WEBVTT - SYSK Selects: How Magic Mushrooms Work 0:00:01.320 --> 0:00:04.400 Hey everyone, it's Josh and for this week's s Y 0:00:04.559 --> 0:00:08.000 s K Selects episode, I picked How Magic Mushrooms Work, 0:00:08.480 --> 0:00:10.680 which came out in two thousand and twelve. I think 0:00:10.680 --> 0:00:13.480 we're just kind of starting to dip our toe into 0:00:14.080 --> 0:00:18.000 um controversial topics maybe who knows. And I think I 0:00:18.120 --> 0:00:20.080 remember us being worried we were going to get in 0:00:20.079 --> 0:00:22.920 trouble for it. Well we didn't. So here it is again, 0:00:23.360 --> 0:00:31.560 enjoy Welcome to Stuff you should Know from house Stuff 0:00:31.600 --> 0:00:40.000 Works dot com. Hey, and welcome to the podcast on 0:00:40.200 --> 0:00:44.760 Josh Clark. There's Charles W. Chuck Bryant with me. Uh 0:00:45.560 --> 0:00:48.440 and this is the far out podcast Stuff you should know. 0:00:48.680 --> 0:00:51.120 That's right. We were kicking off. This is our first 0:00:51.120 --> 0:00:56.800 show we're recording in and uh, Josh thought let's kick 0:00:56.840 --> 0:01:01.960 it off with the Little Almond Brothers and get psychedelic exactly. 0:01:02.240 --> 0:01:05.560 That's how you think of when you think psychedelia. Well, 0:01:06.720 --> 0:01:11.039 they were known for having mushrooms on their album covers 0:01:11.080 --> 0:01:13.080 and t shirts and it was a very common thing. 0:01:13.240 --> 0:01:17.400 Those are peaches, dead mushrooms all over the place. Okay, yeah, 0:01:17.440 --> 0:01:19.600 but generally now, of course, you think of like, you know, 0:01:19.680 --> 0:01:27.080 the grateful Dead. Jefferson airplane, Yeah, the floor elevators, Yeah, Quicksilver, 0:01:27.240 --> 0:01:33.440 messenger service, Moby Grape strawberry, alarm clock, chocolate watchman, Jimi 0:01:33.480 --> 0:01:38.680 Hendricks of course. Who yeah, so Chuck Uh, you're familiar 0:01:38.720 --> 0:01:42.199 with psychedelia rock and roll? Of course? Are you familiar 0:01:42.319 --> 0:01:45.360 with psychedelia as far as psychedelics are concerned. I know 0:01:45.440 --> 0:01:47.840 you are, and you want to know how I know 0:01:47.960 --> 0:01:50.600 you are because we podcasted on it. That's exactly right, 0:01:51.480 --> 0:01:53.840 LSD and Cia. What else? It seems like we've been 0:01:54.000 --> 0:01:56.520 psychedelics treatmental illness, that's right. That was a big one 0:01:56.600 --> 0:01:58.520 that kind of overlaps with some of this. Um. We're 0:01:58.520 --> 0:02:01.120 gonna lay a lot of the blame of all the 0:02:01.200 --> 0:02:04.480 lost research, decades of it at the feet of Timothy Leary, 0:02:04.560 --> 0:02:09.359 the man who ruined everything, um and what we're talking about. 0:02:09.440 --> 0:02:13.280 Pardon my sniffles. By the way, I'm not sick mentally. 0:02:13.320 --> 0:02:15.680 I'm not allowing myself to think of me as sick. 0:02:16.280 --> 0:02:19.440 I have sniffles. That's that's what I did. I was like, now, 0:02:19.480 --> 0:02:21.320 I'm not sick. I'm just not gonna let it happen. 0:02:21.440 --> 0:02:23.480 And you look at you. You look fantastic. It was 0:02:23.520 --> 0:02:25.160 just a few days I think if I would have 0:02:25.360 --> 0:02:27.360 wallowed in it, it would have been more than a week. 0:02:27.639 --> 0:02:29.840 I'm not yeah, I'm not letting myself. I hit it hard, man, 0:02:29.960 --> 0:02:34.200 like tons of fluids and emergency and airborne and fruits, 0:02:34.320 --> 0:02:39.600 and that was fine. Okay, you'll be great airborne. You know. 0:02:39.639 --> 0:02:42.240 That's like Holly discredited. It's the same thing as an 0:02:42.240 --> 0:02:45.080 emergency pretty much. It's just like vitamins and stuff. Okay, 0:02:45.440 --> 0:02:47.720 all right, but it doesn't keep you from getting sick. 0:02:47.760 --> 0:02:50.560 I think that's how it's discredited. But it'll it'll help 0:02:50.600 --> 0:02:54.080 you out, like in a vitamin any way. Right, alright, 0:02:54.360 --> 0:02:57.519 some college, because there's like get to the most room exactly. 0:02:58.560 --> 0:03:03.679 So let's get to the mushroom. Chuck, Um, chuck. I've 0:03:03.720 --> 0:03:07.280 got no real intro other than I think we should 0:03:07.280 --> 0:03:10.360 talk about the history of mushrooms first. What do you think? 0:03:10.480 --> 0:03:14.040 I think it sounds great. Um. Apparently there's a lot 0:03:14.120 --> 0:03:19.360 of um debate over how long people have been using 0:03:20.160 --> 0:03:27.120 magic mushrooms. UM. As far as religious rituals recreationally, who knows, 0:03:27.520 --> 0:03:30.360 but the supposition is that it goes back thousands and 0:03:30.440 --> 0:03:33.760 thousands of years. For example, there's a cave painting in 0:03:34.080 --> 0:03:38.760 Um Algeria that it's nine thousand years old. Um, that 0:03:38.880 --> 0:03:43.040 supposedly depicts mushrooms. There's another one in Spain that's six 0:03:43.080 --> 0:03:47.160 thousand years old that depicts mushrooms. Um. And I mean 0:03:47.240 --> 0:03:49.560 it makes a lot of sense that when you think 0:03:49.560 --> 0:03:56.120 of Native American tribes, Amerindian tribes, Mesoamerican tribes. Um, these 0:03:56.280 --> 0:04:01.520 people have customarily eaten magic mushrooms all this time. Right. Well, 0:04:01.640 --> 0:04:04.720 that's what one camp says is, hey, they've been used 0:04:04.720 --> 0:04:08.600 in religious rites for thousands of years and Central American 0:04:08.680 --> 0:04:12.800 Northern Africa, Like you said, so, uh, what's the rub? 0:04:13.240 --> 0:04:15.240 But then there's another camp that says, hey, you can't 0:04:15.280 --> 0:04:17.360 prove that you're just seeing what you want to see 0:04:17.400 --> 0:04:19.600 when you look at that ca painting or that Allmond 0:04:19.640 --> 0:04:23.359 Brothers cover and uh, just because there's a mushroom on 0:04:23.400 --> 0:04:26.680 the wall doesn't mean that they ate magic mushrooms. What 0:04:26.800 --> 0:04:32.040 did the Aztecs have? How do you pronounce that? I 0:04:32.120 --> 0:04:34.719 don't know. I've never been good at pronouncing Aztec, but 0:04:35.040 --> 0:04:36.880 I can take a stab at it if you'd like 0:04:36.960 --> 0:04:42.440 me to. Tan un knocked tal right. They called it 0:04:42.520 --> 0:04:44.680 the flesh of the gods, and they use the substance 0:04:44.720 --> 0:04:46.560 we know that we just don't know what it was, 0:04:46.720 --> 0:04:48.640 but a lot of people think that it might have 0:04:48.640 --> 0:04:52.799 been quote unquote magic mushrooms. Right. They also made statues 0:04:52.839 --> 0:04:55.560 of it, that kind of thing, um, And you generally 0:04:55.560 --> 0:04:58.360 only do that back in the day, if you if 0:04:58.400 --> 0:05:01.520 it's a very revered sub instance, they're gonna make a 0:05:01.560 --> 0:05:05.440 statue of just like whatever. If we can speak in likelihoods, 0:05:05.800 --> 0:05:08.200 there were we know there were mushrooms where we assume 0:05:08.279 --> 0:05:10.760 that there were these mushrooms growing wild like they are 0:05:10.839 --> 0:05:14.479 today in these areas that these people were hunters and 0:05:14.520 --> 0:05:19.360 gatherers and foragers so likely tried these mushrooms. If they 0:05:19.360 --> 0:05:24.560 did try these mushrooms, they probably wigged out, right, isn't 0:05:24.600 --> 0:05:26.840 that the clinical term? I think they call it a trip? 0:05:27.080 --> 0:05:32.240 Okay man, Uh, they tripped and um probably started incorporating 0:05:32.279 --> 0:05:36.880 it into their cave art you know teas today and 0:05:36.960 --> 0:05:39.960 there on their book cover from their notebooks. Uh. It 0:05:40.040 --> 0:05:45.720 has been confirmed in contemporary tribes in Central America, including 0:05:45.839 --> 0:05:48.960 the mass at Tech, the Mixed Tech, the Nagua, and 0:05:49.000 --> 0:05:51.760 the Zappa Tech. So all the texts are way into 0:05:51.800 --> 0:05:54.920 it at least these days. Right, So if they eat 0:05:54.920 --> 0:05:58.000 it these days, I would say, chances are they probably 0:05:58.120 --> 0:06:00.640 ate it back in the day as well. Okay, so um, 0:06:00.680 --> 0:06:04.800 as far as the West is concerned. Um, well, I'm 0:06:04.839 --> 0:06:10.840 sorry it wasn't. Also, it's not just Middle America, Mesoamerica, 0:06:11.200 --> 0:06:13.520 Northern African Spain, you mean like a Middle America like 0:06:13.560 --> 0:06:19.400 Ohio and America. It's not just Kansas that's on mushrooms. Um, 0:06:19.440 --> 0:06:22.400 the Sammi. Have you heard of the Sami people? So 0:06:22.680 --> 0:06:27.280 they're finished. They're like indigenous Finish tribes like be York 0:06:28.080 --> 0:06:33.880 clearly has Sami in her. Like her look, it's very Sami. Um. Yeah, 0:06:33.880 --> 0:06:37.320 well you'd like the Sammies. Cool looking. Um. They love 0:06:37.440 --> 0:06:40.080 mushrooms so much that they are known to drink the 0:06:40.279 --> 0:06:44.080 urine of reindeer that have just recently ingested mushrooms. And 0:06:44.120 --> 0:06:46.719 there's yeah, there's an art installation and I think Berlin 0:06:46.880 --> 0:06:50.159 recently of this guy who had a bunch of magic 0:06:50.279 --> 0:06:53.800 mushrooms in this pin, a bunch of reindeer in them, 0:06:53.839 --> 0:06:55.960 and he was having the reindeer eat the mushrooms and 0:06:55.960 --> 0:06:59.440 then collect him their urine and storing it. Well, my 0:06:59.560 --> 0:07:02.080 question to him is why would he go about it 0:07:02.120 --> 0:07:03.920 that way? If he has some magic mushrooms. Did it 0:07:04.040 --> 0:07:06.720 like increase the potency or something like that. I don't know. 0:07:07.000 --> 0:07:10.600 You'd probably be better off asking a sami person than him. Sure, 0:07:11.360 --> 0:07:13.800 I don't know. If like, um, it's like that coffee 0:07:13.800 --> 0:07:16.560 we failed to mention that's like ferrets and they poop 0:07:16.600 --> 0:07:18.800 it out the coffee being and then they roast that 0:07:18.880 --> 0:07:22.800 into coffee. Exact it's status. Um. So anyway, people have 0:07:22.960 --> 0:07:25.840 probably been eating magic mushrooms for a long time, but 0:07:26.320 --> 0:07:31.400 among Westerners it was totally unthought of, unheard of, unknown 0:07:32.120 --> 0:07:36.720 until the fifties. Right, yeah. Uh. In nineteen five, a 0:07:36.760 --> 0:07:40.800 writer while he's a mycologist who studies mushrooms. His name 0:07:40.840 --> 0:07:44.840 was our Gordon Wesson, and he traveled to Mexico a 0:07:44.840 --> 0:07:48.400 lot back in the fifties searching out mushrooms. Not for 0:07:48.560 --> 0:07:52.120 magic mushroom purposes, but he was just into mushrooms and 0:07:52.240 --> 0:07:57.200 he participated in a ritual he and his wife did together, well, 0:07:57.360 --> 0:08:01.720 not not at first. Actually, did you read the article? No, yeah, 0:08:01.760 --> 0:08:04.320 it's really good. You should read it sometime. He he 0:08:04.520 --> 0:08:07.560 took a colleague down there first. Later on he took 0:08:07.560 --> 0:08:10.560 his wife and daughter and she was like eighteen, so 0:08:10.720 --> 0:08:13.520 he was like, sure, she's old enough, and they all 0:08:13.600 --> 0:08:16.440 tripped on these mushrooms. But I'd like to read a 0:08:16.440 --> 0:08:20.680 selection if I may Alan as his friend. By the way, 0:08:20.800 --> 0:08:24.440 is that allen him? Um? Yeah, I think so. Um. 0:08:24.480 --> 0:08:27.120 Alan and I were determined to resist any effects that 0:08:27.160 --> 0:08:29.920 they might have to observe better the events of the night, 0:08:30.360 --> 0:08:33.679 But her resolve soon melted before the onslaught of the mushrooms. 0:08:34.240 --> 0:08:36.960 Alan felt cold and wrapped himself in a blanket. A 0:08:36.960 --> 0:08:40.480 few minutes later, he leaned over and whispered, Gordon, I'm 0:08:40.520 --> 0:08:44.199 seeing things. I told him not to worry. I was too. 0:08:45.559 --> 0:08:47.800 We were never more wide awake, and the visions came, 0:08:47.880 --> 0:08:50.679 whether our eyes were open or closed. They emerged from 0:08:50.720 --> 0:08:53.480 the center of our field of vision, opening up as 0:08:53.480 --> 0:08:56.760 they came, now rushing, now slowly, at the pace that 0:08:56.840 --> 0:09:03.359 our will chose. They began with art motifs. Motifs fractals 0:09:03.400 --> 0:09:07.079 is another word angling, such as might decorate carpets or 0:09:07.120 --> 0:09:10.920 textiles or wallpaper, or the drawing board of an architect. 0:09:11.400 --> 0:09:15.120 Then I saw a mythological beast drawing a regal chariot. 0:09:16.480 --> 0:09:19.520 And then he goes on to describe all sorts of things, 0:09:19.559 --> 0:09:24.520 including seeing not an imperfect view of ordinary life, but 0:09:24.679 --> 0:09:29.360 the archetypes, the platonic ideas that underlie the imperfect images 0:09:29.400 --> 0:09:32.480 of everyday life. So he was tripping hard. It sounds 0:09:32.520 --> 0:09:35.120 like a yeah, And that's unusual that he says that 0:09:35.160 --> 0:09:38.760 he saw something in a chariot, because mushrooms and lst 0:09:39.040 --> 0:09:43.200 are Although they're hallucinogens, they don't cause actual hallucinations. They 0:09:43.240 --> 0:09:47.240 tend to just mess with, distort things that are already there. Exactly. 0:09:47.440 --> 0:09:48.960 I have an answer for that because I thought the 0:09:49.000 --> 0:09:53.600 same thing. He did it in darkness, So I mean, 0:09:53.840 --> 0:09:55.720 on drugs or not. If you go and sit in 0:09:55.720 --> 0:09:58.000 a dark room long enough, you're gonna start seeing things 0:09:58.040 --> 0:09:59.960 in your mind's eye. And I think that's what's going on. 0:10:00.200 --> 0:10:04.360 You're just imagining. It's such an our. Gordon Wasson, apologist, Chuck. 0:10:05.320 --> 0:10:07.160 He was pretty moved though, and he wrote this article 0:10:07.200 --> 0:10:10.280 in Life, and uh, the editor picked out the title 0:10:10.320 --> 0:10:12.920 Seeking the Magic Mushroom. Yeah, that's where the name came from. 0:10:12.960 --> 0:10:16.640 A Life magazine editor in nineteen fifty seven coined the 0:10:16.760 --> 0:10:23.480 term magic mushroom. Um. After that little trip um, Wasson 0:10:23.559 --> 0:10:28.560 and Heim recruited Albert Hoffman, who was the chemist who 0:10:28.920 --> 0:10:33.200 created LSD isolated LSD and said, hey, man, we know 0:10:33.240 --> 0:10:36.360 it's you're into. Take these mushrooms and figure out what's 0:10:36.360 --> 0:10:40.000 going on with them. And he did, and he isolated 0:10:40.200 --> 0:10:44.199 the active ingredient. A um, what is it a trip 0:10:44.240 --> 0:10:47.600 to It's a trip to mine, which is an alkaloid. 0:10:47.760 --> 0:10:50.960 Thank you. That's actually related trip to fan. Okay, the 0:10:50.960 --> 0:10:54.079 Turkey stuff. Yeah, well you know it happens to in Turkey. 0:10:54.200 --> 0:10:57.280 But the trip of mine is the two are psilocybin 0:10:57.400 --> 0:11:02.439 and silison. So siloson is uh, that's the metabolite of psilocybin. 0:11:02.960 --> 0:11:06.040 Psilocybin is the active ingredient the trip to mind found 0:11:06.040 --> 0:11:08.720 in mushrooms. And then when you're when you ingested, your 0:11:08.720 --> 0:11:11.880 body breaks down the psilocybin into psilocine. And they're starting 0:11:11.880 --> 0:11:14.880 to come to realize that psilocine is probably the culprit 0:11:15.160 --> 0:11:18.920 behind everything. Yeah. Um, before we move on, I want 0:11:18.920 --> 0:11:21.160 to point out in the article he uh, he did 0:11:21.160 --> 0:11:22.880 it quite a few times in Mexico, and then he 0:11:22.880 --> 0:11:25.440 said later on, just to test to see if it 0:11:25.480 --> 0:11:28.040 was part of just the communal experience of being there, 0:11:28.559 --> 0:11:31.400 he went back to New York City and uh and 0:11:31.400 --> 0:11:33.520 took some and he said it was even better in 0:11:33.520 --> 0:11:37.360 New York City. Also, he disproved that he's like I 0:11:37.480 --> 0:11:43.120 love New York UM, so okay. Albert Hoffman isolates psilocybin 0:11:43.640 --> 0:11:47.400 UH and Sandoz who he worked for, who also started 0:11:47.440 --> 0:11:51.800 mass producing LSD, started mass producing psilocybin as well, and 0:11:51.920 --> 0:11:55.360 UM the psychological psychiatry community got his hands on it 0:11:55.400 --> 0:11:57.880 and started studying it. We'll talk about some of the 0:11:57.920 --> 0:12:00.440 studies later, but as early as the sixth ease they 0:12:00.480 --> 0:12:06.200 realized that UM obsessive disorders UM could be treated with 0:12:06.280 --> 0:12:09.480 psilocybin until they shut it down. They totally shut it down. 0:12:10.120 --> 0:12:14.480 Psilocybin magic mushrooms UM. Any of the silocide mushrooms are 0:12:14.520 --> 0:12:18.640 a Schedule one drug, which is kind of unusual because UM, 0:12:18.720 --> 0:12:22.240 study after study has shown that mushrooms aren't habit forming 0:12:22.360 --> 0:12:25.840 or addictive and that, you know, they kind of do 0:12:25.960 --> 0:12:28.079 have a lot of medical uses, which again we'll talk 0:12:28.080 --> 0:12:30.520 about in a little bit. But let's talk about the 0:12:30.600 --> 0:12:36.160 mushrooms and cells. Chuck. They are a plant, a mineral, fungus, 0:12:36.240 --> 0:12:41.000 or an animal. They're an animal. Uh, there are a 0:12:41.040 --> 0:12:45.880 fungus and it means it grows from a score and UH, 0:12:46.320 --> 0:12:51.680 each little mushroom in the case of psilocybin mushrooms has 0:12:52.000 --> 0:12:55.880 anywhere from point two to point four percent psilocybins a 0:12:55.960 --> 0:12:58.720 very small amount. Yeah, it sounds like it. And uh, 0:12:59.000 --> 0:13:01.440 the National Survey on Drug Use and Health in two 0:13:01.480 --> 0:13:05.040 thousand three did a survey and they found that about 0:13:05.160 --> 0:13:08.719 eight percent of adults over twenty six, which to me 0:13:08.840 --> 0:13:14.199 makes us an invalid study already if they didn't include, um, 0:13:15.360 --> 0:13:18.040 eight percent have have tried it at some point. I 0:13:18.080 --> 0:13:21.800 saw like teenagers, UM, something like around eight percent, but 0:13:21.920 --> 0:13:27.880 it was hallucinogens um other than LSD, which includes like 0:13:28.080 --> 0:13:30.640 PCP and stuff like that. Really, it seems kind of 0:13:30.679 --> 0:13:33.880 weird to lump those together. Um. But in Europe the 0:13:33.960 --> 0:13:38.439 prevalence is probably higher, um between point three percent in 0:13:38.559 --> 0:13:42.480 fourteen point one percent of use at least once in 0:13:42.640 --> 0:13:46.559 the person's lifetime between point three and fourteen. Yeah, it's 0:13:46.600 --> 0:13:50.000 pretty pretty wild. And let's just call it fourteen, okay, 0:13:50.200 --> 0:13:52.880 you know. And then for some reason, um, the Czech 0:13:52.920 --> 0:13:57.400 Republic in Slovakia report the highest use among teenagers of 0:13:57.559 --> 0:14:01.800 magic mushrooms. Not sure why. Interesting, Yeah, it's a nice 0:14:01.840 --> 0:14:03.679 place to be. It was about to bag on it 0:14:03.760 --> 0:14:07.240 and say you'd do it too, but it's lovely. Yeah, 0:14:07.640 --> 0:14:09.959 or maybe that's why they're doing it because it is lovely, 0:14:10.320 --> 0:14:16.720 because New York City it's the best. Uh So Timothy Leary, 0:14:16.880 --> 0:14:19.880 we failed to mention. But of course obviously he sunk 0:14:19.920 --> 0:14:23.480 his teeth into it literally, and like you said earlier, 0:14:23.600 --> 0:14:27.240 like all things, he kind of killed the psychedelic movement 0:14:27.280 --> 0:14:30.640 in a way as he was actually creating it. Yeah, 0:14:30.840 --> 0:14:33.760 by making it, you know, a hippie burnout thing. Well, 0:14:33.800 --> 0:14:36.120 he definitely delegitimized it. I mean, there are a lot 0:14:36.160 --> 0:14:41.960 of people who were studying um LSD and psilocybin and 0:14:42.320 --> 0:14:46.080 um I would gain all those to see how they 0:14:46.120 --> 0:14:50.160 can help people with mental illness. And Leary was like, no, man, 0:14:51.440 --> 0:14:55.480 let's just completely screw the establishment with this stuff. Well, 0:14:55.600 --> 0:14:57.800 and he's the one who established the whole set and 0:14:57.920 --> 0:15:01.360 setting thing right which is still in use today, including 0:15:01.480 --> 0:15:04.520 in this article from how Stuff Works dot com. Set 0:15:04.640 --> 0:15:09.320 and setting are defined in here. Um, do you want 0:15:09.360 --> 0:15:12.240 to talk about it, Well, this is the trip as 0:15:12.280 --> 0:15:15.800 they call it, The mushroom trip is very dependent on 0:15:15.920 --> 0:15:19.080 set and setting, the frame of mind that you have 0:15:19.360 --> 0:15:22.840 going into it. Where you are the setting obviously, if 0:15:22.920 --> 0:15:27.800 it's you know, some kind of stressful, highly organized thing. 0:15:28.080 --> 0:15:30.360 Like if you're in school or you're like in a 0:15:30.440 --> 0:15:32.680 train station and somebody's like, you're gonna miss your train. 0:15:32.720 --> 0:15:34.920 You're gonna miss your train is probably not a good idea. 0:15:35.640 --> 0:15:39.680 Um Or if you're hanging out with friends and you're 0:15:39.720 --> 0:15:41.600 camping or you're doing something there where you have no 0:15:41.720 --> 0:15:44.360 stress involved and you have the right outlook going in, 0:15:44.760 --> 0:15:47.600 Timothy Leary says, that's what you want as far as 0:15:47.720 --> 0:15:50.040 going into this whole thing. Right set is mindset and 0:15:50.160 --> 0:15:54.440 setting is your environment. Um Also, studies have found that 0:15:54.760 --> 0:15:59.320 even um what are called drug naive people can have 0:16:00.240 --> 0:16:06.080 a positive experience on psilocybin mushrooms if there is if 0:16:06.160 --> 0:16:08.120 what's about to happen to them is explained to them 0:16:08.160 --> 0:16:10.440 ahead of time. That that's a big part of it too, 0:16:10.560 --> 0:16:12.920 is knowing what you're getting into going into it well. 0:16:12.960 --> 0:16:14.560 And that's a big part of these studies we're going 0:16:14.600 --> 0:16:16.600 to talk about later on was these people are all 0:16:16.680 --> 0:16:20.400 coached ahead of time by people you know, they call 0:16:20.520 --> 0:16:25.120 them their guides is what they are now. They're reach 0:16:25.360 --> 0:16:30.840 research assistants who have had previous experience with psychotropics, but 0:16:30.840 --> 0:16:32.400 they would explain to them what they're about to get 0:16:32.440 --> 0:16:34.360 into and that would obviously help them along as they're 0:16:34.360 --> 0:16:37.200 going in. But they do mention the guide thing in 0:16:37.320 --> 0:16:41.280 here in this article. Uh, they say that a lot 0:16:41.360 --> 0:16:44.280 of people, um, because you know, you can have a 0:16:44.320 --> 0:16:46.320 bad trip, which the only thing you can do there 0:16:46.400 --> 0:16:48.600 is to write it out. Obviously you can't turn off 0:16:48.640 --> 0:16:51.320 the effects, which is a very important thing to note. 0:16:52.160 --> 0:16:55.240 It doesn't go away, No, it doesn't. Although supposedly, um, 0:16:55.880 --> 0:16:59.960 in the emergency room they usually prescribed sedatives and suppose 0:17:00.000 --> 0:17:03.240 really helps a bad trip. Yeah, I'm sure it does, um, 0:17:03.880 --> 0:17:05.679 But they say in the article here, new users are 0:17:05.720 --> 0:17:09.760 often advised to have an experienced friend h guide them 0:17:09.800 --> 0:17:14.200 through the experience, Like did you see Flirting with Disaster? Yeah, 0:17:14.440 --> 0:17:18.159 Lily Tomlin, Well yeah, they accidentally dosed the cop and 0:17:18.480 --> 0:17:20.800 she was like Alan and it's like she's a great guy, 0:17:20.960 --> 0:17:23.080 He'll be fine, and that she just kind of coaches 0:17:23.119 --> 0:17:25.320 him through the thing. I was looking up movies, um 0:17:25.440 --> 0:17:27.920 that have mushrooms in him, and I was having a 0:17:28.000 --> 0:17:30.440 lot of job. I found like Altered States. Well this 0:17:30.600 --> 0:17:34.120 was LSD, but oh yeah, okay, but I guess that's 0:17:34.160 --> 0:17:37.200 a good time to mention that LSD and psilocybin. Mushrooms 0:17:37.240 --> 0:17:41.119 are very similar in the effect. Although they say that 0:17:41.280 --> 0:17:45.160 mushrooms are generally milder and don't last as long, their 0:17:45.280 --> 0:17:49.479 chemical composition is very very similar. Do you know how similar? 0:17:50.080 --> 0:17:54.320 I think there's like one um hydroxy really that's different, 0:17:54.720 --> 0:17:57.480 but they're pretty close, very close. Would when they made 0:17:57.600 --> 0:18:01.320 LSD did they try to synthesize psilocybin? Was that the 0:18:01.359 --> 0:18:05.879 way they were after? No, because they didn't know that 0:18:06.000 --> 0:18:10.479 psilocybin existed until after LST had been synicide. Interesting because 0:18:10.720 --> 0:18:15.520 you know he did LST in and do psilocybin until 0:18:15.720 --> 0:18:20.520 like quite a coincidence, isn't it? Yeah? Um, so do 0:18:20.640 --> 0:18:22.119 you know what's going on in the brain? Do you 0:18:22.200 --> 0:18:26.240 know what the whole secret is behind magic mushrooms? Uh? 0:18:26.920 --> 0:18:30.000 Central nervous system. There's some kind of inhibits and inhibits 0:18:30.080 --> 0:18:33.440 something right. Uh. No, it does the opposite. It's an agonist, 0:18:34.160 --> 0:18:36.639 which I came to realize that agony means that you 0:18:36.880 --> 0:18:40.920 feel everything. I'm in. Agony means you're feeling everything. And 0:18:41.040 --> 0:18:46.920 agonists UM binds to a receptor like in your brain 0:18:47.760 --> 0:18:52.000 that releases a neurotransmitter, and in this case, UM psilocybin 0:18:52.160 --> 0:18:59.960 or psil Lowson binds to serotonin receptors. It says, relieve 0:19:00.160 --> 0:19:04.280 the serotonin, right, and your synapses are flooded with serotonin 0:19:04.680 --> 0:19:08.720 and that's what gives what clinical researchers basically call the 0:19:08.880 --> 0:19:12.960 sensation of just being overwhelmed by sensation. Interesting. Yeah, it's 0:19:13.000 --> 0:19:16.480 all serotonin, man, although there is evidence that it affects 0:19:16.520 --> 0:19:22.080 your dopamine receptors, but not directly, like indirectly, which would 0:19:22.320 --> 0:19:24.520 kind of give you a sense of view for you right, 0:19:25.000 --> 0:19:27.880 uh so, josh. Some of the side effects when someone 0:19:28.040 --> 0:19:32.120 is taking mushrooms include dizziness and nausea UM, muscle weakness, 0:19:32.480 --> 0:19:38.880 loss of appetite, and numbness um. Sometimes uh, there could 0:19:38.880 --> 0:19:44.560 be vomiting sometimes anecdotally. Experts have said that inducing vomiting 0:19:45.280 --> 0:19:48.760 is a way to cease the nausea when you're experiencing 0:19:48.920 --> 0:19:53.159 nausea in a mushroom trip, and said they're not considered 0:19:53.200 --> 0:19:55.680 to be addictive and you can build up a toleran 0:19:55.720 --> 0:19:58.560 it's really quick. Yeah. Um. It says here in the 0:19:58.720 --> 0:20:01.680 article that like, for exam ample, taking mushrooms two days 0:20:01.760 --> 0:20:05.400 in a row um is going to make the effects 0:20:05.440 --> 0:20:09.680 of them on the second day far less pronounced I guess. 0:20:10.080 --> 0:20:12.240 And one of the guys in these studies to um, 0:20:12.720 --> 0:20:16.639 I believe, takes them for cluster headaches, and he's taken 0:20:16.680 --> 0:20:21.320 them so much that they don't have psycho hallucinogenic properties anymore. 0:20:21.960 --> 0:20:27.080 It's just like medicine for him, really gross fungal medicine. No, 0:20:27.240 --> 0:20:29.359 I think you might take a pill. Okay, I'm not 0:20:29.440 --> 0:20:32.879 sure though. UM all the tolerance also, UM, you can 0:20:32.880 --> 0:20:35.040 build up across tolerance. So like if you took a 0:20:35.119 --> 0:20:37.040 bunch of mushrooms one day and then the next day 0:20:37.119 --> 0:20:41.560 took mescalin or LSD, those effects would be dampened as well. 0:20:41.960 --> 0:20:43.480 And I think it has to do with the fact 0:20:43.520 --> 0:20:46.359 that it's all it's your serotonin. But if you do that, 0:20:46.520 --> 0:20:48.399 that means a lot of other things as well about you. 0:20:48.800 --> 0:20:52.119 It does you know, yes, I don't know what, but 0:20:52.560 --> 0:20:55.520 oh you know what, you have a T shirt that 0:20:55.600 --> 0:20:58.240 has an Almond Brothers album cover, it means you're hippie, 0:20:59.119 --> 0:21:02.560 a dirty, dirty, melly hippie. So um chuck. Some of 0:21:02.600 --> 0:21:07.120 the other effects of tripping on shrooms is um euphoria 0:21:07.720 --> 0:21:12.320 or dysphoria, and also sometimes a very rapid shift between 0:21:12.400 --> 0:21:15.800 the two. UM basically being really happy and then being 0:21:15.960 --> 0:21:19.800 terrified UM and then deep personalization, which is a sense 0:21:19.880 --> 0:21:22.840 that you are not yourself, or you belong to somebody 0:21:22.920 --> 0:21:26.359 else or there's you, you lose your sense of self, 0:21:27.000 --> 0:21:30.080 and then de realization, which is the sense that you 0:21:30.359 --> 0:21:33.840 are in a dream or that man, this isn't real, 0:21:34.640 --> 0:21:37.480 nothing is real, that kind of thing. The passage of 0:21:37.560 --> 0:21:43.479 time is often distorted, whether it's like have we been 0:21:43.560 --> 0:21:46.240 talking about this for five hours or five minutes or 0:21:46.280 --> 0:21:48.280 the other way around. I think it can go either way. 0:21:48.320 --> 0:21:51.840 I found a study that UM showed it basically tested 0:21:51.880 --> 0:21:55.440 that it gave people psilocybin and then did like time 0:21:55.480 --> 0:21:58.879 interval tests and found two to three seconds is about 0:21:58.920 --> 0:22:03.960 the most that a person can it's successfully achieve as 0:22:04.080 --> 0:22:07.480 these tests, like beyond three seconds they start to get 0:22:07.560 --> 0:22:11.160 really bad at it. And they also found the person's 0:22:11.200 --> 0:22:14.359 tapping preference, which I guess is like if you're just 0:22:14.400 --> 0:22:17.879 sitting there tapping, you know your fingers, what your preferences, 0:22:17.960 --> 0:22:23.959 and it's slower when you're on mushroom really so uh 0:22:24.080 --> 0:22:26.280 and like you said that, you don't actually hallucinate, like 0:22:26.520 --> 0:22:28.320 you're not going to be sitting there and see pink 0:22:28.359 --> 0:22:31.960 elephants dancing across the room. But if there's a painting 0:22:32.000 --> 0:22:35.199 of a pink elephant, uh, it might appear as if 0:22:35.240 --> 0:22:38.800 the elephant were breathing or moving or shifting. Or if 0:22:38.840 --> 0:22:43.280 you hear something like a song or running water or 0:22:43.520 --> 0:22:45.359 you know, a creek or something like that, you might 0:22:45.480 --> 0:22:51.680 hear other things within that sound, but not completely imagine them. Right. So, 0:22:52.359 --> 0:22:55.240 one of the things we were talking about was that, sure, 0:22:55.640 --> 0:22:59.440 mushrooms have been around for thousands of years, growing wild 0:22:59.520 --> 0:23:03.159 like they do today, and um, that's where a lot 0:23:03.200 --> 0:23:06.879 of people get their mushrooms. Apparently is just foraging it 0:23:07.119 --> 0:23:10.240 for him. One of the big problems is that, Um, 0:23:10.920 --> 0:23:14.600 while there are a lot of mushrooms in the genus Silocybe, 0:23:14.880 --> 0:23:18.119 which we probably should have mentioned earlier, that's there's the 0:23:18.160 --> 0:23:21.840 big spoiler. All the mushrooms are in the same genus. Um, 0:23:23.040 --> 0:23:26.399 there's a lot that look like them two and that 0:23:26.560 --> 0:23:30.240 might grow in similar places that will shut down your kidneys. Yeah, 0:23:30.480 --> 0:23:33.480 so you have to be very careful when you're foraging 0:23:33.600 --> 0:23:37.119 for fresh wild mushrooms if you're into that kind of thing, 0:23:37.359 --> 0:23:42.040 which neither Chuck nor i Um suggests should be done. Yeah, 0:23:42.080 --> 0:23:44.800 we're not endorsing this, No, I'm just saying like this 0:23:44.960 --> 0:23:46.840 is in the article. Yeah, I thought that was implicit, 0:23:46.880 --> 0:23:49.360 but it's probably a good time to c o a yeah. Um. 0:23:49.640 --> 0:23:52.360 In the article, they also point out that even experienced 0:23:52.600 --> 0:23:57.200 mushroom hunters have made mistakes out there in the dark 0:23:57.320 --> 0:24:01.439 in the field among the cows. So yeah, it can 0:24:01.480 --> 0:24:03.159 be toxic. It's not a good idea to just go 0:24:03.359 --> 0:24:08.080 picking mushrooms growing in it pie. And that holds true 0:24:08.119 --> 0:24:14.000 for if you're looking for truffles or you know edible mushrooms. Um. Yeah, 0:24:14.080 --> 0:24:15.840 you want to kind of know what you're doing. Um. 0:24:16.040 --> 0:24:18.280 One way to tell what kind of mushroom you're looking 0:24:18.320 --> 0:24:21.320 at is to create a spore print, which apparently you 0:24:21.400 --> 0:24:25.200 take a piece of paper and you take the cap 0:24:25.880 --> 0:24:28.960 of the mushroom. There's a stem in a cap um 0:24:29.119 --> 0:24:31.960 and in the genocilicide. Most of them are fairly small, 0:24:32.080 --> 0:24:34.479