speaker 1: your own life on the line. Yeah. Absolutely. Anytime we
Speaker 1: we touch on this topic, I'm always reminded of a
Speaker 1: particular Chinese myth, uh, the mythical emperor shin Nong, the
Speaker 1: divine farmer and ultimately the founder or the mythological founder
Speaker 1: of Chinese herbal medicine as well as agriculture itself. There's
Speaker 1: the link again between medicine and food. Yeah. Absolutely, and Uh. Anyway,
Speaker 1: he's credited as having authored, you know, a couple of
Speaker 1: really important books on you know, the herbal world. And
Speaker 1: according to the myths, she Nong either tasted hundreds of
Speaker 1: herbs or thrash them with a magic whip in order
Speaker 1: to learn their properties. According to one legend, he consumed
Speaker 1: seventy different poisons in a single day. Uh, in order
Speaker 1: to just you know, continue this examination of the natural world.
Speaker 1: I also ran across some variants of the story online
Speaker 1: that mentioned him having a transparent stomach so that he
Speaker 1: that allowed him to see you know how food is
Speaker 1: being broken down in his body. But I didn't see that.
Speaker 1: This is not referenced in either of the main Chinese
Speaker 1: mythology textbooks that I m I frequently refer to, So
Speaker 1: I don't know, you know, to what extenter's falidity to
Speaker 1: do that, or if it's an accurate translation, etcetera. But still,
Speaker 1: you know, in in mythology, Shinong is essentially classifying all drugs.
Speaker 1: He's humanity's multigenerational process of food testing condensed into a
Speaker 1: single individual. Because you know, of course climates change, Humans
Speaker 1: move into new environments and destabilize their own environment. Ancient
Speaker 1: people's would have figured out roughly what was in their
Speaker 1: immediate vicinity, and and they would have perhaps tried to
Speaker 1: take their important plants with them, but not every plan
Speaker 1: is easily suited for agriculture or new environments, and new
Speaker 1: plants would have continually presented themselves in the course of
Speaker 1: their migration. You've got this image of Shinong here in
Speaker 1: the outline, and he's just sticking something in his mouth
Speaker 1: and grimacing. Yeah, there's some wonderful paintings and drawings of
Speaker 1: Shinnong where you know, he seems to be just doing
Speaker 1: the work, you know, just out there chewing on a
Speaker 1: twig or a leaf here and there and and sensing
Speaker 1: it out, seeing what, well, okay, what is this good for?
Speaker 1: What can this be used for? What can this be
Speaker 1: used as a treatment for? And uh And in the
Speaker 1: writings attributed to him mentioned a host of different substances.
Speaker 1: At one point, cannabis comes up and said it quote
Speaker 1: will produce hallucinations if taken over a long term, it
Speaker 1: makes one communicate with spirits and enlightens one's body. And
Speaker 1: while cannabis is not generally considered a psychedelic, this does
Speaker 1: bring us to contemplation of psychedelics, which are our primp
Speaker 1: i'mory concern here in these episodes, especially the two major
Speaker 1: psychedelics that have played a role in the often stunted
Speaker 1: Western exploration of their potent powers to bring about a
Speaker 1: different state of consciousness. All right, well, maybe we should
Speaker 1: take a quick break and then when we come back
Speaker 1: we can dive more into the question of what are psychedelics. Alright,
Speaker 1: we're back. So we've been talking about psychedelics in this
Speaker 1: first of our series exploring the subject, and I guess
Speaker 1: let's go into the origin of this term. Why why
Speaker 1: do people use the word psychedelic as opposed to other
Speaker 1: terms that might mean similar things are the same thing. Well,
Speaker 1: the term psychedelic derives from the Greek words for soul
Speaker 1: or mind and manifesting, and this name was bestowed in
Speaker 1: nine by British psychiatrist Humphrey Osmond. Yeah. Another frame for
Speaker 1: the etymology is so it's mind manifesting. Of course, you
Speaker 1: know the Greek see here smelled like psyche is a
Speaker 1: term for mind or soul. Uh. The Greek word delun,
Speaker 1: where the psychedelic part comes from, can mean multiple things,
Speaker 1: might mean manifesting. It can also, I think, mean like
Speaker 1: to reveal, to make visible, or make clear. And this
Speaker 1: is interesting because it fits with the early uses of
Speaker 1: psychedelics and psychiatry and neuroscience in the nineteen fifties and
Speaker 1: sixties when they were considered a revolutionary research tool. And
Speaker 1: multiple people, I think have made this comparison, but one
Speaker 1: of them is the psychedelic enthusiast Stanislav Graff, who wrote
Speaker 1: that quote the potential significance of LSD and other psychedelics
Speaker 1: for psychiatry and psychology was comparable to the value of
Speaker 1: the microscope for biology or the telescope for astronomy. Uh
Speaker 1: so he's framing it as like a tool of magnification
Speaker 1: and clarification. It's something that allows you to see farther
Speaker 1: or see inside at a greater resolution. Yeah. Now, the
Speaker 1: term psychedelic, you know, ended up taking on a lot
Speaker 1: of additional baggage because this term was was definitely taken
Speaker 1: up by the champion, by timoth the Leary. I know,
Speaker 1: there's Timothy Leary. Of course, we have a couple of
Speaker 1: episodes of stuff to blow your mind on him, um
Speaker 1: that I recorded with Christian several years back, and as
Speaker 1: we discussed there, like Leary, Leary ultimately I think did
Speaker 1: a lot of damage to the perceptions of psychedelic he
Speaker 1: became he was. He was ultimately more of a more
Speaker 1: of a guru type as opposed to you know, you know,
Speaker 1: a pure and dedicated scientist. He began as a you know,
Speaker 1: Harvard academic researchers studying psychedelics. But yeah, he clearly he
Speaker 1: became the dice word I think would be an enthusiast,
Speaker 1: somebody who was clearly at a certain point not studying
Speaker 1: the subject in an objective and dispassionate way, but was
Speaker 1: more just sort of like an advocate for psychedelics, like
Speaker 1: these things are great and everybody should be taken him right,
Speaker 1: And then he did willingly embrace the the position of
Speaker 1: being so sort of this leader almost this unofficial um
Speaker 1: and you know guru figure that was the forefront of
Speaker 1: this counterculture movement, both in in the the ups and
Speaker 1: downs of that counterculture as well. Yeah, and so I
Speaker 1: think this is your correct one reason why the term
Speaker 1: psychedelic has acquired some perhaps negative baggage. I think sometimes
Speaker 1: people think of that word more having to do with
Speaker 1: like recreational and sort of music associated or party associated
Speaker 1: uses of of these compounds that tend to cause you know,
Speaker 1: hallucinations or highly altered states of consciousness. And I I
Speaker 1: don't I don't think that's quite fair. I mean, I
Speaker 1: think psychedelic is a good term, and I want to
Speaker 1: keep using it throughout these episodes. Yeah, and I think
Speaker 1: there's a reason that people have stuck with it despite
Speaker 1: other terms having been presented. For instance, in Theogen's is
Speaker 1: one that comes up the most and has been uh
Speaker 1: taken out then championed by you know in some respects,
Speaker 1: But more and more you do see people coming back
Speaker 1: to U two psychedelics, and that's what we're going to
Speaker 1: use in these episodes, and of course in Theogen's I
Speaker 1: think one reason that's difficult is because in the agens
Speaker 1: means like sort of like you know, God revealing, like
Speaker 1: it conjures up, it brings up the gods or brings
Speaker 1: up the divine right. It didn't bring up the nineteen
Speaker 1: sixties as much. To its credit, like that's I think
Speaker 1: the benefit of it. But then when he actually, uh,
Speaker 1: you know, take it apart and look at what it means,
Speaker 1: it is perhaps leaning more heavily into the mystic Yeah,
Speaker 1: which is fine because I mean, to be fair, the
Speaker 1: mystical experience is very important part of the sort of
Speaker 1: research history of what the what these what affects these
Speaker 1: drugs produced, and the most common reports about the effects
Speaker 1: that they have on people's thinking and on their lives.
Speaker 1: They very often do encourage types of mystical thinking. They
Speaker 1: very often do lead to people reporting mystical experiences or
Speaker 1: experiences that people you know, relate to God or God's
Speaker 1: or some kind of divine spirit. But at the same time,
Speaker 1: not everybody has those experiences on them, and not everybody
Speaker 1: who has those kinds of experiences on them. Would it
Speaker 1: tribute it to any kind of real spiritual force, though
Speaker 1: a lot would so I think in the Agen's does
Speaker 1: have the negative property of maybe assuming a little too
Speaker 1: much of a thorough association with the spiritual um and so. So. Yeah,
Speaker 1: I like the idea of psychedelics. It is. It is
Speaker 1: mind revealing. Now, they're also sometimes called hallucinogens, you know,
Speaker 1: just sort of roughly, which of course is is confusing
Speaker 1: as well for starters. Something can be an hallucinogen and
Speaker 1: not be a psychedelic compound, for sure, it isn't. Cannabis
Speaker 1: sometimes classified as a hallucinogen. I think, I think I've
Speaker 1: seen it classified as such. Yeah. One part of this,
Speaker 1: of course, is you don't have to take a psychedelic
Speaker 1: to have an audible or visual hallucination. There are many
Speaker 1: other causes and conditions that can be involved, and you
Speaker 1: can make a strong case that our default perception of
Speaker 1: reality is nothing short of an hallucination. Likewise, psychedelics don't
Speaker 1: always cause hallucinations. In fact, full blown hallucinations are actually uncommon,
Speaker 1: and they're probably not going to be like the hallucinations
Speaker 1: you've seen in a psychedelic film, right, I mean, I
Speaker 1: think often the hallucinations that are depicted in psychedelic movies
Speaker 1: are given far too um, far too concrete of a
Speaker 1: character that makes sense, Like so you see a glass
Speaker 1: dragon flying out of the Andromeda galaxy to eat your pain,
Speaker 1: and you know, rebirth you as a fire child or something,
Speaker 1: where Whereas that kind of thing you might see, especially
Speaker 1: on some higher doses of some of these psychedelics, but
Speaker 1: more often, you know, people especially on lower doses, will
Speaker 1: have some states have altered perception, but they're not necessarily
Speaker 1: going to see like whole concrete visions of agents and
Speaker 1: objects coming towards them that aren't there. Yeah, I mean,
Speaker 1: we have to cut films a little bit of slack,
Speaker 1: I think, because ultimately it's a largely visual medium. That's
Speaker 1: what they're telling their stories with, so of course they're
Speaker 1: going to gravitate towards hallucinations and visualizations of psychedelic experience,
Speaker 1: some of which are just laughable. Uh. And and occasionally
Speaker 1: you'll have a film that that really does a good
Speaker 1: job of capturing something that feels like an authentic psychedelic experience,
Speaker 1: but I don't know, I find those to be few
Speaker 1: and far between. Yeah. Oh, and I should also point
Speaker 1: out that if you, when they're you classify psychedelic as
Speaker 1: an hallucinogen, you're also kind of limiting it, you know,
Speaker 1: because ultimately these substances do a number of different things
Speaker 1: outside of something that you could even loosely describe as
Speaker 1: an hallucination. Yeah. I mean again, I think psychedelic is
Speaker 1: a good term. They are more generally mind revealing or
Speaker 1: mind manifesting. Yeah. By downplaying the role of hallucinations, we
Speaker 1: don't want to suggest that these drugs can't cause hallucinations.
Speaker 1: They very often do, especially at higher doses, right, Yeah, absolutely,
Speaker 1: especially when you're also things are a little different as well.
Speaker 1: Discuss when you get into clinical situations where you know,
Speaker 1: just the way that a particular substances is uh it
Speaker 1: administered can make it more potent. How however, you know,
Speaker 1: on the subject of visualization. UM. At that World Science
Speaker 1: Festival panel that I attended, one of the speakers was
Speaker 1: it was a British professor of cognitive and computational neuroscience
Speaker 1: at the University of Sussex uh And L Seth, and
Speaker 1: he pointed to the Google Deep Dream generator as actually
Speaker 1: being a decent approximation of the sort of visuals that
Speaker 1: can go on during a psychedelic experience. Um, I think
Speaker 1: everybody's probably seen images or video that you utilize this
Speaker 1: deep dream generator, but it's the kind of thing where
Speaker 1: it's like there's a face of a dog and everything exactly. Yeah,
Speaker 1: so if you've never seen it. Basically, what it was
Speaker 1: was it was an algorithm that would take a photo
Speaker 1: that you supplied, you know, you'd upload a photo, and
Speaker 1: then you run it through the system. You could i
Speaker 1: think determine like to what degree it would get, you know,
Speaker 1: to how crazy it would get basically, and it would
Speaker 1: start to reveal fractal patterns emerging from the lines and
Speaker 1: boundaries in the m A and very often, yeah, like
Speaker 1: faces and other recognizable forms that would show up in
Speaker 1: images from around the internet would start showing up in
Speaker 1: the image. You might see forms of plants, very often,
Speaker 1: forms of animal faces, dog faces, and the couch cushions. Yeah. Yeah.
Speaker 1: And this this absolutely matches up with with my experiences
Speaker 1: where it's not like you're going, oh my goodness, there
Speaker 1: are dogs everywhere, but it would be more like there's
Speaker 1: a there's a fractal pattern to my immediate environment that
Speaker 1: I that is not there usually, or it looks like
Speaker 1: the grass is breathing, or you know, perhaps you're looking
Speaker 1: at something like say a work of art, or in
Speaker 1: my experience of hanging African mask and it seems to
Speaker 1: be alive and a certain to a certain extent, not
Speaker 1: in a way where you're like, oh my god, the
Speaker 1: mask is coming alive, you know, or anything like that.
Speaker 1: It's uh, it's uh, you know, I guess it's rather
Speaker 1: hard to put into words, but there is a you know,
Speaker 1: a sense of fractal life to everyday objects that is
Speaker 1: that is not the are otherwise. Yeah, And I think
Speaker 1: another way that the deep dream is appropriately compared to
Speaker 1: psychedelics is that the deep dream generator, I think basically
Speaker 1: worked by a recurrent pattern of extrapolation and amplification. So,
Speaker 1: you know, it sees something that's zero point five percent
Speaker 1: like a dog face, and it recognizes that because it's
Speaker 1: tried to track a lot of dog faces across the Internet,
Speaker 1: and it says, let's lean into that, and then it
Speaker 1: makes it two percent like a dog face, then ten
Speaker 1: percent like a price, and finds more dog faces in
Speaker 1: what it's been extrapolating from the original image. So I
Speaker 1: can't help but notice that, you know, one tendency of
Speaker 1: the hallucinatory experience or of the psychedelic experience, seems to
Speaker 1: be extrapolating and amplifying perceived significant patterns from random noise.
Speaker 1: So let's take another step back and and talk just
Speaker 1: in general about psychedelics and what particular substances we're talking about. Yeah,
Speaker 1: I guess we we need to briefly address the chemistry
Speaker 1: part of this, right, Yeah, So we're largely talking about
Speaker 1: the the indules psychedelics. There's lysergic acid diathylamide l s D.
Speaker 1: There's psilocybin, which occurs you know, naturally in um several
Speaker 1: different varieties of mushrooms what I think two hundred different varieties.
Speaker 1: Then there's also in in a di methyl trip tomine
Speaker 1: which is d MT. There's uh the gain and they're
Speaker 1: the beta carbo lines. The ones that we're going to
Speaker 1: be discussing the most here are psilocybin, which again occurs
Speaker 1: naturally in mushrooms. And then of course LSD, which is
Speaker 1: is a synthetic psychedelic that was first generated by Albert
Speaker 1: Hoffman in eight from lysergic acid, a chemical from the
Speaker 1: for the fungus or god, which we've discussed on the
Speaker 1: show before. H and Hoffman actually played an important role
Speaker 1: in isolating the compounds from the psilocybies mushrooms as well. Yes, yeah,
Speaker 1: so he sort of figures in both of the main
Speaker 1: streams here. But one thing I want to make clear
Speaker 1: that I didn't understand for a long time is that
Speaker 1: there there is not just one species of mushroom that
Speaker 1: is the psilocybin mushroom and it's that species. There is
Speaker 1: this whole class of the philocopies or the psilocybin mushrooms
Speaker 1: that is a you know, a multi species, huge range
Speaker 1: of hundreds of varieties of mushrooms that have these related effects.
Speaker 1: I think mainly based on the compounds silicon and psilocybin,
Speaker 1: which breaks down into silicin in the body. D MT,
Speaker 1: by the way, is a naturally occurring compound as well.
Speaker 1: It's found in many different plants and animals and is
Speaker 1: found up inside the human brain as well. But it
Speaker 1: was also first synthesized in ninety one by chemist Richard
Speaker 1: Hillmuth Frederick Matzk there. But there are plenty of other
Speaker 1: additional psychedelics that that occur and that pop up in
Speaker 1: the research and all there that occur naturally in the world.
Speaker 1: There the ib A gain substances that are found in
Speaker 1: two related African and South American tree genera UM mostly
Speaker 1: known as an aphrodisiac in Africa, but it also has
Speaker 1: psychedelic properties that higher doses. Uh, there's a There's the
Speaker 1: hallucinogenic mescaline, which is found in the spineless cactus pot.
Speaker 1: It's a fin ethylamine, as is m d m A,
Speaker 1: as is methamphetamine, and as are a host of other drugs,
Speaker 1: including just like basic decongestions. Uh, yeah, you mentioned m
Speaker 1: d m A. Yeah, and Christian did a whole couple
Speaker 1: of episodes I think MM years ago. Yeah, and we
Speaker 1: we're not really focusing on m D m A here,
Speaker 1: but you know, it is also a powerful Schedule one
Speaker 1: substance with some promising possibilities for therapeutic therapeutic use and
Speaker 1: also some promising history of therapeutic use. But it kind
Speaker 1: of fell victim to the same anti drug efforts and
Speaker 1: the sort of moral panic that was associated with with
Speaker 1: the hallucinogens as well. But according to Stephen Ross, m D.
Speaker 1: Of the n y U Pilocybin cancer anxiety study. Speaking
Speaker 1: at the two thousand nineteen World Science Festival, he said
Speaker 1: that we're you know, there's a very strong chance we're
Speaker 1: going to see M d M A rescheduled in the
Speaker 1: next couple of years due to uh, you know, the
Speaker 1: promising ref church that's going on using yet you know,
Speaker 1: particularly dealing I believe with PTSD, and you're talking there
Speaker 1: about it being reclassified as a less dangerous and less
Speaker 1: legally prohibited drug in the United States, because a Schedule
Speaker 1: one in the US means like there's nothing, there's nothing
Speaker 1: you can do with it, there's not even like a
Speaker 1: medical use for it. Uh and uh. I think in
Speaker 1: in some times in the past and to some degree
Speaker 1: still in the present, the schedule one classification I think
Speaker 1: is treated more as a sort of punitive category than
Speaker 1: I say, truly you know, research or science based category. Right.
Speaker 1: For instance, So at cannabis schedule one, in d m
Speaker 1: A schedule one, psilocybin schedule one, LSD schedule one, cocaine
Speaker 1: schedule two, there you go. Interesting, Well, since we're gonna
Speaker 1: be focusing more on psilocybin mushrooms than on other psychedelics,
Speaker 1: I also thought it might be useful to just quickly
Speaker 1: mention a few of its more straightforward medically recognized effects
Speaker 1: and medical significance before we get on into the uh
Speaker 1: the more phenomenological common reports. So I mentioned this minute ago,
Speaker 1: I think, but the primary compounds responsible for the psychedelic
Speaker 1: effects of psilocybin mushrooms are the compound psilocybin and silisin,
Speaker 1: which ultimately amount to sort of the same things. Since
Speaker 1: psilocybin breaks down into silicon once inside the body, silicon
Speaker 1: is a more potent compound, but it occurs in smaller
Speaker 1: original quantities within the mushroom flesh. UH, and compared to
Speaker 1: almost all other known drugs, psilocybin has an exceptionally low
Speaker 1: potential for abuse and exceptionally few known risks. According to
Speaker 1: the University of Maryland Center for Substance Abuse Research quote,
Speaker 1: there are no reports that psilocybin mushrooms are psychologically or
Speaker 1: physically addictive, and use does not lead to dependence. For
Speaker 1: several days following the use of mushrooms, users may experience
Speaker 1: a period of psychological withdrawal and have difficulty discerning reality.
Speaker 1: So that's like a potential drawback. But right the way
Speaker 1: I've seen it described is that there's there's virtually no
Speaker 1: physical uh ramifications, you know, like in terms of like
Speaker 1: just physiological damage to the body as you would encounter
Speaker 1: with various other substances. That's that's not the risk. There
Speaker 1: is like a small risk uh psychologically, especially for namely
Speaker 1: for individuals with a family history of say psychosis or
Speaker 1: um schizophrenia. Right. So, no psychoactive drug is completely without risks.
Speaker 1: And we're not encouraging people to take psilocybin, mushrooms or
Speaker 1: any other drug. If you decide to take a psychedelic
Speaker 1: any psychedelic compound you or any compound at all, really
Speaker 1: you should thoroughly research it's its effects for yourself, any
Speaker 1: possible risk factors from trustworthy and science based sources. Right.
Speaker 1: And I think this is an area where, like people
Speaker 1: talking about recreational drug use, I think that can be
Speaker 1: it can ultimately be kind of damaging because it implies
Speaker 1: that powerful substances like this can be purely recreational. It's
Speaker 1: kind of like are you flying this F fourteen fighter
Speaker 1: jet recreationally or you know, or you taking it seriously?
Speaker 1: Like you know, it's a powerful thing. It's a powerful tool. Uh,
Speaker 1: you should if you're going to choose to engage with it,
Speaker 1: do so with with forethought exactly. So, yeah, like you
Speaker 1: were just sort of alluding to. While pseulocybin has an
Speaker 1: exceptionally low level of recognized risk when compared with other drugs,
Speaker 1: it still is possible to experience negative psychological consequences. For example,
Speaker 1: if you have pre existing risk factors like high anxiety
Speaker 1: or past episodes of derealization, then, of course also we
Speaker 1: should just mention the sort of practically associated risks, as
Speaker 1: the mycologist Paul Stamitz makes clear, psychedelic species of philocopies.
Speaker 1: You know, the psilocybin mushrooms look extremely similar to many
Speaker 1: other species of poisonous little brown mushrooms that can lead
Speaker 1: to an agonizing death if ingested. So people who plan
Speaker 1: to take psilocybin mushrooms should get them from an experienced,
Speaker 1: knowledgeable source who knows exactly how to identify them reliably.
Speaker 1: You don't want somebody who doesn't know what they're doing
Speaker 1: foraging psilocybin mushrooms. For of course, when you have substances
Speaker 1: outlawed um, that's kind of the thing a lot of
Speaker 1: people end up falling back on. So I mean, that's
Speaker 1: one of the other benefits of I think personally, of
Speaker 1: decriminalizing this sort of thing, yeah, I would agree. Now. Also,
Speaker 1: according to the Maryland Center, there are plenty of possible
Speaker 1: physiological effects of ingestion, depending on tons of different factors
Speaker 1: like the exact species of mushroom you're dealing with and
Speaker 1: the preparation method, which you know can affect these, but
Speaker 1: they include, just to read through a few of these, nausea, vomiting,
Speaker 1: abdominal cramps and diarrhea, muscle relaxation, weakness and twitches, drowsiness, dizziness,
Speaker 1: lack of coordination, lightheadedness, pupil dilation, dry mouth, facial flushing.
Speaker 1: You might have increased heart rate or blood pressure, body temperature, sweating, chills, shivering,
Speaker 1: numbness of the tongue, lips, or mouth, and then feelings
Speaker 1: of physical heaviness or immobility, um or feelings of lightness
Speaker 1: or floating uh. And then of course that you get
Speaker 1: to the psychological consequences. These aren't all the possibilities, but
Speaker 1: just to mention a few, you of course have the
Speaker 1: possibility of hallucination and heightened sensory perceptions where maybe colors
Speaker 1: seem more vivid or sounds are more cute flavors, more
Speaker 1: explosive smells are stranger. We mentioned earlier synesthesia, the cross
Speaker 1: sensory contamination colors make sounds, sounds have colors, that kind
Speaker 1: of thing. The lack of ability to focus is commonly
Speaker 1: cited alterations and perception of space and time. You might
Speaker 1: kind of like time seems dilated or sped up. Anxiety
Speaker 1: and restlessness, or a sense of detachment from the self
Speaker 1: or from the surroundings, including the concept known as ego loss,
Speaker 1: which we'll get into in more detail later. But beyond
Speaker 1: all those sort of like top line descriptions of psychological consequences,
Speaker 1: I think maybe we should take a break, and when
Speaker 1: we come back we can discuss in a little more detail,
Speaker 1: like the kinds of common reports that people actually make
Speaker 1: about their experiences with psychedelics and and the more complex
Speaker 1: phenomenological responses to them. Thank thank you. All Right, we're back.
Speaker 1: We're talking about psychedelics and some of the we're about
Speaker 1: to get into some of the common reports about the
Speaker 1: the the psychological effects of taking them. Yeah. Now, I
Speaker 1: we are talking sort of about psychedelics in general, but
Speaker 1: with a special emphasis on psilocybin mushrooms, or the philosopies, right,
Speaker 1: and uh, you know, and we should probably mentioned, you know,
Speaker 1: one of the reasons we focused on on psilocybin but
Speaker 1: also l s D to a certain extent, is that
Speaker 1: when you look at the studies that we're done with
Speaker 1: these early on, like you know, in the the fifties
Speaker 1: and in early sixties, when they were when they were
Speaker 1: you know, widespread studies being they were looking into psychedelics,
Speaker 1: they were mostly using LSD because that was what was
Speaker 1: readily available at the time. Today's studies are going to
Speaker 1: be almost exclusively using psilocybin for a couple of different
Speaker 1: reasons that will explore later. Yeah. I think we're going
Speaker 1: to especially get into those more recent studies maybe in
Speaker 1: our third episode. So yeah, so what what are these
Speaker 1: common reports the phenomenological reports. One thing that I think
Speaker 1: we should emphasize upfront is the thing that a lot
Speaker 1: of people maybe who would take these for the first time,
Speaker 1: don't quite realize is the extreme importance of what's known
Speaker 1: in the psychedelic literature is set and setting. So the
Speaker 1: psychedelic drug is a fairly reliable gateway to an altered
Speaker 1: state of consciousness, possibly containing hallucinations. Uh, and feelings that
Speaker 1: parallel the classical forms of mystical experience. You know, we'll
Speaker 1: we'll get into more on the mystical experience in a
Speaker 1: minute here. But the experience produced by the compound is
Speaker 1: not standardized by the psychopharmacology itself. It appears to be
Speaker 1: extremely sensitive to external factors like the personality, the emotions,
Speaker 1: the thoughts and expectations of the person ingesting the compound. Uh.
Speaker 1: You know, this is referred to as the set or
Speaker 1: the mindset, and the physical environment and stimuli encountered while
Speaker 1: on the trip, which is the setting. Uh. And in
Speaker 1: my experience, a hallmark of the majority of especially negative
Speaker 1: experiences people report with psychedelics come from inattention to set
Speaker 1: and setting, right. Yeah, Like I remember speaking to somebody
Speaker 1: and they said that, like they had a terrible experience
Speaker 1: on mushrooms or E. L S D and uh. And
Speaker 1: but but the the setting that they had was like
Speaker 1: really trying to drive away from a firework show and
Speaker 1: having their car overheat out side of the road. That's
Speaker 1: a terrible, terrible set and setting. Yeah. I mean this
Speaker 1: might seem kind of obvious, but like these are the
Speaker 1: kind of things that if someone is going to experiment
Speaker 1: with them, and in addition to all the you know,
Speaker 1: research you should do beforehand, making sure that you feel
Speaker 1: safe and you know what you're doing and all that,
Speaker 1: it's also important to pay attention to set and setting,
Speaker 1: to approach it with the right mindset, maybe to approach
Speaker 1: it in the company of someone who can be a
Speaker 1: positive guide for you, and also to approach it within
Speaker 1: a setting that feels positive and comfortable, such as a
Speaker 1: place where you feel at ease and at home, maybe
Speaker 1: with access to nature and natural settings. People often report
Speaker 1: wanting to be outside, wanting to be among plants and things.
Speaker 1: And it's interesting how all of these these things are
Speaker 1: matching up with some of the uh what really most
Speaker 1: of the the traditional ritualistic and shamanistic practices concerning these
Speaker 1: substances that were around for thousands and thousands of years
Speaker 1: before you know, anybody thought about going to woodstock or
Speaker 1: burning man right, I mean, very often these compounds were
Speaker 1: ingested as part of a ritual and a huge part
Speaker 1: of what rituals are. I mean, even outside the consumption
Speaker 1: of psychedelics are set and setting manipulations. What is it
Speaker 1: when you go into a Gothic cathedral and there is music,
Speaker 1: you know, their sacred sounding music echoing throughout the stone
Speaker 1: architecture in the room is dim and lit by candles.
Speaker 1: And someone passes you by with a sensor. You know
Speaker 1: that incense smoke is coming out of and and it
Speaker 1: alters your senses with the smells and the sites and
Speaker 1: the sounds. This is creating a sort of a set
Speaker 1: and setting for you to have a slight mystical experience
Speaker 1: even though you're not ingesting psychoactive compounds. No. Well, but
Speaker 1: then again, when I go to church, they always have
Speaker 1: coffee out front, sugar and cookies for the kids. There's tea,
Speaker 1: and if you're going to church in the Middle Ages,
Speaker 1: you might be getting some of that ergic rye always
Speaker 1: always a potential risk. But yeah, I mean that's just
Speaker 1: one example. I mean a huge part of what people
Speaker 1: do in religious rituals. I think his manipulation of set
Speaker 1: and setting to create a sort of sacred or altered
Speaker 1: mind state in which you have a certain kind of experience.
Speaker 1: One thing I wanted to talk about is something that
Speaker 1: Michael Paullen mentions and how to change your mind. At
Speaker 1: one point, he's describing his own personal experiments with psilocybin.
Speaker 1: At one point, I know, he talks about how he
Speaker 1: he took someone he was much younger, and he had
Speaker 1: kind of a bad time because he was out away
Speaker 1: from home. I think he was out in a park
Speaker 1: in New York City and he was getting worried about
Speaker 1: if people could tell when they were looking at it.
Speaker 1: Sounds like he was not in a comfortable environment. Yeah, well,
Speaker 1: I think he were he related to and one was
Speaker 1: further out of the city and one was in the park.
Speaker 1: And the one in the park was a little more
Speaker 1: anxious because it was like, oh, can they tell that
Speaker 1: I'm in drugs? Thing? But he also describes one that
Speaker 1: he did much later as an adult, when he was
Speaker 1: preparing to write the book, And so he describes the
Speaker 1: altered sensory and conceptual experiences that he has on the drug.
Speaker 1: This is interesting not as hallucinations, but as quote projections,
Speaker 1: and so he says, you know, projections are determined largely
Speaker 1: by his physical surroundings and by his own present thoughts
Speaker 1: and preoccupations. He defines a projection as quote when we
Speaker 1: mix our emotions with certain objects that then reflect those
Speaker 1: feelings back to us so that they appear to glisten
Speaker 1: with meaning. So again, you know, he's not seeing the
Speaker 1: dragon flying out of the Andromeda galaxy. Uh. Instead he
Speaker 1: sees two different trees standing in a meadow when he
Speaker 1: feels deep insights about his parents looking at these two trees.
Speaker 1: And this experience is largely determined not just by the drug,
Speaker 1: but by the environment that he's in and what's his preoccupations,
Speaker 1: what's on his mind. But certainly set and setting our
Speaker 1: are essential. Really and in all the literature concerning psychedelic experience,
Speaker 1: be it you know, ancient rituals, counterculture usage, usages of
Speaker 1: the substances, or the various clinical trials that are ongoing. Now. Yeah,
Speaker 1: so let's go to the next big common report that's
Speaker 1: pretty interesting. This one we should call in iff ability.
Speaker 1: This extremely common report is that the psychedelic experiences one
Speaker 1: either difficult or impossible to put into words, or two,
Speaker 1: if it is put into words, the words do not
Speaker 1: accurately capture the nature of the experience. And and this
Speaker 1: is interesting in the way that it's both similar and
Speaker 1: dissimilar to everyday experience. Is totally mundane ones you know
Speaker 1: we're all familiar with You were hanging out with some
Speaker 1: friends and something happened, and you know you have an
Speaker 1: experience that has features that are hard to put into words,
Speaker 1: like anytime you're telling a personal story and you end
Speaker 1: with the conclusion, well, I guess you had to be there.
Speaker 1: You're saying, well, you're saying there was something interesting or
Speaker 1: funny or notable about the experience the you don't know
Speaker 1: how to recreate with words, and that maybe your shortcoming.
Speaker 1: Maybe you're not very good with words and you can't
Speaker 1: do it, or maybe there's something that nobody could adequately
Speaker 1: put into words. Or I always am suspicious. Maybe they're
Speaker 1: just too lazy to tell me that you not care
Speaker 1: enough about conveying this experience to maybe you can't just
Speaker 1: take take a few steps back, put it, put it
Speaker 1: in some better words, and then have another go at it.
Speaker 1: Don't play so holy. I know you've said it. I
Speaker 1: know you've said it at some point. I don't know, Um,
Speaker 1: I don't. I don't remember having said it, but I
Speaker 1: may have well said it. You are very good with words. Well,
Speaker 1: I think there is a tendency with a background in writing,
Speaker 1: is that you tend to think that writing can do anything,
Speaker 1: that anything can be captured in words. But then again,
Speaker 1: it's it's interesting to to then turn that on its
Speaker 1: head and think about what our words to do. Our
Speaker 1: words don't always sometimes they do capture an experience, and
Speaker 1: in capturing it, they cage it, and they cage it
Speaker 1: within the limitations of those words, you know. So we're
Speaker 1: so used to doing this with though a lot of
Speaker 1: different experiences, we don't even think about how we're we're
Speaker 1: taking something that was observed. We're taking this this experience
Speaker 1: of reality that is rather different than you know from
Speaker 1: the paragraph that you create out of it. But we
Speaker 1: think of that paragraph isn't accurate depiction of reality? Yeah,
Speaker 1: I mean, something of course is always lost in the
Speaker 1: translation to words. And everybody has had this experience every
Speaker 1: now and then of not being able to explain things.
Speaker 1: But it is notable how often, how almost always, ineffability
Speaker 1: emerges as one of the most salient features of psychedelic experience.
Speaker 1: You pretty much always just had to be there, uh,
Speaker 1: you know, you had to be me basically, is the
Speaker 1: only way you can understand what the experience was. And often,
Speaker 1: if you at least in my experience, if you read
Speaker 1: a description of somebody else's experience with LSD or psilocybin,
Speaker 1: that it was incredibly profound and meaningful and notable to them.
Speaker 1: You might think, Okay, I don't get what's so profound
Speaker 1: about this. Something important is lost in the translation of
Speaker 1: the experience in to a verbal narrative. Well, I mean
Speaker 1: it's kind of like dreams, right, I mean, you know,
Speaker 1: there's the old thing that you know, there are the
Speaker 1: old observation that we we only find our own dreams
Speaker 1: interesting and we're not interested in or we don't understand
Speaker 1: other people's dreams. More certainly, the sort of you had
Speaker 1: to be there that applies to dreams all the time.
Speaker 1: I'm I certainly, I'm always having dreams that when you're
Speaker 1: having them, they're profound or scary or frightening or beautiful
Speaker 1: or weird, And then when you try and describe them
Speaker 1: later outside of the trappings of dream, you realize that
Speaker 1: sounds kind of hokey. Yeah, there's a quality that you
Speaker 1: can't really identify in words. And here here's an interesting distinction.
Speaker 1: Maybe we can come back to this as the episodes
Speaker 1: go on. But I wonder, is this quality of ineffability
Speaker 1: that's so common to psychedelic experience because we don't have
Speaker 1: the vocabulary yet, or because there is a quality of
Speaker 1: the experience that's inherently indescribable in any words. I mean,
Speaker 1: I've heard some psychedelic enthusiasts frame it in the first way.
Speaker 1: It's like, you know, there's someone who's quoted in Hollin's book.
Speaker 1: I think it might have been Bob Jesse, but I
Speaker 1: don't want to it could have been somebody else. But anyway, Uh,
Speaker 1: he's describing psychedelic experiences and saying, you know, it's like
Speaker 1: you took a paleolithic person and then transported them through
Speaker 1: time to modern day Manhattan and sat them down, let
Speaker 1: them look around, and and then sent them back and
Speaker 1: had them try to explain their experience. They wouldn't have
Speaker 1: the words to describe what they were looking at cell
Speaker 1: phones and skyscrapers and all that. So that's one way
Speaker 1: of looking at why psychedelic experiences are hard to describe.
Speaker 1: It's like we we don't have the words to put
Speaker 1: it into yet. But there's another way of looking at
Speaker 1: it says, no, it's not that we lack the words.
Speaker 1: It's just that it can't be put into words. There's
Speaker 1: a there's a permanently irresolvably unexplainable quality to the experience. Well,
Speaker 1: it's kind of in a way maybe too. It's we're
Speaker 1: removed of some of the shackles of of language and
Speaker 1: our linguistic thinking for a little bit. You know. It's
Speaker 1: kind of like you go on a trip and your
Speaker 1: cell phone battery is dead. You don't bring back any
Speaker 1: pictures because your cell phone wasn't operational during that time.
Speaker 1: You know. That's interesting, Yeah, Paul. And by the way,
Speaker 1: there was an excellent interview with him from Terry Gross
Speaker 1: on Fresh Air, and in that he talks about this, uh,
Speaker 1: the the ineffable aspect of the experience, and he mentions
Speaker 1: that William James said that the mystical experience is ineffable,
Speaker 1: yet we try very hard to effit, of which I
Speaker 1: thought was was clever. Yeah, that is good. William James
Speaker 1: is going to come up a lot in the in
Speaker 1: the next few minutes. But you know, I think back,
Speaker 1: you know, just on the power of language and and
Speaker 1: and also you have to I always have to realize that,
Speaker 1: you know, there are plenty of very talented writers and
Speaker 1: speakers who have discussed this, people that that surely have
Speaker 1: the tools to communicate what they experienced. But then again,
Speaker 1: like Terence McKenna, I think is an example of someone
Speaker 1: who you know, he only speaks of the ineffable rarely
Speaker 1: and is otherwise more than up to the task of
Speaker 1: discussing and describing what he experienced on psychedelics or you know,
Speaker 1: interpreting and reinterpreting what he experienced. But even he at
Speaker 1: times kind of falls back on the hey, look, you
Speaker 1: had to be there explanation, particularly when he was talking
Speaker 1: about experiencing this other like the idea of like experiencing
Speaker 1: an other entity while on d MT he was, he
Speaker 1: kind of sort of leaves it with with like, hey,
Speaker 1: you try it as well, you tell me what it is. Well,
Speaker 1: that experience of the other, I think is the next
Speaker 1: thing I want to get into. Oh yeah, you're right.
Speaker 1: This does flow directly into the next area where you're
Speaker 1: going to discuss. Yeah. So the next feature that's a
Speaker 1: common phenomenological report of the psychedelic experiences verticality, That's what
Speaker 1: i'd call it. William James called this the noetic quality.
Speaker 1: So this feature of psychedelic experience, which has long interested me,
Speaker 1: is the way that a lot of people emerge from
Speaker 1: their experiences on psilocybin or on LST or something, believing
Speaker 1: not just that they had an experience that was fun
Speaker 1: or was interesting or was unique, but that they learned
Speaker 1: something crucial and objectively true, that they acquired real, true
Speaker 1: information or genuine understanding that they did not have before. Uh.
Speaker 1: And you know, so the American psychologist William James, we've
Speaker 1: mentioned a couple of times already, he called this the
Speaker 1: no edic quality, and he noted very pointedly that it's
Speaker 1: different from the way people feel about dreams. Where you
Speaker 1: go into a dream, you might have a very altered
Speaker 1: state of consciousness, some strange things happen. You feel maybe
Speaker 1: in the dream like you learn things that are important,
Speaker 1: But you almost never wake up from a dream and think,
Speaker 1: you know, I learned objectively true information from the dream,
Speaker 1: right Like, there's there's this knowledge, there's this understanding that
Speaker 1: it was not reality. Even if in the more you know,
Speaker 1: extreme cases of nightmares or disturbing dream content, we might
Speaker 1: still feel shaken by it. I mean, we've all I
Speaker 1: think at that experience where like the dream leaves you,
Speaker 1: it affects you and it takes maybe a day to
Speaker 1: shake it off, but you're not. You're not viewing as it.
Speaker 1: It's like having seen a horror movie that disturbed you,
Speaker 1: as opposed to, oh, my goodness, Jason Vordies attacked me.
Speaker 1: You easily discard the dreams nonsensical. Um. Now, not everybody
Speaker 1: does this. I mean some people think they get you know,
Speaker 1: prophetic visions and dreams and stuff. And this is usually
Speaker 1: part of some kind of supernatural worldview in which you
Speaker 1: believe that there are gods that are communicating with you
Speaker 1: and all that. But people don't typically uh go from
Speaker 1: you know, not believing in supernatural conveyances and communications to saying, oh,
Speaker 1: a dream taught me something objectively true about the universe.
Speaker 1: But a commonly reported type of psychedelic experience, for example,
Speaker 1: is the feeling of having been put in contact with
Speaker 1: or in the presence of some other entity, frequently interpreted
Speaker 1: as God or as some you know, embodied form of
Speaker 1: an ideal like love, or an embodied form of the
Speaker 1: universe or some kind of universal consciousness, or as maybe
Speaker 1: a loved one who has died, or as some more
Speaker 1: obscure others like Terrence mckinna's machine elves. You know, he
Speaker 1: talked about taking d M T and just encountering these
Speaker 1: other entities, the machine elves or the you know whatever
Speaker 1: he called them, right, yeah, and the foot of the gods.
Speaker 1: I don't think he refers to them and as machine
Speaker 1: elves there, but he discusses briefly the other that has
Speaker 1: experienced through d m T. And ultimately he's like, hey,
Speaker 1: try yourself, set aside three minutes, eight minutes of your
Speaker 1: time and go try it for yourself, and you tell
Speaker 1: me what you experienced. Yeah. And so the really interesting
Speaker 1: thing here is that so many people come out of
Speaker 1: these types of experience is not just thinking wow, that
Speaker 1: was an interesting hallucination, like they were watching a movie,
Speaker 1: but believing they've actually been made aware of the real
Speaker 1: existence of a real other entity and carrying this belief
Speaker 1: of acquired knowledge with them after the effects of the
Speaker 1: drug have worn off. Another way, I would say veridicality
Speaker 1: presents his uh in ineffable perceptions of the value of
Speaker 1: statements and insights. An example of this would be maybe
Speaker 1: a person on a psychedelic substances realizes that, you know,
Speaker 1: some cliche they've heard a million times, realizes that God
Speaker 1: is love and they may have heard this a million
Speaker 1: times before, but suddenly the same statement is interpreted as
Speaker 1: a profound insight that's revealing in true in ways that
Speaker 1: can't really be explained. But you have the feeling that
Speaker 1: you've discovered a great truth, even if others, you know,
Speaker 1: in communicating it to them, they might not see it
Speaker 1: as as insightful as you do. Another interesting feature of
Speaker 1: this noetic or vertical quality of psychedelic experiences that it
Speaker 1: often feels kind of gnostic to me, I mean nastic
Speaker 1: in the religious sense, of course. Gnosticism was an ancient
Speaker 1: religion in which some form of salvation relied on acquiring
Speaker 1: secret knowledge or esoteric dogmas and rights that were only
Speaker 1: revealed to initiates. Why, you know, there was sort of
Speaker 1: like the false, uh, fraudulent public face of the religion
Speaker 1: that was for just all the people hanging out and
Speaker 1: listening in the crowds, and then there were the real
Speaker 1: dogmas and the real truths about you know, the heavens
Speaker 1: and what you do to get there. The are sort
Speaker 1: of only talked about in secret if you're one of
Speaker 1: the in crowd. And it's not just that many people
Speaker 1: think they've gained objectively true information from psychedelic experiences. It's
Speaker 1: often interpreted as a sort of deep secret that they've
Speaker 1: been allowed to glimpse, like the curtain has been lifted
Speaker 1: for them, and they are they've been let in on
Speaker 1: the secret. Yeah, they've seen through the illusion of of
Speaker 1: perceived reality and maybe had some glimpse that absolute reality. Right.
Speaker 1: So a really common version here is the idea that
Speaker 1: people have psychedelic experiences and then afterwards emerged with a
Speaker 1: strong conviction that there's more to life than what we see,
Speaker 1: or that there's some dimension of existence that's beyond the
Speaker 1: better understood material dimension of existence. In the words of
Speaker 1: William James, the experience quote forbids a premature closing of
Speaker 1: our accounts with reality. Oh that's nice and and certainly
Speaker 1: the history of psychedelic research is filled with examples of
Speaker 1: this as well. You know, often very scientifically minded individuals,
Speaker 1: you know, emerging with a newfound or developing or enhanced
Speaker 1: sense of either the mystic or often is the case,
Speaker 1: you know, a connection with nature. And there there could
Speaker 1: be multiple things going on here. Either way, it's interesting.
Speaker 1: I mean, one way of looking at it is that
Speaker 1: psychedelic experiences do actually reveal something true to people. In
Speaker 1: another way of looking at it is, there's a fairly
Speaker 1: consistent psychological effect they produce, creating the illusion that something
Speaker 1: objectively true has been revealed. But either way, it's very
Speaker 1: psychologically important and powerful and fascinating that they do this right.
Speaker 1: I mean, you could to ground it more in some
Speaker 1: of the the science we've touched on on the show before,
Speaker 1: like plasticity. You can look at it from a plasticity
Speaker 1: standpoint and you could say, well, you know, it's it's
Speaker 1: allowing the mind to change, you know, I mean, that's
Speaker 1: kind of a Pollen's whole point in the title is
Speaker 1: it's not so much these individual substances and what they do.
Speaker 1: It's not like and that's certainly one of the hallmarks
Speaker 1: of the studies will get too later, but it's the
Speaker 1: state of mind that it puts one in and what
Speaker 1: can be done with an individual when they are in
Speaker 1: that state of mind exactly. I mean. One of the
Speaker 1: interesting things about the psychedelic states of mind that that
Speaker 1: of course is brought up by lots of authors, is
Speaker 1: the ways that they parallel what William James wrote about
Speaker 1: is the traditional qualities of mystical experience, you know, profound
Speaker 1: religious experiences that people have Both of these first two
Speaker 1: characteristics we've been talking about, ineffability and the vertical or
Speaker 1: no edic quality, are also the first two markers of
Speaker 1: mystical experience that James writes about in the book The
Speaker 1: Varieties of Religious Experience, which is published around the turn
Speaker 1: of the twentieth century. Now, of ineffability, James writes, quote,
Speaker 1: mystical states are more like states of feeling than states
Speaker 1: of intellect. No one can make clear to another who
Speaker 1: has never had a certain feeling in what the quality
Speaker 1: or worth of it consists, and of the no edic
Speaker 1: quality or the vertical quality. Writes that mystical experiences quote
Speaker 1: our illuminations, revelations, full of significance and importance, all inarticulate
Speaker 1: though they remain, and as a rule they carry with
Speaker 1: them a curious sense of authority for after time. This
Speaker 1: reminds me that, you know, the one of the key
Speaker 1: aspects of traditional psychedelic use, some of the more thought
Speaker 1: out counterculture uses as well as the clinical uses today
Speaker 1: is what occurs after the trip, this period of consolidation
Speaker 1: and integration where you're you're stopping and saying, okay, what
Speaker 1: did that mean? How how shall I interpret this? And
Speaker 1: then and then move on and apply it to my life.
Speaker 1: I think we have to realize that, you know, our
Speaker 1: memories of psychedelic experiences are still memories, and they still
Speaker 1: can be altered by the mind, and will be altered
Speaker 1: by the mind every time we draw them back out again.
Speaker 1: Of course, yeah, as any experience would be. Just as
Speaker 1: a funny note, one thing I thought we should mention
Speaker 1: is that, you know, William James, he's writing around this
Speaker 1: turn of the twentieth century, and James was not afforded
Speaker 1: the many wonderful options for chemical alterations of consciousness that
Speaker 1: later researchers where apparently he did a lot of nitrous oxides.
Speaker 1: You read William James, it's funny to imagine him trying
Speaker 1: to like talk about this experience firsthand and just doing
Speaker 1: whipp its um. But we should mention also James has
Speaker 1: two other markers of mystical experience, so I'm not necessarily
Speaker 1: counting these as as clear markers of psychedelic experiences, but
Speaker 1: just to to continue his exploration of mystical experiences since
Speaker 1: there's been a lot of overlap so far. The other
Speaker 1: two James mentions are transiency and passivity, so transiency means
Speaker 1: the experience is time limited. You know. It's true enough,
Speaker 1: of course for the trip length of psychedelic drugs, UH
Speaker 1: doesn't seem a super relevant. But what does seem a
Speaker 1: little more relevant is James's comment that while the experience
Speaker 1: itself doesn't last forever quote from one recurrence to another,
Speaker 1: it is susceptible of continuous development in what has felt
Speaker 1: as inner richness and imports. And Paullen quotes this section
Speaker 1: as well. And then finally, there's passivity as a James
Speaker 1: and marker of mystical experience, which means the person having
Speaker 1: the mystical experience believes their will has been subverted or
Speaker 1: held in abeyance by a superior power. And there are
Speaker 1: some psychedelic experiences that have this quality. You could view
Speaker 1: it as somewhat, though not exactly parallel to the next
Speaker 1: characteristic we're about to mention. Yeah, and I think set
Speaker 1: and setting likely you know, play a key role here
Speaker 1: as well, though, though it seems to be very difficult
Speaker 1: to shake with with more intense experiments. UH. Albert Hoffman
Speaker 1: reflected this, you know, personifying LSD to a certain extent,
Speaker 1: it's like a thing that found him and uh and
Speaker 1: mckinna certainly discussed it in these terms as well. Yeah.
Speaker 1: So the next big thing that is this very interesting
Speaker 1: common feature of especially maybe higher doses of psychedelic experience, uh,
Speaker 1: is the idea of loss of ego. Uh. It's it's
Speaker 1: affected by the ineffability criteria. And I would say, because
Speaker 1: it's often hard to describe what this is like, but
Speaker 1: many who have had psychedelic experiences report the dissolution of
Speaker 1: the self, having consciousness reduced to a state of experience
Speaker 1: in which there is no eye anymore, there is no
Speaker 1: me uh. And one way I've always interpreted this is
Speaker 1: that some psychedelics have the power to reduce or eliminate
Speaker 1: the self world distinction. You know that we have this
Speaker 1: categorical barrier we put up in our minds between everything
Speaker 1: that is not me and then me. And what happens
Speaker 1: when that distinction sort of gets blurred or erased. Yeah,
Speaker 1: I mean I can certainly relate to this from experience
Speaker 1: with yoga and meditation. Um. You know, when not every time,
Speaker 1: but occasionally occasionally about like a really good yoga session,
Speaker 1: I can reach that point where it's you know, I
Speaker 1: I lose the sense of me, it's a wonderful experience
Speaker 1: that that can be I think difficult to put into word.
Speaker 1: I mean, the only way you can describe it is
Speaker 1: like is ego loss or some use the term ego death,
Speaker 1: which think is a little it's a little harsh. Let's
Speaker 1: not pull death into this whole situation experience without a self. Yeah. Yeah.
Speaker 1: One way that Terence McKenna describe these these substances and
Speaker 1: others you describe them as being boundary dissolving uh substances,
Speaker 1: and talked about their boundary dissolving properties, which I think
Speaker 1: is is a perfect description the boundary between you and others,
Speaker 1: between you and nature um or you and the cosmos.
Speaker 1: It seems to dissolve, so the fortress of the self
Speaker 1: crumbles away only for a little bit. And and of
Speaker 1: course this sort of experience, like a lot of the
Speaker 1: experiences involved in the psychedelic experience, you know, can can
Speaker 1: can of course be achieved via other means, but is
Speaker 1: a number of these commentators have pointed out these these
Speaker 1: chemical shortcuts are are shortcuts, but they're also kind of
Speaker 1: like high speed shortcuts. They're kind of like express lanes
Speaker 1: for better or worse. They require a lot less work
Speaker 1: than achieving loss of ego through meditation or something, and
Speaker 1: a lot less practice, I would say, probably too, right,
Speaker 1: But but again, I do we love this description of
Speaker 1: something being a boundary dissolving substance or even just a
Speaker 1: boundary dissolving experience. And I feel like, you know, you know,
Speaker 1: putting aside you know, psychedelic substances entirely, I feel like
Speaker 1: we do need more boundary dissolving experiences in life because
Speaker 1: we just throw up so many boundaries between ourselves and
Speaker 1: each other and and uh certainly against the nature. Well, yeah,
Speaker 1: I mean this is a common I think way that
Speaker 1: we will talk more in subsequent episodes about interesting research
Speaker 1: about the ways that psychedelics have been shown to have
Speaker 1: the potential to actually change adult personality, which is a
Speaker 1: fascinating property and makes them kind of worth their weight
Speaker 1: in gold. Right. But yeah, I mean some of the
Speaker 1: ways we can see that as uh so in the
Speaker 1: boundary dissolving property to whatever extent that does exist between humans,
Speaker 1: I think tends to lead people who consume psychedelics to
Speaker 1: have a more communitarian mindset after using them. Uh. The
Speaker 1: nature boundary dissolution thing is very interesting because you very
Speaker 1: often see uh people having stronger affinities with the rest
Speaker 1: of nature, with plants and animals and the natural environment
Speaker 1: after taking these substances. Michael Paulan in his book compares
Speaker 1: this dissolution of the boundary with nature to one of
Speaker 1: my favorites, Alexander von Humboldt, who you know. I think
Speaker 1: he doesn't name the book, but I think in the
Speaker 1: book he alludes to having read The Invention of Nature
Speaker 1: by Andrea Wolfe, that biography of Humboldt that I recommended
Speaker 1: a couple of years ago and is still a great
Speaker 1: read if you get a chance. But von Humboldt said,
Speaker 1: you know, one of the great realizations is that you
Speaker 1: know you are not in nature. He says, I am nature,
Speaker 1: and that psychedelics seem to encourage people to think this way.
Speaker 1: One last interesting common report is this thing that is
Speaker 1: sometimes I think termed the afterglow. Worth mentioning that some
Speaker 1: users of psychedelic substances report additional subjective experiences after they've
Speaker 1: returned to their baseline state of consciousness. So you're no
Speaker 1: longer experiencing maybe sensory hallus nations or significantly altered states
Speaker 1: of consciousness, but after you're done with the psychedelic trip
Speaker 1: on LST or psilocybin. Sometimes people reported that the world
Speaker 1: just seems very bright and alive and wonderful and full
Speaker 1: of possibilities. That Michael Paullen describes this is quote the
Speaker 1: opposite of a hangover. It's kind of like the windows
Speaker 1: have been opened and allowed the air to circulate, and
Speaker 1: then after the windows are closed once more or mostly closed, Uh,
Speaker 1: the air is still fresh, the air is still renewed.
Speaker 1: And and this brings me back to you know what
Speaker 1: I just said earlier about consolidation and integration. And I
Speaker 1: think this is gonna be very important to keep in
Speaker 1: mind as we consider you know, traditional shamanistic and uh,
Speaker 1: you know, and and scientific uses of these substances. You know,
Speaker 1: both in the scientific research is going on today and
Speaker 1: also the sort of underground therapy sessions, uh that are
Speaker 1: as well that Michael Paoulan writes about in his book
Speaker 1: You Know What. Where afterwards, during this afterglow, you ask, well,
Speaker 1: what did I learn from the experience? What can I
Speaker 1: bring with this, bring out of this into the waking world. Uh.
Speaker 1: It reminds me of one of Alan Watt's famous quotes
Speaker 1: about you know, in which it compared psychedelic experience to
Speaker 1: a scientist using a microscope. Yeah, yeah, And the idea
Speaker 1: being that a biologist will use the microscope, but then
Speaker 1: but he's not gonna have they're not gonna have their
Speaker 1: eye glued to the microscope. They have to leave the microscope.
Speaker 1: Then in order to understand nature as it is conceived of,
Speaker 1: you know, outside of the microscopic or telescopic experience, right,
Speaker 1: you don't really see or observe just by looking at something.
Speaker 1: You have to also step back and think about what
Speaker 1: you saw right now. A couple of other bits of
Speaker 1: insight that were brought up in that World Science Festival panel,
Speaker 1: and el Seth mentioned that there is increased randomness where
Speaker 1: there can be and uh and and he also pointed
Speaker 1: out that, you know this, our sense of self is
Speaker 1: ultimately a perception and the default mode network plays a
Speaker 1: big role in it. He said, it's important to point
Speaker 1: out that the self is not the default fault mode network.
Speaker 1: We shouldn't like draw two strong of a comparison between
Speaker 1: the two, but there's still a strong connection. And he said,
Speaker 1: the psychedelics temporarily reorganize these networks, you know, so so
Speaker 1: forget you know, new hallucinations. They mess with the primary
Speaker 1: hallucination of the self, the hallucination that we have day
Speaker 1: in and day out, you know, the idea that we're
Speaker 1: set off from the natural world, that we're set off
Speaker 1: from each other. So that's I think that's a really
Speaker 1: interesting way of looking at it. Don't think about the
Speaker 1: new hallucination that is brought on by a psychedelic, but
Speaker 1: the primary hallucination that may be disrupted, and then what
Speaker 1: we can learn from that. Well, yeah, I mean one
Speaker 1: of the funny things is that, so the the idea
Speaker 1: of seeing hallucinations while you're on a psychedelic can sort
Speaker 1: of bias you toward thinking that what psychedelics do is
Speaker 1: they give you an inaccurate perception of nature because of course,
Speaker 1: you know, you hallucinate things on psychedelics that there's no
Speaker 1: way to show that they're actually physically there. But at
Speaker 1: the same time, you shouldn't conclude from that the corollary
Speaker 1: that the standard, like the default state of consciousness, is
Speaker 1: accurate and the altered state of consciousness is thus estranged
Speaker 1: or inaccurate. It might see things in the physical environment
Speaker 1: that aren't physically there, but it's perception of the self
Speaker 1: and how the self works maybe no less accurate or
Speaker 1: maybe more accurate than your default state, right, And then
Speaker 1: a lot of this too. It's like we're not necessarily
Speaker 1: talking about a matrix scenario where you know, it's like, oh,
Speaker 1: now I see the real world, but like the details
Speaker 1: that the emphasis is that we play some things, etcetera,
Speaker 1: the values that we place. Another individual in that panel
Speaker 1: World Science Festival was Berkeley professor of psychology and philosophy
Speaker 1: Alison Gottnick, who we we've also discussed in the program
Speaker 1: here before because she deals a lot with the minds
Speaker 1: of young children and developing mind states. You know, she
Speaker 1: discussed how it's it's how these how psychedelics seem to
Speaker 1: open up exploratory possibilities, uh in individuals, you know, in
Speaker 1: keeping with the plasticity of in the mind of a
Speaker 1: young child. She calls this lantern consciousness and you know,
Speaker 1: comparing it to the illumination of a lantern. And she says,
Speaker 1: she said before, that babies and young children are basically
Speaker 1: tripping all the time. They are basically having a psychedelic experience,
Speaker 1: which is why you know, children can be so trying
Speaker 1: because they're just really will not boil down and be
Speaker 1: a part of the rational world. They're continually in psychedelic
Speaker 1: exploration mode. And so maybe you know, part of it
Speaker 1: is that psychedelics put one or allow one to connect
Speaker 1: maybe in a more adult way, with that same level
Speaker 1: of plasticity. Yeah, I mean one of the things that's
Speaker 1: commonly it's a metaphor that's often used by psychologist psychiatrists
Speaker 1: who are interested in this mode of thinking that psychedelics, uh,
Speaker 1: sort of like they break the automatic cliches of connection
Speaker 1: that you make in your mind, so you're able to
Speaker 1: see familiar objects as if you're seeing them for the
Speaker 1: first time. And our mind is just full of these
Speaker 1: nonverbal cliches of connections we make between things. When we
Speaker 1: see a pen, we know it's for writing, and you
Speaker 1: just see it and like you ignore all of the
Speaker 1: other strange associations you might make about the form of
Speaker 1: the pen in your hand. But the psychedelics, like they
Speaker 1: break that automatic connection, and instead you see it as
Speaker 1: this radically ambiguous form that appears before you, and you
Speaker 1: can make connections to all kinds of things. All right, well,
Speaker 1: we're gonna call this episode right here, but we will
Speaker 1: continue this exploration in the next at least a couple
Speaker 1: of episodes, so a lot of ground to cover. I
Speaker 1: think we went kind of long this time, but I
Speaker 1: think it was important to get all the grounding there
Speaker 1: so we can follow through in in the next few
Speaker 1: episodes where we're gonna talk about history and the natural
Speaker 1: history of psychedelics and especially psilocybin, to talk about some
Speaker 1: of the research that's been going on, especially since around
Speaker 1: two thousand six, about therapeutic uses of psychedelics and the
Speaker 1: ways they can contribute to adult personality change and other things. Yeah,
Speaker 1: I think it's it's fascinating how just just in the
Speaker 1: history of this show, in the history of Stuff to
Speaker 1: About Your Mind, like we we have seen so much
Speaker 1: progress made with psychede like research. So it's gonna be
Speaker 1: really exciting to discuss that in upcoming episodes. Totally all right.
Speaker 1: In the meantime, if you want to check out more
Speaker 1: episodes Stuff to Blow your Mind, there are a ton
Speaker 1: of ways to do that. You can go to our mothership,
Speaker 1: our homepage that's Stuff to Blow your Mind dot com. Also, hey,
Speaker 1: if you want to support the show, the best thing
Speaker 1: you can do is tell your friends about it, tell
Speaker 1: your family members about it. Wherever you get the podcast itself,
Speaker 1: leave us some stars leave a nice review if if
Speaker 1: that's an option to do so, that will help us
Speaker 1: out in the long run. So huge thanks to our
Speaker 1: excellent brand new audio producer Maya Cole. If you would
Speaker 1: like to get in touch with us with feedback on
Speaker 1: this episode or any other, to suggest a topic for
Speaker 1: the future, or just to say hi, you can email
Speaker 1: us at contact at stuff to Blow your Mind dot com.
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