WEBVTT - Psychedelics Playlist: The Manifested Mind, Part 5 0:00:00.120 --> 0:00:04.840 My welcome Stuff to Blow Your Mind, a production of 0:00:04.880 --> 0:00:14.200 I Heart Radios How Stuff Works. Hey, are you welcome 0:00:14.200 --> 0:00:16.080 to Stuff to Blow your Mind? My name is Robert 0:00:16.120 --> 0:00:19.279 Lamb and I'm Joe McCormick. And here it is the 0:00:19.320 --> 0:00:26.079 fifth and final installment in our series on psychedelics. We 0:00:26.160 --> 0:00:28.520 made it to part five, right, Part five. Then we'll 0:00:28.560 --> 0:00:30.480 move on to some other topics and probably come back 0:00:30.480 --> 0:00:33.400 around to other episodes that involve psychedelics in the future, 0:00:33.840 --> 0:00:36.040 because there's just so much research going on, and that's 0:00:36.080 --> 0:00:38.760 ultimately what this episode is about. What what are some 0:00:38.840 --> 0:00:41.919 examples of the stuff that's going on in our century, 0:00:41.920 --> 0:00:44.760 in the twenty one century regarding psychedelics, like with the 0:00:44.800 --> 0:00:49.160 Friday Thirteenth movies. Part five is a new beginning. Yeah, 0:00:49.200 --> 0:00:52.440 that's right, it's the Psychedelic Research Revival. So yeah, So 0:00:52.479 --> 0:00:54.880 we've been teasing this, I guess throughout the past four 0:00:54.960 --> 0:00:56.960 episodes that at some point we're going to talk about 0:00:57.400 --> 0:01:00.760 research that's taken place on the clinical significant of psychedelics 0:01:00.760 --> 0:01:04.000 in the twenty first century. After some of the veil 0:01:04.240 --> 0:01:08.440 of stigma has lifted from from psychedelic assisted therapy and 0:01:08.480 --> 0:01:13.560 psychedelic for treating various conditions. UM, So to quickly look 0:01:13.600 --> 0:01:15.600 at one important study, I think this would be a 0:01:15.640 --> 0:01:18.319 good place to start, from the early days of the 0:01:18.360 --> 0:01:21.560 twenty first century psychedelic renaissance. I just checked and this 0:01:21.600 --> 0:01:24.840 one has been cited seven hundred and eighty nine times 0:01:24.880 --> 0:01:27.800 now according to Google scholar. This is a study from 0:01:27.920 --> 0:01:32.120 Roland Griffith's, William Richards, Una Macon and Robert Jesse And 0:01:32.200 --> 0:01:35.119 this was published in Psychopharmacology and the year two thousand 0:01:35.240 --> 0:01:40.360 six called Psilocybin can occasion mystical type experiences having substantial 0:01:40.360 --> 0:01:43.960 and sustained personal meaning and spiritual significance. And I think 0:01:44.040 --> 0:01:47.319 we'll we will talk more about spiritual significance as we 0:01:47.360 --> 0:01:49.840 go on, maybe later in the episode. But UH, to 0:01:50.160 --> 0:01:54.040 give a brief summary, Basically, psilocybin has been used for 0:01:54.240 --> 0:01:58.640 religious purposes for centuries, but what does it actually do? Uh? 0:01:58.840 --> 0:02:02.120 This research for suit a similar line of inquiry to 0:02:02.240 --> 0:02:05.680 the marsh Chapel experiment from nineteen sixty two, which we 0:02:05.720 --> 0:02:08.359 talked about in the third episode of the series. This 0:02:08.520 --> 0:02:12.200 was dosing people with psychedelics and then letting them loose 0:02:12.200 --> 0:02:15.440 in to church basically well seminary students, and so they 0:02:15.440 --> 0:02:18.320 were there you know, to learn about the divine and 0:02:18.400 --> 0:02:21.600 to become ministers. I guess probably. And they were there 0:02:21.639 --> 0:02:24.640 for the Good Friday service in this church, and some 0:02:24.720 --> 0:02:27.639 were given psilocybin and some were given an active placebo. 0:02:27.680 --> 0:02:30.480 I think it was niacin, which causes tingling and flushing 0:02:31.360 --> 0:02:34.920 and so. In. In that that experiment, they did find 0:02:35.160 --> 0:02:38.080 that the people who had been given the psilocybin for 0:02:38.160 --> 0:02:43.120 this religious service reported having largely reported having these very 0:02:43.160 --> 0:02:48.600 profound and positive mystical experiences while on psilocybin that they 0:02:48.639 --> 0:02:52.120 believed largely changed their lives for the better. Right, not 0:02:52.200 --> 0:02:58.800 just memorable experiences, but life changing experiences and believed subjectively 0:02:58.880 --> 0:03:03.280 to be spiritually significant to religious people, right, not not 0:03:03.400 --> 0:03:05.280 just a situation of where it's like, oh yeah, I 0:03:05.320 --> 0:03:08.280 saw something or or felt something and it kind of 0:03:08.280 --> 0:03:10.400 made me think about some religious concepts. I was already 0:03:10.560 --> 0:03:12.680 turning over in my head. You know. It was it 0:03:12.760 --> 0:03:15.600 was it was like an order of magnitude beyond that. Yeah. 0:03:16.000 --> 0:03:18.440 Uh So this study from two thousand and six it 0:03:18.520 --> 0:03:21.960 was to study whether psilocybin causes people to have these 0:03:22.000 --> 0:03:25.400 same types of experience as mystical or religious experiences that 0:03:25.480 --> 0:03:29.320 they rate as positive and profound when compared to a placebo. 0:03:29.560 --> 0:03:32.120 And this was a double blind study using high doses 0:03:32.120 --> 0:03:36.119 of psilocybin and an active placebo control. The active placebo 0:03:36.200 --> 0:03:39.120 they used in this case was not niacin. It was 0:03:39.640 --> 0:03:44.120 methyl finitate hydrochloride, which stimulates the central nervous system. It's 0:03:44.120 --> 0:03:46.440 a stimulant. And I could be wrong, but I think 0:03:46.480 --> 0:03:48.920 this one also what they definitely injected it, right, I 0:03:48.960 --> 0:03:51.880 think so because you do so. Actually I'm not sure, Okay, 0:03:51.880 --> 0:03:53.200 a lot of these a lot of these studies, they 0:03:53.240 --> 0:03:55.920 do end up injecting it just because it's fast acting 0:03:56.000 --> 0:03:58.960 and also sometimes a little stronger, I mean a lot 0:03:58.960 --> 0:04:01.600 stronger too, because it's just hitting me like that as 0:04:01.600 --> 0:04:04.480 opposed to you know, gradually coming up. That's and yeah, 0:04:04.520 --> 0:04:06.400 that does happen in some studies. I did not know 0:04:06.560 --> 0:04:12.080 the methodical administration here, but so quote, volunteers completed questionnaires 0:04:12.080 --> 0:04:16.840 assessing drug effects and mystical experiences immediately after and two 0:04:16.880 --> 0:04:20.640 months after sessions. And then they also say that community 0:04:20.680 --> 0:04:24.919 observers rated changes in the volunteers attitudes and behavior, so 0:04:24.920 --> 0:04:28.000 they didn't just ask people their own subjective impressions of 0:04:28.040 --> 0:04:31.039 how they've changed. They also asked other people, Hey, how 0:04:31.080 --> 0:04:33.520 has Jeffrey changed? Right, So it's not just Scrooge saying 0:04:33.520 --> 0:04:35.160 oh yeah, I'm totally cool with cratch It. Now you're 0:04:35.160 --> 0:04:37.760 like you're actually asking cratch It, Hey, what do you 0:04:37.760 --> 0:04:39.960 think about Scrooge? Just like, oh, yeah, he's totally different now. 0:04:40.000 --> 0:04:43.200 I don't know. He must have he took something Christmas Eve. 0:04:45.240 --> 0:04:47.480 Didn't you write something once about how Scrooge was on 0:04:47.600 --> 0:04:50.000 d MT? Yeah? Yeah, I and I can't be there. 0:04:50.240 --> 0:04:52.560 I'm sure I'm not the only person to make this commentary, 0:04:52.560 --> 0:04:56.359 but I feel like, um, a Christmas Carol. The story 0:04:56.360 --> 0:04:59.720 of Evanezer Scrooge is like such a psychedelic experience, Like 0:05:00.040 --> 0:05:03.240 really he had. I mean, he has a supernatural experience 0:05:03.279 --> 0:05:06.440 that makes him reassess his life and his life choices 0:05:06.480 --> 0:05:10.080 and ultimately changes his trajectory. And I think it has 0:05:10.160 --> 0:05:13.040 a tremendous amount in common with some of the psychedelic 0:05:13.080 --> 0:05:15.720 experiences we've been discussing. Yeah, I think I think that's 0:05:15.720 --> 0:05:18.359 about right. It was that bad potato that he ate, right, 0:05:19.240 --> 0:05:21.000 you know what he says. It was like a bit 0:05:21.040 --> 0:05:24.320 of cheese or meat that had gone off. Okay, so 0:05:24.560 --> 0:05:27.960 results of this experiment, the the updates sort of on 0:05:28.000 --> 0:05:31.680 the marsh Chapel model the author's right quote, Psilocybin produced 0:05:31.720 --> 0:05:37.400 a range of acute perceptual changes, subjective experiences, and labile moods, 0:05:37.480 --> 0:05:42.360 including anxiety. Psilocybin also increased measures of mystical experience. At 0:05:42.400 --> 0:05:47.320 two months, the volunteers rated the psilocybin experiences having substantial 0:05:47.520 --> 0:05:51.880 personal meaning and spiritual significance and attributed to the experience 0:05:51.920 --> 0:05:56.920 sustained positive changes in attitudes and behavior consistent with changes 0:05:57.000 --> 0:06:01.320 rated by community observers. So the authors write that that 0:06:01.440 --> 0:06:04.720 the life change is experienced by people who took psilocybin 0:06:05.080 --> 0:06:08.840 in this study are similar to the changes reported by 0:06:08.839 --> 0:06:13.799 people who have spontaneous mystical experiences without drugs that change 0:06:13.839 --> 0:06:18.480 their lives. Quote. The ability to occasion such experiences perspectively 0:06:19.000 --> 0:06:23.480 will allow rigorous scientific investigations of their causes and consequences. 0:06:23.839 --> 0:06:26.520 And this kind of comes back to William James territory here, right, 0:06:26.560 --> 0:06:31.080 because this is not just a study about psilocybin. It's 0:06:31.080 --> 0:06:34.160 not just well, what can psilocybin do? It sort of 0:06:34.200 --> 0:06:38.159 opens a doorway of generally studying the religious brain to 0:06:38.240 --> 0:06:41.560 studying what's happening in our brains when we have a 0:06:41.680 --> 0:06:46.200 self described mystical experience, and how do these experiences work 0:06:46.320 --> 0:06:49.640 to change behavior? As they often do? But again, this 0:06:49.720 --> 0:06:51.719 is a different sort of experiment than a lot of 0:06:51.720 --> 0:06:54.359 the other stuff we've been hinting at, because it's the 0:06:54.480 --> 0:06:59.279 kind of subjective positive experience we've heard reported anecdotally so 0:06:59.320 --> 0:07:02.840 many times for people have an encounter with something something 0:07:02.839 --> 0:07:07.320 profound and ineffable, that is a is a meaningful emotional 0:07:07.360 --> 0:07:10.840 experience for them causes them to reflect on their life 0:07:10.880 --> 0:07:14.800 in ways that might change their behavior in their habits. Um. 0:07:14.840 --> 0:07:18.760 But what about the more clinical, more clinically significant uses 0:07:18.880 --> 0:07:23.800 like modern research using psychedelics to treat psychiatric disorders, addiction, 0:07:23.920 --> 0:07:26.680 and other issues. Yeah, and and this is where we're 0:07:26.680 --> 0:07:30.960 seeing just a lot of tremendous research taking place. Yeah. Uh, 0:07:31.040 --> 0:07:33.280 and um, we're still i think, on the on the 0:07:33.320 --> 0:07:36.320 cusp of it, like we're still in the early days, 0:07:36.480 --> 0:07:39.320 but exactly. Yeah, but but we Yeah, we are seeing 0:07:39.320 --> 0:07:41.800 a lot of progress and a lot of promising, uh, 0:07:42.160 --> 0:07:46.360 promising results. One of the key figures in the modern 0:07:46.400 --> 0:07:49.440 research of psychedelic addiction research is a man by the 0:07:49.480 --> 0:07:52.120 name of Dr Stephen Ross of the n Y u 0:07:52.240 --> 0:07:55.000 psilocybin cancer anxiety study. We We mentioned him in a 0:07:55.000 --> 0:07:58.600 previous episode already, Paul and Michael Paulan discusses his work 0:07:58.640 --> 0:08:01.800 at length in his book. And as I mentioned already, 0:08:01.840 --> 0:08:03.720 he was one of the panelists at the two thousand 0:08:03.760 --> 0:08:06.640 nineteen World Science Festival, which I was in attendance for. 0:08:07.400 --> 0:08:09.240 Uh and uh This talk, by the way from the 0:08:09.240 --> 0:08:11.960 World Science Festival should be available online at some point 0:08:12.280 --> 0:08:15.440 um in the months ahead. I'm not sure when, but 0:08:15.600 --> 0:08:17.240 when it goes up, I'll make sure I share it 0:08:17.280 --> 0:08:20.240 on our social so people can view it. Because it 0:08:20.320 --> 0:08:22.320 was a great talk cover some of what we're talking 0:08:22.320 --> 0:08:24.600 about here and have been talking about that gets into 0:08:24.600 --> 0:08:29.200 other areas as well. UM so uh. Dr Stephen Ross 0:08:29.240 --> 0:08:32.240 discussed how psychedelics were not a part of his training 0:08:32.559 --> 0:08:36.280 in psychiatry and the study of addiction. Um and and 0:08:36.440 --> 0:08:38.280 like when you when you see pictures of him and 0:08:38.320 --> 0:08:40.400 you see him in person, um, you know he he 0:08:40.440 --> 0:08:42.160 doesn't fit. You don't look at him and say like, oh, 0:08:42.320 --> 0:08:44.920 there's a psilocybin research tree. If he doesn't look like 0:08:44.920 --> 0:08:47.600 Willie Nelson's right, he doesn't look like Terence McKenna or 0:08:47.600 --> 0:08:50.360 Timothy Learry. He looks just like a like just an 0:08:50.400 --> 0:08:54.120 everyday human being. Um. And if you're said, if you're 0:08:54.120 --> 0:08:55.920 told that that he's a you know, a professional or 0:08:55.920 --> 0:08:59.720 an academic, you know, you wouldn't instantly think psilocybin. But anyway, 0:08:59.760 --> 0:09:02.240 he discuss discussed, you know, this wasn't part of his training, 0:09:02.280 --> 0:09:05.600 despite the fact the psychedelics were such a huge part 0:09:05.760 --> 0:09:09.040 of psychology for a while. And uh, he says that 0:09:09.120 --> 0:09:11.920 all the research findings from the fifties and sixties were 0:09:11.920 --> 0:09:15.320 still out there, quote hiding in plain sight. And and 0:09:15.360 --> 0:09:17.360 when he you know, he looked closer, he saw, you know, 0:09:17.400 --> 0:09:20.680 you had this high success rate. Um using you know, 0:09:20.720 --> 0:09:23.599 mainly it was like LSD with alcohol addiction is the 0:09:23.640 --> 0:09:26.440 one that I think really caught his his attention. But 0:09:26.440 --> 0:09:29.720 but yeah, we had these we had these really promising 0:09:29.760 --> 0:09:33.920 results from the original period of modern psychedelic research. And 0:09:34.000 --> 0:09:37.680 so he thought, well, let's let's try it again. Let's 0:09:37.679 --> 0:09:39.760 see what else we can learn. How can we we 0:09:39.800 --> 0:09:43.880 actually move on from what they had learned decades ago. Uh. 0:09:43.960 --> 0:09:45.560 The only problem is that, there were, of course huge 0:09:45.559 --> 0:09:49.040 administrative hurdles to studying it. But he was able to 0:09:49.080 --> 0:09:53.280 push through with an initial focus on terminal cancer patient 0:09:53.400 --> 0:09:58.440 studies alleviating end of life anxiety via psilocybin. Yeah, and 0:09:58.960 --> 0:10:01.680 this is a big important early thing, I think, also 0:10:01.760 --> 0:10:05.240 from the mid two thousands. Yeah. His initial work though, 0:10:05.280 --> 0:10:08.000 actually took place at the n y U Dental School 0:10:08.480 --> 0:10:11.120 because Bellevue and the n y U Cancer Center wanted 0:10:11.160 --> 0:10:13.560 to just stay to stay clear of it because it was, 0:10:13.640 --> 0:10:16.320 you know, still it was early days getting back into 0:10:16.400 --> 0:10:19.800 and igniting what would become this renaissance of research. So 0:10:19.840 --> 0:10:22.640 there was still even in the scientific and medical community, 0:10:23.000 --> 0:10:28.680 something of a stigma around psychedelics, even for clinical uses. Yeah, 0:10:28.840 --> 0:10:31.360 I mean even you know, even today, like in the 0:10:31.440 --> 0:10:33.840 culture at large, I feel like there's still you still 0:10:33.880 --> 0:10:36.720 have to push through that, right, Um, Like you still 0:10:36.760 --> 0:10:39.560 have to, you know, get to the point where you're 0:10:39.559 --> 0:10:42.640 not using the phrase magic mushrooms in the science headline, 0:10:42.720 --> 0:10:46.000 right uh. And we're not there yet. I mean, it's 0:10:46.040 --> 0:10:50.320 still the popular press reporting about it. It plays up 0:10:50.320 --> 0:10:54.920 the kind of you know, hey, or you having depression symptoms, 0:10:55.000 --> 0:10:57.800 maybe you should try dropping acid, a new study says, 0:10:58.559 --> 0:11:00.960 And and it's understandable that would be the reaction for 0:11:01.000 --> 0:11:02.600 so many of us, because again we're coming on the 0:11:02.600 --> 0:11:07.520 heels of of the moral panic and so many of these, uh, 0:11:07.559 --> 0:11:11.600 these ideas about what LSD and psilocybin are. But that's 0:11:11.600 --> 0:11:14.080 another attitude actually that we were just hinting at. That's 0:11:14.160 --> 0:11:16.120 not even it's not even the same as the moral 0:11:16.200 --> 0:11:22.080 panic that looks at psychedelics as this sort of culture 0:11:22.120 --> 0:11:25.040 destroying threat, you know, that's going to turn your children 0:11:25.040 --> 0:11:29.560 into acts murderers. It's more the kind of the trivialization 0:11:30.559 --> 0:11:33.880 of the psychedelic experience that looks at it not necessarily 0:11:33.880 --> 0:11:37.040 as this horrible threatening thing, but as this like ho 0:11:37.040 --> 0:11:39.840 ho ho, you know, oh, here's the stoner coming to 0:11:39.880 --> 0:11:43.400 take the psychedelics. Yeah, Which it's kind of twofold, right. 0:11:43.480 --> 0:11:46.479 On one hand, like maybe that's a necessary part of 0:11:46.480 --> 0:11:50.080 of its transformation and and maybe that's one way it 0:11:50.120 --> 0:11:55.440 survives through the through the decades of darkness there. But 0:11:55.520 --> 0:11:58.880 on the other hand, it does it hurts the potential 0:11:58.960 --> 0:12:00.680 of it, right because it creates a idea that it 0:12:00.760 --> 0:12:05.520 is purely recreational, that is pure hallucination and fireworks and 0:12:05.559 --> 0:12:09.280 just and there's nothing of value there, certainly not not 0:12:09.480 --> 0:12:13.800 medically valuable, right, or I mean even within the recreational use. 0:12:13.880 --> 0:12:16.720 What a lot of these enthusiasts have been emphasizing is 0:12:16.760 --> 0:12:21.280 like spiritual significance, ability to change habits and and have 0:12:21.520 --> 0:12:26.319 profound emotional experiences, not like the frivolous, trivial party drug 0:12:26.480 --> 0:12:29.880 kind of approach. So Rossa's studies ended up using psilocybin 0:12:30.040 --> 0:12:33.400 rather than LSD. LSD had been the primary substance in 0:12:34.040 --> 0:12:37.520 previous trials, but psilocybin made more sense for a number 0:12:37.520 --> 0:12:40.680 of reasons. So it's it's less stigmatized, has less political 0:12:40.679 --> 0:12:44.240 badge baggage, it's easier to obtain, it's gentler, and it 0:12:44.280 --> 0:12:47.719 also doesn't last longer than a researcher's work day. I 0:12:47.760 --> 0:12:49.960 think that's that's something that's worth driving home and a 0:12:49.960 --> 0:12:52.240 lot of this, you know, the LSD trip just takes 0:12:52.320 --> 0:12:54.640 up so much more time and people need to get 0:12:54.640 --> 0:12:58.120 home right. A number of studies, though, have have looked 0:12:58.160 --> 0:13:01.880 at this, have examined uh end of life anxiety and 0:13:01.920 --> 0:13:07.880 cancer depression and to what extent psilocybin could alleviate this condition, 0:13:07.920 --> 0:13:10.000 and there there have been some we've been seeing some 0:13:10.120 --> 0:13:13.080 rapid success. Yeah, you can imagine why this is fruitful, 0:13:13.160 --> 0:13:18.280 just given people subjective experiences what they report about high 0:13:18.320 --> 0:13:22.400 doses of psilocybin and LSD trips. A common thing is 0:13:22.800 --> 0:13:27.000 reduced fear of death afterwards, the like. Again, this is 0:13:27.040 --> 0:13:30.120 just anecdotal, but the thing people often say is like 0:13:30.640 --> 0:13:33.400 I went through ego dissolution. You know, I I went 0:13:33.440 --> 0:13:36.040 to this place where I was having experience, but there 0:13:36.080 --> 0:13:38.920 was no me anymore, there was no self. And people 0:13:38.960 --> 0:13:42.520 often talk of this in terms of some analogy of death, 0:13:42.679 --> 0:13:45.360 you know, it's like ego death or something like, I 0:13:45.440 --> 0:13:48.120 felt what it would be like to die or to 0:13:48.120 --> 0:13:51.520 to have me not exist anymore, and I didn't mind. 0:13:51.720 --> 0:13:54.120 It didn't feel bad in a way. It actually felt 0:13:54.160 --> 0:13:57.880 peaceful and good. I mean, obviously, it also sounds I'm 0:13:57.920 --> 0:14:00.079 sure counterintuitive to a lot of people, because yeah, you 0:14:00.160 --> 0:14:02.600 might you might think, well, I'm if I'm on my deathbed, 0:14:02.720 --> 0:14:05.440 or I'm you know, I'm facing a terminal illness or whatever. 0:14:05.440 --> 0:14:07.840 The you know, particular situation is like this sounds like 0:14:07.840 --> 0:14:10.400 a horrible time to take a mind altering drug. But 0:14:10.520 --> 0:14:12.720 I think, you know, based on what we've been discussing 0:14:12.720 --> 0:14:15.280 on the show, I think there's strong evidence for the 0:14:15.520 --> 0:14:17.960 counter argument, like, no, this is the time to take 0:14:18.000 --> 0:14:20.880 a mind altering job, especially because it seems like it 0:14:20.960 --> 0:14:25.040 might have this ability to reduce death anxiety, to reduce 0:14:25.120 --> 0:14:27.640 the sensation that the fact that you will die is 0:14:27.680 --> 0:14:32.840 a horrible thing. Right, So effectiveness with psilocybin in these 0:14:32.840 --> 0:14:37.040 situations it's something like with the placebo at like and 0:14:37.080 --> 0:14:41.640 again we're not just talking about psilocybin itself, but rather, 0:14:42.160 --> 0:14:43.600 you know, the result of a lot of set and 0:14:43.640 --> 0:14:47.400 setting um priming the individual for the experience, having the 0:14:47.440 --> 0:14:51.400 experience of the mind alterning experience, you know, guiding them 0:14:51.400 --> 0:14:53.840 through it, helping them then to consolidate it all on 0:14:53.880 --> 0:14:56.920 the other side. And again it's not the substance itself, 0:14:56.920 --> 0:14:59.720 but the state of mind that the substance creates that 0:14:59.760 --> 0:15:04.360 see is to be useful for psychiatric improvement, the experience, 0:15:04.480 --> 0:15:07.560 not just the compound acting within the body. Right, It's 0:15:07.600 --> 0:15:09.400 not take two of these and call me in the morning. 0:15:09.480 --> 0:15:12.600 It's take two of these. Um, let me tell you 0:15:12.600 --> 0:15:14.520 what's gonna happen. I'm gonna be there while it happens, 0:15:14.520 --> 0:15:18.440 and then we're gonna spend time unpacking it afterwards. Now 0:15:18.680 --> 0:15:20.720 it also gets into the research also gets into other 0:15:20.760 --> 0:15:23.480 areas though, so it gets into just treat looking at 0:15:23.520 --> 0:15:26.520 possible treatments for depression, and Ross says that the work 0:15:26.600 --> 0:15:28.960 is promising there, but thus far the work hasn't been 0:15:29.000 --> 0:15:32.280 too broad. On the addiction front, researchers are making headway 0:15:32.320 --> 0:15:38.680 to treat addiction issues with not only alcohol but also tobacco, opiates, crack, cocaine, 0:15:38.680 --> 0:15:42.080 and other substances. But in all of this, Ross stresses 0:15:42.120 --> 0:15:45.360 that is often the case in any of these studies, 0:15:45.520 --> 0:15:48.440 more research is required. Uh, you know. Even he admits 0:15:48.440 --> 0:15:50.800 that in some cases the findings are almost too good 0:15:50.840 --> 0:15:53.720 to be true. We just have to we have to 0:15:53.800 --> 0:15:55.840 keep going, like you know, there's no point where you're 0:15:55.880 --> 0:15:58.800 just like, all right, that's it. Psychedelics are are good 0:15:58.840 --> 0:16:03.160 across the board. Let's just let's just you know, prescribe 0:16:03.160 --> 0:16:05.440 them in every instance. Well, I mean, I do think 0:16:05.560 --> 0:16:09.040 that there are there. We're tending toward a future where 0:16:09.040 --> 0:16:11.160 we're gonna have more confidence in the results than we 0:16:11.200 --> 0:16:14.640 have now. There are a lot of promising basically pilot studies. 0:16:14.640 --> 0:16:16.720 In fact, I think maybe it would be good to 0:16:16.880 --> 0:16:20.200 just talk through a few examples of recent studies. But 0:16:20.280 --> 0:16:21.960 maybe we should do that after we come back from 0:16:22.000 --> 0:16:29.640 a break. Thank alright, we're back, alright, So I thought 0:16:29.680 --> 0:16:31.200 it would be good to just look at a few 0:16:31.200 --> 0:16:35.200 examples of what these pilot studies on psychedelic clinical use 0:16:35.200 --> 0:16:38.800 of psychedelics in recent years has been. And a good 0:16:38.800 --> 0:16:41.600 place to turn here is a pretty recent meta analysis 0:16:41.640 --> 0:16:46.280 of clinical research on psychedelics by Albert Garcia, Remew Brennan, 0:16:46.360 --> 0:16:50.480 Carisguard and Peter Addie. Uh This was in Experimental and 0:16:50.520 --> 0:16:55.640 Clinical Psychopharmacology in twenty sixteen called Clinical Applications of Hallucinogens. 0:16:56.160 --> 0:16:58.520 And so this is like a meta review of all 0:16:58.560 --> 0:17:00.720 the existing research out there right now. And they've got 0:17:00.760 --> 0:17:05.680 a great just table in this paper that summarizes findings 0:17:05.760 --> 0:17:08.159 from a bunch of existing clinical research up to the 0:17:08.200 --> 0:17:11.439 year sixteen. And so I thought we could just go 0:17:11.520 --> 0:17:13.840 through here and cite some examples from the categories of 0:17:13.840 --> 0:17:16.080 treatment you were talking about a little while ago. And 0:17:16.160 --> 0:17:18.200 so one thing is a couple of studies that looked 0:17:18.200 --> 0:17:21.840 at the treatment of alcoholism. One is Bogan shoots at 0:17:21.880 --> 0:17:27.360 all from and this tested psilocybin enhanced therapy therapy sessions. Specifically, 0:17:27.680 --> 0:17:29.439 it was a type of therapy I had not heard of, 0:17:29.480 --> 0:17:33.360 I think, called motivational enhancement therapy. Robert, are you familiar 0:17:33.400 --> 0:17:36.040 with the uh NO? I don't believe. Yeah, but it's 0:17:36.040 --> 0:17:39.000 some kind of therapy. Uh. And so like many of 0:17:39.040 --> 0:17:41.680 the other studies, this is not just looking at taking 0:17:41.720 --> 0:17:45.480 a drug in isolation, but taking the psychedelic in concert 0:17:45.560 --> 0:17:48.639 with some kind of therapy or or session with a 0:17:48.800 --> 0:17:53.000 counselor or therapist. I believe Michael Pollen pointed out there 0:17:53.040 --> 0:17:54.840 they tend to be a par of therapists. You tend 0:17:54.880 --> 0:17:58.520 to have like a male a therapist and a female therapist. Yeah. Yeah, 0:17:58.840 --> 0:18:02.440 in most of these studies. Yeah. Interesting. Um, so this 0:18:02.520 --> 0:18:06.400 is uh, this was to treat alcohol dependence in this study, 0:18:06.760 --> 0:18:10.719 and they found quote, significant reduction in self reported drinking 0:18:10.840 --> 0:18:14.359 days and heavy drinking days for thirty two weeks after 0:18:14.400 --> 0:18:19.280 psilocybin administration compared to baseline. Another study by Krebs and 0:18:19.359 --> 0:18:24.000 Johansson in was a meta analysis of previous research on 0:18:24.160 --> 0:18:27.560 LSD assisted therapy or counseling, and it found across a 0:18:27.560 --> 0:18:30.800 total sample size of more than five hundred participants that 0:18:30.880 --> 0:18:34.920 a single dose of LSD, which was two d to 0:18:35.040 --> 0:18:40.560 eight hundred micrograms paired with alcoholism treatment found uh quote 0:18:40.640 --> 0:18:44.719 that that therapy produced significantly reduced reports of alcohol misuse. 0:18:44.760 --> 0:18:48.120 That follow up compared to a control group receiving treatments 0:18:48.160 --> 0:18:52.120 without the psychedelics. So so it really there are several 0:18:52.320 --> 0:18:54.600 studies now showing that it really does seem to be 0:18:54.640 --> 0:18:57.480 working with alcoholics. There are also a number of studies, 0:18:57.520 --> 0:19:00.719 as you mentioned, about depression. For example, car Harris at 0:19:00.720 --> 0:19:05.399 all In tested psilocybin quote in a supportive setting on 0:19:05.480 --> 0:19:09.800 patients with treatment resistant unipolar major depression, and it found 0:19:09.880 --> 0:19:14.000 significant reductions and self reported depressive symptoms from one week 0:19:14.080 --> 0:19:17.560 to three months after treatment. According to one scoring method 0:19:17.600 --> 0:19:21.639 for depression symptoms, eight of twelve participants showed complete remission 0:19:21.680 --> 0:19:25.200 of depression symptoms after one week and five of twelve 0:19:25.280 --> 0:19:28.560 showed complete remission after three months. And these results are 0:19:28.600 --> 0:19:34.080 twenty milligrams of psilocybin um. So I think that's interesting 0:19:34.119 --> 0:19:35.800 because one thing it shows there is something that I 0:19:35.840 --> 0:19:37.600 think has showed up in a few other studies, is 0:19:37.680 --> 0:19:43.239 that again, while these compounds appear very promising, they're not 0:19:43.280 --> 0:19:45.600 a cure all and they don't appear to last forever. 0:19:45.720 --> 0:19:48.119 It appears like they do have an effect, Uh, the 0:19:48.160 --> 0:19:51.560 effect seems to be very positive, but the effect fades 0:19:51.640 --> 0:19:54.480 over time, and this might be a thing where some 0:19:54.600 --> 0:19:58.480 applications of psychedelics and the clinical setting, maybe something that 0:19:58.680 --> 0:20:00.880 is a like a type of arapy that you would 0:20:00.880 --> 0:20:03.439 repeat at intervals over time, the same way that you 0:20:03.440 --> 0:20:07.200 would repeatedly visit a therapist for psychotherapy sessions, right or 0:20:07.440 --> 0:20:09.400 certainly the same way that in a lot of these 0:20:09.400 --> 0:20:14.199 traditional science societies one would, um would continually go to 0:20:14.359 --> 0:20:17.520 the shaman or would partake of psychedelic substance as a 0:20:17.520 --> 0:20:22.679 part of a regularly occurring religious observance. Another study on 0:20:22.760 --> 0:20:27.800 depression was Osorio at all Infen. They tested ayahuasca for 0:20:28.080 --> 0:20:31.639 recurrent major depressive disorder UH. This, like some of the others, 0:20:31.720 --> 0:20:34.840 was open labels so not placebo controlled as test group 0:20:34.840 --> 0:20:37.639 of six so like many of these small groups, but 0:20:38.040 --> 0:20:42.080 found significant reductions in reports of depressive symptoms after one, 0:20:42.560 --> 0:20:46.399 seven and twenty one days. Um and and Michael Pollen 0:20:46.480 --> 0:20:49.040 has an interesting section in his book How to Change 0:20:49.040 --> 0:20:52.679 Your Mind about Treating Depression with Psychedelics, in which he 0:20:52.920 --> 0:20:57.760 talks to the psychologist Rosalind Watts, who she she so 0:20:57.840 --> 0:21:02.480 she talks about these master themes discovered in studies about 0:21:02.520 --> 0:21:04.720 what's going on with depression. And I just wanted to 0:21:04.720 --> 0:21:07.040 read a couple of sections from Pollen's book that I 0:21:07.040 --> 0:21:11.280 thought were interesting concerning these these master themes. Quote the 0:21:11.359 --> 0:21:15.520 first was that volunteers depicted their depression foremost as a 0:21:15.600 --> 0:21:20.800 state of disconnection, whether from other people, from their earlier selves, 0:21:21.280 --> 0:21:25.400 their senses and feelings, their core beliefs and spiritual values, 0:21:25.520 --> 0:21:29.240 or nature. Several referred to living in a mental prison, 0:21:29.600 --> 0:21:33.080 others to being stuck in endless circles of rumination they 0:21:33.119 --> 0:21:37.120 likened to mental gridlock. I was reminded of Carhart Harris's 0:21:37.200 --> 0:21:40.760 hypothesis that depression might be a result of an overactive 0:21:40.760 --> 0:21:44.159 default mode network, the site in the brain where rumination 0:21:44.240 --> 0:21:47.600 appears to take place. And so, of course you know 0:21:47.680 --> 0:21:49.600 what might be going on there is that we we've 0:21:49.600 --> 0:21:53.400 talked about psychedelics as having at least metaphorically being these 0:21:53.400 --> 0:21:57.359 boundary dissolvers that they, you know, seem a kind of 0:21:57.480 --> 0:22:03.159 ultimate remedy for symptoms related to disconnection. That they encourage 0:22:03.240 --> 0:22:06.720 the sensation of being connected to other and all things, 0:22:07.119 --> 0:22:09.840 and to other people and to the environment and all 0:22:09.880 --> 0:22:13.760 these things that people feel disconnected or cut off from. UH. 0:22:13.800 --> 0:22:17.880 And then going to the second master theme that Rosalind 0:22:17.880 --> 0:22:20.960 Watts explains to Pollen. Quote the second master theme was 0:22:21.000 --> 0:22:25.560 a new access to difficult emotions, emotions that depression often 0:22:25.600 --> 0:22:30.040 blunts or closes down completely. What hypothesizes that the depressed 0:22:30.040 --> 0:22:35.040 patient's incessant rumination constricts his or her emotional repertoire in 0:22:35.040 --> 0:22:38.600 in other cases, the depressive keeps emotions at bay because 0:22:38.640 --> 0:22:43.000 it's too painful to experience them. Uh So, like often 0:22:43.040 --> 0:22:47.480 I think a lay person's understanding of depression might be, 0:22:47.880 --> 0:22:52.320 uh like that you feel intense sadness, you know, like 0:22:52.400 --> 0:22:57.280 this this really intense single emotion, which is not exactly 0:22:57.480 --> 0:23:00.800 what depression seems to be. Like, I mean, I always 0:23:00.840 --> 0:23:04.000 come back to, um, was it was it C. S. 0:23:04.080 --> 0:23:07.359