Speaker 1: Welcome to Stuff to Blow Your Mind, a production of
Speaker 1: I Heart Radios How Stuff Works. Hey, you, welcome to
Speaker 1: Stuff to Blow your Mind. My name is Robert Lamb
Speaker 1: and I'm Joe McCormick, and we're coming at you with
Speaker 1: some listener mail today. So Robert, is all of this
Speaker 1: mail in today's episode going to be in response to
Speaker 1: our five part series on psychedelics. Yes, our our five episodes,
Speaker 1: a heroic dose of Stuff to Blow your Mind, if
Speaker 1: you will, on the topic of psychedelics. That was a
Speaker 1: really interesting thing to try. Now, we had never gone
Speaker 1: to a five part series on the subject before. There
Speaker 1: are certain subjects that we revisit over time in various ways.
Speaker 1: I think in the past we'd gone to like two
Speaker 1: or three parts on some specific subjects. Maybe four. Did
Speaker 1: we go four on black Holes? I don't remember. I
Speaker 1: think we went three parts of the Black Holes, but
Speaker 1: I'm not positive. But anyway, so we've never gone that
Speaker 1: long before. It was sort of an experiment, but it
Speaker 1: felt necessary once we got into the topic because it
Speaker 1: was something that we wanted to treat with thoroughness, but
Speaker 1: also with care and even handedness, because it's a sensitive topic,
Speaker 1: especially dealing with illegality and taboos and possible risks on
Speaker 1: a you know, a substance that evidence shows may have
Speaker 1: a lot of benefits but also is not without risks
Speaker 1: and not without dangers, and that people should understand if
Speaker 1: they're gonna experiment with. Of course, we're not advising people
Speaker 1: to experiment with these substances, and that should be in
Speaker 1: your minds throughout those episodes and today's episode is that
Speaker 1: we're not recommending a course of action for you by
Speaker 1: talking about the science or other people's experiences with psychedelics. Right,
Speaker 1: these substances are almost certainly illegal wherever you're listening to
Speaker 1: this show, and even if that were not the case,
Speaker 1: they're powerful substances that should not be taken lightly. You know,
Speaker 1: in certain individuals. As we discuss, psychological side effects can occur,
Speaker 1: and even in the best cases of set and setting,
Speaker 1: users often report challenging portions of the trip. Right, So
Speaker 1: I mean, I would say the main takeaway is we're
Speaker 1: not recommending people try psychedelics, but we do want to
Speaker 1: fairly discuss what the science says about their possible benefits
Speaker 1: and people's first hand experiences with them, for for good
Speaker 1: and for ill, right, and of course, as always, we
Speaker 1: reach out to the listeners and we'll reach out to
Speaker 1: to other folks to to get their feedback, their experiences,
Speaker 1: their first hand experiences on you know, any topic, and
Speaker 1: this is certainly a topic that we wanted to hear
Speaker 1: from everyone about. Also on our Facebook group on the
Speaker 1: discussion module, we also heard some people talking back and
Speaker 1: forth about just the nature of doing a five part episode.
Speaker 1: And you know, to what extent people like that or
Speaker 1: they don't. They don't like five part episodes. So you know,
Speaker 1: if you're not a part of the discussion module and
Speaker 1: you have thoughts on this, certainly right in and uh
Speaker 1: and let us know, are you down for a five
Speaker 1: part another five parts study of a particular topic or
Speaker 1: do you prefer like one in two parts. I enjoyed it.
Speaker 1: I mean, I really liked the ability to go in
Speaker 1: depth and explore a topic, even though we couldn't do
Speaker 1: everything about psychedelics. We couldn't even really It's frustrating how
Speaker 1: no matter how deep you go, it seems like you
Speaker 1: can't but scratch the surface on these big topics having
Speaker 1: to do with the mind and you know, the human
Speaker 1: experience and all that. But but I I did appreciate
Speaker 1: being able to go into more depth than we usually
Speaker 1: can in a single or two part episode on on
Speaker 1: a big topic. And it seems to me like the
Speaker 1: majority of responses we've gotten about it, we're positive. It
Speaker 1: seems like most people liked it, though some people said
Speaker 1: that they liked it better when we spend you know,
Speaker 1: one or two parts on a subject and then move
Speaker 1: on to something else, just in case it's not a
Speaker 1: subject that captures their interest. And if psychedelics don't capture
Speaker 1: your interest, that's okay, all right, So we're gonna bring
Speaker 1: in the mail bot at this point. The mail bot
Speaker 1: is very fractal looking today. I believe he has been
Speaker 1: infected with machine elves. But still he's he's here to
Speaker 1: do his job. He's here to present uh listener mail
Speaker 1: for us. And we've we've changed addings just a little bit.
Speaker 1: Normally we provide like the first name of an individual
Speaker 1: who's written into us. In this case, given the nature
Speaker 1: of the topic and given the fact that some people
Speaker 1: asked to remain anonymous, we're just going to have everyone
Speaker 1: be anonymous on this episode. Yeah. Oh, and just one
Speaker 1: more thing also, obviously, since today's episode is going to
Speaker 1: be frankly discussing people's first hand experiences to some extent
Speaker 1: with psychedelics and and other drug use. Uh, you know, obviously,
Speaker 1: just be warned that that subject matter is coming right.
Speaker 1: All right, Well, I'm going to read the first one
Speaker 1: here that Carney is handing me. In the psychedelic episodes,
Speaker 1: there's mention of ridicality and encounters with God or something
Speaker 1: that is best described as God. Given the limits of
Speaker 1: human language to describe some of these things, I wanted
Speaker 1: to share two experiences that I had along these lines,
Speaker 1: One from my first and most powerful use of psilocybin mushrooms,
Speaker 1: and the other from a much later savasana phase of
Speaker 1: my yoga practice. In the psilocybin case, I experienced a deep,
Speaker 1: closed eye internal experience. I wouldn't describe it as ego
Speaker 1: lost because I was aware of myself, but it was
Speaker 1: almost out of body in a way. Only instead of
Speaker 1: pulling out of my physical form and seeing my physical
Speaker 1: form from above, I saw my place in a much
Speaker 1: grander chain of beings, like a link and a transdimensional tapestry.
Speaker 1: It was fractal, genetic, and felt more like deep inner
Speaker 1: space than outer space. There was a strong warm, organic
Speaker 1: feel to it, swirling reds and orange, and in this state,
Speaker 1: I felt, or was told that this reality was all
Speaker 1: that mattered, that fears and concerns of the ego were irrelevant,
Speaker 1: because all that mattered was that I loved and was
Speaker 1: loved within this interconnected chain of souls. I would say
Speaker 1: it was one of the most beautiful things I've ever experienced.
Speaker 1: I didn't really know much about psychedelics at the time,
Speaker 1: but I attribute the intensity of the experience to simply
Speaker 1: having never taken sol cybin before, and I attribute the
Speaker 1: attribute the vibe in large part to excellent set and
Speaker 1: setting on that particular trip. It's been a long time, though,
Speaker 1: and I feel as if I need to remember the
Speaker 1: lessons of this trip in my day to day life.
Speaker 1: More than a decade later, the Savastana experience was rather different.
Speaker 1: I occasionally experienced strong visions during Savasta, and on a
Speaker 1: few occasions I feel that they resulted in what could
Speaker 1: be described as ego loss. I've also seen, but never
Speaker 1: communicated with, manifestations of the deceased in these cases. And
Speaker 1: then during one session, I saw something that I knew
Speaker 1: was God. Despite the lack of communication between myself and
Speaker 1: the entity. It was a triangle amid the clouds, but
Speaker 1: not the clouds of this world, more like some brilliant
Speaker 1: sunset illuminated atmosphere on some distant gas giant. The triangle
Speaker 1: itself was luminescent, but of no real color that I remember.
Speaker 1: I was overcome by feelings of wonder and calm. I'm
Speaker 1: not saying this wasn't just a mental image assemboled out
Speaker 1: of various visuals floating around my subconscious It almost certainly
Speaker 1: was just that, But I think it's a good example
Speaker 1: of the sort of otherworldly experience that one can have
Speaker 1: through meditative practice, even without psychedelic substances. Yeah, that's interesting.
Speaker 1: I mean, it certainly came up in our episode that
Speaker 1: there are recognized neurological called parallels between uh, the meditative
Speaker 1: practice that that some people do, and in the psychedelic experience.
Speaker 1: One of the things we talked about was brain imaging
Speaker 1: studies that at least make it seem like something that's
Speaker 1: common to both the psychedelic experience with drugs like psilocybin
Speaker 1: and the experience of at least master meditators, is that
Speaker 1: there is some suppression of the brain regions we associate
Speaker 1: with the default mode network, which we talked about having
Speaker 1: to do with of course, you know, the kind of
Speaker 1: rumination that enters people's minds when they're otherwise idol. So
Speaker 1: you're just sitting there by yourself, you don't have anything
Speaker 1: to do or think about. You start thinking about yourself
Speaker 1: and your problems and your past and your future. And
Speaker 1: that's another part of it, is mental time travel. And
Speaker 1: then of course another part is like evaluations of the
Speaker 1: self and of other people. Right, yeah, and and I
Speaker 1: feel like, you know this this lines up with what
Speaker 1: we've read from various commentators and and people who have
Speaker 1: studied traditional practices that you know that there's there's the
Speaker 1: domain of of a sort of psychedelic experience achievable through tradition,
Speaker 1: non drug related practices, and then there's also like the
Speaker 1: realm of dreams as well, that is often lumped into
Speaker 1: the same you know, network of experiences, particularly in in
Speaker 1: some you know, traditional Amazonian practices. Yeah, totally, all right,
Speaker 1: here's the next one, and uh, how to catch for myself.
Speaker 1: We're not using names, Okay, so this one begins. I
Speaker 1: was an active member, says Hi, Robert and Joe. We
Speaker 1: can use our names. It says I was an active
Speaker 1: member of various message boards dedicated to psychedelic drugs from
Speaker 1: Circle nine until about five years ago. I still participate
Speaker 1: in some message boards, but not nearly as frequently. I
Speaker 1: was a user on forums such as the shrew Maery
Speaker 1: in the long defunct The Third Plateau, which are dedicated
Speaker 1: to specific drugs such as psilocybin containing mushrooms and dextromethorphan
Speaker 1: or d x M, respectively. I was also a member
Speaker 1: of forums such as Drugs Forum dot com, which is
Speaker 1: dedicated to psychoactive drugs in general. I'm a pretty critical person,
Speaker 1: but I don't think my criticisms about ego death are invalid.
Speaker 1: I think there is a lot of uncritical discussion on
Speaker 1: these boards, especially when discussions start getting into the realm
Speaker 1: of the mystical, supernatural, or spiritual. One thing that I
Speaker 1: have seen is that a lot of people, often younger
Speaker 1: people who are new to psychedelics, love to ask how
Speaker 1: much LSD do I have to take to reach level
Speaker 1: five or how many mushrooms do I need to take
Speaker 1: to have ego loss or ego death? And the author
Speaker 1: of this email explains that level five refers to what
Speaker 1: was and may still be, a popular scheme for classifying
Speaker 1: the intensity of psychedelic experiences, as laid out by Graham
Speaker 1: Carl and included in the Psychedelic Experience fact, which appears
Speaker 1: to be hosted on aerowid dot org, which is a
Speaker 1: drug related information site. The writer continues, I've seen a
Speaker 1: lot of discussions about this, and many people think the
Speaker 1: ultimate aim of taking psychedelics is to experience ego loss.
Speaker 1: But the writer here contends it is impossible to experience
Speaker 1: ego loss. The ego is one sense of self. That
Speaker 1: is to say that the ego is the model of
Speaker 1: oneself which the brain constructs without any conception of self,
Speaker 1: it is impossible to experience anything. Experiences are not things
Speaker 1: that float around to be gathered. Experience has happened to
Speaker 1: someone or something. I experience something. Experiences aren't the same
Speaker 1: thing as raw sensory data, and experience is the result
Speaker 1: of one's brain making the best sense of all that
Speaker 1: raw sensory data in relation to the model of oneself.
Speaker 1: Without the model of oneself, it's meaningless to talk about
Speaker 1: experiencing ego death. I have never read a compelling description
Speaker 1: of ego death. I do not believe that this is
Speaker 1: simply because we don't have the words to describe what
Speaker 1: it's like to experience things without any sense of self. Basically,
Speaker 1: any trip report I've read that includes ego death says
Speaker 1: nothing except for the same cliches. I generally found the
Speaker 1: descriptions meaningless. Note that in this paragraph any quotations are
Speaker 1: not actual quotations, their approximations for memory. Some would be
Speaker 1: as brief as saying, and then I experience full ego death.
Speaker 1: Others repeated cliches like I had ego death and experienced
Speaker 1: raw sensory data, or then I had ego death and
Speaker 1: it was pure experience with no ego. A few times
Speaker 1: I shared my hypothesis about the impossibility of actually experiencing
Speaker 1: ego death. If your ego dies, then you do not
Speaker 1: experience anything because you do not exist, or at least
Speaker 1: there is no model of you to experience anything. So
Speaker 1: if you or the model of you which your brain
Speaker 1: presents are absent, then what is experiencing ego loss? Don't misunderstand,
Speaker 1: I do know that psychedelics can radically change change one's
Speaker 1: sense of self to the point where ego loss is
Speaker 1: almost the right word. If one's normal ego the default
Speaker 1: mode ego is transformed radically, then sure you've lost your
Speaker 1: old ego and been born into a new ego. I know.
Speaker 1: Psychedelics can cause one sense of self to become so
Speaker 1: tiny that it seems like you don't exist except as
Speaker 1: some little dot and a human brain which has self awareness. Alternately,
Speaker 1: the subject object distinctions can be so fuzzy that it
Speaker 1: seems one has merged with the universe. It can seem
Speaker 1: that one is just purely aware. It's just pure awareness
Speaker 1: with no sense of self. However, even if your ego
Speaker 1: has gotten to this point where it seems you either
Speaker 1: don't exist because the ego is an illusion, or you're
Speaker 1: so tiny as to be meaningless, or you see yourself
Speaker 1: as being one with everything around you, there is no
Speaker 1: experiencing pure awareness without a sense of self. I submit
Speaker 1: to you that simply being aware must imply self awareness,
Speaker 1: even if that self seems to be purely an observer. Uh,
Speaker 1: there still must be a sense of self in order
Speaker 1: to experience anything. Maybe I'm being nitpicky because ego death
Speaker 1: isn't exactly inaccurate, but I don't believe that experiencing without
Speaker 1: any ego without any sense of self whatsoever is possible.
Speaker 1: Psychedelics can certainly annihilate one sense of self, but the
Speaker 1: ego is transformed, not taken away entirely. I'm glad you
Speaker 1: haven't focused too much on ego death in the episodes.
Speaker 1: I do think it's mumbo jumbo, and there are a
Speaker 1: lot of seeker is out there who are being misled
Speaker 1: by uncritical psychedelic enthusiasts who think it's possible to take
Speaker 1: LST or another classical psychedelic and experience nirvana and emerge
Speaker 1: from the trip as a totally new person like a butterfly,
Speaker 1: ego death and rebirth like the caterpillar. While psychedelics can
Speaker 1: influence personality, I don't think that experiencing ego loss is meaningful.
Speaker 1: I think psychedelic idealists are suggesting that there is an
Speaker 1: ultimate goal that people should strive towards when taking psychedelics,
Speaker 1: as though it will then turn them into the beautiful butterfly.
Speaker 1: I've not seen anyone emerge from a cocoon to end.
Speaker 1: I'd like to say that the four episodes so far
Speaker 1: I guess this was after the fourth one, have been
Speaker 1: very very good. Thank you for doing such good work.
Speaker 1: I am so grateful best regards. So in a sense,
Speaker 1: I guess I see what the writer here is saying,
Speaker 1: but I'm not sure. I I accept this argument about
Speaker 1: ego loss being an incoherent concept. So we have experiences,
Speaker 1: and obviously you need to, as as far as we know,
Speaker 1: have some kind of brain to have those experiences. So
Speaker 1: I would certainly disagree with somebody who says that their
Speaker 1: psychedelic experience proves that like their brain doesn't exist or something.
Speaker 1: But the self, I think, as far as we know,
Speaker 1: is an internal, subjective concept. The self is something that's
Speaker 1: created by the brain. It's a series of impressions that
Speaker 1: have to do with a sort of autobiographical narrative script
Speaker 1: that's constantly running this relating sensory data and experiences back
Speaker 1: to this idea of who I am, what I've been,
Speaker 1: what I'm going to be, And I don't actually accept.
Speaker 1: I think that it is necessary for all experience to
Speaker 1: be routed through references to this autobiographical sense of self,
Speaker 1: the the narrator running in the head. Uh. In fact,
Speaker 1: I think one of the things about the psychedelic experience
Speaker 1: that's so revealing to people is it reveals to them
Speaker 1: that their sense of self is an impression and not
Speaker 1: an objective reality, that that the elf is a series
Speaker 1: of thoughts and thought patterns, not like an object in
Speaker 1: the world. Yeah, yeah, absolutely, Um, you know, I would
Speaker 1: I would say that that my response to this would be, like,
Speaker 1: on one hand, it seems like we are getting into
Speaker 1: just a discussion of terminology. And I think I said
Speaker 1: in the episodes that I don't particularly care for the
Speaker 1: term eco death just you know, it's a little gram Yeah.
Speaker 1: I like ego loss better. And I think my my
Speaker 1: read on ego loss was was always not so much
Speaker 1: an absolute loss, but more loss in the terms of
Speaker 1: a depletion, like I and and that's exactly what this
Speaker 1: particular listener like is saying, you know, is it is
Speaker 1: occurring that you know, you're at least experiencing a depletion
Speaker 1: of of the ego even if there is some you know,
Speaker 1: they're arguing that there's some at least minuscule uh, sense
Speaker 1: of the of the self remaining in your observations, right. Uh.
Speaker 1: And a very good point I think they may actually
Speaker 1: is they point out that you shouldn't have overly heroic
Speaker 1: expectations for what's going to happen, even through a high
Speaker 1: dose psychedelic experience that like you know that you're going
Speaker 1: to emerge like a butterfly from a cocoon, you know,
Speaker 1: without your past self and and being an all new person.
Speaker 1: I mean, people do report, uh, in some cases, very
Speaker 1: profound and positive changes in their life and their sense
Speaker 1: of self. But it's not a it's not a miracle drought,
Speaker 1: it's not a cure all. You know, It's just a tool,
Speaker 1: a powerful tool, but a tool nonetheless. And yeah, I
Speaker 1: mean I've I've read some accounts of people, you know,
Speaker 1: they were critical back in the sixties and are critical
Speaker 1: today of say individuals who travel to South America in
Speaker 1: order to have the ahuasca experience, but with like a
Speaker 1: certain goal in mind, and then they you know, it
Speaker 1: can be disappointing if you're if you're going to into
Speaker 1: it expecting again, these these heroic results, if you're expecting
Speaker 1: to be transformed purely by the experience. Um so, so yeah,
Speaker 1: I think that's worth taken into account. But but then again,
Speaker 1: another whole thing about this, you know we're talking about,
Speaker 1: you know, the degree to which people are primed and
Speaker 1: the degree to which the degree to which their expectations
Speaker 1: might be uh, you know, unfairly elevated. As we discuss though,
Speaker 1: like this, the psychedelic experience is highly susceptible to priming. Yeah,
Speaker 1: and like that is that's it's part of the experience. Well,
Speaker 1: it's one of the things that makes it a little
Speaker 1: more difficult to study than a kind of kinds of
Speaker 1: other things, because it's a drug that acts not necessarily
Speaker 1: by like you know, changing levels of chemistry and your body,
Speaker 1: that that have a direct mechanism of action outside your
Speaker 1: your conscious control. It seems very much like to whatever extent,
Speaker 1: psychedelics do have therapeutic and legitimate medical uses, and it
Speaker 1: does seem like they probably do. It's by allowing you
Speaker 1: to have an emotional cognitive experience that is meaningful to
Speaker 1: you and perceived subjectively as meaningful and like motivates changes
Speaker 1: in behavior. You know, It's not like it's not like
Speaker 1: aspirin or something. And given that it very much appears
Speaker 1: appears to be the case that you you do very
Speaker 1: much want to intentionally bias people's expectations and stuff in
Speaker 1: in a positive direction to have them get the most
Speaker 1: out of the experience. Absolutely, but this is a great,
Speaker 1: great bit of listener mail. I feel like this was
Speaker 1: some you know, some some good good food for thought here. Uh.
Speaker 1: You know, the listener was, you know, is kind of
Speaker 1: disagreeing with some of the information out there about psychedelic
Speaker 1: use and the effects. Uh, but they providing an interesting argument.
Speaker 1: So um um, yeah, I really appreciate this, this bit
Speaker 1: of listener feedback. Yeah. I appreciate somebody making a case
Speaker 1: even and I think making some very good points, even
Speaker 1: if I don't necessarily agree with the overall point being made.
Speaker 1: All right, Well, we received another one. We received a
Speaker 1: one bit of listener mail just asking if we had
Speaker 1: enjoyed psychedelics and watched Avatar before. Um. But yeah, and
Speaker 1: then they summarized it. But in the summary of of Avatar,
Speaker 1: I was reminded like, yeah, this, like Avatar is a
Speaker 1: very like psyched kind of psychedelic film in its own way.
Speaker 1: You know, all these themes of you know, connecting with
Speaker 1: nature and you know, transformed furring your consciousness into a
Speaker 1: big blue cat creature leaving your body flying around. Yeah. So, um,
Speaker 1: I will have to think of think about that that
Speaker 1: read on Avatar the next time I see it, or
Speaker 1: when I get to you know, CD sequels that are
Speaker 1: in the works. Sorry, my mind is still just grinding
Speaker 1: on this previous thing. There's another statement I want to make.
Speaker 1: I just want to see if you agree with this
Speaker 1: or not. I mean, basically, I think one of the
Speaker 1: interesting things about psychedelic research to me is that it
Speaker 1: yields the conclusion, at least to me, that saying the
Speaker 1: self does not exist is not a spiritual or mystical statement.
Speaker 1: Saying the self does not exist can be like a
Speaker 1: purely material and mundane statement of fact in a way,
Speaker 1: and that the psychedelic experience does tend to reveal to
Speaker 1: people subjectively that this is the case. Without the use
Speaker 1: of you know, brain imaging techniques and all that. It
Speaker 1: just as you a different kind of subjective experience that
Speaker 1: makes you realize, like, oh, this thing that I always
Speaker 1: thought had to be there doesn't have to be there.
Speaker 1: I know firsthand because I was there and it wasn't there. Right, Yeah,
Speaker 1: And it's going to be interesting to see, you know what. Further, uh,
Speaker 1: you know, breakthroughs we we see in this uh you
Speaker 1: know now that we're seeing more and more research into psychedelics,
Speaker 1: like one of the one of one of the points
Speaker 1: that I see made again and again. Is that you know,
Speaker 1: for for the most part, you know, Western Western science
Speaker 1: has has been on one track, and this track has
Speaker 1: been you know, completely parallel to uh to the psychedelic track.
Speaker 1: And these two tracks have have converged, you know, for
Speaker 1: a very short time, and and it's been kind of
Speaker 1: touch and go. And now we're seeing more of a
Speaker 1: true convergence where we're actually like leveraging more of our
Speaker 1: our current scientific understanding of the world towards the psychedelic
Speaker 1: experience and attempt to understand like what can be gained
Speaker 1: from it, be it in the treatment of you know,
Speaker 1: addiction or various psychological conditions, or simply an understanding like
Speaker 1: what the mind is and how it works. All Right,
Speaker 1: I guess we need to take a quick break, but
Speaker 1: we'll be right back with more. Alright, we're back. So
Speaker 1: here's another bit of listener mail related to our psychedelics episodes. Hi,
Speaker 1: Robert and Joe. I've been listening to stuff to Blow
Speaker 1: your mind for about two years now. It keeps my
Speaker 1: mind occupied while I deal with the mundanity of my
Speaker 1: day job. I apologize in advance if this gets long winded,
Speaker 1: but I want to paint the whole picture of my
Speaker 1: recent dealings with depression and magic mushrooms. Well, it does seem.
Speaker 1: It seemed to be a theme that this that these
Speaker 1: episodes resulted in long listener emails. All right, so they continue.
Speaker 1: I suffered from chronic headaches for about five years and
Speaker 1: that kept getting worse. Along with this, I developed migrains
Speaker 1: that were triggered by travel anything more than fifty kilometers
Speaker 1: in a car, and the next day my brain wants
Speaker 1: to load. Once the pain goes away, suicidal depression would
Speaker 1: kick in for about five days as the post drum
Speaker 1: and so I saw my doc a few times, who
Speaker 1: is a psychiatrist as well. After trying a bunch of
Speaker 1: different meds and techniques and coming up empty, she suggested
Speaker 1: that I try a mild S s R I and
Speaker 1: just see what happens. My life changed from that day on,
Speaker 1: which was in January this year. Turned out I had depression,
Speaker 1: and only after being on S s R I was
Speaker 1: able to see how depressed I was. Depression biases you
Speaker 1: so much towards negativity that it's impossible to see that
Speaker 1: you have a problem. My rage, road rage and anxiety
Speaker 1: has basically disappeared. Completely along with the headaches and migraines,
Speaker 1: gotten back to my hobbies and rebuilding relationships. And this
Speaker 1: is where the shrooms come in. I've had shrims multiple
Speaker 1: times long ago, about six years ago, and only three
Speaker 1: weeks ago, decided to give it a go again as
Speaker 1: my mindset is in a good place and I felt
Speaker 1: like doing a mental reset. This was literally a week
Speaker 1: before your Psychedelic series started on Stuff to Blow your mind.
Speaker 1: I took about four rams, dried, got in bed under
Speaker 1: a lot of blankets, and listened to prog metal for
Speaker 1: a few hours. Yeah. Well, you know, no, I'm not mocking.
Speaker 1: That's just it's funny what people do. I mean, it's
Speaker 1: gonna it's it's gonna be subjective to your experience and taste.
Speaker 1: You know. The music that is comforting to me isn't
Speaker 1: necessarily going to be comforting to the next person. And
Speaker 1: then I think is sometimes the case the music that
Speaker 1: is comforting to you, the psilocybin user or what have you,
Speaker 1: it might be different from the music that is comforting
Speaker 1: to you in your like your normal day to day state.
Speaker 1: Oh yeah, I mean I was just thinking, how you know,
Speaker 1: I love me some electric Wizard in general doom metal
Speaker 1: kind of stuff. But I don't I don't know, it
Speaker 1: seems like that could be a bad recipe. Yeah, well
Speaker 1: it's gonna vary right the anyway, the listening continues. The
Speaker 1: experience was profound, to say the least. Other than the
Speaker 1: colors and patterns, I was confronted by all my mental
Speaker 1: baggage and given a choice of how to deal with it.
Speaker 1: At a stage, I was in a black pit surrounded
Speaker 1: by amorphous beings representing all the human connections in my life,
Speaker 1: towering around me my ego, and they all said simultaneously,
Speaker 1: you are no more. My sense of self kind of
Speaker 1: just evaporated into everything, as if the universe was in
Speaker 1: a high intropy state and all particles were homogeneously spread
Speaker 1: over the universe and I just became part of that.
Speaker 1: After this, the particles started to reconstitute into points of connection,
Speaker 1: representing all the people in my life, with a connection
Speaker 1: between all of them, including me. What I observed was
Speaker 1: that life is a giant web of connections with mental energy,
Speaker 1: not quacky pyramid b as, flowing between all these connections.
Speaker 1: If a connection is faulty, it restricts flow in a
Speaker 1: certain part of this cloud and drains the amount of
Speaker 1: energy you have to keep the system in balance. So
Speaker 1: the solution would be to either fix the connection or
Speaker 1: sever it, allowing space for more positive experiences and connections
Speaker 1: with people. I know it all sounds very subjective, and
Speaker 1: honestly it is, but I find a lot of comfort
Speaker 1: in the site you. Three weeks later, I still feel
Speaker 1: like I've returned from a three month vacation. Things are
Speaker 1: going a lot better than it used to. I realized
Speaker 1: that if life consists of fifty fifty good and bad,
Speaker 1: and you can see fifty of the bad things as
Speaker 1: either neutral or good, then of your life will be good.
Speaker 1: It's not about the arbitrary energy that you supposedly send
Speaker 1: out into the universe that draws in good energy. It's
Speaker 1: about your perspective on life. If your observation bias is
Speaker 1: dial towards the positive, then your life will seem more positive.
Speaker 1: Weird thing is my sense of self hasn't really returned,
Speaker 1: which feels odd and fantastic at the same time. I'm
Speaker 1: not religious or spiritual in any sense, and if you
Speaker 1: stop worrying about the self, you have the capacity to
Speaker 1: help others anyway. Love the podcast guys. I recommend it
Speaker 1: to most of my friends and will keep listening as
Speaker 1: long as you make it. Oh well, thank you so much.
Speaker 1: That's a nice message. And I'm so interested in the
Speaker 1: way that the brains generate these visual metaphors. It's extremely common,
Speaker 1: I mean, not unique to this message. You know. It's
Speaker 1: probably at least half of the trip reports out there
Speaker 1: have something like this where people talk about their psychedelic
Speaker 1: experience being not just a sort of abstract revelation about,
Speaker 1: you know, their relationships and their emotions and all that,
Speaker 1: but that they get a concrete visual metaphor through which
Speaker 1: they picture these revelations. I remember in Michael Pollan's book
Speaker 1: you Know, which we read for that series, he talks
Speaker 1: about his experiences um having revelations about his relationships and
Speaker 1: his family. In one case, he talks about like envisioning
Speaker 1: this giant building made out of like beams of wood
Speaker 1: and all that, and like that the structure somehow represented
Speaker 1: to him these these feelings he was having about his
Speaker 1: his parents and his children and all that. Uh. And
Speaker 1: another one was like feeling this way about the images
Speaker 1: of oak trees and a meadow. Why is it that
Speaker 1: the brain doesn't just say like, oh, I should focus
Speaker 1: more on having positive relationships with my parents or something
Speaker 1: like that. Why is it that, like it gives you
Speaker 1: a picture that shows that to you? Yeah, I mean
Speaker 1: because because in a way, we're getting into some sort
Speaker 1: of like a non linguistic communication, right or or what
Speaker 1: what would be the description, like a translinguistic object in
Speaker 1: your mind? Um. Terence McKenna, you know, talks about a
Speaker 1: lot of things like this in his his writings. Uh uh, though,
Speaker 1: I mean in a lot of those writings, it's going
Speaker 1: beyond merely perceiving like a complex metaphor, but interacting with
Speaker 1: the complex metaphor and sort of the course dissecting that
Speaker 1: metaphor later on and with drawing conclusions from it. It
Speaker 1: totally goes beyond. Yeah, if you're you're thinking like, Okay,
Speaker 1: I'm not just perceiving in my imagination imagery that reveals
Speaker 1: something to me, but actually, like I'm thinking that there
Speaker 1: is some physical other thing out there that I'm just
Speaker 1: perceiving as I would perceive objects in my environment, which
Speaker 1: to some extent McKenna actually thought he did experience, right, Like, Yeah,
Speaker 1: though I've been kind of I've been looking around at
Speaker 1: people's different takes on that, Like basically the question to
Speaker 1: what extent did did McKenna believe in some of these
Speaker 1: reads that he discussed on, you know, psychedelic visions, And
Speaker 1: you know, some argue that, well, you know, it's it's
Speaker 1: not so much that he necessarily believed in all of
Speaker 1: these things, but was encouraging people to you know, consider
Speaker 1: alternate reason reality and also just sort of like pulling
Speaker 1: the thread of a particular idea and just you know,
Speaker 1: keep pulling it to see how much of it you
Speaker 1: can get? What happens if you follow the rabbit hole
Speaker 1: of this particular notion, where does it lead you? And
Speaker 1: I think I do see that. And I'm currently reading
Speaker 1: a collection of his um like interviews and writing titled
Speaker 1: The Archaic Revival, And and you do see that, Like
Speaker 1: it's you can't take all the ideas in the book
Speaker 1: and line them up and like construct necessarily like the
Speaker 1: Terrence Terence mckinna mythos, you know, because it's because it's
Speaker 1: like he's exploring one idea here and he's talking about
Speaker 1: another one here. Uh well, I guess that comes back
Speaker 1: to the the interesting quality of a ridicality or or
Speaker 1: the noetic quality, right, that there's this feeling that so
Speaker 1: many people get about their psychedelic experiences that it wasn't
Speaker 1: just an interesting experience, but that it revealed something objectively true,
Speaker 1: which is such a strange and interesting quality. And one
Speaker 1: way you could look at it is that maybe what
Speaker 1: it does is it kind of it not that it
Speaker 1: makes people believe that a hallucination they had on a
Speaker 1: high dose of psilocybin was a literal, physical object that's
Speaker 1: out there that they encountered, but it more sort of
Speaker 1: like increases your willingness to suspend disbelief when entertaining metaphors
Speaker 1: and stuff. Does that make sense, It's like allows you
Speaker 1: to get into the story of a movie more without
Speaker 1: stepping out and thinking this is just a movie. It
Speaker 1: just sort of like opens you up to going with
Speaker 1: an idea for longer than you normally would without without
Speaker 1: getting embarrassed about it or thinking like, Okay, that's that's silly, yeah, yeah,
Speaker 1: or be getting drawn back into the the egoic mind
Speaker 1: and and thinking about this, pulling out the old toys,
Speaker 1: you know, the toys of of the past and the
Speaker 1: toys of the future. If to worry about and being
Speaker 1: able to focus on this. You know what is often
Speaker 1: and in so many of these cases, it's it's some
Speaker 1: sort of metaphor that is that is bound up in
Speaker 1: empathy and uh and uh, you know it's it's it's
Speaker 1: not the necessarily the kind of of you know, ultimately
Speaker 1: like positive imagery that one is going to dwell on,
Speaker 1: because what we two, we tend to dwell on. We
Speaker 1: tend to dwell on things, things from the past that
Speaker 1: we're we're great and we wish we had again, or
Speaker 1: things in the past that hurt us, and then likewise
Speaker 1: gazing into the future and fantasizing about the things that
Speaker 1: could hurt us or make us happy. Uh. And then
Speaker 1: you know, it's in so often it's the metaphor in
Speaker 1: play in our first message that we read in in
Speaker 1: this one and also in the example from Michael Pollan's book,
Speaker 1: it's based kind of in the present. It's like, what
Speaker 1: do I have now that is important and of value? Yeah,
Speaker 1: and and so many It also just seems funny that
Speaker 1: so many of these revelations and metaphors that people have
Speaker 1: during their experiences are about love. Yeah, it's always about love.
Speaker 1: It's like statements that people might normally find kind of
Speaker 1: embarrassingly trite or but now take on a new profundity. Yeah,
Speaker 1: you don't see a lot of accounts where people are like, yeah,
Speaker 1: I had a psychedelic experience and I realized they need
Speaker 1: to kick people more. Why am I not kicking people?
Speaker 1: I mean, I'm not ruling out that possibility that could
Speaker 1: happen with some people. But you don't hear that kind
Speaker 1: of thing much. Yeah, more often you hear stuff like
Speaker 1: I realized that love is everything, and you know, you
Speaker 1: not having the experience, might hear somebody say that and say, Okay, yeah,
Speaker 1: you know I could have told you. You know, there's
Speaker 1: you want to hear some more Beatles lyrics, But it is.
Speaker 1: It's the stuff of lyrics. It's the stuff of of
Speaker 1: of bumper stickers. But but but the actually felt is
Speaker 1: the thing. It's truly felt. Is it for the first time?
Speaker 1: Sometimes yes, totally. Okay, looks like we're going to move
Speaker 1: on to the next one. Uh, this one starts. Hey, guys,
Speaker 1: I just wanted to let you know that I really
Speaker 1: enjoyed your series on psychedelics and wanted to share my experiences.
Speaker 1: Each spring and fall, I and a few other guys
Speaker 1: go up to my friend's cottage to open or close
Speaker 1: it for the season. For the last few years we've
Speaker 1: taken this opportunity to take magic mushrooms. His cottage is
Speaker 1: located on a fairly small island, which makes it a
Speaker 1: great place to go for a wander without a risk
Speaker 1: of getting lost. But we always make sure to stick together,
Speaker 1: even if one of us is lost in the shapes
Speaker 1: of the clouds and someone else is pondering the moss
Speaker 1: on a rock. We've always had good experiences, and for
Speaker 1: the following weeks and months, the world seems like a
Speaker 1: brighter place. As you said at the beginning of your series,
Speaker 1: it's like someone opens a window, and even after the
Speaker 1: window was closed, the air feels a little fresher. I've
Speaker 1: had some very interesting experiences on my trips. Most of
Speaker 1: the time the effects are fairly standard visual hallucinations and
Speaker 1: a general feeling of euphoria. But on our last adventure,
Speaker 1: we went for it and took Terence McKenna's heroic dose
Speaker 1: of five brams. I should just throw in that this
Speaker 1: is something he he mentioned in some of the writings
Speaker 1: I'm reading now, and basically his argument was, look if
Speaker 1: you're going to take psychedelics, don't play around. Take a
Speaker 1: heroic dose so that you can like really experience the thing.
Speaker 1: Uh you know, I agree or disagree with that as
Speaker 1: you like. But that's that's what people were talking about
Speaker 1: when they're talking about Terence McKenna's five grams. Uh So,
Speaker 1: the writer here continues. This resulted in a much more
Speaker 1: cerebral experience. I could see the surface of my mind
Speaker 1: again this visual metaphor. I could see the surface of
Speaker 1: my mind and had the feeling that small ten drils
Speaker 1: were extending off and connecting to another level beyond regular consciousness.
Speaker 1: In that time, I felt like I had a perfect
Speaker 1: understanding of so many things, the origins of art, the
Speaker 1: meaning of family, the intricacies of society, and even some
Speaker 1: religious thoughts from a non religious person. Unfortunately, my descent
Speaker 1: to reality was much harder than it had been on
Speaker 1: lighter doses, and the fresh feeling didn't stick with me.
Speaker 1: I'm looking forward to are closing this fall, and I
Speaker 1: hope I can strike a balance in the dose and
Speaker 1: get the best of both worlds. I also wanted to
Speaker 1: thank you for your approach to the conversation. My wife
Speaker 1: and I grew up the same way you did, with
Speaker 1: the dangers of drugs being pushed on us at every turn,
Speaker 1: so she has a bit of apprehension when it comes
Speaker 1: to things like this. We listen to a few of
Speaker 1: the episodes together, and I think it opened her mind
Speaker 1: a little to the idea that mushrooms can be beneficial.
Speaker 1: Maybe one day she will be ready and we can
Speaker 1: go explore together. Thanks again, Well, I like that, But
Speaker 1: then again, I mean I want to emphasize that every
Speaker 1: everybody's got to make decisions for themselves and inform themselves
Speaker 1: on these things. So we're not encouraging people to take psychedelics.
Speaker 1: We're just trying to describe what, you know, what, what's
Speaker 1: out there, what the literature says. Yeah, choosing to to
Speaker 1: never try psychedelics, who is a perfectly valid choice. Um. Yeah,
Speaker 1: We we don't advocate, you know, pressuring anybody or bore
Speaker 1: dosing Richard Nixon with them right, all right, here's another one.
Speaker 1: This listener rides Hi Joe, Hi, Robert. I'm an occasional
Speaker 1: listener of your podcast, choosing the topics that inter me
Speaker 1: most and saving the others for when I have more time,
Speaker 1: because unlike other podcasts that I can listen to while
Speaker 1: doing other stuff. Yours requires my complete attention in a
Speaker 1: good way. Your recent Psychedelic series, though, had me drop
Speaker 1: everything right at the second each episode was available. Your
Speaker 1: research and personal insights were eye opening to a subject
Speaker 1: that I hadn't really considered before. Your reports of several
Speaker 1: studies where people described communicating with the gods had me
Speaker 1: thinking about the three big monotheistic religions Christianity, Judaism, Islam uh.
Speaker 1: They all forbid the use of mind altering substances to
Speaker 1: various degrees, the key probably being that one should always
Speaker 1: be in control of one action one's actions and not
Speaker 1: be able to to excuse one's shortcomings with being under
Speaker 1: the influence of drugs. But I'm wondering if this could
Speaker 1: also be interpreted as the religious leaders having had a
Speaker 1: real experience of talking to God while on SI gets psychedelics,
Speaker 1: and subsequently trying to prevent others from experiencing the same thing.
Speaker 1: The motive could be oppression and less for power. But
Speaker 1: then Jesus and later Mohammad were like, nah, I don't
Speaker 1: care about that. About what Abraham and Moses said, I
Speaker 1: want to have as much fun as that goat over
Speaker 1: there that ate some weird looking mushroom and God talking
Speaker 1: to them too. Another thought I had while listening was
Speaker 1: Michael Pollen, huh like the cookbook guy. Weird case of
Speaker 1: two people with the same name. But well he you know,
Speaker 1: well maybe he did stuff about food. He's done a
Speaker 1: lot about food, and is I think previous book was
Speaker 1: about like you know, um, you know, he talked about
Speaker 1: a lot about like culinary traditions, and well, our our
Speaker 1: our producer Maya just chimed in and pointed out that
Speaker 1: he did a Cooked series on Netflix. Unless I actually
Speaker 1: watched this series, it's it's excellent anywhere, our listener continues.
Speaker 1: But then I decided to look up the book you
Speaker 1: reference so much, and it's the exact same guy. My
Speaker 1: second favorite cookbook author ever, second only to Samine nos Frott,
Speaker 1: who literally refers to to him as one of her
Speaker 1: biggest mentors, inspirations, and supporters. His next Netflix series and book,
Speaker 1: Cooked Heir sparked my interest into the more science e
Speaker 1: side of cooking, why fermentation is so important, how nutrition works,
Speaker 1: and why some modern foods make a sick spoiler, It's
Speaker 1: most likely neither lactose nor gluten. He dives into different
Speaker 1: cultures and cuisines with genuine curiosity and respect and not
Speaker 1: elevating himself and his personal knowledge above the more traditional
Speaker 1: ways of cooking. What I'm basically trying to say is
Speaker 1: he would be a phenomenal guest on to your show,
Speaker 1: whether you want to talk about food, psychedelics, or general
Speaker 1: cultural developments. If you've actually made it this far, thank
Speaker 1: you for reading through my whole rant about things you
Speaker 1: probably already know, and thank you for making such a
Speaker 1: phenomenal podcast. Have a great week. Uh well, thanks for
Speaker 1: getting in touch. I would say that, um, there are
Speaker 1: a lot of theories people have about the roles of
Speaker 1: psychedelics in the origin of religions, and I think a
Speaker 1: lot of these theories are obviously going to be difficult
Speaker 1: to prove. So it's just kind of like people offering
Speaker 1: speculations of that may to various extents conform or not
Speaker 1: conformed to the evidence we already have, but it's hard
Speaker 1: to prove these things right. But it's like the food
Speaker 1: of the God's argument jas MCKINNI made, like it's it's
Speaker 1: a very interesting argument, but ultimately it's nothing you could
Speaker 1: ever actually prove, yeah, or at least not in any
Speaker 1: way we can imagine now. I mean, who knows what
Speaker 1: we could prove given evidence we don't know about, but
Speaker 1: it seems unlikely at least. Um. But with these things,
Speaker 1: I mean, one thing I would say is that I
Speaker 1: think it's not hard to see why a lot of
Speaker 1: religions would place limitations on the use of mind altering
Speaker 1: substances of various kinds, even the kinds of radically different effects.
Speaker 1: I mean that that they might have the same kind
Speaker 1: of attitude towards alcohol that they have towards psilocybin mushrooms,
Speaker 1: and these are extremely different compounds that are different things
Speaker 1: to the brain. Um. But but yeah, I think there's
Speaker 1: there's like a complex interplay of different pressures going on there.
Speaker 1: I think one is just sort of like a social
Speaker 1: orderliness pressure, with the idea that you sort of mentioned
Speaker 1: in the email that like drugs can induce changes in behavior,
Speaker 1: drugs can lower people's inhibitions and uh, and you just
Speaker 1: generally don't want people having excuses for bad behavior that
Speaker 1: are chemical in nature. Yea. Um. But another thing I
Speaker 1: think I mentioned in the episodes, and I still pretty
Speaker 1: firmly believe is that there is definitely a threat from
Speaker 1: specifically psychedelics. There's a threat to organized religions that have
Speaker 1: a set number of like doctrines and dogmas, because psychedelics
Speaker 1: very often tend to cause people to believe they have
Speaker 1: had new revelations, you know, like God has talked to
Speaker 1: me now, and now I in fact see that here
Speaker 1: are the new things we should believe. And of course
Speaker 1: that's a challenge to the authority of the existing church,
Speaker 1: which has like a doctrinal statement. Yeah. And of course
Speaker 1: these types of revelations can occur without psychedelics and do
Speaker 1: occur without psychedelics, And the history is full of individuals
Speaker 1: who likely had obtained the revelation uh, you know, viet
Speaker 1: non drug related means, and then end up posing a
Speaker 1: problem to the established religion. You know, suddenly you have
Speaker 1: a new heresy, and generally organized religions don't take kindly
Speaker 1: to heresies, uh, and they have to be squashed, right.
Speaker 1: Another I think thing to think to keep in mind
Speaker 1: is that so many of these different substances. When we're
Speaker 1: looking historically, we're dealing with with something very regional, and
Speaker 1: we're dealing dealing with something that is tied to traditional
Speaker 1: regional practices and then incomes a major religion. It's these
Speaker 1: major religions tend to uh be you know, evangelical, they
Speaker 1: tend to be They're expanding their domain, and in doing
Speaker 1: so they are absorbing and crushing traditional practices. And and
Speaker 1: part of that is is crushing whatever kind of you know,
Speaker 1: medicinal practices they have in place. Yeah, and uh and
Speaker 1: of course we don't mean that necessarily as an indictment
Speaker 1: of people who believe in these religions, but all kind
Speaker 1: of like Christianity, Islam, Buddhism, even they all at various
Speaker 1: points were expansionist religions that were sort of obliterating local,
Speaker 1: regional religious practices that people had before them. Yeah. Yeah,
Speaker 1: I mean it's just the it's the nature of of
Speaker 1: these of ideas. And you can look at it in
Speaker 1: two ways. You can look at it is like, okay,
Speaker 1: here's the big you know, dominant religion coming in and
Speaker 1: just destroying everything in its path, and think of it
Speaker 1: like a like a mold taking over something. But you
Speaker 1: can also look at it if you want, you can say, well,
Speaker 1: here are just some really good ideas that someone had
Speaker 1: about how to live your life and so of course
Speaker 1: they're going to expand of course they're going to be
Speaker 1: adopted by people who can benefit from them. I think
Speaker 1: ultimately you have a mix of these two factors in
Speaker 1: the expansion of any religion. There are things that are
Speaker 1: doing people good and therefore they expand, And then of
Speaker 1: course there's just the inevitable conflict of different ideas, different cosmologies,
Speaker 1: bump bumping heads, like something's there's gonna be a certain
Speaker 1: amount of of synthesis that takes place, but something's gonna
Speaker 1: gonna also be left, you know, on the cutting room floor,
Speaker 1: and something is going to more or less win. Yeah. Now,
Speaker 1: more directly to exactly what the writer here says, uh,
Speaker 1: I don't necessarily assume or think that there's any good
Speaker 1: evidence to assume that the founders of you know, more
Speaker 1: recent revelatory religions were themselves taking psychedelics. I don't necessarily
Speaker 1: see any evidence of that, especially because we know that
Speaker 1: some people spontaneously have these types of mystical experiences without
Speaker 1: the use of psychedelics, and also because a lot of
Speaker 1: times the prohibitions that you're talking about against mind altering
Speaker 1: substances are not spoken directly by the people who have
Speaker 1: these revelations themselves. I mean, Jesus never said anywhere that
Speaker 1: is recorded that one should not take psychedelic substances. That's
Speaker 1: just not to be found in the Bible. All right, Well,
Speaker 1: on that note, we're going to take one more break
Speaker 1: when we come back. More listener mail. Thank alright, we're back. Okay.
Speaker 1: The next message starts, Hey guys. Uh. The writer says
Speaker 1: that we produce their favorite media and says some needlessly
Speaker 1: flattering things and then says, anyways, I just finished your
Speaker 1: five part mini series on psychedelics, listening to it and
Speaker 1: being reminded of mushrooms and Mike's perience with them when
Speaker 1: I was much younger, and it still has the power
Speaker 1: to give me this feeling of ego dissolution. Just a
Speaker 1: little background. When I was nineteen, I had been arrested
Speaker 1: a ton of times for marijuana and drinking related crimes,
Speaker 1: all culminating with my house being rated. I did a
Speaker 1: short stint in County and then was released with one
Speaker 1: point five years of probation and drug counseling. I was
Speaker 1: never a violent or bad guy, or ever really felt
Speaker 1: I had a problem with drugs. I just sort of
Speaker 1: lacked purpose or had anything positive I cared about any who.
Speaker 1: On my twentieth birthday, my best friend at the time
Speaker 1: and I took mushrooms for the first time and walked
Speaker 1: around town. I had this feeling of enlightenment, like I
Speaker 1: was thinking on a much higher level and there was
Speaker 1: just so much more meaning and truth to the world
Speaker 1: than I had known. At that point. I decided I
Speaker 1: wanted to study physics and understand this higher dimension. I
Speaker 1: had never been successful in school. My high school g
Speaker 1: p A was a one point seven, but I took
Speaker 1: some classes at a local school, did well, matriculated, continued
Speaker 1: to do well, applied to a solid physics program at
Speaker 1: the u n H, got a degree, and on to graduate.
Speaker 1: Went on to graduate school to study imaging science. I
Speaker 1: sort of stopped looking for the higher dimensions and just
Speaker 1: got excited about science. Also, there were other things going
Speaker 1: on in my life that were positive, but what I
Speaker 1: really wanted to get to the day after I guess
Speaker 1: this is the day after the psilocybin experience. I hadn't
Speaker 1: slept and I was in the best mood ever, not
Speaker 1: tripping anymore, just feeling like I had learned something deep,
Speaker 1: gained purpose, and perspective. Months later. I didn't feel that
Speaker 1: way always, but I could remember the perspective and bring
Speaker 1: myself there just tapping into the memory. To this day,
Speaker 1: sometimes I think back to the time I tripped on
Speaker 1: mushrooms and I can still sort of get the ego
Speaker 1: dissolution just by making the connection in my memory. It
Speaker 1: is sort of like meditation on demand. That being said,
Speaker 1: I meditated before and a long while after with regularity
Speaker 1: after I had tripped, and I think it brought a
Speaker 1: whole other level to my meditation. It was like there
Speaker 1: was a deeper well of being in the moment, or
Speaker 1: maybe more apt being in the moment also aim with
Speaker 1: a stronger feeling of being connected to the world. Shortly after,
Speaker 1: I made up a meditation inspired by my trip. There
Speaker 1: was this pulsing thing to it, where like your breath
Speaker 1: and heartbeat were connected to the world around you. So
Speaker 1: I would try to force that feeling. I would start
Speaker 1: by using my mind's eye and imagining myself breathing in
Speaker 1: the energy of my surroundings. That I would expand my region,
Speaker 1: to my town, and then to my state, my country,
Speaker 1: the world, the solar system, and then the universe, watching
Speaker 1: with my mind's eye, this abstract universe is gaseous energy
Speaker 1: coming into my lungs, following it the entire way than
Speaker 1: breathing my energy into the universe. And then the writer
Speaker 1: goes on to say a few more things, but I
Speaker 1: think we'll cap it there. But I like this idea
Speaker 1: of the the expanding consciousness exercise through meditation because it's
Speaker 1: something that I don't know if there's a version exactly
Speaker 1: like this that I've come across before, but there's certainly
Speaker 1: the idea of expanding forms of consciousness in the compassion
Speaker 1: meditation tradition, you know, where you uh, you're like, you
Speaker 1: meditate on well wishes and compassion for yourself and for
Speaker 1: people close to you, and you gradually, through the exercise
Speaker 1: like expand that circle of people who you include in
Speaker 1: your the circle of people who you wish well for,
Speaker 1: And this just gets bigger and bigger until you wish
Speaker 1: well for all of humanity. And that's like a way
Speaker 1: of forcing yourself to experience compassion for people you would
Speaker 1: not normally feel compassion for. Right. Yeah, I think that's
Speaker 1: sometimes overlooked as as being you know, one of the
Speaker 1: positive sides about prayer traditions and like Western Christian traditions,
Speaker 1: you know, is that sometimes there's criticism level. They're like, oh,
Speaker 1: if you're praying for somebody, you're not really helping them, uh,
Speaker 1: you know, and so forth, you know, the whole sort
Speaker 1: of thoughts and prayers counter argument. But but if you
Speaker 1: think of it as like this, uh, this empathy building
Speaker 1: meditative practice, uh, you know, I think it's a little
Speaker 1: bit different. And of course the idea to being that,
Speaker 1: like you know, first comes thought and then comes action,
Speaker 1: that if it puts you in a more empathetic mind state,
Speaker 1: then then hopefully you'll be in a better position to
Speaker 1: take actions that are also empathetic. I think I've said
Speaker 1: this on the podcast before, but I know there are
Speaker 1: at least some This might sound like an oxymoron to
Speaker 1: some people, but I've read about this that there are
Speaker 1: like atheist Christians, you know, who are Christians, they don't
Speaker 1: necessarily believe that there is a God that can physically
Speaker 1: change things in the world or anything like that, and
Speaker 1: yet they would still consider themselves in some way Christian
Speaker 1: and pray and that the prayer uh is sometimes thought
Speaker 1: of as a kind of internal psychological drama where you
Speaker 1: are conditioning yourself to have, you know, well, wishes and
Speaker 1: compassion for the people who you pray for, kind of
Speaker 1: like the compassion meditation tradition in Buddhism. Yeah yeah, I
Speaker 1: mean exactly, like if you're if you're doing a uh
Speaker 1: you know, even like a blessing before a dinner, like
Speaker 1: you're stopping for a second to appreciate, you know, the
Speaker 1: fact that you do have food on the table and
Speaker 1: maybe thinking about you know, other people that need help
Speaker 1: and certain causes and whatnot. Like similar exercises and this
Speaker 1: is one that we do in my house is to
Speaker 1: have like a family meeting and there are certain like
Speaker 1: questions that we all answered, like what was the best
Speaker 1: party day? What was the worst part, what are you
Speaker 1: thankful for? What are you looking forward to? That sort
Speaker 1: of thing. Uh, animal of the day is also in
Speaker 1: their animal of the day. Oh yeah, oh that's a
Speaker 1: good that's a good tradition. It's frequently a squirrel for me.
Speaker 1: But um yea yeah, I mean it's like like you say,
Speaker 1: it's it's ultimately kind of this empathetic meditative practice. All right. Next,
Speaker 1: I want to read a section one Like, like I said,
Speaker 1: a lot of these were long because they're often describing,
Speaker 1: you know, rather you know, complex emotional or perceptive experiences.
Speaker 1: Uh so, I'm just gonna read a portion of this
Speaker 1: one where this individual is talking about how how psychedelic
Speaker 1: usage impacted their life. Quote. It definitely changed my perspective
Speaker 1: on things At the time. I was really lonely, anxious
Speaker 1: to have a girlfriend. You had not social enough to
Speaker 1: get out there and then meet and mingle with new people.
Speaker 1: After the trip, I relaxed a great deal. I realized
Speaker 1: it didn't matter or so much at once. I became
Speaker 1: more comfortable with my solitude and more open to trying
Speaker 1: new things and meeting new people. I realized there was
Speaker 1: so much more to do, and I was not doing
Speaker 1: everything I could be doing to make my memories richer.
Speaker 1: But that was just the beginning of my changes. The
Speaker 1: last time my trip was about a year and a
Speaker 1: half ago. I had one more insightful experience. I was
Speaker 1: over at my brother's apartment, but instead of discussing anything
Speaker 1: with him, I opted to lay down in silence for
Speaker 1: the duration of the trip. I tried to focus inward,
Speaker 1: but had a very difficult time because of the pain
Speaker 1: I was feeling in my body. At first, I was
Speaker 1: frustrated because I felt like I was just being distracted
Speaker 1: by this pain. But eventually I realized that I was
Speaker 1: supposed to be feeling this pain. I had been experiencing
Speaker 1: chronic back and risk pains for about a year at
Speaker 1: that point, and had not really done anything about them.
Speaker 1: I realized that day that I was not treating my
Speaker 1: body the way it needed to be treated. I had
Speaker 1: a very sedentary life style as a computer jockey and
Speaker 1: did a little exercise. The psychedelics made me focus on
Speaker 1: how much it sucked to be in pain all the time,
Speaker 1: and that I was still young enough to fix it.
Speaker 1: Although I my not have enough time if I didn't
Speaker 1: start soon. I still work from a computer. Uh, there
Speaker 1: was no changing that aspect of my life, but I
Speaker 1: decided to start having healthier exercise habits. I got a
Speaker 1: gym membership and started swimming almost every day of the
Speaker 1: week after work, and began practicing yoga almost every morning.
Speaker 1: I was upset at first that I didn't have as
Speaker 1: much time in the day to do what I wanted,
Speaker 1: but as the week went by, I began to love
Speaker 1: the exercise. I feel that my trip gave me a
Speaker 1: healthier ability to communicate with my body and understand what
Speaker 1: it wanted. I had been depriving it for so long,
Speaker 1: and it was so happy that I was giving it
Speaker 1: the movement it needed so badly. Uh yeah, and the
Speaker 1: writer here has has some other great things to say.
Speaker 1: This was also a long email, but thank you for
Speaker 1: getting in touch. It's it's great to hear. I mean,
Speaker 1: yet again, this is something we've we've seen at least
Speaker 1: anecdotally over and over again in these reports, is the
Speaker 1: ability of these substances to give people an experience that
Speaker 1: leads to change in habits, which is such a precious
Speaker 1: thing to come by, actually, like being able to change
Speaker 1: your routines were In fact, I think so often we
Speaker 1: are really just oblivious to how governed by routine we are,
Speaker 1: how how subject it to habits and repetitive actions. I mean,
Speaker 1: it's one of the things that it can be almost
Speaker 1: kind of debilitating to think about life this way, but
Speaker 1: it is sometimes worth realizing that every time you do something,
Speaker 1: you're not just doing that thing, but you're making it
Speaker 1: more likely that you'll do that thing again in the future.
Speaker 1: Every time you say it, every time you think it,
Speaker 1: every time you do it, you're sort of writing a
Speaker 1: program in your brain to reinforce that thing. And so
Speaker 1: like our actions, you know, your actions are never just
Speaker 1: that one action in the moment. It's also changing your
Speaker 1: future predisposition. But it seems like the one great thing
Speaker 1: about psychedelics is they have at least some sort of power,
Speaker 1: often reported anecdotally, to to to get in there and
Speaker 1: mess with that code, to give you more ability to
Speaker 1: overcome your habitual behaviors and try to do something different. Yeah,
Speaker 1: to shake up the snow globe, and and again again.
Speaker 1: The research this is it goes beyond just sort of
Speaker 1: the subjective experience. But I mean we see the research
Speaker 1: in uh, the ability to combat combat addiction addiction, and
Speaker 1: like that is a that is certainly a more concrete
Speaker 1: area of like here's the here's the coding, here's the
Speaker 1: program that's been put in place, and then here we
Speaker 1: are just we're seeing its disruption. Alright, So we have
Speaker 1: just a few more. These are some short ones to
Speaker 1: close it out. I'm gonna read this one listening rites
Speaker 1: and it says I've been enjoying the five part series
Speaker 1: on psychedelics. Great examination given to this topic. I particularly
Speaker 1: enjoy the discussion of the other. At the end of
Speaker 1: the first installment, the foray and gnostic belief was quite apt.
Speaker 1: I experienced a similar feeling during a few psychedelic experiences,
Speaker 1: and this detail lended more to a feeling I used
Speaker 1: to think was unique. However, my whole gnostic experience happened
Speaker 1: after reading way too much HP Lovecraft in my freshman
Speaker 1: year of college, and that produced a monolithic Cyclopean fear
Speaker 1: that I cannot describe of which is fitting. That's very okay, uh.
Speaker 1: Over the less, I think that the other produced by psychedelics,
Speaker 1: the disassociation from reality and the fallibility of perception, is
Speaker 1: a real benefit from these substances. I look forward to
Speaker 1: future research on psychedelics, especially the use of micro dosis.
Speaker 1: Some of the best transcendent moments of my teens in
Speaker 1: early adulthood were aided by consumption of small amounts of
Speaker 1: psychedelics in the company of close friends. Taking some mushrooms
Speaker 1: and hiking up a small mountain can really offer you
Speaker 1: some perspective. I would like to see a time when
Speaker 1: responsible and private use of psychedelics is more accepted. I
Speaker 1: couldn't help but think of Roger from mad Men. When
Speaker 1: I was listening to the series. Oh yeah, yeah, this happened.
Speaker 1: Later on, he ends up taking I never finished mad Man.
Speaker 1: I think I just watched the first season or something.
Speaker 1: Oh it's I. I enjoyed the whole the whole journey.
Speaker 1: But yeah, Roger ends up taking out. I want to say,
Speaker 1: he ends up going over to an individual's house and
Speaker 1: I can't remember what historic figure that may or may
Speaker 1: not supposed to be like, but anyway, he goes, and
Speaker 1: he's introduced to last Anyway, listen, the writer continues his
Speaker 1: love of LSD and his habitual use in later in
Speaker 1: the later seasons paints and image of how even successful
Speaker 1: people in business could enjoy that kind of cleansing feeling
Speaker 1: that psychedelics evoke. Great show. I love listening to this
Speaker 1: podcast on my way to work. Oh well, thanks for
Speaker 1: sharing with us. Wait a minute, what is this about
Speaker 1: the Cyclopean fear that? Uh well, I I take that
Speaker 1: to to mean that, yeah, that there was. The psychedelic
Speaker 1: experience was initially influenced by reading too much HP Lovecraft,
Speaker 1: which sounds like not a great bad story hearing, uh,
Speaker 1: you know, but it's funny. HP Lovecraft also gets to
Speaker 1: the ineffable much like the mystical experience as this quality
Speaker 1: of ineffability one of the most common things, at least
Speaker 1: in my you know, I'm not as deeply read on HP. Lovecraft,
Speaker 1: I think as you were, as a lot of other
Speaker 1: people are. But I recognize in that and in some
Speaker 1: other horror writers of the period this very common thing
Speaker 1: about just like not being able to describe the feeling
Speaker 1: of horror experienced. Yeah, yeah, yeah, that's just a common
Speaker 1: trope of of Lovecrafts writing. But then yeah, other writers
Speaker 1: working at the time, and and writers have come and
Speaker 1: you know, in the tradition to follow. Um. But but yeah,
Speaker 1: at the same time, it's very like there's no empathy there,
Speaker 1: Like it's kind of an anti psychedelic like well a
Speaker 1: darkly psychedelic description of things, I guess. But anyway, I
Speaker 1: guess part of the thing to think about is I
Speaker 1: guess that the brain is going to build your experience
Speaker 1: out of whatever you've been feeding in to a certain extent. So, um,
Speaker 1: he was this individuals feeding at Lovecraft and this is
Speaker 1: what they got. Well, I hope this has been informative.
Speaker 1: After we uh, you know, explored the sort of historical
Speaker 1: and scientific reports for a number of episodes now to
Speaker 1: just hear these like first hand anecdotes and experiences from
Speaker 1: all these listeners and and other people. Yeah, yeah, this
Speaker 1: was This was great. So I appreciate everyone who wrote in.
Speaker 1: If you wrote in or or you know somehow try
Speaker 1: to communicate with us on this and we didn't respond
Speaker 1: or read your your thoughts here, just you know, bear
Speaker 1: in mind that we we we did read them. We
Speaker 1: read everything that comes in, and we do appreciate you
Speaker 1: sharing your thoughts with us. And likewise, if you didn't
Speaker 1: you know, hit the deadline on this and you have
Speaker 1: you have you have additional thoughts, well we'll send those in.
Speaker 1: Anyway we may return to We won't do a dedicated
Speaker 1: listener mail on this topic again, but you know, we
Speaker 1: may carve out the in portion of a future listener
Speaker 1: mail episode to consider future emails related to the psychedelic
Speaker 1: experience totally. And for that matter, I mean, we may
Speaker 1: do future episodes about psychedelics because again, the research is ongoing.
Speaker 1: We may see some some really cool studies in the
Speaker 1: next year or two and we'll have no choice but
Speaker 1: to return to them. So I mean, hopefully that's the case.
Speaker 1: I hope. So I don't think we'll do another five
Speaker 1: part series, but but you know it's something. Yeah, we're
Speaker 1: we're we're fascinating. New avenues of of inquiry will continuously
Speaker 1: pop up. Yeah, and the ultimately, I think it would
Speaker 1: be fun to like what we do come back to it,
Speaker 1: have like a single study to focus in on, Like
Speaker 1: here's a new study, here's what they did, here's what
Speaker 1: their their findings are, and and and here's what we
Speaker 1: can we can clean from that. Oh yeah, I think
Speaker 1: I already mentioned. One that came up in the episode
Speaker 1: we didn't get into in depth was like the research
Speaker 1: on adult personality change. I imagine if more stuff comes
Speaker 1: out about that, maybe we'll explore that in a future episode. Yeah,
Speaker 1: all right. In the meantime, if you want to check
Speaker 1: out more episodes of Stuff to Blow your Mind, head
Speaker 1: on over to Stuff to Blow your Mind dot com.
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Speaker 1: thanks to our excellent audio producer say Maya Cole. If
Speaker 1: you would like to get in touch with us with
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