WEBVTT - How Psychedelics Can Change Our Minds 0:00:14.916 --> 0:00:35.716 Pushkin. I suddenly saw myself from outside, and I saw 0:00:35.756 --> 0:00:38.796 myself kind of explode in this cloud of blue post 0:00:38.836 --> 0:00:42.116 it notes, you know, like confetti, and they came down 0:00:42.156 --> 0:00:44.316 to the ground and they kind of masked in this 0:00:44.476 --> 0:00:48.036 pool of blue paint, and that was me. I had 0:00:48.076 --> 0:00:52.556 complete acceptance that had I died and vanished, that was fine. 0:00:52.636 --> 0:00:54.636 It was what was meant to be. There was a 0:00:54.676 --> 0:00:58.596 continuing consciousness of some kind. I know, it sounds crazy 0:00:59.516 --> 0:01:03.836 and very hard to put into words. That's renowned author 0:01:04.036 --> 0:01:07.676 Michael Pollen. He's talking about how a guided psychedelic trip 0:01:07.716 --> 0:01:11.596 on psilocybin molecule found in mushrooms helped him see his 0:01:11.676 --> 0:01:15.196 mortality through an entirely new lens. This is a very 0:01:15.236 --> 0:01:18.756 non interventionist therapy. The therapists say nothing during the experience 0:01:18.756 --> 0:01:20.876 except would you like a glass of water or a 0:01:20.916 --> 0:01:24.476 snack or need to go to the bathroom. It really 0:01:24.556 --> 0:01:27.356 they let your mind go where your mind wants to go. 0:01:27.996 --> 0:01:34.836 It is a kind of self exploration, self healing. On 0:01:34.916 --> 0:01:37.916 today's show, we hear from Michael Pollen about how plants 0:01:37.956 --> 0:01:42.076 have the power to change our minds. I'm Maya Shunker 0:01:42.236 --> 0:01:44.676 and this is a slight change of Plans a show 0:01:44.716 --> 0:01:46.956 about who we are and who we become in the 0:01:46.996 --> 0:02:02.476 face of a big change. I'm fascinated by the kinds 0:02:02.516 --> 0:02:06.916 of experiences that can drastically change our perspectives, and guided 0:02:06.956 --> 0:02:10.436 psychedelic trips have the potential to do just that. While 0:02:10.436 --> 0:02:13.316 psychedelics aren't legal in the US, they have been used 0:02:13.356 --> 0:02:17.636 in certain clinical trials and have delivered powerful therapeutic benefits 0:02:17.716 --> 0:02:22.596 for people struggling with things like addiction, depression, and existential distress. 0:02:23.476 --> 0:02:26.076 So what's happening to our brains under their influence that 0:02:26.116 --> 0:02:30.556 gives rise to these remarkable changes. Michael's written two books 0:02:30.556 --> 0:02:33.356 that explore the answer to this question, How to Change 0:02:33.356 --> 0:02:36.356 Your Mind and This is Your Mind on Plants. And 0:02:36.396 --> 0:02:40.116 so today we dig into the science of psychedelics. We 0:02:40.156 --> 0:02:44.076 started off by discussing the somewhat astonishing fact that basically 0:02:44.116 --> 0:02:48.236 every culture in the world has discovered psychoactive plants. They 0:02:48.236 --> 0:02:52.076 contain molecules that can alter human consciousness. We're talking about 0:02:52.076 --> 0:02:54.836 the morphine and the opium poppy, and the caffeine and 0:02:54.916 --> 0:02:58.436 coffee and tea. Michael says there are a few explanations 0:02:58.476 --> 0:03:02.076 for why we're so drawn to these substances, for starters, 0:03:02.116 --> 0:03:05.476 they can provide pain, relief and stave off boredom. But 0:03:05.596 --> 0:03:09.796 then I think that there are more profounds to which 0:03:09.836 --> 0:03:12.956 people have put these psychoactive plants. And I'm talking here 0:03:12.996 --> 0:03:15.636 about the more powerful ones, the ones we call psychedelics, 0:03:17.156 --> 0:03:21.556 and that is for access to other realms, other dimensions 0:03:21.556 --> 0:03:26.916 of reality and afterworld and underworld, and religious visions essentially 0:03:27.636 --> 0:03:30.556 mystical experiences that are at the heart of a great 0:03:30.556 --> 0:03:34.156 many religions. And it may well be that it was 0:03:34.356 --> 0:03:38.556 these psychedelic substances that opened up that way of thinking, 0:03:40.036 --> 0:03:44.836 that gave people the visions that were interpreted in such 0:03:44.876 --> 0:03:47.596 a way as to underwrite whole religions. And we just 0:03:47.636 --> 0:03:51.956 think of the artists who were influenced by psychoactives, you know, 0:03:52.036 --> 0:03:56.516 new metaphors, new insights, or scientific discoveries. I mean, there's 0:03:56.516 --> 0:04:00.196 a great many scientific discoveries that traced to psychedelic use. 0:04:00.796 --> 0:04:03.036 I think of it as the natural history of imagination. 0:04:03.596 --> 0:04:06.596 But it sure is interesting to think about it is, 0:04:06.716 --> 0:04:11.676 and I mean it is striking to me that it 0:04:11.756 --> 0:04:15.676 just appears like normal consciousness isn't enough for us humans, right, 0:04:15.716 --> 0:04:19.476 Like we're not sated by it. And look, there's obviously 0:04:19.596 --> 0:04:23.276 a continuum, and I fall closer to the risk averse. 0:04:23.516 --> 0:04:26.996 I'm more of a boring person who seems I feel 0:04:27.436 --> 0:04:30.596 totally fulfilled by my current realm of consciousness. I know 0:04:30.676 --> 0:04:34.556 lots of other people have a much more exploratory mindset, 0:04:34.596 --> 0:04:37.876 but it is striking that across all cultures there is 0:04:37.956 --> 0:04:43.876 some itch for something beyond our everyday conscious experience, and 0:04:43.916 --> 0:04:47.436 we seek transcendence. Of course, not just through drugs. Extreme 0:04:47.476 --> 0:04:50.596 sports and intense periods of physical activity can do it 0:04:50.756 --> 0:04:53.316 releasing drugs in the brain. Basically, I mean, we can 0:04:53.396 --> 0:04:57.036 drug ourselves in all sorts of ways. Fasting does it, dance, 0:04:57.196 --> 0:05:01.636 ecstatic dance, rhythm, drumming. I think the desire for a 0:05:01.676 --> 0:05:05.796 transcendence goes really deep, and it's interesting. I mean, do 0:05:05.876 --> 0:05:11.116 other creatures have it? We know that some other animals 0:05:11.156 --> 0:05:14.036 do like to change consciousness from their you know, their 0:05:14.676 --> 0:05:19.356 elephants love alcohol apparently and apparently birds. Will you favor 0:05:19.436 --> 0:05:22.476 cannabis seeds over all different kinds seems to addle them 0:05:22.476 --> 0:05:26.916 a little bit. But transcendence, that idea that you know 0:05:26.956 --> 0:05:31.196 that there is another, there is another realm of existence, 0:05:31.236 --> 0:05:34.236 another way to be, is something that I think is 0:05:34.236 --> 0:05:38.156 a deep human desire. Yeah, I'm wondering, Michael, if you 0:05:38.156 --> 0:05:41.196 can give us a quick history lesson, because in recent 0:05:41.276 --> 0:05:44.636 years there's been a huge resurgence of interest in the 0:05:44.636 --> 0:05:49.716 therapeutic benefits of psychedelics for people with anxiety, depression, addiction, 0:05:50.276 --> 0:05:54.996 terminal illness. What's been responsible for this shift? Well, you know, 0:05:55.316 --> 0:05:58.396 one of the big surprises in researching psychedelics was discovering 0:05:58.396 --> 0:06:01.876 how much research had been done during this period, from 0:06:01.956 --> 0:06:05.436 the late forties through the mid sixties and the fifties. 0:06:05.796 --> 0:06:08.996 It was, you know, a really vibrant field of research 0:06:09.196 --> 0:06:13.516 with some very promising results using LSD and psilocybin to 0:06:13.556 --> 0:06:17.036 treat alcoholism and of life anxiety, things like that. It 0:06:17.116 --> 0:06:21.076 was completely respectable, and then the work stops in the 0:06:21.196 --> 0:06:25.036 late sixties early seventies. There is a tremendous backlash under 0:06:25.076 --> 0:06:28.436 President Nixon, and the culture kind of turns against them. 0:06:28.476 --> 0:06:32.556 There's a backlash and the media, which had been incredibly 0:06:32.796 --> 0:06:36.676 positive about psychedelics turns on a dime, and so the 0:06:36.756 --> 0:06:41.156 research stops. The way it gets restarted is really a 0:06:41.236 --> 0:06:43.916 function of a couple things. One is, you have a 0:06:43.956 --> 0:06:48.556 group of psychiatrists therapists of other kinds who never lost 0:06:48.636 --> 0:06:52.156 faith in the fact that these were powerful therapeutic agents, 0:06:52.436 --> 0:06:54.796 and in fact, some of them were working with them underground, 0:06:55.116 --> 0:06:58.716 and people in that world started kind of plotting the 0:06:58.796 --> 0:07:02.956 return of psychedelics. And then in the early nineties they 0:07:03.036 --> 0:07:06.516 kind of got a signal from the FDA. There was 0:07:06.596 --> 0:07:09.716 a bureaucrat there in charge of drug development, and he 0:07:09.796 --> 0:07:13.516 basically sends a signal to researchers that, look, we're going 0:07:13.596 --> 0:07:16.556 to just treat psychedelics like any other drug. If you've 0:07:16.596 --> 0:07:19.236 got a good experiment, if you've got a good indication, 0:07:19.316 --> 0:07:22.156 you think it's going to be useful for We're not 0:07:22.196 --> 0:07:27.276 going to discriminate against it. The key moment, I think, though, 0:07:27.356 --> 0:07:32.076 comes when Bob Jesse, who is an interesting character. He's 0:07:32.076 --> 0:07:35.756 not a doctor or a therapist. He's a computer engineer 0:07:35.796 --> 0:07:39.836 at Oracle who had experiences with psychedelics. Dad had convinced 0:07:39.916 --> 0:07:44.636 him of their value, and he reaches out to a 0:07:44.676 --> 0:07:48.436 man named Roland Griffith, who is a very well respected 0:07:48.476 --> 0:07:52.716 psychopharmacologist at Johns Hopkins, you know, the leading medical institution 0:07:52.756 --> 0:07:55.916 in the country, and they cook up this study and 0:07:56.236 --> 0:07:58.756 it's not a clinical study, it's not a therapeutic study 0:07:58.756 --> 0:08:01.756 at all. It's an effort to see whether you could 0:08:01.876 --> 0:08:05.236 induce a mystical type experience in someone with a high 0:08:05.316 --> 0:08:08.996 dose of psilocybin. Mystical type experience is something that role 0:08:09.156 --> 0:08:12.276 and is personally very interested in. And they do this 0:08:12.396 --> 0:08:16.156 study that's published in two thousand and six, and it's 0:08:16.196 --> 0:08:18.916 the craziest study. I mean, the title is something like 0:08:19.116 --> 0:08:23.676 psilocybin can occasion mystical type experience in healthy, normal people 0:08:23.756 --> 0:08:26.396 or something like that. And for me to see these 0:08:26.436 --> 0:08:30.556 words mystical experience in the pages of a medical journal 0:08:30.796 --> 0:08:34.356 was just so mind blowing. And what is the hallmark 0:08:34.396 --> 0:08:38.276 of a mystical experience? Good question, I had no idea. 0:08:38.556 --> 0:08:42.916 But it involves a transcendence of space and time, a 0:08:43.036 --> 0:08:47.716 euphoric feeling or feeling of intense well being, a dissolution 0:08:47.756 --> 0:08:51.916 of ego, followed by a sense of merging with something 0:08:52.036 --> 0:08:55.796 larger than yourself. You feel connected to nature or other people, 0:08:55.916 --> 0:09:00.756 or the universe of the divinity. And they found that 0:09:00.916 --> 0:09:03.876 of the two thirds of people who had this mystical experience, 0:09:03.956 --> 0:09:07.316 they reported enduring changes in their sense of well being 0:09:07.436 --> 0:09:10.436 going out six weeks or eight weeks or something. And 0:09:10.996 --> 0:09:14.156 in a follow up study they found that aspects of 0:09:14.196 --> 0:09:20.436 their personality, specifically openness, the trait of openness increased, and 0:09:20.476 --> 0:09:25.036 that's quite striking because in general, personality doesn't change in adults. 0:09:25.116 --> 0:09:29.596 So this study really is the foundation on which subsequent 0:09:29.596 --> 0:09:33.036 work has been done. And by looking at these results 0:09:33.036 --> 0:09:34.916 that there seemed to be an improvement in well being, 0:09:35.756 --> 0:09:40.636 the idea occurred, well, we should try this with cancer patients. 0:09:41.276 --> 0:09:44.076 We should try this with people who have what the 0:09:44.116 --> 0:09:49.116 psychiatrists call existential distress over their diagnosis or the proximity 0:09:49.116 --> 0:09:52.716 of death. And that became the first clinical trial that 0:09:52.956 --> 0:09:55.156 the people at Hopkins did, and it was duplicated at 0:09:55.156 --> 0:09:58.396 the same time at YU. Yeah. You know what's notable 0:09:58.596 --> 0:10:02.116 about some of these controlled studies is that participants report 0:10:02.636 --> 0:10:07.716 that their guided experiences on psychedelics are totally singular in nature, right, 0:10:07.716 --> 0:10:11.396 that they count among the top most meaningful experiences they've 0:10:11.396 --> 0:10:14.996 ever had. And I'd love to dig into the neuroscience 0:10:15.076 --> 0:10:17.996 just a bit so we can understand what is giving 0:10:18.116 --> 0:10:22.436 rise to these exceptional subjective states. Well, the honest answer is, 0:10:22.436 --> 0:10:26.196 we don't really know. We have some really interesting hints, 0:10:26.996 --> 0:10:29.396 but there's a lot more work to be done. A 0:10:29.556 --> 0:10:33.756 researcher in England named Robin Carhart Harris put people in 0:10:33.796 --> 0:10:38.316 an fMRI machine and injected them with psilocybin in one 0:10:38.356 --> 0:10:43.356 trial and LSD in another, and he found something very interesting. 0:10:44.356 --> 0:10:47.716 Where he expected to see a kind of explosion of 0:10:47.756 --> 0:10:53.836 activity mirroring the extraordinary visual effects and emotional effects, he 0:10:53.956 --> 0:10:56.636 actually found the most notable thing was a quieting of 0:10:56.676 --> 0:11:00.396 activity in one particular network. And this network, which I 0:11:00.396 --> 0:11:03.836 had never heard of, is the default mode network. The 0:11:03.916 --> 0:11:07.316 default mode network is the part of your brain that's 0:11:07.356 --> 0:11:10.316 most active when you're not doing anything. It's where your 0:11:10.316 --> 0:11:12.996 brain goes. It's the default and it was discovered when 0:11:12.996 --> 0:11:15.716 they were doing fMRI tasks of other kinds and they 0:11:15.716 --> 0:11:18.196 had to get the baseline. So they tell people don't 0:11:18.196 --> 0:11:20.916 do anything, don't think about anything, or try not to 0:11:20.956 --> 0:11:23.316 think about anything, just lie there, and it turns out 0:11:23.316 --> 0:11:25.516 their brains lit up and all sorts of stuff went on, 0:11:25.596 --> 0:11:31.156 and a lot of it involved self reflection, worry rumination, 0:11:31.836 --> 0:11:34.516 thinking about the future, or thinking about the past. The 0:11:34.596 --> 0:11:38.196 default mode network seems to be involved with creating this 0:11:38.916 --> 0:11:42.276 projection or illusion that we have a self. It's involved 0:11:42.276 --> 0:11:44.956 in time travel, the ability to think about the future 0:11:44.996 --> 0:11:47.516 and the past, which if you think about it, you 0:11:47.676 --> 0:11:49.636 need if you're going to have a sense of self. 0:11:49.716 --> 0:11:52.036 Our sense of self is what's happened to us in 0:11:52.076 --> 0:11:54.116 the past and what we hope will happen in the future, 0:11:54.236 --> 0:11:56.316 or what we think might happen to us in the future. 0:11:57.236 --> 0:12:00.236 It's also involved in something called theory of mind. That's 0:12:00.236 --> 0:12:03.396 the ability to imagine the thoughts of other people, to 0:12:03.516 --> 0:12:07.036 understand that other people have thoughts, have a subjectivity, have 0:12:07.076 --> 0:12:11.956 an interiority. That's a big deal. And it's involved in 0:12:12.516 --> 0:12:16.116 what's called the narrative self. That the story we tell 0:12:16.196 --> 0:12:19.716 ourselves of who we are and how we take new 0:12:19.756 --> 0:12:23.756 events and kind of weave them into that narrative. So 0:12:23.996 --> 0:12:26.316 you know, to the extent the self has an address 0:12:26.356 --> 0:12:29.476 in the brain, it appears to be in this network. 0:12:29.796 --> 0:12:35.356 And this network gets very quiet under psychedelics and in 0:12:35.396 --> 0:12:40.396 the minds of very experienced meditators and you know Robin. 0:12:40.476 --> 0:12:46.116 Then you know correlated reports of ego dissolution and people 0:12:46.156 --> 0:12:51.196 can describe that's it's quite a wild experience. You observe 0:12:51.276 --> 0:12:55.036 your sense of self completely melting or crumbling. I had 0:12:55.396 --> 0:12:59.356 once happened to me when people reported that they had 0:12:59.396 --> 0:13:03.116 the most precipitous drops in activity and the default mode network. 0:13:03.156 --> 0:13:06.556 So that's one of the findings really of psychedelic science already. 0:13:06.596 --> 0:13:10.756 That is significant, I think for our understanding of consciousness 0:13:10.756 --> 0:13:13.356 and the self. But it's not the only theory of 0:13:13.356 --> 0:13:15.476 what's going on. There are people who aren't sold on 0:13:15.516 --> 0:13:19.596 the default mode. We're hoping to get some more precise 0:13:19.596 --> 0:13:24.276 answers to these questions. Yeah, I mean, in addition to 0:13:24.716 --> 0:13:28.436 you some of the therapeutic effects. It is so compelling 0:13:28.636 --> 0:13:33.156 that this basic research can help us further understand what 0:13:33.276 --> 0:13:36.876 brain structures are associated with our sense of self. Yeah, 0:13:36.996 --> 0:13:42.636 there's another area to investigate too, is what psychedelics might 0:13:42.636 --> 0:13:46.956 teach us about the consciousness of children. You may know 0:13:46.996 --> 0:13:50.116 Alison Gopnick Alison Yes yea such a fan of hers, 0:13:50.516 --> 0:13:55.316 and she studies child consciousness and problem solving, and she's 0:13:55.396 --> 0:14:00.516 convinced that the psychedelic experience is as close as adults 0:14:00.556 --> 0:14:03.236 get to the mind of the child and the way 0:14:03.236 --> 0:14:05.596 of thinking and the kind of what she describes as 0:14:05.596 --> 0:14:10.716 the lantern consciousness, as opposed to the consciousness of adults, 0:14:10.756 --> 0:14:14.476 which is very focused in linear children taking information from 0:14:14.476 --> 0:14:17.676 all different sides, which allows for a different kind of creativity, 0:14:18.276 --> 0:14:22.516 and she thinks that there's a retrogression and psychedelic consciousness 0:14:22.556 --> 0:14:25.996 that closely resembles that of children. So that's a whole 0:14:25.996 --> 0:14:29.476 other avenue of exploration. That's very exciting. Yeah, I love 0:14:29.516 --> 0:14:32.636 her quote that babies and children are basically tripping all 0:14:32.636 --> 0:14:36.316 the time. What a lovely, colorful way of saying it. 0:14:36.556 --> 0:14:40.436 This was an insight she had when her granddaughter was born. 0:14:41.676 --> 0:14:45.596 I love that. Yeah. You know you mentioned that you 0:14:45.876 --> 0:14:48.916 did have the experience of feeling your ego dissolved, and 0:14:48.956 --> 0:14:51.196 I know you did try psychedelics while you were writing 0:14:51.196 --> 0:14:53.916 your book. You say that you felt your sense of 0:14:53.956 --> 0:14:57.396 self scattered to the wind like a blizzard of post its. 0:14:58.636 --> 0:15:01.356 And I'm wondering, can you just paint a scene of 0:15:01.396 --> 0:15:05.276 the many ways in which ego dissolusion expressed itself during 0:15:05.316 --> 0:15:10.476 your trips. It was such an interesting, strange experience. I 0:15:10.556 --> 0:15:13.276 was really not prepared for it. So I had a 0:15:13.316 --> 0:15:18.196 fairly high dose psilocybin experience guided by an underground guide 0:15:18.636 --> 0:15:21.676 somebody I really trusted. And I mentioned that because if 0:15:21.716 --> 0:15:25.516 you're going to let go to the extent of allowing 0:15:25.556 --> 0:15:28.556 your sense of self to completely vanish, you're going to 0:15:28.636 --> 0:15:31.236 have to feel very safe and very comfortable. And I did, 0:15:31.356 --> 0:15:36.076 you know, under her guidance. And anyway, at a certain point, 0:15:36.116 --> 0:15:40.156 well into the experience, she offered me what's called a 0:15:40.196 --> 0:15:42.716 booster dose, and I figured in for a diamond for 0:15:42.716 --> 0:15:44.916 a dollar. I was doing this for my book, actually, 0:15:44.996 --> 0:15:48.076 and so I said sure, and I ate another research purposes, 0:15:48.756 --> 0:15:51.836 strictly for research purposes, you know, in the interest of 0:15:51.836 --> 0:15:55.036 my readers, because and it really was because I was 0:15:55.076 --> 0:15:57.236 although I was very curious, I was very afraid to 0:15:57.276 --> 0:15:59.916 do psychedelics, you know, I didn't. I didn't do this 0:16:00.076 --> 0:16:04.396 till I was like in my late fifties, and I 0:16:04.396 --> 0:16:06.636 had a lot of fear of what could happen. I 0:16:06.676 --> 0:16:09.276 had read the stories of you know, bad trips, and 0:16:09.876 --> 0:16:12.996 I didn't know what. Also, you can discover really unpleasant 0:16:12.996 --> 0:16:18.756 things about yourself. And anyway, at this point, I suddenly 0:16:19.716 --> 0:16:23.796 saw myself from outside, and I saw myself kind of 0:16:23.876 --> 0:16:26.916 explode in this cloud of post it notes, blue post 0:16:26.956 --> 0:16:30.316 it notes, you know, like confetti, and they came down 0:16:30.356 --> 0:16:32.556 to the ground and they kind of masked in this 0:16:32.676 --> 0:16:35.756 pool of blue paint. And that was me. And I 0:16:35.796 --> 0:16:38.956 was absolutely sure it was me. But I was perceiving 0:16:38.996 --> 0:16:43.756 it from this new perspective that I had never experienced before. 0:16:44.076 --> 0:16:46.196 I don't know quite what it was. It wasn't me. 0:16:46.396 --> 0:16:52.036 It was very equable, disinterested. It had no problem with 0:16:52.076 --> 0:16:55.356 what had happened. I didn't feel threatened in any way, 0:16:55.556 --> 0:16:59.196 and that was me. I was gone and that was fine, 0:16:59.796 --> 0:17:02.716 but I was still aware. And it was the first 0:17:02.756 --> 0:17:05.156 time it ever occurred to me that you could have 0:17:05.756 --> 0:17:09.916 awareness without self, which is something Buddhists and Hindus will 0:17:09.916 --> 0:17:12.156 tell you about. But you know, that seemed very far 0:17:12.236 --> 0:17:16.436 from my experience. And then what happens when you don't 0:17:16.556 --> 0:17:21.836 have a self is that that you merge with everything 0:17:21.876 --> 0:17:25.236 around you. And in this case, what I merged with 0:17:25.836 --> 0:17:31.916 was a piece of music. And she put on Bach's 0:17:32.036 --> 0:17:34.676 Unaccompanied Cello Suite number two in D minor, which is 0:17:34.676 --> 0:17:37.636 a very sad piece of music, so gorgeous. Yeah, and 0:17:37.836 --> 0:17:45.236 I became one with the music. It was complete merging, 0:17:45.876 --> 0:17:49.156 and it was incredibly beautiful. It's most profound experience of 0:17:49.236 --> 0:17:53.036 music I'd ever had. And I felt as though the bow, 0:17:53.196 --> 0:17:55.876 the horsehairer of the bow was going over my body. 0:17:55.916 --> 0:17:58.356 And then at one point that I was inside the 0:17:59.156 --> 0:18:04.396 well of this you know this wooden container and it 0:18:04.476 --> 0:18:07.756 was so beautiful, and although it was very sad, I 0:18:07.756 --> 0:18:10.996 wouldn't call it a happy experience. It was very sad. 0:18:11.036 --> 0:18:13.156 It was all about death. I mean that the piece 0:18:13.196 --> 0:18:21.116 of music. To me, it was all about death. But 0:18:21.236 --> 0:18:26.836 I was completely I had complete acceptance that had I 0:18:26.956 --> 0:18:29.996 died and vanished, that was fine. It was what was 0:18:30.036 --> 0:18:33.756 meant to be something. Something followed on that death of 0:18:33.796 --> 0:18:37.236 the self. There was a continuing consciousness of some kind. 0:18:37.796 --> 0:18:41.676 I know it sounds crazy and very hard to put 0:18:41.756 --> 0:18:45.036 into words. I struggled to describe it in the book, 0:18:45.436 --> 0:18:47.636 but it was one of the most profound experiences of 0:18:47.636 --> 0:18:51.876 my life. The struggle you're having putting your experience into 0:18:51.916 --> 0:18:56.676 words is very characteristic of how many people feel after 0:18:56.716 --> 0:18:58.356 a trip. Right. They're saying, this is one of the 0:18:58.356 --> 0:19:01.156 most profound experiences of my life, and yet when they 0:19:01.196 --> 0:19:04.396 try and express it in words, it sounds cliche new 0:19:04.436 --> 0:19:07.516 ag you know, everything is love, that sort of thing. 0:19:08.156 --> 0:19:11.996 It's interesting interviewing Casey Musgrave's the country music singer and 0:19:12.156 --> 0:19:14.356 a previous episode of A Slight Change of Plans about 0:19:14.356 --> 0:19:17.916 her psychedelic trip, and I was actually asking whether the 0:19:17.956 --> 0:19:21.676 ability to create music in some way was an antidote 0:19:22.396 --> 0:19:26.196 to her inability to fully express the profound insights that 0:19:26.236 --> 0:19:28.476 she had had using the words that we have at 0:19:28.476 --> 0:19:32.716 our disposal. Well, you know, you've just reminded me of 0:19:32.716 --> 0:19:35.956 one of the other of the eight characteristics of mystical experience, 0:19:36.036 --> 0:19:40.476 and that's ineffability, the fact that these are very hard 0:19:40.516 --> 0:19:44.396 to describe because it kind of defies the language we have. 0:19:44.836 --> 0:19:47.916 Our language wasn't built to describe these kinds of experiences. 0:19:48.236 --> 0:19:51.316 And the other thing that you alluded to is that 0:19:51.356 --> 0:19:56.756 there is a tremendous banality to some of the insights, 0:19:56.836 --> 0:20:00.076 the profound insights that people have, such as love is 0:20:00.116 --> 0:20:03.636 the most important principle in the universe. You know, that 0:20:03.756 --> 0:20:06.516 is banal, but it's also profound. And one of the 0:20:06.516 --> 0:20:08.756 things you come out of the experience realizing is that 0:20:08.796 --> 0:20:12.836 it's a very fine line between binality and profundity. And 0:20:12.916 --> 0:20:15.276 one of the things psychedelics does is it takes all 0:20:15.396 --> 0:20:19.036 that ironic crust we cover the world with and it 0:20:19.356 --> 0:20:23.916 scrapes it off really effectively, and suddenly things appear with 0:20:24.076 --> 0:20:29.716 the profundity and beauty of first sight. I mean, awe 0:20:29.036 --> 0:20:32.076 at the at the ordinary is a really you know, 0:20:32.116 --> 0:20:36.036 a piece of music, a flower, I mean, And that's 0:20:36.076 --> 0:20:38.316 another way in which I think you're recovering the mind 0:20:38.316 --> 0:20:43.236 of the child. And that's a wonderful aspect of psychedelic experience. 0:20:47.996 --> 0:20:49.996 We'll be back in a moment with a slight change 0:20:49.996 --> 0:21:05.676 of plants. I'm talking with Michael Pollen about how psychedelics 0:21:05.676 --> 0:21:08.676 can change our minds. I wanted to hear more about 0:21:08.676 --> 0:21:12.356 the therapy cutic benefits of psychedelics. Studies show that when 0:21:12.356 --> 0:21:15.716 they're administered and guided clinical settings, they can help with 0:21:15.796 --> 0:21:20.916 a surprisingly vast number of mental health conditions, including depression, anxiety, 0:21:21.156 --> 0:21:25.276 obsessive compulsive disorder, and fear of death. Now, I was 0:21:25.316 --> 0:21:30.556 initially kind of suspicious of the you know, is this 0:21:30.676 --> 0:21:32.836 some sort of panacea. It's being used for all these 0:21:32.876 --> 0:21:37.556 different things. And I remember interviewing Tom Insel, former a psychiatrist, 0:21:37.636 --> 0:21:40.556 former head of the National Institute of Mental Health, and 0:21:40.596 --> 0:21:42.236 I said, isn't this a little weird that all these 0:21:42.236 --> 0:21:45.916 different indications are responding to the same kind of treatment, 0:21:45.996 --> 0:21:49.516 And he said, well, you're assuming that they're all different, 0:21:49.556 --> 0:21:52.356 you know, indications. They may be symptoms of a similar brain, 0:21:52.476 --> 0:21:55.156 and that is that a brain that's overly rigid, and 0:21:55.236 --> 0:21:59.316 it's thinking that's trapped in patterns of rumination. And indeed, 0:21:59.396 --> 0:22:06.036 all those things depression, anxiety, obsession, addiction represent people stuck 0:22:06.116 --> 0:22:10.556 in loops of destructive thought and behavior, and that what 0:22:10.716 --> 0:22:13.636 psychedelics may do is help you break out of that. 0:22:13.916 --> 0:22:17.356 I mean, certainly that's consonant with the use of SSRIs 0:22:17.396 --> 0:22:23.396 selective serotonin reuptic inhibitors rights. Yeah, OCDA, anxiety, depression, etc. 0:22:23.836 --> 0:22:27.396 So it would be very reasonable to expect that what 0:22:27.436 --> 0:22:30.236 Tom is saying applies in this case. I'm wondering if 0:22:30.236 --> 0:22:33.996 you can share some examples of the therapeutic benefits that 0:22:34.036 --> 0:22:37.596 can be conferred by psychedelics, in particular people who are 0:22:37.756 --> 0:22:42.516 facing what you've referred to as existential distress. Yeah. Well, 0:22:42.556 --> 0:22:45.356 the first group of patients I talked to were cancer patients, 0:22:45.756 --> 0:22:48.476 and I interviewed quite a few of them. Patrick Metas 0:22:48.556 --> 0:22:50.596 is someone I wrote about in detail in the book. 0:22:50.796 --> 0:22:53.276 I never met him. He had died already, but I 0:22:53.316 --> 0:22:55.036 spent a lot of time with his wife and his 0:22:55.156 --> 0:22:58.116 therapist and learning about his story and reading his account. 0:22:58.716 --> 0:23:01.276 And he was a man he was about my age 0:23:01.276 --> 0:23:03.916 at the time that and a journalist like me also 0:23:04.036 --> 0:23:07.756 who had gotten cancer of the bile ducts, and his 0:23:07.796 --> 0:23:10.876 wife noticed the whites of his eyes had turned very yellow, 0:23:11.476 --> 0:23:15.356 and he was given a terminal diagnosis and struggled with 0:23:15.436 --> 0:23:18.236 that for a long time. It was really paralyzed by it. 0:23:18.676 --> 0:23:21.396 He read about this experiment going on at NYU. He 0:23:21.476 --> 0:23:25.716 was in New York, and he decided to enroll in 0:23:25.796 --> 0:23:28.516 this drug trial to see if this could help him 0:23:28.556 --> 0:23:32.036 with his anxiety and depression. His wife actually was against 0:23:32.076 --> 0:23:34.916 it because to her it represented giving up, but he 0:23:34.956 --> 0:23:37.916 had no intention of doing that. He was continuing with 0:23:37.996 --> 0:23:41.236 his at least for a while, with his chemo after 0:23:41.276 --> 0:23:44.596 the experience, and he did it, and he had a 0:23:44.676 --> 0:23:47.556 mystical experience. It was very profound. He described it in 0:23:47.596 --> 0:23:52.356 great detail. He explored his body and visited his cancer. 0:23:52.396 --> 0:23:55.396 He saw it, and at one moment he climbed a 0:23:55.556 --> 0:23:57.956 kind of precipice in his mind and he looks out 0:23:58.036 --> 0:24:02.276 and he sees this kind of plane of consciousness, you know, 0:24:02.756 --> 0:24:05.676 a vista in front of him, which really he thought 0:24:05.876 --> 0:24:08.676 was what would happen to him after he was after 0:24:08.716 --> 0:24:12.596 he died, and he had a sense this was where 0:24:12.636 --> 0:24:16.516 he was going. It wasn't frightening. He would be okay 0:24:16.556 --> 0:24:18.636 to go there, but he wasn't ready. He still wanted 0:24:18.676 --> 0:24:20.876 more time with his wife, and he kind of turned back, 0:24:21.756 --> 0:24:25.116 and he came out of the experience a changed man, 0:24:25.396 --> 0:24:30.276 and he had I forget how much time it was. 0:24:30.316 --> 0:24:35.036 It was like another eleven months where he was able 0:24:35.036 --> 0:24:37.436 to have great pleasure in life. He would spend his 0:24:37.556 --> 0:24:41.436 days walking along the Brooklyn Pier checking out new restaurants, 0:24:42.076 --> 0:24:45.196 had really good periods of time with his wife, and 0:24:45.276 --> 0:24:48.236 at a certain point decided to stop his chemo, which 0:24:48.276 --> 0:24:51.516 was really debilitating, and he wanted the clarity that would 0:24:51.516 --> 0:24:54.836 come with just living out his last months without medicine 0:24:54.876 --> 0:24:59.356 in his body. And he died a death of acceptance. 0:25:00.236 --> 0:25:04.036 People I interviewed described his room at Mount Sinai as 0:25:04.196 --> 0:25:11.396 like having this glow. He was incredibly settled and happy, 0:25:11.676 --> 0:25:13.956 and all the staff of the hospital would want to 0:25:13.956 --> 0:25:17.356 come by this room to get you a taste of 0:25:17.396 --> 0:25:23.116 this man who was approaching death with such equanimity. So 0:25:23.196 --> 0:25:25.356 it was, you know, it was incredible. And at one 0:25:25.356 --> 0:25:27.756 point his wife sent me a photograph of him snapped 0:25:27.836 --> 0:25:30.436 like three or four days before his death, and he 0:25:30.516 --> 0:25:34.716 was very thin, wearing the hospital smock, and he had 0:25:34.756 --> 0:25:38.236 an oxygen clip in his nose and he was beaming, 0:25:39.316 --> 0:25:43.036 so that you had a profound effect on me. And 0:25:43.076 --> 0:25:48.356 I interviewed a great many patients about their experiences, and 0:25:48.676 --> 0:25:50.756 there were a lot of common denominators. One was a 0:25:50.876 --> 0:25:53.596 kind of a confrontation with death and a confrontation with 0:25:54.036 --> 0:26:00.116