Speaker 1: Welcome to Stuff to Blow Your Mind, a production of
Speaker 1: I Heart Radios How Stuff Works. Hey, welcome to Stuff
Speaker 1: to Blow Your Mind. My name is Robert Lamb, and
Speaker 1: I'm Joe McCormick, and we're back with part four of
Speaker 1: our exploration of psychedelics. Robert, have we ever made it
Speaker 1: to a part four on any series on this show before? Oh?
Speaker 1: I don't think we we have really. I mean, there
Speaker 1: have been cases where we've had, like an informal series
Speaker 1: where each episode is more or less self contained. So
Speaker 1: uh yeah, I don't know. I can't think of one
Speaker 1: off hand that that has been a four partner. On
Speaker 1: the other hand, we could have gone to eight parts
Speaker 1: on Dune maybe well may yeah, certainly they're there are
Speaker 1: There's so many topics that we could have divided up more,
Speaker 1: or we could have uh dwelt on in greater length.
Speaker 1: Uh you know this one though, I mean the curious things.
Speaker 1: I feel like we've gone in fairly deep, but we
Speaker 1: still are are only providing like basically a surface outline
Speaker 1: and everything you know, and and leaving lots of room
Speaker 1: for listeners to then to go out and explore topics
Speaker 1: and portions of this topic and greater depth. Well, yeah,
Speaker 1: with rich subjects like psychedelics, I guess, especially anything dealing
Speaker 1: with the mind, you run into the problem that the
Speaker 1: deeper you go, the more you uncover that you should
Speaker 1: you know, like you're always just opening up more cases
Speaker 1: instead of closing them. Right. It's it's like saying we
Speaker 1: were gonna we're gonna do an episode on consciousness. Yeah, yah,
Speaker 1: it's you could sort of do an outline episode of it,
Speaker 1: and I imagine we've probably done episodes that are essentially
Speaker 1: that in the past, but ultimately consciousness is an ongoing
Speaker 1: series on this show, and the same we said for
Speaker 1: a number of different topics. But hey, if you're just
Speaker 1: jumping in, you should probably go back listen to those
Speaker 1: other episodes. First, we did uh Psychedelics parts one through
Speaker 1: three before this where what do we talk about, Robert, Well,
Speaker 1: we talked about what psychedelics are and also what what
Speaker 1: drugs are. We talked about how psychedelics factor into traditional societies,
Speaker 1: how they factor into ancient and modern history, and ultimately
Speaker 1: how they factor into both the hopes and fears that
Speaker 1: individuals and groups of individuals have had for humanities future. Yeah,
Speaker 1: and so in the last episode, In Part three, we
Speaker 1: focused a lot on the twentieth century and how there
Speaker 1: was research in the nineteen fifties and nineteen sixties looking
Speaker 1: into how psychedelics could be used in say, psychedelic assisted
Speaker 1: therapy for treating conditions like alcoholism. How a lot of
Speaker 1: psychiatrists in the nineteen fifties saw its potential as what
Speaker 1: they considered a psychoto memdic, meaning that it would mimic
Speaker 1: the conditions of psychosis that would allow them to empathize
Speaker 1: with their patients. But then, of course it turned out
Speaker 1: to be something rather different than just mimicking the effects
Speaker 1: of psychosis. And then we talked about sort of in
Speaker 1: the in the mid sixties to about nineteen seventy, where
Speaker 1: the way of crashed psychedelic research encountered a lot of backlash,
Speaker 1: and for several decades it's sort of was was forced
Speaker 1: into the underground, and it's only in recent years that
Speaker 1: it's experience its two resurgence, And that's what we're going
Speaker 1: to focus on today. Yeah, now, I do want to
Speaker 1: throw in just a quick note that I don't want
Speaker 1: to leave anybody with the idea that all psychedelic research
Speaker 1: ended with Nixon's control Substances Act of nineteen seventy and
Speaker 1: then didn't pick up at all until after the nineties. Right.
Speaker 1: We've made that point in previous episodes, I think, but
Speaker 1: that most of it had been driven underground. Right. I
Speaker 1: was actually found a good source. And this has a
Speaker 1: nice visual for you know, the ups and downs of
Speaker 1: the research with the Beckley Foundation. At Beckley Foundation dot org,
Speaker 1: they have a nice overview, a nice graphic. Now, this uh,
Speaker 1: particular organization was founded in by Amanda Fielding. I don't
Speaker 1: know if you remember Amanda Fielding. Oh yeah, she uh.
Speaker 1: I think she talks to Michael Pollen in his book
Speaker 1: How to Change Your Mind, which we've been referring to
Speaker 1: throughout the past few episodes. I'm sure we'll refer to
Speaker 1: several times again today. But she talks to him, I
Speaker 1: think at some point and says something like, look, I
Speaker 1: understand I have an image problem. I'm a druggy with
Speaker 1: a hole in my head. Right, she underwent Trepid Nation.
Speaker 1: We have an episode in the that we did in
Speaker 1: the past Entrepid Nation. But but the foundation itself is
Speaker 1: a UK based think tank you and accredited in g
Speaker 1: O and it's dedicated to global drug policy reform and
Speaker 1: psychedelic research anyway. As they point out, the Control Substances
Speaker 1: Act of nineteen seventy effectively ended all government sanctions psychedelic
Speaker 1: research and brought everything down to a mere trickle um,
Speaker 1: but you still had some research going on that The
Speaker 1: lowest point identified um um on this website is seemingly
Speaker 1: in the mid nineties. That it was, you know, it
Speaker 1: was also very low and like the mid eighties, and
Speaker 1: now we're at the point where the research is even
Speaker 1: surpassing the previous high point, the previous heyday of the
Speaker 1: late nineteen sixties. I've got an informal theory that you
Speaker 1: will see an almost perfect correlation in in the twentieth
Speaker 1: century timeline between the quantity and quality of action movies
Speaker 1: produced by Hollywood and the lack of psychedelic research being done.
Speaker 1: It's like the your Speed came out, there can't have
Speaker 1: been much psychedelic research going on. That's that would be
Speaker 1: interesting to compare those timelines for sure. Now I thought
Speaker 1: maybe the first thing that would be good to get
Speaker 1: into today is a question about neurochemistry, the question of
Speaker 1: what's actually happening in the brains of people who take
Speaker 1: psychedelics like LSD and psilocybin. We've talked a lot about
Speaker 1: the the anecdotal phenomenological reports people have. You know, what
Speaker 1: what do people commonly say about their experiences on these drugs?
Speaker 1: But what's causing them to have those experiences chemically in
Speaker 1: the brain? Right, because it's all obviously going to come
Speaker 1: down to neurochemical in situation. You know, the magic mushrooms
Speaker 1: are not actually magic, h the machine, they're not actually
Speaker 1: working on your mind. Uh, there's something going on chemically
Speaker 1: inside the brain. Yes, But to go back to another
Speaker 1: point we've made repeatedly already is the importance of set
Speaker 1: and setting. Uh. Psychopharmacology should acknowledge that, especially with some drugs,
Speaker 1: psychedelic being some of them, that the context is going
Speaker 1: to highly influence what the chemicals due to the brain,
Speaker 1: and that in many ways these chemicals should be thought
Speaker 1: of as um not necessarily the cause of particular experiences,
Speaker 1: but facilitators of experience of varying degrees of intensity. Uh. So,
Speaker 1: these psychoactive compounds are of course different from one another.
Speaker 1: LST is not exactly psilocybin, psilocybin is not exactly d MT,
Speaker 1: and so forth. Uh, so what's found about one doesn't
Speaker 1: necessarily apply to all of them, but there do appear
Speaker 1: to be some important chemical similarities in the brain, and
Speaker 1: so I want to talk about serotonin and serotonin receptors.
Speaker 1: On the neurochemical level, there appears to be this really
Speaker 1: important connection between certain psychedelics and the endogenous neurotransmitter serotonin.
Speaker 1: Serotonin is also known as five hydroxy trip to me
Speaker 1: and the role of serotonin in the brain and the
Speaker 1: body is fantastically complex and still not full understood, and
Speaker 1: I think partially because of its role in the history
Speaker 1: of research on mood and depression, serotonin is often thought
Speaker 1: of as an internal chemical that creates happiness or positive mood,
Speaker 1: such that if you don't have enough of it you
Speaker 1: get depressed. But I think it turns out that this
Speaker 1: is a monumentally oversimplified and largely incorrect view. The most
Speaker 1: commonly prescribed antidepressant drugs these days are s s R EYES,
Speaker 1: which stands for selective serotonin reuptake inhibitors, and what they
Speaker 1: do is they block the reabsorption of serotonin in the brain,
Speaker 1: increasing serotonin levels overall. But we shouldn't draw the wrong
Speaker 1: conclusions from this. It is not simply a case that
Speaker 1: more serotonin equals more happiness or more serotonin equals less depression.
Speaker 1: In fact, ending up with too much serotonin due to
Speaker 1: drug interactions can cause a potentially fatal condition known as
Speaker 1: serotonin syndrome. One key interacting interaction and where it can
Speaker 1: occur is is with ayahuasca and certain antidepressants, which is
Speaker 1: a reason that is often stated like, you should be
Speaker 1: very careful if you are engaging in what's some called
Speaker 1: freelance um therapeutic psychedelic use. Well, yeah, exactly. I mean
Speaker 1: that's one of the things that we alluded to, and
Speaker 1: I guess we'll talk about more as the episode goes on,
Speaker 1: is that even though we've established that psychedelics have relatively
Speaker 1: low recognized risk when compared to many other drugs, it's
Speaker 1: not impossible for them to represent risks, especially when you
Speaker 1: think about how they may interact with existing psychological conditions
Speaker 1: or other drugs that you might be taking. Right. So
Speaker 1: back to serotonin. While serotonin does seem highly involved in
Speaker 1: the internal regulation of mood, it's mechanism is somewhat complicated,
Speaker 1: and it's also involved in a number of other processes
Speaker 1: throughout the body. And brain that aren't directly related to mood,
Speaker 1: at least as far as we know. For example, digestion
Speaker 1: the like the vast majority of the body, serotonin is
Speaker 1: found in the gastro intestinal tract, and it has something
Speaker 1: to do with the regulation of bowel movements. I'm sure
Speaker 1: some comedian out there has a great joke about like
Speaker 1: their depression slash bowel movements serotonin thing. I don't know,
Speaker 1: I haven't put it together in my head, but run
Speaker 1: with it somebody. Uh. But serotonin also has a lot
Speaker 1: of other uses in the body. It apparently somehow seems
Speaker 1: linked to the regulation of sleep to bone metabolism, so
Speaker 1: you know, like the creation of osteoblasts and osteogenesis, uh,
Speaker 1: sexual arousal, blood clotting. So there's a lot of stuff
Speaker 1: going on. And according to the psychedelic researcher Robin L.
Speaker 1: Carhart Harris, who's going to show up in research that
Speaker 1: we will talk about later, quote, a compelling unified theory
Speaker 1: of brain serotonin function has not yet been established. This
Speaker 1: is likely due to the exceptional complexity of the serotonin system,
Speaker 1: with its fourteen plus receptors, over twice the number identified
Speaker 1: for any of the other major neuromodular systems. So they're
Speaker 1: all lot of different basically holes in the body and
Speaker 1: the brain for that molecule to put its peg into,
Speaker 1: and they probably all do slightly different things or maybe
Speaker 1: largely different things. Nevertheless, it is clear that serotonin plays
Speaker 1: some important role in psychiatric disorders like depression, and one
Speaker 1: recent theory I thought this was pretty interesting. It's probably
Speaker 1: not conclusive. Again, we don't have a agreed upon the
Speaker 1: theory of serotonin yet, but one recent theory is that,
Speaker 1: in Carhart Harris's words, serotonergic processes are important for quote,
Speaker 1: mediating an individual's sensitivity to context. So, you know, serotonin
Speaker 1: might play this important role in the brain for like
Speaker 1: increasing the salience of contextual things in the environment. But
Speaker 1: where does psychedelics come in. So what happens is the
Speaker 1: classic psychedelics appear to bind to a specific subclass of
Speaker 1: serotonin receptor known as the serotonin to A A receptor,
Speaker 1: and these receptors are found concentrated in the human cortex.
Speaker 1: The cortex is the outer layer of the cerebrum the brain,
Speaker 1: which is associated with a lot of higher brain functions
Speaker 1: like sensations. You know, the visual cortex the auditory cortex.
Speaker 1: It's associated, you know, it's where you have centers for
Speaker 1: speech and language, for voluntary action and stuff like that.
Speaker 1: So when you take a psychedelic like LSD R psilocybin mushrooms,
Speaker 1: the active compounds make their way into the brain and
Speaker 1: they sort of play act as serotonin binding to these
Speaker 1: serotonin to A receptors. Now, because we have such a
Speaker 1: limited grasp of the role of serotonin to begin with,
Speaker 1: we don't fully know how to interpret the neurochemistry here,
Speaker 1: like what's happening with the serotonin two A receptors that's
Speaker 1: associated with or creating this psychedelic experience. But Robin Carhart
Speaker 1: Harris hypothesizes something really interesting. So Carhard Harris says that
Speaker 1: quote serotonin differentially encodes behavioral and physy logical responses to uncertainty.
Speaker 1: So under this model, you have like another serotonin receptor,
Speaker 1: a different one, the serotonin one A receptor, and Carhart's
Speaker 1: Harris says, quote that provides basal control during normal conditions
Speaker 1: via moderating emotion and anxiety and promoting a generalized patience.
Speaker 1: But the two A receptor, which psychedelics have these agonist
Speaker 1: properties for you, the psychedelics go in the two A
Speaker 1: receptor Quote is hypothesized to engage more during conditions of
Speaker 1: crisis when the above mentioned default mechanism becomes suboptimal e g.
Speaker 1: When an individual's internal and or external milieu become so
Speaker 1: changeable and or inconsistent with his or her prior beliefs
Speaker 1: and behaviors that significant revisions become mandated. In other words,
Speaker 1: Carhart Harris is hypothesizing that psychedelics provide a neurochemical hyper
Speaker 1: stimulation two receptors in the brain that normally work during
Speaker 1: situations of crisis and change to quote relax prior assumptions
Speaker 1: or beliefs held at multiple levels of the brain's functional
Speaker 1: hierarchy perceptually, emotionally, cognitively, and philosophically e g. In terms
Speaker 1: of biases. In so doing, it opens a door to
Speaker 1: heighten sensitivity to context, an ideal precondition for effective change.
Speaker 1: So that was really interesting to me. Like to be clear,
Speaker 1: we still don't know if this hypothesis of what's happening
Speaker 1: is correct, but it seems informed by what we do
Speaker 1: know about serotonin receptors and about the neurochemistry of psychedelics,
Speaker 1: And I guess the idea is that they sort of
Speaker 1: mash frantically at buttons in the brain that, naturally, when pressed,
Speaker 1: caused the brain to break internal habits, associations, and traditions
Speaker 1: at every level, from the senses to the beliefs. Interesting,
Speaker 1: so in the same way that a basically like a
Speaker 1: traumatic experience can change or alter our our our pre
Speaker 1: conceptions about the world, or in the same way that
Speaker 1: glimpsing something marvelous like seeing the Grand Canyon for the
Speaker 1: first time might have some at least minor change in
Speaker 1: the way you think about about the natural world, like
Speaker 1: the the psychedelic state is kind of um like leaning
Speaker 1: into those uh uh, those kind of experiences though, that
Speaker 1: the facilitate change. I think that's right according to this
Speaker 1: hypothesis at least, And this does seem to ring true
Speaker 1: to me based on everything else we've read. Uh it's
Speaker 1: kind of like how I think we've talked about this
Speaker 1: on the show before, how it really seems like it's
Speaker 1: easier to break habits or make changes in your life
Speaker 1: while you're on vacation or we in in any other
Speaker 1: kind of it doesn't have to be just vacation while
Speaker 1: you're external contextual circumstances are different. You know, you're faced
Speaker 1: with a different environment, different stimuli, maybe you're meeting different people,
Speaker 1: you're facing different challenges or problems. That seems to give
Speaker 1: rise to processes in the brain that make us better
Speaker 1: at changing what we've done and how we've been before.
Speaker 1: And it makes sense, right, because if we is an organism,
Speaker 1: we change location, we change what, we change set and setting,
Speaker 1: you know, we we end up having to update our
Speaker 1: priorities and our our judgments about where we are and
Speaker 1: ultimately who we are. And so it seems like under
Speaker 1: this hypothesis, psychedelics maybe doing something like that, but in
Speaker 1: an even more intense and chemically focused way, right, And yeah,
Speaker 1: it's interesting and in a way that does not necessarily
Speaker 1: require an experience of trauma or or some sort of
Speaker 1: you know, tremendous physical travel. Well, but there are interesting
Speaker 1: parallels to trauma. I mean again, this is something that's
Speaker 1: very common in the report, so that, like we've read
Speaker 1: about with the participants of the March Chapel Experiment, uh,
Speaker 1: people very often report having some kind of experience of
Speaker 1: dying or going through some great alma during their trip.
Speaker 1: And yet after their trip on the whole. They report
Speaker 1: positive effects and changes in their mindset and in their life.
Speaker 1: So I don't think we should necessarily discount the relationship
Speaker 1: to trauma. There. There may be sort of not physical traumas,
Speaker 1: but but emotional and psychological traumas that gets simulated or
Speaker 1: run through in the brain during the psychedelic experience. Yeah.
Speaker 1: I mean, so many of these accounts that we've read
Speaker 1: or you know, acquainted ourselves with, they do involve at
Speaker 1: least a challenging portion of the overall trip. Maybe the
Speaker 1: trip itself is not a quote unquote bad trip, because again,
Speaker 1: that's that's kind of disingenuous to get into the idea
Speaker 1: of like purely a good trip bad trip scenario. Um.
Speaker 1: So yeah, so much of the time there is a
Speaker 1: you know, for lack of a better word, a monster.
Speaker 1: But sometimes you have to defeat a monster, right, I mean,
Speaker 1: it's it's it's kind of the the old hero's journey. Well,
Speaker 1: this is one of the things that's commonly reported by
Speaker 1: psychedelic guides people who do psychedelic assisted therapy that Michael
Speaker 1: Paulan talks about this and how to Change your Mind
Speaker 1: a good bit about UH one effective strategy of guiding
Speaker 1: people through their meditative experience on on psychedelics is to
Speaker 1: encourage them to approach challenging experiences in their minds. So
Speaker 1: if you know, they're faced with something that scares them,
Speaker 1: don't run away from it, go toward it. And this
Speaker 1: actually tends to cause people to have very empowering experiences
Speaker 1: of discovery. I'm reminded of the the original ending to
Speaker 1: Alan Moore's v for Vendetta. I don't know if you
Speaker 1: ever read the comic book. I don't believe saw the movie,
Speaker 1: but yeah, I don't think I don't think this made
Speaker 1: it into the film. But in in the book, there's
Speaker 1: an individual who ends up um like taking LSD I
Speaker 1: believe it was LSD and visiting the side of you
Speaker 1: know what is essentially like like a labor camp or
Speaker 1: uh in order to like fully process, like, you know,
Speaker 1: the state of the world and his relationship with it.
Speaker 1: Really am more of a like a shamanistic h um
Speaker 1: kind of psyched delic encounter, but one that is intentionally
Speaker 1: traumatic because the character feels that they must they must
Speaker 1: confront something that is troubling and traumatic in their life. Yeah,
Speaker 1: I think there could very well be uses like that.
Speaker 1: That are that are legitimate and take best advantage of
Speaker 1: the psychopharmacology at work here. All Right, on that note,
Speaker 1: we're going to take a quick break, but we'll be
Speaker 1: right back, thank you. Okay, we're back. So we've been
Speaker 1: talking about the neurochemical action of psychedelics and and some
Speaker 1: ideas about what may be going on in the brain
Speaker 1: there with their relationship to a certain serotonin receptor, the
Speaker 1: serotonin two A receptor. But there are also ways of
Speaker 1: going beyond the neurochemical level and just looking at the
Speaker 1: neurological effects of psychedelics through brain imaging studies. Right yeah,
Speaker 1: I mean nothing spells good trip more than getting somebody
Speaker 1: on psilocybin and sticking them in an fMRI machine. Right,
Speaker 1: but you can't. I mean, I wonder what those subjective
Speaker 1: experiences are like. Surely somebody has studied that, like asking
Speaker 1: for the uh, the experiential reports of people have been
Speaker 1: in the fm R I But I mean, the studies
Speaker 1: are are quite useful looking at where, you know, where
Speaker 1: does the blood flow change, what what's receiving oxygen in
Speaker 1: the brain. Pollen talks about this at length in his book.
Speaker 1: One of the most interesting things is that psychedelics apparently
Speaker 1: tend to reduce activity in one of the most interesting
Speaker 1: networks of the brain, which is the default mode network. Adversary, Well,
Speaker 1: normally you'd be thinking, okay, psychedelics must be causing increased
Speaker 1: activity somewhere, right, But here it's fascinating to see where
Speaker 1: you know, the brain may be empowered by suppressing certain
Speaker 1: parts of it. So the default mode network is a
Speaker 1: brain subsystem we've talked about before. It involves different regions
Speaker 1: all over the brain, So it's not just like one
Speaker 1: little node somewhere you know, it's happening all over, but
Speaker 1: it's a set of interlinked and and related nodes of
Speaker 1: the brain that work together, and it's normally believed to
Speaker 1: be most active when we are not engaged in any
Speaker 1: other particular task. It seems to be highly associated with
Speaker 1: an idol wandering mind, but it is not only active
Speaker 1: when we're mentally unoccupied. It's not only when our mind
Speaker 1: is wandering or idle that we use the default mode network.
Speaker 1: Activation of the default mode network is associated with many
Speaker 1: kinds of deliberate thought processes, especially self referential thought processes,
Speaker 1: so like autobiographical and self evaluative thinking, The default mode
Speaker 1: network seems highly involved in knowing facts about yourself and
Speaker 1: in understanding and evaluating characterizations of yourself. If I give
Speaker 1: you a list of adjectives and ask you to think
Speaker 1: how they apply to you, we will probably see activation
Speaker 1: and regions of the brain that are associated with the
Speaker 1: primary activity of the default mode network. Right, and pretty
Speaker 1: much anytime you catch yourself thinking, contemplating, worrying over who
Speaker 1: you are and how others perceive you, Uh, this is
Speaker 1: the network that is in play, right. Uh. The default
Speaker 1: mode network also seems to be associated with forms of
Speaker 1: meta cognition, so like reflecting on your own emotional states
Speaker 1: and thought processes, which this in itself I mean not
Speaker 1: to really categorize any of these isn't isn't is good
Speaker 1: or bad, but but certainly metacognition in and of itself,
Speaker 1: being able to think about your emotions and be self aware,
Speaker 1: I mean, it's a uh, it is worth pointing out, yeah,
Speaker 1: that even though it's a lot of worrying is caught
Speaker 1: up in the default mode network. You can argue them
Speaker 1: that a certain amount of our ability to to stop
Speaker 1: and uh and think about how we're thinking is also
Speaker 1: tied up there. Sure, I mean, yeah, the default mode
Speaker 1: network is I mean, it's quite clear we have it
Speaker 1: for a reason, right, It probably it does something useful
Speaker 1: for us. It probably just comes with a lot of
Speaker 1: downsides too. It probably allows us to be philosophical and
Speaker 1: to you know, to do a lot of stuff that
Speaker 1: we value about human culture and human mental abilities. But
Speaker 1: it just also tends to be highly involved in ruminating
Speaker 1: on what's wrong with yourself and the world and your
Speaker 1: life and all that. Right, And the next example is
Speaker 1: a key example of this. Well, yeah, so the default
Speaker 1: moon network seems to be highly associated with mental time travel,
Speaker 1: thinking about things that happened in the past and episodic
Speaker 1: memories of those things, and then imagining events in the future,
Speaker 1: which is all this is key if we're going to
Speaker 1: to navigate the world, be at the world that we've
Speaker 1: built for ourselves or even just the natural world. Uh,
Speaker 1: you need to be able to we need to be
Speaker 1: able to to mental time travel to to think about
Speaker 1: the lessons we've learned and prepare for the challenges ahead.
Speaker 1: But of course, as humans, we take this too ridiculous extremes,
Speaker 1: and we get trapped in the past or trapped in
Speaker 1: the future, and uh, everything that is between those points
Speaker 1: is just stretched out to the point of writtin well
Speaker 1: to mention rumination again as a you know, psychological phenomenon rumination.
Speaker 1: In a way, a positive version of it could be
Speaker 1: thinking about plans for the future, trying to think through
Speaker 1: what you should do and figure out the best thing
Speaker 1: to do. That's an important skill that we have with
Speaker 1: our brains. But also that leads to people just imagining,
Speaker 1: you know, like recursive thought patterns of the way all
Speaker 1: the ways things could go wrong in horrible ways that
Speaker 1: are not actually useful. Right, Well, I mean ultimately too,
Speaker 1: it's you know, the idea of pursuit of happiness, the
Speaker 1: idea that we should be happy. That's um you know,
Speaker 1: that's that's a that's also a human complication, right, It's
Speaker 1: really part of the evolutionary model, right. I would guess
Speaker 1: one of the easiest ways to make yourself unhappy is
Speaker 1: to try really hard to be happy or to think
Speaker 1: about how to make yourself happy. Absolutely. I remember, moments
Speaker 1: of the purest joy are going to be the times
Speaker 1: when we're not actively seeking and grasping for it. Yeah.
Speaker 1: Another thing that seems to be associated with the default
Speaker 1: mode network is thinking about other people. It's important for
Speaker 1: theory of mind, so imagining the mental states of others
Speaker 1: trying I'm thinking, what is Robert thinking. That's theory of mind,
Speaker 1: but then also in making judgments and evaluations about other people. Yeah,
Speaker 1: and of course this is this. This is one of
Speaker 1: those things that's involved and some of the noblest and
Speaker 1: most sought after human experiences. You know, this isn't This
Speaker 1: is tied up in in in love and UH and
Speaker 1: and family, but it's also caught up in like the
Speaker 1: worst inclinations of humanity as well. Yeah, and so the
Speaker 1: default mode network, we've bashed it before, but obviously it's
Speaker 1: not bad. And I guess this is sort of a sidetrack,
Speaker 1: but I have read somewhere that the concept of the
Speaker 1: default mode network is one coherent brain subsystem has been
Speaker 1: criticized or challenged by somebody. So no, I think not
Speaker 1: all UH neuroscientists would accept that the default mode network
Speaker 1: is actually a coherent network. But right, like a lot
Speaker 1: of these things, it lends itself to being used as
Speaker 1: mere metaphor for making sense of our our environmental processes.
Speaker 1: And in a similar way that serotonin can be sort
Speaker 1: of misinterpreted. Is you know, but but perhaps, but perhaps
Speaker 1: I think that the default mode network, if it, if
Speaker 1: it is being misused as metaphor, uh some of the
Speaker 1: times or even a lot of the times by people,
Speaker 1: maybe it's a little more useful or at least less
Speaker 1: harmful a metaphor. Well, I do think it's still largely
Speaker 1: accepted within neuroscience, you know, but I'm not talking about
Speaker 1: it like it's not being you know, a valid theory,
Speaker 1: but more like when I when I'm engaging with it,
Speaker 1: like to what extent am I engaging with it as
Speaker 1: a metaphor for how my mind? Oh? Yeah, I see, yeah, yeah, um,
Speaker 1: but yeah, yeah, I mean it's just so interesting that
Speaker 1: this would be a major effective psychedelics on the brain,
Speaker 1: the suppression of activity in the default mode network. Like,
Speaker 1: could it be that suppression of activity in the default
Speaker 1: mode network, which is so largely focused on the self
Speaker 1: and metacognition and thinking about the past and future and
Speaker 1: the evaluation of self, that this suppression is what causes
Speaker 1: all these subjective reports of ego loss or ego dissolution
Speaker 1: on psycho psychedelics, boundary dissolution. Yeah, and again, if you
Speaker 1: don't remember from we talked about it in the first
Speaker 1: episode of the series. Ego loss or ego suppression is
Speaker 1: one of the most interesting common reports of people, especially
Speaker 1: on higher doses of psychedelics, and the best way to
Speaker 1: I mean, that's kind of inherently ineffable, but the best
Speaker 1: way to describe it, I guess, is the experience of
Speaker 1: having experience without a self, to have the experience or
Speaker 1: of sort of being without being an eye or a me.
Speaker 1: And of course, isn't it interesting that we also encountered
Speaker 1: this in dream as well, except maybe not that first
Speaker 1: night of sleep in a new location. I remember study
Speaker 1: that came out several years ago that that pointed out
Speaker 1: that what do you see, uh, with increased activity on
Speaker 1: that first night of slumber in a new location, the
Speaker 1: default mode now work. Oh so you're dreaming with a higher,
Speaker 1: higher state of awareness of self and self other distinctions, right,
Speaker 1: or at least it's too revved up to allow like
Speaker 1: a proper night's sleep to take place. So yeah, so
Speaker 1: the ego loss thing definitely suffers from ineff ineff ability.
Speaker 1: But to whatever extent we can understand it, it seems
Speaker 1: to involve a reduction or loss in the sense of
Speaker 1: self is a distinct other, separate from the rest of
Speaker 1: the universe or from nature, or from whatever is being observed.
Speaker 1: It's kind of ego loss is pure experience without a me,
Speaker 1: And so I guess you can see if if the
Speaker 1: default mode network is being suppressed, the default mode network
Speaker 1: does all the stuff we're just talking about, that may
Speaker 1: be what's active there. And it's also worth pointing out
Speaker 1: that there are studies showing that meditation tends to reduce
Speaker 1: activity in the default mode network. Absolutely. We've talked about
Speaker 1: some of that research on the show before, and as
Speaker 1: we discussed in previous episodes, there are some strong parallels
Speaker 1: between the psychedelic experience caused by drugs and the you know,
Speaker 1: the experience of master meditates. Are people who achieve you know,
Speaker 1: like the greatest points of I don't know what you
Speaker 1: call it, the peaks of conscious experience as as sought
Speaker 1: after by by meditation, like mindfulness and stuff. Oh yeah,
Speaker 1: I mean it comes back again to this idea that
Speaker 1: mediccognition is part of the default mode network. It's like, yes,
Speaker 1: you can, you can potentially turn to pharmaceutical on pharmacological
Speaker 1: keys to the to the locks that that imprison you,
Speaker 1: but also the key is already in the cell like that,
Speaker 1: the key is is present arguably within the default mode
Speaker 1: network itself. The one thing, at least seems to me,
Speaker 1: I mean, you're much more experienced with meditation than I am,
Speaker 1: is that the meditation route seems to take a lot
Speaker 1: of work, right, Like, it takes a lot of practice
Speaker 1: and people can't always necessarily get there on their own. Um. Yeah,
Speaker 1: I mean it does. But then again, I think I
Speaker 1: think one of them, I'm not trying to knock it,
Speaker 1: but no, no, no, But I think the other side
Speaker 1: is that, like we have to drive home that with um,
Speaker 1: with psychedelics like the you know, again the importance of
Speaker 1: set and setting and intention that this is not necessarily
Speaker 1: the easy road either. I mean, it does seem to
Speaker 1: be the case that with with psychedelics, you can you
Speaker 1: can induce a state like this, uh a lot quicker.
Speaker 1: But at the same time, it's not it's it's not easy.
Speaker 1: It's just not like hitting the Nirvana switch on somebody's brain.
Speaker 1: Uh and uh. And there's gonna be a certain amount
Speaker 1: of work involved there, and there's gonna be there're gonna
Speaker 1: be some risks. Well, maybe we should talk about what
Speaker 1: the science says about those risks when we come back
Speaker 1: from another break. Thank thank alright, we're back. So we've
Speaker 1: we've spoken at a lot on this show in these
Speaker 1: episodes about like particular examples of individuals taking a psychedelic
Speaker 1: substance and having some sort of mind altering experience, life
Speaker 1: altering experience. But we haven't really talked about any of
Speaker 1: the sort of uh, you know, cautionary tales of the
Speaker 1: psychedelic experience, for one part, because those stories are pretty
Speaker 1: prevalent in our culture due to the backlash and the
Speaker 1: moral panic surrounding psychedelics. But but I but I did
Speaker 1: think it would be helpful at this point in the
Speaker 1: episode to focus briefly on one example, um, and that
Speaker 1: would be I think one of the more famous examples
Speaker 1: of of of of psychosis, schizophrenia Schizzo effective disorder being
Speaker 1: linked to the psychedelic experience, to the consumption of a
Speaker 1: psychedelic substance, Beach Boys co founder Brian Wilson uh uh,
Speaker 1: brilliant musician, but has also lived with Schizzo effective disorder
Speaker 1: since the mid sixties, with his symptoms reportedly remote, emerging
Speaker 1: shortly after he took LSD and after after he had
Speaker 1: taken it, after these symptoms began to emerge, he would
Speaker 1: he ended up having to struggle with auditory hallucinations from
Speaker 1: that point on, still struggles with them today, I understand now.
Speaker 1: At the same time, it's worth noting that he's had
Speaker 1: a lot of positive things to say about the spiritual
Speaker 1: and creative influence of psychedelics, but his case does seem
Speaker 1: to stand as a cautionary tale of psychedelic how psychedelics
Speaker 1: can affect someone with a predisposition for schizophrenia or schizoeffective disorder,
Speaker 1: or at least the perception that they could have played
Speaker 1: a role there. I mean, because I think we still
Speaker 1: don't know for sure exactly what that interaction is, but
Speaker 1: it does or not, But but it is. It's certainly
Speaker 1: it seems real enough that everyone mentions it and urges
Speaker 1: everyone to exercise caution in that area. If you do
Speaker 1: have a, say, a family history of schizophrenia. Absolutely, I mean,
Speaker 1: I'm all for exercising caution. We I think we've said
Speaker 1: this in every episode before, but we do want to
Speaker 1: reiterate that we are just trying to be descriptive in
Speaker 1: these episodes. We're not telling you that you should take psychedelics.
Speaker 1: That's a decision you can only make on your own
Speaker 1: and hopefully in with the consultation of a medical professional
Speaker 1: and like learning, doing your own research and all that
Speaker 1: kind of stuff. So you should make sure that if
Speaker 1: you are going to go down this path, you understand
Speaker 1: the risks for yourself and you do all the digging
Speaker 1: you need to do there. Now, it does seem to
Speaker 1: be the case that there are plenty of reports of
Speaker 1: of experiences on psychedelics being timed to make it seem
Speaker 1: as if they have triggered symptoms in people with a
Speaker 1: predisposition for psychosis, and of course psychosis we should probably
Speaker 1: define that. I found a good definition by the National
Speaker 1: Alliance on Mental Illness that psychosis is quote disruptions to
Speaker 1: a person's thoughts and perceptions that make it difficult for
Speaker 1: them to recognize what is real and what isn't um
Speaker 1: and so so psychosis is a symptom, not a disease.
Speaker 1: It's a symptom of conditions like schizophrenia and schizo effective disorder.
Speaker 1: But the I think an important thing to emphasize there
Speaker 1: is that psychosis is understood as as causing problems recognizing
Speaker 1: reality which is not necessarily the same as the kinds
Speaker 1: of experiences the perceptual disturbances that people might have on
Speaker 1: psychedelics where you can see things but you know, in
Speaker 1: many cases know that they're not really physically present. But
Speaker 1: I guess the question is, is there any empirical evidence
Speaker 1: about whether the use of psychedelics actually causes psychosis? Uh,
Speaker 1: there's a little bit. So I was reading a news
Speaker 1: feature for the journal Nature by Zoe Cormier which pointed
Speaker 1: to two different studies from recent years finding no link
Speaker 1: between psychedelic use and symptoms of psychosis or other mental
Speaker 1: health complaints. So these studies are not necessarily definitive, but
Speaker 1: this is what the evidence, at least as measured here,
Speaker 1: seems to indicate. So the first study was published in
Speaker 1: the Journal of Psychopharmacology and by Johansson and Crebs called
Speaker 1: Psychedelics not linked to mental health problems or suicidal behavior
Speaker 1: of population study. Here, the authors reviewed survey data from
Speaker 1: a huge population study comprising more than a hundred and
Speaker 1: thirty five thousand adults in the United States, and the
Speaker 1: cross checked the use of LSD, psilocybin, and mescalin. So
Speaker 1: the study only applies to those three drugs not necessarily
Speaker 1: to others. Uh, those three drugs versus reports of mental
Speaker 1: health problems. UH. And I should know that almost twenty
Speaker 1: thousand of the roughly a hundred and thirty five thousand
Speaker 1: adults in study had to use psychedelics, so that's about
Speaker 1: fourteen percent. They found no correlation. Quote after adjusting for sociodemographics,
Speaker 1: other drug use, and childhood depression, we found no significant
Speaker 1: associations between lifetime use of psychedelics and increased likelihood of
Speaker 1: past year serious psychological distress, mental health treatment, suicidal thoughts,
Speaker 1: suicidal plans and suicide attempt, depression, and anxiety. We failed
Speaker 1: to find evidence that psychedelic use is an independent risk
Speaker 1: factor for mental health problems, So that's one thing now.
Speaker 1: On the other hand, Cormier's article also cites an interview
Speaker 1: with Charles Grobe, a pediatric psychiatrist at the University of California,
Speaker 1: Los Angeles who is also an advocate for some use
Speaker 1: of psychedelics in certain clinical settings, and Grobe seems generally
Speaker 1: encouraged by the findings, but warns that we shouldn't conclude
Speaker 1: that there are no risks and says that individual cases
Speaker 1: of negative effects from psychedelic use do occur. One example,
Speaker 1: he gives his hallucinogen persisting perception disorder or hp p D,
Speaker 1: which is sometimes described as like the never ending trip.
Speaker 1: It involves like repeated or incessant or invasive disturbances of
Speaker 1: the visual field or shimmering lights or seeing dots or
Speaker 1: something also known as acid flashbacks if you will, uh
Speaker 1: Grob gives a quote saying, quote, I've seen a number
Speaker 1: of people with the symptoms following psychedelic experience, and it
Speaker 1: can be a very serious condition. Right. Uh. You know,
Speaker 1: we have an older episode from years back on this
Speaker 1: that I think was based in part of a two
Speaker 1: thousand thirteen study, and if I remember correctly, that study
Speaker 1: found that, you know, it's that it was extremely rare,
Speaker 1: uh and in a large part blown out of proportion
Speaker 1: by anti drug messaging, because of course that was part
Speaker 1: of the moral panic, is that everyone's going to take
Speaker 1: LSD and they're going to you're either gonna force yourself
Speaker 1: through a key hole or you're gonna deal with acid
Speaker 1: flashbacks the rest of your life, or it's gonna be
Speaker 1: the Blue Sunshine scenario. Right, but oh man, blue sunshine
Speaker 1: has got to be the best and ugliest psychedelic exploitation cinema. Yeah,
Speaker 1: and thoroughly not like non psychedelic really, but still worth seeing.
Speaker 1: If that movie, that movie is a tan shag carpet,
Speaker 1: it is just hideous starring Zalman King. But I I
Speaker 1: do have to to mention too that I remember when
Speaker 1: we aired this episode, and this was I think an
Speaker 1: episode I did with Julie Douglas back in the day,
Speaker 1: we did hear from a couple of listeners who insisted
Speaker 1: that they had experienced acid flashbacks at some point in
Speaker 1: their life. So, I mean, the the accounts are out there,
Speaker 1: there is uh, you know, at least they're at least
Speaker 1: accounts of people dealing with these and and you know,
Speaker 1: claiming to deal with the reality of of acid flashbacks.
Speaker 1: So um, you know, perhaps more studies needed. Well, I mean,
Speaker 1: according to grow Is, it's not like that they're serious
Speaker 1: doubt that some versions of these things exist. The evidence
Speaker 1: seems to show that if to whatever extent these problems
Speaker 1: do exist, they're rare enough that they don't really show
Speaker 1: up statistically right. Well, then you know, and also wonder too,
Speaker 1: like what other factors are involved there, Like if if
Speaker 1: you have had a psychedelic experience and it was meaningful,
Speaker 1: as a lot of them end up being they ended
Speaker 1: up being something that stick with you and they give
Speaker 1: you a glimpse of, you know, something that is in
Speaker 1: some way hallucinatory, and then later on you have some
Speaker 1: sort of hallucinary UH experience that is tied to another
Speaker 1: UH situation, like you might have a tendency to interpret
Speaker 1: it as being linked to that original use. Well exactly, Yeah,
Speaker 1: there's a correlation causation issue here. I mean the authors
Speaker 1: of the first study, Crebs and Johansson I mentioned, they
Speaker 1: point out that these symptoms of hpp D also occur
Speaker 1: in people who have never taken psychedelics that you know,
Speaker 1: so there could be there could be a causality issue.
Speaker 1: Decide another study. There was a study by Hendricks at
Speaker 1: All in the Journal of Psychopharmacology and called Classic Psychedelic
Speaker 1: Uses associated with reduced psychological distress and suicidality in the
Speaker 1: United States adult population. So this study looked at an
Speaker 1: even larger sample, about a hundred and ninety thousand survey respondents.
Speaker 1: It also found that the use of those three psychedelics
Speaker 1: was not and again I mentioned earlier, it was LSD, psilocybin,
Speaker 1: and mescalin, so not not necessarily applying to the others.
Speaker 1: Those are the classic psychedelics, I guess, so the psychedelic classic,
Speaker 1: not to be confused with your classical psychedelics, not new psychedelics. Anyway,
Speaker 1: this study found that those three psychedelics were not associated
Speaker 1: with any adverse mental health outcomes. The study actually found
Speaker 1: some evidence to the exact contrary, People who had at
Speaker 1: some time used LSD or psilocybin had a lower life
Speaker 1: time risk of suicidal ideation or suicide attempts, though it's
Speaker 1: not clear that the psychedelics cause these lower rates of
Speaker 1: suicidal thoughts and behavior. Maybe there's some factor not controlled
Speaker 1: for that makes people both less prone to these problems
Speaker 1: and more likely to try psychedelics at some point. But
Speaker 1: it is worth noting that the use of other non
Speaker 1: psychedelic illicit drugs was mostly associated with increases in risk
Speaker 1: for past months, psychological distress, and suicidal thoughts and behaviors.
Speaker 1: The psychedelics appeared to be the exception. They were the
Speaker 1: drugs that that did not cause increase mental health problems.
Speaker 1: And so, to go back to Cormier's article, this was
Speaker 1: written up with a with a quote from one of
Speaker 1: the authors of the paper saying quote the author was
Speaker 1: Matthew Johnson, saying, quote, we're not claiming that no individuals
Speaker 1: have ever been harmed by psychedelics. Anecdotes about acid casualties
Speaker 1: can be very powerful, but these instances are rare. Uh.
Speaker 1: And he says at the population level that the data
Speaker 1: about the harms of psychedelics have been overstated. So again,
Speaker 1: we're not advising any particular plan of action or telling
Speaker 1: people to take psychedelics. I would say the bottom line
Speaker 1: from my reading on the risks of psychedelics is that
Speaker 1: there do appear to be some risks, but the risks
Speaker 1: are rare. There are risks to any drug. Any drug
Speaker 1: you're going to take, you should research from science based
Speaker 1: sources and and if possible, get medical advice before embarking
Speaker 1: on um. But then also those risks that do exist
Speaker 1: seem to be relatively low and relatively rare compared to
Speaker 1: the risks of lots of other known drugs. Yeah, ultimately,
Speaker 1: basic decisions on science and not on whatever the last
Speaker 1: horror movie you saw or or or comedy you know,
Speaker 1: you could go either way, right, depending on what you're watching.
Speaker 1: You can get a very skewed view of what a
Speaker 1: psychedelicy is and what kind of experience you can expect
Speaker 1: from them. Aren't Psychedelic comedy is generally more horrifying than
Speaker 1: psychedelic horror. I'm trying to think of what a good side. Well,
Speaker 1: you know, you're talking like the Monkeys movie, like head
Speaker 1: and uh and so forth, or Yellow Submarine. I don't
Speaker 1: know for a comedy. Okay, do we did? We run
Speaker 1: into the problem we envisioned we might, which is that
Speaker 1: we thought this was going to be the last part
Speaker 1: and then we only got halfway by the time we're
Speaker 1: what like fifty minutes now, Yeah, yeah, I think we're
Speaker 1: gonna need to cut this episode off. There's gonna be
Speaker 1: one more. So for everyone out there who is enjoying this, uh,
Speaker 1: this ride of psychedelic episodes, well then rejoice because we
Speaker 1: have one more for you. Um, for the rest of you, Well,
Speaker 1: just bear in mind, there's only one more. I mean,
Speaker 1: you can't get off. You gotta go all the way
Speaker 1: to the endpoint right right. Yeah, And our next episode,
Speaker 1: we're gonna we're gonna discuss some of what's been going
Speaker 1: on in the twenty one century where we are now
Speaker 1: in the psychedelic renaissance, and where we might be going
Speaker 1: in the future sounds great. In the meantime, if you
Speaker 1: want to check out more episodes of Stuff to Bow
Speaker 1: your Mind, head on over to Stuff to Blew your
Speaker 1: Mind dot com. That's where you'll find them all. You also,
Speaker 1: of course, can support our show in a few different ways,
Speaker 1: but the best way to do it is to tell
Speaker 1: your friends about Stuff to Blow your Mind. Uh. To
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Speaker 1: as our other show, Invention, which is an exploration of
Speaker 1: human techno history and uh and I think we're planning
Speaker 1: to do an episode soon or have already done an
Speaker 1: episode on penicillin, depending on when you listen to this. Yeah,
Speaker 1: we will not have already done it. We will have
Speaker 1: done it. We will do it. I'm not sure where
Speaker 1: we will have agreed to do it. We will have
Speaker 1: agreed to do it. It sounds to me like you're
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Speaker 1: thanks as always to our excellent audio producer Maya Cole.
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Speaker 1: with feedback on this episode or any other, to suggest
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