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Speaker 1: Pushkin. Hey, Happiness Lab listeners. I don't want to spoil

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Speaker 1: the illusion, but the life of podcast hosts often is

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Speaker 1: pretty far from glamorous. Normally, I record this show in

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Speaker 1: my closet surrounded by pillows and mattresses to keep out

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Speaker 1: all the noise of the trains that run by my

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Speaker 1: Boston apartment. But not today.

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Speaker 2: The Happiness Lab has hit the road, and what a

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Speaker 2: venue We've come to, the sixth and I Historic Synagogue

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Speaker 2: in Washington, DC. Not only do we have.

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Speaker 1: A beautiful venue and a gray crowd, but bringing the

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Speaker 1: Happiness Lab Live show to DC also allowed me to

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Speaker 1: book a guest that I have been wanting to interview

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Speaker 1: for a long time. Our guest today is doctor David Jayden.

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Speaker 1: David is an assistant professor in the Department of Psychiatry

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Speaker 1: and Behavioral Sciences in the Center for Psychedelic and Consciousness

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Speaker 1: Research at Johns Hopkins University School of Medicine. David did

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Speaker 1: his doctoral training in psychology at the University of Pennsylvania,

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Speaker 1: where he explored which mental states and interventions led to

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Speaker 1: lasting positive impacts on our happiness and well being. Since

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Speaker 1: starting his own lab, he's begun studying the psychology of

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Speaker 1: states of consciousness that most people think of as among

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Speaker 1: the most meaningful moments in their lives. Specifically, he's a

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Speaker 1: world expert and what we often refer to as spiritual

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Speaker 1: transformative or self transcendent experiences, including those that come from

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Speaker 1: the use of psychedelic substances, and he's recently co authored

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Speaker 1: a book called The Varieties of Spiritual Experience Twenty first

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Speaker 1: Century Research and Perspectives. You all are in for such

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Speaker 1: a big treat listening to David today, because I think

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Speaker 1: of him as the twenty first century embodiment of a

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Speaker 1: scholar that I love, William James, You're going to hear

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Speaker 1: more about today, and so for all these reasons, I'm

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Speaker 1: so so glad that David accepted my invitation to be

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Speaker 1: part of our first.

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Speaker 2: Ever DC Happiness Lab Live that please join me and

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Speaker 2: giving a warm.

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Speaker 3: Welcome to David Daily.

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Speaker 1: So, David, as I mentioned in my introduction, you study

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Speaker 1: these experiences that people report to be some of the

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Speaker 1: most important moments of their lives. But we kind of

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Speaker 1: have very little scientific information about these transcending experiences, and

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Speaker 1: so I wanted to just start off with some definitions.

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Speaker 3: What do we mean by spiritual experiences here.

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Speaker 4: Yeah, these experiences go under many labels, So you've mentioned

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Speaker 4: a few self, transcendent, transformative, mystical, and spiritual experience. We

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Speaker 4: chose spiritual experience for the book because we ran a

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Speaker 4: survey and we ask people what do you call these

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Speaker 4: experiences in spiritual ones? So we stuck it in the book.

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Speaker 4: But we do offer a definition. It's a two parter.

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Speaker 4: A spiritual experience is a substantially altered state of consciousness

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Speaker 4: that involves a seeming perception of an unseen.

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Speaker 3: Order of some kind.

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Speaker 4: So let me break that down first, substantially altered state

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Speaker 4: of consciousness, so this is an overall shift in cognition, affect,

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Speaker 4: and perception. So we feel qualitatively different than normal. We

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Speaker 4: know something has changed from our ordinary waking consciousness, but

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Speaker 4: that's very broad. That happens in all kinds of different

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Speaker 4: ways fevers, falling, asleep, et cetera. So you need the

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Speaker 4: second part of the definition, which involves a seeming perception

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Speaker 4: of an unseen order of some kind. That sounds really convoluted,

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Speaker 4: but basically it's as if you're seeing something that you

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Speaker 4: don't normally see. But that's really important, and so for

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Speaker 4: many people that's God. For some people, that's an underlying

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Speaker 4: unity of all things. For some people it's entropy even

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Speaker 4: and scientific sorts of concepts. But it seems as though

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Speaker 4: you're seeing something that you don't normally see. That's important.

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Speaker 1: Yeah, And so give our audience a sense of what

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Speaker 1: some of these experiences might be like, like, have them

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Speaker 1: kind of walk through what it might feel like.

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Speaker 3: Yeah.

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Speaker 4: So I think when a lot of people hear the

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Speaker 4: term spiritual experience, it will bring something to mind in

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Speaker 4: their own life. So I'm wondering if we could try

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Speaker 4: to bring up one of those experiences. So I think

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Speaker 4: one way to do this is put your feet flat

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Speaker 4: on the floor, put your hands on your thighs, take

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Speaker 4: a nice and deep breath in, close your eyes, and

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Speaker 4: as you breathe out, just try to call to mind

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Speaker 4: a memory of what you think a spiritual experience might

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Speaker 4: mean for you, and don't think too hard about it.

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Speaker 4: Just let something come up. It could be a very

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Speaker 4: profound and obvious experience that maybe changed your life in

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Speaker 4: some way. For others, it might be more subtle and

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Speaker 4: just a deeply meaningful experience of mindfulness or awe or

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Speaker 4: gratitude and any of those are just fine. So as

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Speaker 4: you let just one memory come up, see if you

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Speaker 4: can feel into that experience. Try to remember how your

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Speaker 4: body felt, what you were feeling, what you're thinking, what

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Speaker 4: you're seeing, even smelling, and then try to remember how

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Speaker 4: it impacted your life. And as you do, you can

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Speaker 4: take a nice and deep breath in and as you

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Speaker 4: let it out, you can open your eyes back to

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Speaker 4: the room.

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Speaker 1: I'm kind of curious, as you all and the audience

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Speaker 1: were doing that show of hands, how many folks had

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Speaker 1: an experience that they could go to that they really remembered.

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Speaker 1: It's about maybe half a third to half at least.

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Speaker 1: Is that common when you do exercises like this?

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Speaker 4: Yeah, so there have been a number of big gallop poles,

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Speaker 4: like who here has heard of gallop holes?

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Speaker 3: So big? Everybody?

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Speaker 2: So that.

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Speaker 4: Gallup will ask in slightly different terminology. They'll say, have

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Speaker 4: you ever been close to a powerful spiritual force that

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Speaker 4: seemed to lift you out of yourself? So the wording

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Speaker 4: is often different, but the rates of endorsement are surprisingly

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Speaker 4: similar across the US and the UK, and across decades

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Speaker 4: and across like changes in terminology. So what percentage of

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Speaker 4: the US population do you think would answer yes to

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Speaker 4: the question have you had a profound spiritual experience?

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Speaker 1: Scream out your answers and I'll translate them. Seventeen forty five,

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Speaker 1: eleven twenty five, that's what sixty.

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Speaker 3: Sixty sixty eighty. Yeah, okay, so twelve to eighty was

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Speaker 3: the range. That's really good.

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Speaker 4: That means I have something useful to tell you about,

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Speaker 4: because that's a really that's a lot of uncertainty, and

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Speaker 4: unlike lots of things in psychology, there's a very precise

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Speaker 4: answer to this question, which is thirty five percent. If

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Speaker 4: anyone guess thirty five percent, you'll get a free book.

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Speaker 4: So come up to see me after. So it looks

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Speaker 4: like there was someone But this is really fascinating. I

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Speaker 4: think that thirty five percent, So you know, one out

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Speaker 4: of every three people will say, yes, I've had one

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Speaker 4: of these experiences. So if it wasn't you, someone you

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Speaker 4: know will have had one of these experiences and we

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Speaker 4: don't talk about them, and we'll probably get into the

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Speaker 4: reasons for that.

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Speaker 1: Yeah, And my understanding from seeing some of your other

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Speaker 1: interviews is that this is actually one of the reasons

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Speaker 1: you get interested in the psychological nature of these experiences

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Speaker 1: that you had one of these moments yourself too.

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Speaker 3: Do you want to share?

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Speaker 4: Yeah, So we say research is mesearch often and in

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Speaker 4: psychology it's usually you have a lot of it or

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Speaker 4: you have none of it. So I had one of

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Speaker 4: these experiences. This was under no psychoactive substances of any kind,

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Speaker 4: and I wasn't engaging in any kind of deliberate practice

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Speaker 4: like meditation or anything. This was totally spontaneous, which is

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Speaker 4: the most common category for these experience is actually it

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Speaker 4: was during a sort of difficult time in my life,

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Speaker 4: though I think I was looking for myself, trying to

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Speaker 4: think about what I wanted to do with my future.

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Speaker 4: It was during a kind of a transitional period, which

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Speaker 4: is also a common trigger of these experiences. But I

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Speaker 4: was lying in my dorm room bed. I began to

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Speaker 4: feel heat in my chest, which initially thought was indigestion, heartburn,

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Speaker 4: really cafeteria food.

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Speaker 3: You know, I was an undergrad.

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Speaker 4: But this feeling of heat began to spread and get

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Speaker 4: pretty intense and eventually covered my entire body.

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Speaker 3: And this is where it gets a bit strange.

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Speaker 4: So at that point of voice in my mind said

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Speaker 4: this is love, at which point I go out of

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Speaker 4: my awareness of my body, maybe into my mind, and

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Speaker 4: it's as if I can see three hundred and sixty

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Speaker 4: degree boundless horizon stretching out in every direction, and a

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Speaker 4: kind of intricate fabric that I felt fully part of.

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Speaker 4: So after what was probably just a few minutes but

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Speaker 4: felt like hours or days had passed, this feeling of

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Speaker 4: love reached the absolute boiling point. So it was as

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Speaker 4: much love as I could possibly take. I opened my eyes.

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Speaker 4: My body is laughing and crying at the same time.

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Speaker 4: Everything seems new. I feel much better about myself, my future.

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Speaker 4: I overwhelmed with love for friends and family. I do

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Speaker 4: the classic like I'm calling to say I love you

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Speaker 4: to many people, and it felt as if I had

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Speaker 4: just experienced the most important moment of my life. But

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Speaker 4: most of all, I was wondering what the fuck just

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Speaker 4: happened to me? I had no reference point, and of

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Speaker 4: course the thought occurs my going quote unquote crazy, Is

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Speaker 4: this symptom of a mental disorder?

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Speaker 3: Was that? God?

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Speaker 1: What?

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Speaker 4: And so I was kind of confused, and it set

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Speaker 4: me on a reading binge essentially through comparative religion, philosophy, neuroscience, psychology,

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Speaker 4: and now I guess psychopharmical.

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Speaker 3: It's still going.

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Speaker 4: I'm still trying to figure it out, basically, and that's

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Speaker 4: what I do, that's what I focus on, and that's

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Speaker 4: why I mean.

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Speaker 1: I love sharing this story in part just because it's

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Speaker 1: such a profound experience to hear about, but it also

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Speaker 1: kind of highlights some of the stuff that I know

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Speaker 1: in your research you found tends to be pretty typical

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Speaker 1: of these experiences. And so one of the things you

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Speaker 1: mentioned is this idea of like this sort of feeling

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Speaker 1: of love, a sort of sense of connection, you're sort

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Speaker 1: of hearing voices. Interestingly, these spiritual experiences.

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Speaker 3: Tend to be pretty social.

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Speaker 1: They have this kind of sense of connection, and so

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Speaker 1: talk about maybe either why that is, but what are

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Speaker 1: some of the psychological consequences of that.

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Speaker 4: We know that one of the most important contributors to

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Speaker 4: well being happiness is social connectedness. These experiences are almost

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Speaker 4: a kind of introvertive social connectedness, because people feel a

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Speaker 4: very profound sense of connection to other people, to their environment,

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Speaker 4: even all of existence in some more intense kinds of experiences.

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Speaker 4: And it's not just as if they feel connected to

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Speaker 4: their physical surroundings. There's a kind of social element to it.

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Speaker 4: So there's this concept of mind perception. When you look

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Speaker 4: at me, without having to think about it, you're reflexively

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Speaker 4: perceiving mind in this flesh body that's flapping around, but

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Speaker 4: not to my chair and not to the wall. But

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Speaker 4: during these experiences, we're more likely to perceive mind in

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Speaker 4: other human beings but also in things like the chair

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Speaker 4: in the wall, and everything seems alive in a sense.

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Speaker 4: And so it's like a massive social connection moment. So

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Speaker 4: it's a way to feel huge amount of connectedness all

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Speaker 4: at one time and in a very intense way.

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Speaker 1: And another piece of the intensity of these experiences is

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Speaker 1: that in lots of cases they can be just super profound,

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Speaker 1: and definitely in rare cases they can lead people not

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Speaker 1: to to feel differently in that moment, but to kind

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Speaker 1: of alter the course of how people feel in the

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Speaker 1: long term, like sometimes even changing their lives. These experiences

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Speaker 1: can be in some sense like morally transformative.

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Speaker 4: Yeah, so sometimes these experiences don't have much of an impact,

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Speaker 4: but sometimes for some people they seem to have very

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Speaker 4: long lasting results for years, even decades, or an entire lifetime.

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Speaker 4: There's an example of a man named Bill who was

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Speaker 4: neglectful of his family, describes himself as pretty abusive due

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Speaker 4: to his very very severe alcoholism. He undergoes a kind

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Speaker 4: of psychedelics therapy using scopolamine several times with no real effect,

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Speaker 4: but the third time, just beforehand, he interacts with a

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Speaker 4: number of people part of this group to like a

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Speaker 4: religious organization, and he has this full blown spiritual experience

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Speaker 4: that allows him to be sober for basically the rest

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Speaker 4: of his life. And this is Bill Wilson. This is

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Speaker 4: the founder of Alcoholics Anonymous, on which all twelve step

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Speaker 4: programs are based, and spiritual experience are at the very

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Speaker 4: very heart of these twelve step programs. So for some people,

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Speaker 4: these experiences, while they may not last very long, they

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Speaker 4: have a hugely lengthy impact on their life.

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Speaker 1: And another future of these experiences is this kind of

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Speaker 1: altered state of consciousness, which I think, when you're a

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Speaker 1: nerdy scientist like us, begs this naturalistic explanation that gets

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Speaker 1: kind of complicated. You know, as you mentioned in your

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Speaker 1: own experiences, you're wondering, is this God? Is this the

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Speaker 1: kind of thing that we don't as scientists tend to

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Speaker 1: try to dig into. These things kind of seem outside

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Speaker 1: the purview of normal scientific research. And so one question

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Speaker 1: is like, how do we take a naturalistic approach to

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Speaker 1: stuff that feels perhaps by definition so supernatural.

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Speaker 4: Yeah, as scientists, we need to study what we can measure,

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Speaker 4: and there are many aspects of these experiences that we

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Speaker 4: can measure. But there are some kinds of interpretations of

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Speaker 4: these experiences that are simply all the table scientifically, and

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Speaker 4: we leave those to philosophers and theologians and individuals' own

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Speaker 4: interpretations and their own conscience and faith. Essentially, So when

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Speaker 4: we study these kinds of experiences, we take a methodologically

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Speaker 4: agnostic approach, and so we say, let's look at what

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Speaker 4: we can study. We can study what people say about them,

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Speaker 4: what triggered the experience, how they felt during the experience,

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Speaker 4: what happens in the brain and the body during the experience,

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Speaker 4: how it seems to impact people's lives, how it changes

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Speaker 4: their behavior.

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Speaker 3: So all of that is on the table.

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Speaker 4: The question of ultimately where these experiences come from. Is

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Speaker 4: it from a supernatural realm or a god or is

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Speaker 4: it just the brain? Ultimately, that's not a question that

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Speaker 4: I think we can answer scientifically.

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Speaker 1: But one of the questions we can answer scientifically is

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Speaker 1: trying to just kind of categorize these experiences, and it

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Speaker 1: turns out that even that seemingly simple scientific question is

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Speaker 1: really really tricky because of a strange feature of these

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Speaker 1: experiences that they're really varied.

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Speaker 2: You know.

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Speaker 1: That's why you call your book the Varieties of Spiritual Experience,

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Speaker 1: And so give me a sense of the like spectrum

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Speaker 1: of these things. We talked about some of the extreme

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Speaker 1: ones where you know it's changing your life, it's sort

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Speaker 1: of morally transformative. Like what does the other side of

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Speaker 1: the spectrum look like?

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Speaker 4: Yeah, so for some people, these experiences can be quite

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Speaker 4: negative and are in fact related to mental illness and

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Speaker 4: can lead to mental illness. So don't want to portray

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Speaker 4: these experiences as always positive. They're very intense, and they

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Speaker 4: can go in different directions for different people. There's a

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Speaker 4: long history in treating them as merely parts of mental illness,

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Speaker 4: and a lot of my research is oriented towards correcting

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Speaker 4: that because actually most people benefit from these experiences, and

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Speaker 4: some people benefit tremendously so in terms of the impact

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Speaker 4: that they have on people's lives. There are varieties in

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Speaker 4: terms of intensity, Like when we went through that imaginal exercise,

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Speaker 4: some people probably had really transformative experiences in mind, other

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Speaker 4: people may have thought about looking at a really amazing

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Speaker 4: paintings somewhat less intense. So they vary in terms of intensity.

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Speaker 4: They also vary in terms of the content of the experience.

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Speaker 4: We've talked about. If you ask people, have you had

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Speaker 4: a spiritual experience, about thirty five percent of the population

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Speaker 4: we'll say yes, And you can make further subdivisions within that.

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Speaker 3: The main three subdivisions.

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Speaker 4: So the first one is feeling as if you're connected

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Speaker 4: to an all pervasive, sort of all powerful, non physical

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Speaker 4: mind of some kind, a kind of God or divinity.

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Speaker 4: The second one is unity, so people feel deeply connected

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Speaker 4: to everything and everyone around them. The third, and this

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Speaker 4: is where things get a bit strange, is non physical

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Speaker 4: entities or ghosts. So we didn't go looking for ghost stories,

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Speaker 4: but they came to us. So if you ask people

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Speaker 4: have you had a spiritual experience, many people will say yes,

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Speaker 4: and it was a ghost experience. Now, being a little glib,

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Speaker 4: but these experiences can be very profound. There was a

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Speaker 4: study in swe that found that over fifty percent of

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Speaker 4: recently bereaved spouses will have a experience of a visage

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Speaker 4: or a ghost of their recently deceased spouse, and that

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Speaker 4: most people view these experiences as meaningful and beneficial and

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Speaker 4: helpful in the morning process.

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Speaker 1: And so I think we're going to talk more about

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Speaker 1: what these variations mean. But as we're talking about this,

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Speaker 1: I'm realizing that as we start talking about varieties, we

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Speaker 1: should be sure to give credit to the scholar who

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Speaker 1: kind of came up with this notion of varieties. You

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Speaker 1: called your book the Varieties of Spiritual Experience, but that

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Speaker 1: was kind of a kickback to the scholar who first

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Speaker 1: started the empirical study of spiritual experiences in general. And

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Speaker 1: so when we get back from the break, we're going

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Speaker 1: to do a deep dive into that scholar's story. Was

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Speaker 1: David's academic forefather who started studying transcendent moments first, the

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Speaker 1: themed nineteenth century psychologist William James. We're going to hear

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Speaker 1: a little bit about James's story and how he became

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Speaker 1: interested in all these phenomena, and I we're going to

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Speaker 1: learn how his work laid the foundation for some of

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Speaker 1: the biggest scientific breakthroughs we're seeing in spiritual experiences today,

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Speaker 1: including in the domain of psychedelics and happiness.

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Speaker 3: The Happiness Lab and live in DC. We'll be right back.

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Speaker 1: And so, David, many of the most famous accounts of

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Speaker 1: spiritual experiences are pretty old, in our oldest texts and

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Speaker 1: our oldest religious works. But it was only in the

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Speaker 1: nineteenth century that researchers really started studying these phenomena from

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Speaker 1: more of a scientific perspective. It was really until the

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Speaker 1: pioneering work of one of psychology's great scholars, William James.

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Speaker 1: And I know, David that you're kind of like a

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Speaker 1: William James super fan, but he's kind of not as

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Speaker 1: famous as a lot of older psychologists that we think

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Speaker 1: of Freud or Young or something like that. Why not

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Speaker 1: and why is that kind of an oversight?

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Speaker 4: I'm so glad we get to talk about William James well,

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Speaker 4: because a lot of people don't. They want to skip

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Speaker 4: over the history. And this is like the most exciting thing.

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Speaker 4: And I should say we name the book as an

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Speaker 4: homage to William James's original book, The Varieties of Religious Experience,

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Speaker 4: because we want people to go back and read the original.

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Speaker 3: It's not like a copyright the error.

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Speaker 4: So I was in a cab going to Countway Library,

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Speaker 4: which is a medical library and it's the only place

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Speaker 4: in the world that has a chapter from Carl Jung's

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Speaker 4: autobiography that was cut by the editor, and you have

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Speaker 4: to go there in person, put on these gloves, and

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Speaker 4: actually handle the manuscript in person. And this deleted chapter

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Speaker 4: is all about Carl Jung's relationship with William James. And

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Speaker 4: why that matters is because most people see Carl Jung

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Speaker 4: as Freud's protege and really just carrying forward Freudian thought

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Speaker 4: and then they split, but really they're kind of talking

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Speaker 4: about very similar things. What this chapter shows is that

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Speaker 4: Carl Jung Ung's later work was a huge debt to

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Speaker 4: William James's work, and he essentially became Jamesian. So I

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Speaker 4: was in a cab and I was telling this exact

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Speaker 4: same story and the cast of characters involved are Sigmund Freud,

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Speaker 4: Carl Jung, and William James. And the cab driver said,

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Speaker 4: I definitely know Freud. I think I've heard of Jung.

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Speaker 4: I've never heard of the other guy, and that I

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Speaker 4: think is pretty common.

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Speaker 3: And David started weeping in the cab. That is absurd.

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Speaker 3: That is so absurd.

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Speaker 4: I mean it was true of me before I became

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Speaker 4: a psychologist as well, of course, but it's not only absurd,

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Speaker 4: it's bizarre. So at the time of his death, William

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Speaker 4: James was called the most famous academic in the world

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Speaker 4: by Bertrand Russell. He had been the president of the

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Speaker 4: American Psychological Association and American Philosophical Association.

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Speaker 3: He's a professor at Harvard.

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Speaker 4: He made huge contributions in psychology, philosophy, religious studies, psychiatry.

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Speaker 4: He started the first psychology lab in North America. So

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Speaker 4: he's this towering figure who was also a member of

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Speaker 4: the most famous family in America. He grew up with

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Speaker 4: Emerson and Thereaux sitting around the dinner table. His brother

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Speaker 4: Henry James became basically the most influential novelist of the time.

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Speaker 4: His sister Alice James became a famous feminist diarist, so

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Speaker 4: massively influential.

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Speaker 3: And somewhat forgotten.

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Speaker 4: And I think that that's a big mistake, because I

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Speaker 4: think William James really laid the foundation for the study

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Speaker 4: of these experiences, and did so in a way that

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Speaker 4: was much more evidence based and nuanced than either Freud

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Speaker 4: or Young. So William James wanted there to be rigorous

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Speaker 4: empirical research on these experiences, Freud and Young did something

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Speaker 4: very different. So Freud looked at these experiences and he said,

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Speaker 4: these sound weird. He's like, these don't fit with our

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Speaker 4: picture of psychology. He said, he's never had one of

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Speaker 4: these experiences, and so therefore they must be related to

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Speaker 4: mental illness. And he even offered an explanation, or he

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Speaker 4: tried to. He said, these oceanic feelings of oneness are

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Speaker 4: actually memories of being in your mother's womb that are

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Speaker 4: repressed that are coming to awareness. So any psychologists would

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Speaker 4: think that's completely absurd. We know that the memory doesn't

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Speaker 4: work like that. So Freud said, these are parts of

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Speaker 4: mental illness and they don't really have value. Their delusional Basically,

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Speaker 4: Jung thought that they were the key to mental health.

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Speaker 4: So he almost went to the entire opposite perspective, and

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Speaker 4: he thought these experiences are so important that he's going

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Speaker 4: to put them at the center of his system of psychotherapy.

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Speaker 4: Called them numinous experiences and probably didn't really emphasize the

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Speaker 4: risks and the fact that these experiences often don't result

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Speaker 4: in long lasting change, at least not for everybody. And

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Speaker 4: he thought that they were verritical in the sense that

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Speaker 4: they were showing us a true picture of reality. So

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Speaker 4: those are very different perspectives, and William James's view is

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Speaker 4: I think.

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Speaker 3: The correct one.

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Speaker 4: We should look to the evidence learn about these experiences,

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Speaker 4: and we should set aside philosophical and theological questions that

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Speaker 4: we can't answer zience typically.

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Speaker 1: And one of my favorite things about the story of

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Speaker 1: how William James got interested in these experiences is that

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Speaker 1: his kind of big fory into talking about them happened

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Speaker 1: at an event a lot like this, right.

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Speaker 3: Yeah, so.

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Speaker 4: Yeah, So the Gifford Lectures in Edinburgh, essentially the TED

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Speaker 4: Talk of the day. This lecture series becomes the book

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Speaker 4: The Varieties of Religious Experience, and at the end of

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Speaker 4: it they apparently sang for He's a jolly good fellow,

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Speaker 4: which is like the equivalent of a standing ovation at

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Speaker 4: a TED talk.

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Speaker 3: I guess it's kind of fun. I was gonna have

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Speaker 3: you do it.

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Speaker 1: So now fast forward, you know, one hundred plus years,

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Speaker 1: and the scholars today are still using some of the

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Speaker 1: same traditions that James did, right, I mean, functionally, his

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Speaker 1: naturalistic approach is kind of what you've done with your

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Speaker 1: famous varieties corpus.

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Speaker 3: You know, so talk about kind.

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Speaker 1: Of the goal of that work to really catalog these experiences.

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Speaker 4: Yeah, so one of William James's students, Edwin Starbuck, did

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Speaker 4: a survey of people in New England at the time.

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Speaker 4: Have you had feelings of oneness? Have you had feelings

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Speaker 4: of divine aid? And tabulated how many people said yes.

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Speaker 4: And so this was a rudimentary what we call cross

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Speaker 4: sectional survey. We've now done these kinds of surveys, but

439
00:24:31,396 --> 00:24:34,396
Speaker 4: we ask a whole lot of questions about what triggered

440
00:24:34,436 --> 00:24:37,876
Speaker 4: these experiences, what kind of experience it was, what people

441
00:24:37,916 --> 00:24:40,956
Speaker 4: felt during the experience, and then how it impacts their life.

442
00:24:40,996 --> 00:24:43,436
Speaker 4: And so we ask a whole lot of questions, and

443
00:24:43,476 --> 00:24:46,396
Speaker 4: we put these questions to thousands of people, not just

444
00:24:46,436 --> 00:24:48,236
Speaker 4: a few dozen like they did back in the day.

445
00:24:48,556 --> 00:24:51,236
Speaker 1: And so what are we learning from some of these surveys?

446
00:24:51,276 --> 00:24:53,396
Speaker 1: I mean, one of the big questions is like, where

447
00:24:53,396 --> 00:24:56,476
Speaker 1: do these kinds of experiences come from? You know, what

448
00:24:56,756 --> 00:24:58,636
Speaker 1: are we learning about how they tend to emerge in

449
00:24:58,676 --> 00:24:59,316
Speaker 1: these surveys?

450
00:24:59,436 --> 00:25:02,916
Speaker 4: The ultimate origin, whether it comes from God or the

451
00:25:02,996 --> 00:25:05,276
Speaker 4: brain or somewhere else. And you know, again we set

452
00:25:05,276 --> 00:25:08,116
Speaker 4: that question aside when we study it. I should also

453
00:25:08,196 --> 00:25:12,636
Speaker 4: mention people, people of every religious faith, people are spiritual

454
00:25:12,636 --> 00:25:17,316
Speaker 4: but not religious. Agnostics and atheists all have these experiences,

455
00:25:17,596 --> 00:25:20,036
Speaker 4: and in fact, some atheists will have a full blown

456
00:25:20,076 --> 00:25:23,876
Speaker 4: experience of God, they'll just choose afterwards to interpret it

457
00:25:23,916 --> 00:25:26,356
Speaker 4: as a brain event rather than God experience. So what

458
00:25:26,436 --> 00:25:31,796
Speaker 4: causes these experiences? A lot of things, So things like prayer, meditation,

459
00:25:32,436 --> 00:25:36,516
Speaker 4: solitude in nature, maybe those are more expected, less expected

460
00:25:36,596 --> 00:25:41,556
Speaker 4: being near death, grief, transitional periods in life, and then

461
00:25:41,716 --> 00:25:43,716
Speaker 4: psychedelic experiences as well.

462
00:25:44,076 --> 00:25:46,676
Speaker 3: What do all those things share in common. I'm not

463
00:25:46,796 --> 00:25:47,436
Speaker 3: exactly sure.

464
00:25:47,476 --> 00:25:49,796
Speaker 4: If you know the answer, let me know afterwards, because

465
00:25:49,796 --> 00:25:51,276
Speaker 4: I'm really trying to figure that out.

466
00:25:51,436 --> 00:25:53,396
Speaker 1: And so, you know, in James's day, we kind of

467
00:25:53,436 --> 00:25:55,516
Speaker 1: just had these statistical techniques where we could kind of

468
00:25:55,556 --> 00:25:57,516
Speaker 1: ask people about these experiences and try.

469
00:25:57,356 --> 00:25:58,236
Speaker 3: To catalog them.

470
00:25:58,316 --> 00:26:01,276
Speaker 1: But James would be so excited to the access that

471
00:26:01,356 --> 00:26:04,196
Speaker 1: we have nowadays in terms of new techniques for looking

472
00:26:04,196 --> 00:26:06,236
Speaker 1: at these things. And one of the things that we

473
00:26:06,436 --> 00:26:08,596
Speaker 1: can use, and I know that you have used, is

474
00:26:08,676 --> 00:26:10,996
Speaker 1: looking at activity in the brain. To I don't understand

475
00:26:10,996 --> 00:26:14,236
Speaker 1: what's happening in the brain when people experience these altered states.

476
00:26:14,316 --> 00:26:16,796
Speaker 1: And so talk about how researchers are starting to use

477
00:26:16,916 --> 00:26:20,156
Speaker 1: neuroscientific techniques to get at the mechanisms of these experiences

478
00:26:20,196 --> 00:26:23,036
Speaker 1: and also some of the particular challenges of that work

479
00:26:23,036 --> 00:26:24,716
Speaker 1: that you might not think of ahead of time.

480
00:26:24,876 --> 00:26:28,356
Speaker 4: It's pretty difficult to have one of these experiences on command,

481
00:26:29,356 --> 00:26:36,476
Speaker 4: let alone lying in a neuroimaging scanner, a noisy, uncomfortable

482
00:26:36,636 --> 00:26:37,716
Speaker 4: neuroimaging scanner.

483
00:26:37,756 --> 00:26:39,436
Speaker 3: But researchers are doing this.

484
00:26:39,516 --> 00:26:41,676
Speaker 4: So my co author in the book, Andy Neuberg, was

485
00:26:41,716 --> 00:26:46,996
Speaker 4: a pioneer in putting Franciscan nuns and Tibetan meditators. These

486
00:26:47,036 --> 00:26:50,396
Speaker 4: are veteran contemplatives. These are people who practice prayer or

487
00:26:50,436 --> 00:26:53,236
Speaker 4: meditation for hours a day for many years, who say

488
00:26:53,236 --> 00:26:55,676
Speaker 4: that they're able to put themselves into this deep feeling

489
00:26:55,716 --> 00:26:59,636
Speaker 4: of unity more or less on command if given some time.

490
00:27:00,036 --> 00:27:03,996
Speaker 4: And so when these people were putting themselves into this

491
00:27:04,156 --> 00:27:06,996
Speaker 4: state and they were in the scanner at the same time,

492
00:27:07,236 --> 00:27:09,876
Speaker 4: what was found is a particular region of the brain

493
00:27:10,676 --> 00:27:15,476
Speaker 4: was inhibited or less activated, the temporal parietal junction, a

494
00:27:15,556 --> 00:27:21,156
Speaker 4: region of the brain doesn't matter, and this region is

495
00:27:21,236 --> 00:27:23,436
Speaker 4: less active than normal. And you have to be careful

496
00:27:23,436 --> 00:27:26,396
Speaker 4: about drawing conclusions in this way. But this region is

497
00:27:26,716 --> 00:27:31,156
Speaker 4: often associated with mapping the boundaries between yourself and everything else,

498
00:27:31,356 --> 00:27:34,476
Speaker 4: and so it makes good neurological sense that when people

499
00:27:34,556 --> 00:27:38,796
Speaker 4: are feeling this sense of unity, that this boundary modeling

500
00:27:39,156 --> 00:27:41,156
Speaker 4: region is turned down.

501
00:27:41,436 --> 00:27:43,556
Speaker 1: And I know this is all preliminary work, so as

502
00:27:43,556 --> 00:27:45,436
Speaker 1: we talk about these findings, you know, it's hard to

503
00:27:45,476 --> 00:27:48,116
Speaker 1: say what we know for sure because there's so few studies.

504
00:27:48,156 --> 00:27:50,996
Speaker 1: But there are other neuroscientific studies looking at what's happening

505
00:27:51,036 --> 00:27:53,596
Speaker 1: in the autonomic nervous system when we're having some of

506
00:27:53,636 --> 00:27:57,356
Speaker 1: these experiences, and so bracketed autonomic nervous systems something we

507
00:27:57,396 --> 00:28:00,076
Speaker 1: talk about a bunch on the podcast. This is two

508
00:28:00,156 --> 00:28:02,436
Speaker 1: sets of systems that kind of go back and forth

509
00:28:02,476 --> 00:28:05,156
Speaker 1: between our sort of fight or flight threat response, like

510
00:28:05,196 --> 00:28:08,836
Speaker 1: a tiger jumps out the sympathetic nervous system response, and

511
00:28:08,876 --> 00:28:11,956
Speaker 1: the opposite sister response of kind of rest and digest,

512
00:28:12,036 --> 00:28:15,716
Speaker 1: our sort of parasympathetic calming response. And usually the autonomic

513
00:28:15,716 --> 00:28:18,676
Speaker 1: nervous system has these two poles, like one is active

514
00:28:18,756 --> 00:28:20,916
Speaker 1: any one time you're either in tiger is jumping out

515
00:28:20,916 --> 00:28:23,436
Speaker 1: of you fight or flight mode, or you're kind of

516
00:28:23,516 --> 00:28:26,156
Speaker 1: chillin rest and digest mode. That's what's typical, But what

517
00:28:26,196 --> 00:28:28,516
Speaker 1: are some of these early neuroscience studies starting to show

518
00:28:28,516 --> 00:28:31,236
Speaker 1: about what happens in the autonomic nervous system when we're

519
00:28:31,276 --> 00:28:32,676
Speaker 1: having some of these experiences.

520
00:28:33,316 --> 00:28:36,556
Speaker 4: I can't resist telling this little historical anecdote. So the

521
00:28:36,676 --> 00:28:40,236
Speaker 4: stress response, the sympathetic response, was discovered by one of

522
00:28:40,276 --> 00:28:42,836
Speaker 4: William James's students, Walter Cannon.

523
00:28:42,956 --> 00:28:45,036
Speaker 3: William James fan it's so cute. Look at how his

524
00:28:45,116 --> 00:28:47,796
Speaker 3: face like that. You're going to cut this, I know.

525
00:28:48,316 --> 00:28:52,356
Speaker 4: And then the other the parasympathetic response, the relaxation response,

526
00:28:52,436 --> 00:28:55,476
Speaker 4: was discovered in the same lab by Herbert Benson in

527
00:28:55,516 --> 00:28:55,956
Speaker 4: his group.

528
00:28:56,036 --> 00:28:59,436
Speaker 3: So kind of funny, William James, super important.

529
00:28:59,516 --> 00:29:00,796
Speaker 1: Now you'll never forget anybody.

530
00:29:00,876 --> 00:29:07,516
Speaker 4: Yeah, So these different branches stress response, sympathetic, relaxation response, parasympathetic.

531
00:29:07,636 --> 00:29:09,756
Speaker 4: It's generally the case that one on and the other

532
00:29:09,796 --> 00:29:13,636
Speaker 4: one is essentially off. But during certain experiences, and it

533
00:29:13,636 --> 00:29:16,956
Speaker 4: seems like spiritual experiences might be such a case, there's

534
00:29:17,036 --> 00:29:19,996
Speaker 4: what's called a paradoxical response, where they both seem to

535
00:29:20,036 --> 00:29:23,116
Speaker 4: be activated at the same time. There are other contexts

536
00:29:23,156 --> 00:29:26,436
Speaker 4: in which this occurs as well, like orgasm, for example,

537
00:29:26,716 --> 00:29:31,356
Speaker 4: and some scientists think that these spiritual experiences, while otherwise

538
00:29:31,436 --> 00:29:34,116
Speaker 4: quite different from an orgasm, may involve some of the

539
00:29:34,156 --> 00:29:35,996
Speaker 4: same underlying physiology.

540
00:29:36,356 --> 00:29:37,636
Speaker 3: It's just a theory, and.

541
00:29:37,716 --> 00:29:39,916
Speaker 1: So all that stuff is really new but exciting, right,

542
00:29:39,916 --> 00:29:42,036
Speaker 1: because now we have these techniques and the promise of

543
00:29:42,076 --> 00:29:44,796
Speaker 1: these techniques for looking at these experiences. But when we

544
00:29:44,836 --> 00:29:46,356
Speaker 1: get back from the break, we're going to talk about

545
00:29:46,356 --> 00:29:48,796
Speaker 1: another modern window that we have into the nature of

546
00:29:48,836 --> 00:29:52,956
Speaker 1: self transcendent experiences. We're going to start talking about psychedelic drugs.

547
00:29:53,116 --> 00:29:56,156
Speaker 1: The Happiness Lab Live in DC will turn to the

548
00:29:56,236 --> 00:30:06,396
Speaker 1: science of psychedelics in just a moment, So, David, we're

549
00:30:06,396 --> 00:30:09,756
Speaker 1: going to start talking about psychedelic substances in I think

550
00:30:10,076 --> 00:30:12,516
Speaker 1: in some ways it might feel weird to talk about

551
00:30:12,556 --> 00:30:15,956
Speaker 1: psychedelics and the context of other spiritual experiences, Like on

552
00:30:15,956 --> 00:30:18,036
Speaker 1: the one hand, we're talking about nuns or having these

553
00:30:18,076 --> 00:30:20,636
Speaker 1: religious experiences, and we're talking about them in the same

554
00:30:20,636 --> 00:30:23,956
Speaker 1: breath as like tripping on LSD at some like festival. Right.

555
00:30:24,036 --> 00:30:25,956
Speaker 1: But the reason you think this is okay is that

556
00:30:25,996 --> 00:30:27,796
Speaker 1: you've argued in your book is that a lot of

557
00:30:27,796 --> 00:30:31,636
Speaker 1: the experiences that people self describe on psychedelics seem pretty

558
00:30:31,636 --> 00:30:34,956
Speaker 1: indistinguishable from the more spiritual realm. So give me some

559
00:30:35,036 --> 00:30:36,956
Speaker 1: examples of why that seems to be the case.

560
00:30:37,196 --> 00:30:40,636
Speaker 4: I should first start out by saying, psychedelic substances have

561
00:30:40,676 --> 00:30:46,196
Speaker 4: been used in indigenous communities for spiritual religious purposes for

562
00:30:46,556 --> 00:30:50,596
Speaker 4: centuries and potentially millennia, and so the associations that our

563
00:30:50,636 --> 00:30:54,636
Speaker 4: culture has with psychedelics, sixties and tied I and things

564
00:30:54,676 --> 00:30:57,596
Speaker 4: like that will be very, very different in other cultures

565
00:30:57,716 --> 00:31:02,436
Speaker 4: where this association between spiritual type experiences and psychedelic experiences

566
00:31:02,556 --> 00:31:06,476
Speaker 4: is totally normal. But yeah, in our culture it does

567
00:31:06,676 --> 00:31:09,356
Speaker 4: maybe seem strange. But it's been noticed for a long

568
00:31:09,476 --> 00:31:12,996
Speaker 4: time that there's similarities in the reports of some psychedelic

569
00:31:13,076 --> 00:31:16,076
Speaker 4: experiences in some of these spiritual experiences. So there was

570
00:31:16,116 --> 00:31:18,836
Speaker 4: a scholar named Houston Smith, and when he was lecturing

571
00:31:18,916 --> 00:31:21,796
Speaker 4: at Princeton, he used to write on the board one

572
00:31:22,076 --> 00:31:25,756
Speaker 4: experience that was triggered by psychedelics and then another experience

573
00:31:25,796 --> 00:31:28,756
Speaker 4: that was triggered spontaneously, and he would ask the students

574
00:31:28,876 --> 00:31:31,996
Speaker 4: guess which one was triggered by the psychedelic and no

575
00:31:31,996 --> 00:31:34,356
Speaker 4: one could. I mean, it was fifty to fifty, just

576
00:31:34,996 --> 00:31:38,716
Speaker 4: a chance. And when you read these accounts, there are

577
00:31:38,756 --> 00:31:42,036
Speaker 4: many in the book they just seem indistinguishable. You wouldn't

578
00:31:42,036 --> 00:31:44,476
Speaker 4: be able to tell was that triggered by meditation or

579
00:31:44,516 --> 00:31:50,756
Speaker 4: psychedelic or spontaneously. That's important data that leads us to

580
00:31:50,796 --> 00:31:54,796
Speaker 4: believe that there might be something about psychedelics that will

581
00:31:54,836 --> 00:31:58,956
Speaker 4: allow us to discover more about the underlying psychopharmacology of

582
00:31:58,996 --> 00:32:02,516
Speaker 4: spiritual experiences in general, or at the very least use

583
00:32:02,556 --> 00:32:05,476
Speaker 4: psychedelics to model these kinds of experiences that were so

584
00:32:05,556 --> 00:32:09,836
Speaker 4: interested in studying, not just in a correlational survey way,

585
00:32:10,076 --> 00:32:11,676
Speaker 4: but actually inducing them in the lab.

586
00:32:11,956 --> 00:32:14,516
Speaker 1: I mean, you've described the benefit that scientists might get

587
00:32:14,556 --> 00:32:17,036
Speaker 1: from psychedelics, But my guess is other people who are

588
00:32:17,036 --> 00:32:19,556
Speaker 1: sitting out there might be thinking, hang on, I could

589
00:32:19,636 --> 00:32:21,716
Speaker 1: you know, wait to kind of spontaneously have one of

590
00:32:21,756 --> 00:32:24,796
Speaker 1: these experiences that are so transformative and maybe we will

591
00:32:24,836 --> 00:32:27,716
Speaker 1: change my life forever, or I could take a substance

592
00:32:27,756 --> 00:32:29,476
Speaker 1: that might get me there. And I think this leads

593
00:32:29,516 --> 00:32:31,996
Speaker 1: to this sort of natural question, which is, like our

594
00:32:32,036 --> 00:32:35,076
Speaker 1: psychedelics just a super fast way to get these intense

595
00:32:35,116 --> 00:32:38,356
Speaker 1: spiritual experiences, a kind of quick quick fix to enlightenment,

596
00:32:38,796 --> 00:32:42,236
Speaker 1: maybe even happiness. But you've argued that before we can

597
00:32:42,276 --> 00:32:45,436
Speaker 1: even answer that question, we need to become more careful

598
00:32:45,556 --> 00:32:48,876
Speaker 1: historians of what happened the last time we started exploring

599
00:32:48,876 --> 00:32:51,596
Speaker 1: these questions with psychedelics, and so give us a kind

600
00:32:51,596 --> 00:32:55,276
Speaker 1: of quick glimpse into the history of psychedelic research kind

601
00:32:55,396 --> 00:32:57,676
Speaker 1: from where we started to where we wound up today.

602
00:32:58,476 --> 00:33:01,516
Speaker 4: Yeah, so there does seem to be some promise for

603
00:33:01,756 --> 00:33:06,436
Speaker 4: psychedelic compounds and the experiences that they create, and this

604
00:33:06,996 --> 00:33:13,316
Speaker 4: results in statements psychedelics can cure mental illness or solve

605
00:33:13,356 --> 00:33:17,796
Speaker 4: the climate crisis, these outrageous claims.

606
00:33:17,436 --> 00:33:20,236
Speaker 1: And that one that was literally in a news article.

607
00:33:20,316 --> 00:33:20,596
Speaker 3: Yeah.

608
00:33:20,796 --> 00:33:25,156
Speaker 4: Yeah. What's frustrating about that is the experiment has been run.

609
00:33:25,476 --> 00:33:28,036
Speaker 4: I mean, in the nineteen sixties there was widespread use

610
00:33:28,036 --> 00:33:32,436
Speaker 4: of psychedelics and here we are. It's not as if

611
00:33:32,636 --> 00:33:37,516
Speaker 4: everything became a utopia. And so this idea of oh,

612
00:33:37,676 --> 00:33:41,796
Speaker 4: just distribute psychedelics and the world will be healed, I

613
00:33:41,916 --> 00:33:47,676
Speaker 4: find just well, i'll just say, empirically implausible. And so

614
00:33:47,756 --> 00:33:51,916
Speaker 4: I think we have an opportunity as a society to

615
00:33:51,956 --> 00:33:58,476
Speaker 4: treat these compounds with more respect this timing around, and

616
00:33:58,516 --> 00:34:00,556
Speaker 4: to be a little bit more careful or a lot

617
00:34:00,596 --> 00:34:02,876
Speaker 4: more careful, and to do better science.

618
00:34:03,316 --> 00:34:06,756
Speaker 1: So with that Karen Place. So far, what do we

619
00:34:06,836 --> 00:34:09,316
Speaker 1: know about how these things work and the POTENTI I'll

620
00:34:09,316 --> 00:34:11,556
Speaker 1: promise they might have for some therapeutic benefits.

621
00:34:11,756 --> 00:34:11,996
Speaker 3: Yeah.

622
00:34:12,036 --> 00:34:16,596
Speaker 4: So at our lab at Johns Hopkins, we do quite

623
00:34:16,596 --> 00:34:20,596
Speaker 4: a lot of research with psilocybin. So, psilocybin is a

624
00:34:20,636 --> 00:34:25,196
Speaker 4: serotonergic psychedelic. It's one of the psychedelics. And by the way,

625
00:34:25,236 --> 00:34:28,596
Speaker 4: I should say, when I talk about psychedelics, I'm not

626
00:34:28,676 --> 00:34:33,196
Speaker 4: talking about MDMA or ketamine. So MDMA we call it empathogen,

627
00:34:33,276 --> 00:34:36,516
Speaker 4: and ketamine we call it dissociative anesthetics. So when I

628
00:34:36,556 --> 00:34:41,396
Speaker 4: say psychedelic, I mean serotonergic psychedelics like LSD, psilocybin, DMT,

629
00:34:41,476 --> 00:34:44,316
Speaker 4: and mescaline. So we do a lot of work with

630
00:34:44,356 --> 00:34:48,956
Speaker 4: these serotonergic psychedelics like psilocybin. And the way we do

631
00:34:49,036 --> 00:34:52,796
Speaker 4: it is we bring in participants who are interested in

632
00:34:52,876 --> 00:34:57,156
Speaker 4: having one of these experiences. We screen them, so we

633
00:34:57,236 --> 00:34:59,796
Speaker 4: screen out people who have a personal or family history

634
00:34:59,836 --> 00:35:03,676
Speaker 4: of psychotic disorders or cardiac issues. We go through extensive

635
00:35:03,716 --> 00:35:06,596
Speaker 4: prep sessions so people can learn about what the psychedelic

636
00:35:06,636 --> 00:35:09,516
Speaker 4: experience might be like and to build some trust with

637
00:35:10,236 --> 00:35:12,276
Speaker 4: two of their guides who follow them through the whole

638
00:35:12,316 --> 00:35:15,596
Speaker 4: process on the session day. We just had one today,

639
00:35:15,956 --> 00:35:18,956
Speaker 4: and these two guides will be in the session room

640
00:35:19,356 --> 00:35:21,156
Speaker 4: with the participant.

641
00:35:21,276 --> 00:35:22,356
Speaker 3: There's music playing.

642
00:35:22,676 --> 00:35:26,356
Speaker 4: The participant wears headphones and eye shades and lies on

643
00:35:26,396 --> 00:35:31,156
Speaker 4: a couch, and the experience lasts about six hours, and

644
00:35:31,236 --> 00:35:36,116
Speaker 4: two to three hours in they'll be peak intensity. People

645
00:35:36,196 --> 00:35:40,356
Speaker 4: report a lot of different kinds of experiences throughout that

646
00:35:40,756 --> 00:35:44,116
Speaker 4: six hour period, some of which look very much like

647
00:35:44,156 --> 00:35:47,476
Speaker 4: the kinds of experiences that I'm interested in, deep feelings

648
00:35:47,516 --> 00:35:52,116
Speaker 4: of unity, other kinds of spiritual experiences happening in that context,

649
00:35:52,116 --> 00:35:56,356
Speaker 4: which are often highly valued. So what we're seeing is

650
00:35:56,396 --> 00:36:03,156
Speaker 4: that many people are reporting profoundly positive experiences. The majority

651
00:36:03,196 --> 00:36:05,436
Speaker 4: of participants are saying this is among the most meaningful

652
00:36:05,476 --> 00:36:08,476
Speaker 4: moments of their entire life. And we're seeing benefits to

653
00:36:09,396 --> 00:36:14,756
Speaker 4: well being that last many months, boosted attitudes about self

654
00:36:14,836 --> 00:36:20,596
Speaker 4: and life, overall well being, pro social attitudes, and these

655
00:36:20,596 --> 00:36:24,476
Speaker 4: are self reported and also confirmed by observers. This is

656
00:36:24,556 --> 00:36:28,596
Speaker 4: quite promising and as a well being intervention, maybe among

657
00:36:28,636 --> 00:36:32,916
Speaker 4: the most potent positive interventions ever discovered. There are, though risks,

658
00:36:33,596 --> 00:36:37,356
Speaker 4: so not everyone has a great time. There's always about

659
00:36:37,436 --> 00:36:40,476
Speaker 4: ten to twenty percent of the sample that has experiences

660
00:36:40,516 --> 00:36:43,996
Speaker 4: dominated by anxiety and fear, and who would prefer never

661
00:36:43,996 --> 00:36:47,476
Speaker 4: to have the experience. Again, we're generally not seeing adverse

662
00:36:47,516 --> 00:36:51,556
Speaker 4: events that can't be resolved through psychotherapy in the laboratory setting,

663
00:36:51,756 --> 00:36:54,676
Speaker 4: but as we do more studies, we will certainly see that,

664
00:36:54,876 --> 00:36:58,196
Speaker 4: and in observational studies we see people do have adverse events.

665
00:36:58,916 --> 00:37:04,236
Speaker 4: So psychedelics can result in behaviors that are unusual, and

666
00:37:04,276 --> 00:37:08,716
Speaker 4: if they're taken in unsafe settings, can result in physical harm.

667
00:37:09,116 --> 00:37:11,956
Speaker 4: I've heard stories of people running into traffic, so physical

668
00:37:11,996 --> 00:37:14,556
Speaker 4: safety is important. People can also be taken advantage of,

669
00:37:14,836 --> 00:37:17,956
Speaker 4: and so social safety is extremely important as well, and

670
00:37:18,076 --> 00:37:20,076
Speaker 4: abuses can and do occur.

671
00:37:20,316 --> 00:37:22,036
Speaker 1: I'm guessing that at least some of the people listening

672
00:37:22,156 --> 00:37:25,156
Speaker 1: right now have either tried psychedelics or maybe you're thinking

673
00:37:25,196 --> 00:37:28,276
Speaker 1: about trying it. Does your work provide any advice for

674
00:37:28,356 --> 00:37:31,196
Speaker 1: some best practices with engaging in these substances. Do we

675
00:37:31,236 --> 00:37:33,396
Speaker 1: have a sense from the research yet how best to

676
00:37:33,516 --> 00:37:35,236
Speaker 1: kind of try them out if you're interested.

677
00:37:35,396 --> 00:37:38,156
Speaker 4: I am a researcher that works in a medical school,

678
00:37:39,996 --> 00:37:44,796
Speaker 4: and so our research on psychedelics is generally trying to

679
00:37:44,876 --> 00:37:48,276
Speaker 4: quantify their risk benefit ratio to look at their potential

680
00:37:48,316 --> 00:37:51,236
Speaker 4: as treatments, but I'm also beginning to look more and

681
00:37:51,276 --> 00:37:55,076
Speaker 4: more at their potential for enhancing well being. I think

682
00:37:55,156 --> 00:37:57,996
Speaker 4: though the way I look at this is very descriptive.

683
00:37:58,676 --> 00:38:01,956
Speaker 4: I'm trying to understand the benefits and the risks, and

684
00:38:02,036 --> 00:38:06,676
Speaker 4: so even though some of these findings sound quite positive,

685
00:38:06,716 --> 00:38:10,636
Speaker 4: I'm not promoting psychedelic use. They're also illegal in most places.

686
00:38:11,276 --> 00:38:15,516
Speaker 4: Some places they are legal, and I guess from a

687
00:38:15,556 --> 00:38:18,596
Speaker 4: harm reduction perspective, if someone was going to use a

688
00:38:18,676 --> 00:38:22,796
Speaker 4: psychedelic I would really strongly advocate to learn a bit

689
00:38:23,076 --> 00:38:26,156
Speaker 4: about what to expect about the experience and to do

690
00:38:26,236 --> 00:38:29,756
Speaker 4: it in a safe setting physically and socially.

691
00:38:30,236 --> 00:38:33,396
Speaker 1: And so as you look ahead, you know, five ten

692
00:38:33,476 --> 00:38:35,116
Speaker 1: years from now, you know, what do you see on

693
00:38:35,116 --> 00:38:36,516
Speaker 1: the horizon, What do you think are going to be

694
00:38:36,516 --> 00:38:38,916
Speaker 1: some of the most important steps and kind of understanding

695
00:38:39,156 --> 00:38:41,316
Speaker 1: you know how these substances work and the potential that

696
00:38:41,356 --> 00:38:41,716
Speaker 1: they have.

697
00:38:42,156 --> 00:38:46,276
Speaker 4: So I think quantifying that risk benefit ratio is so important.

698
00:38:46,756 --> 00:38:52,156
Speaker 4: This is a potent intervention, which from the perspective of

699
00:38:52,756 --> 00:38:56,836
Speaker 4: learning to enhance well being, is very valuable potentially because

700
00:38:56,836 --> 00:38:59,676
Speaker 4: I think we need new ways forward. If we want

701
00:38:59,716 --> 00:39:02,476
Speaker 4: to try to learn how to enhance well being, but

702
00:39:02,516 --> 00:39:04,396
Speaker 4: there are real risks, and we need to be able

703
00:39:04,436 --> 00:39:07,556
Speaker 4: to provide information to people so that they can make

704
00:39:07,596 --> 00:39:10,836
Speaker 4: an educated decision about what to engage with the psychedelic

705
00:39:10,956 --> 00:39:13,876
Speaker 4: I would say one of the more exciting directions is

706
00:39:14,196 --> 00:39:17,396
Speaker 4: this question that's emerging in the field, which is does

707
00:39:17,436 --> 00:39:20,476
Speaker 4: the trip matter at all? Can you take the trip

708
00:39:20,876 --> 00:39:25,316
Speaker 4: or the acute subjective effects of psychedelics out and still benefit?

709
00:39:25,996 --> 00:39:28,316
Speaker 4: And actually, there's hundreds of millions of dollars being poured

710
00:39:28,356 --> 00:39:30,676
Speaker 4: into this question right now, So there's a lot of

711
00:39:30,716 --> 00:39:33,716
Speaker 4: people trying to take the acute subjective effects or the

712
00:39:33,716 --> 00:39:36,476
Speaker 4: trip out of psychedelics and use it as a treatment,

713
00:39:36,756 --> 00:39:40,396
Speaker 4: which I am all for. That's interesting scientifically, could be

714
00:39:40,476 --> 00:39:44,636
Speaker 4: valuable clinically. But I think what's important to me is

715
00:39:44,716 --> 00:39:50,076
Speaker 4: that the psychedelic experience isn't demonized again, because for decades

716
00:39:50,276 --> 00:39:53,676
Speaker 4: we've had propaganda about how these are terrible experiences, and

717
00:39:54,076 --> 00:39:56,916
Speaker 4: what we're seeing from the data are that these experiences

718
00:39:56,956 --> 00:40:01,316
Speaker 4: are for most people quite positive and can be extremely profound,

719
00:40:01,876 --> 00:40:07,956
Speaker 4: And so I'm concerned that we really stay grounded in

720
00:40:08,036 --> 00:40:10,516
Speaker 4: the actual data and what people are saying about these

721
00:40:10,556 --> 00:40:13,676
Speaker 4: experiences and not just try to take the subjective effects out.

722
00:40:13,916 --> 00:40:16,516
Speaker 1: So David, I really just see you as this modern

723
00:40:16,556 --> 00:40:19,396
Speaker 1: day embodiment of William James. You're taking the next step

724
00:40:19,436 --> 00:40:22,836
Speaker 1: and really trying to understand these spiritual experiences using kind

725
00:40:22,876 --> 00:40:26,076
Speaker 1: of the best techniques we have scientifically. I hope we

726
00:40:26,196 --> 00:40:28,516
Speaker 1: come back in one hundred plus years and we're having

727
00:40:28,636 --> 00:40:31,996
Speaker 1: yet another event where someone is singing for your successor

728
00:40:32,596 --> 00:40:34,876
Speaker 1: he's a jolly good fellow.

729
00:40:38,556 --> 00:40:40,796
Speaker 3: Oh, I have to do the whole song good. That

730
00:40:40,916 --> 00:40:41,756
Speaker 3: was good to carry it.

731
00:40:52,756 --> 00:40:55,556
Speaker 2: The Happiness Lab Live was co written by Ryan Delay

732
00:40:55,876 --> 00:40:58,236
Speaker 2: and was produced by Ryan Delay and Britney Brown.

733
00:40:58,716 --> 00:41:00,036
Speaker 1: The show was mastered by.

734
00:40:59,916 --> 00:41:02,956
Speaker 2: Evan Biola, and our original music was composed.

735
00:41:02,476 --> 00:41:05,156
Speaker 3: By Zachary Silver. Special stakes to.

736
00:41:05,116 --> 00:41:07,836
Speaker 2: The team and our great Happiness Lie venue, the sixth

737
00:41:07,836 --> 00:41:11,476
Speaker 2: and nine historic Senega DC, to our amazing site engineer

738
00:41:11,476 --> 00:41:15,196
Speaker 2: at Jason Gramble and Toronald Young Junior who set us

739
00:41:15,236 --> 00:41:16,076
Speaker 2: off on our path.

740
00:41:16,876 --> 00:41:18,156
Speaker 3: Finally thanks to this.

741
00:41:18,316 --> 00:41:25,876
Speaker 2: Amazing live studio audience. I'd also like to thank le

742
00:41:26,116 --> 00:41:30,196
Speaker 2: tom Ala, Jasmine Prez, Kerrie Brody, Gretta Cone, Eric Sandler,

743
00:41:30,276 --> 00:41:34,036
Speaker 2: Carly mcgliori, Morgan Ratner, Jason Wakeberg, my agent Ben Davis,

744
00:41:34,316 --> 00:41:36,156
Speaker 2: Doug Singer at w E, and the rest of the

745
00:41:36,156 --> 00:41:39,316
Speaker 2: Pushkin team. The Happiness Lab Live was brought to you

746
00:41:39,396 --> 00:41:42,596
Speaker 2: by Pushkin Industries and buy Me Doctor Lauries he