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Speaker 1: Brought to you by the two thousand twelve Toyota Cameray.

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Speaker 1: It's ready. Are you welcome to Stuff to Blow Your Mind?

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Speaker 1: From how Stuff Works dot com? Hey, welcome to Stuff

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Speaker 1: to Blow your Mind. My name is Robert lamp and

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Speaker 1: I'm Julie Teplas. Just up front, I want to mention

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Speaker 1: that on this podcast and the other Shaman and Scientists

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Speaker 1: podcast that we're putting out, we are gonna be talking

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Speaker 1: about psychedelics and by which any psychedelic drugs of it.

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Speaker 1: So just be aware we're gonna handle this and a

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Speaker 1: mature science backboned since but I know that this subject

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Speaker 1: is probably not for everybody, So just a fair warning

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Speaker 1: that that's what we're gonna be talking about. And we

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Speaker 1: do not advocate the use of psychedelic substances and illicit

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Speaker 1: substances at all in orders you not to do them,

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Speaker 1: but the science behind them is really fascinating. The current

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Speaker 1: scientific investigations of how they affect our mind and what

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Speaker 1: they can help uncover about how our minds work is

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Speaker 1: totally aim totally in our wheelhouse, so we just had

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Speaker 1: to cover it. We've covered a little bit in the past,

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Speaker 1: so here another couple of slices from that particular cake. Yeah,

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Speaker 1: and we just couldn't help it because a lot of

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Speaker 1: times we talk about what is consciousness and we'll get

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Speaker 1: deeper into that question in this podcast, but psychedelics, turns out,

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Speaker 1: can help us answer that question or get a little

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Speaker 1: bit closer to what we think consciousness is. Um. But

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Speaker 1: all of this was actually inspired by a talk that

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Speaker 1: you went to, Yes, and you went to in a sense, yeah, yeah,

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Speaker 1: via the wonderful recording that you took of it. Um.

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Speaker 1: It was a talk at Emory University. Yeah. Yes, it

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Speaker 1: was called four I Am the Black Jaguar. Well, it

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Speaker 1: was part of the four I Am the Black Jaguar exhibit,

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Speaker 1: which is an art exhibit they did having to do

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Speaker 1: with shamanistic visionary experience in ancient American art. So a

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Speaker 1: lot of ancient American art that depicts things that that

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Speaker 1: you know, it might be jaguars, it might be mushroom men,

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Speaker 1: things of this nature that have something to do with

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Speaker 1: shamanistic traditions, particularly as they relate to m the consumption

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Speaker 1: of psychedelic psychotrophic substances, and a lot of it too,

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Speaker 1: is this unity with nature and this unity of man

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Speaker 1: where the duality, I should say, of of human and

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Speaker 1: animal and then the bringing together of of these different

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Speaker 1: aspects of our humanness. And the talk that I attended

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Speaker 1: was given by Dr Catherine McLean and also Dr Charles

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Speaker 1: Raison was there as well. But McLean is particularly interesting

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Speaker 1: because she is involved with some really groundbreaking investigations at

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Speaker 1: John Hopkins where they are looking into again how these

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Speaker 1: substances affect the human mind and human consciousness and human

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Speaker 1: perceptions and what that can tell us about how our

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Speaker 1: brains actually work. Because it's one of the things she

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Speaker 1: pointed out in her talk is that, you know, we're

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Speaker 1: talking about how these things change our consciousness, affect our consciousness,

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Speaker 1: and we already have a difficult time actually saying what

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Speaker 1: human consciousness is and how it works. To get back

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Speaker 1: to the title of the episode, we're talking about the

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Speaker 1: show like the voice she did, so can you do

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Speaker 1: that again on the title of not just the episode,

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Speaker 1: but of the exhibit before I Am the Black Chack War. Yes, yeh.

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Speaker 1: I was listening to an old Timothy Leary album earlier

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Speaker 1: to get kind of stoked because Larry was first of scientists,

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Speaker 1: then a shaman and anyway, we're gonna get into that

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Speaker 1: a little more. But on the surface of things, you

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Speaker 1: have the shaman in one category, and the scientists and

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Speaker 1: the other. Right, dragging in a lot of stereotypes here,

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Speaker 1: But the shaman, you think of the shaman, you think

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Speaker 1: of somebody that's spiritual. They're ritualistic, their magical, their heart felt.

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Speaker 1: They might have a really long beard and varying degrees

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Speaker 1: of robes or no robes at all, right, man or woman,

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Speaker 1: Man or woman. Then you have the scientist, which again

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Speaker 1: can be a man or a woman, but logical, meticulous, reasoned, um,

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Speaker 1: with a certain amount of distance between themselves and their

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Speaker 1: their feelings and the subject matter they're looking into. So we,

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Speaker 1: on the surface of things, we tend to think of

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Speaker 1: these very very different different people and very different modes

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Speaker 1: of perception when it comes to the realities of the

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Speaker 1: world and the realities of the mind. But the curious thing, okay,

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Speaker 1: is that all right? So the shaman he looks inward.

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Speaker 1: Here she looks inward at the mysteries of the soul

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Speaker 1: and human consciousness, and so too, of course, does the

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Speaker 1: cognitive neuroscientist. So um, you know, the questions of who

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Speaker 1: are we? What's the root cause? Of human suffering, how

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Speaker 1: do we achieve liberation from it? How can we treat

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Speaker 1: mental illness? Questions of these natures nature are on various

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Speaker 1: levels covered by both sides. So while they're they're very different.

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Speaker 1: If you were to form a then diagram, you know,

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Speaker 1: with the two circles with partial overlap, and you had

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Speaker 1: one circle as the shaman, one circle as the the neuroscientists,

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Speaker 1: there would be a definite overlap there. Now, of course,

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Speaker 1: the shaman helps you explore these questions by bringing into

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Speaker 1: a sacred space, producing a tray of magical substances that,

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Speaker 1: when consumed, alter your perception uh an experience of reality,

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Speaker 1: setting you on a journey of exploration. Meanwhile, the scientist

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Speaker 1: brings you to a lab, right, gives you a pill

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Speaker 1: that might be a pocebo, and then run some tests

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Speaker 1: on you, maybe throws you into a brain imaging machine,

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Speaker 1: or puts you up to some sensors. Right, these seem

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Speaker 1: like very different scenarios the one might find oneself in.

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Speaker 1: But then there's also some interesting overlap here as well,

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Speaker 1: particularly a John Hopkins University School of Medicine. That's where

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Speaker 1: again Dr Kathery McClain conducts her research along with a

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Speaker 1: very talented assortment of professionals, and they find themselves not

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Speaker 1: going completely halfway between the shaman and the scientists, but

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Speaker 1: entering a little more into that shamanistic territory because they

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Speaker 1: keep like a calm, meditative space to put the test

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Speaker 1: subjects in when they are given some of these psychedelic substances.

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Speaker 1: And Kathery McClain in this talk at Emory actually spoke

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Speaker 1: a bit about her role as a kind of guide

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Speaker 1: for these people too, because they end up trying to

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Speaker 1: to color their experiences to a to an extent, you know,

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Speaker 1: to to guide their trip, as it were, in a

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Speaker 1: direction that's more positive so that they can study it. Yeah,

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Speaker 1: we talked about this a bit in our podcast about

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Speaker 1: hallucinogens and stage four cancer patients who were taking hallucinogens

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Speaker 1: in an effort to try to um get over this

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Speaker 1: huge obstacle of fear that was really actually um just

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Speaker 1: sort of affecting them on a level where they were

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Speaker 1: like deer in the headlights. They couldn't even operate in

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Speaker 1: the space of their lives anymore. And so um, you know,

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Speaker 1: we've talked about this idea where in a lab setting

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Speaker 1: you want to have a level of trust. You want

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Speaker 1: to make it as comforting as possible. And so the researchers,

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Speaker 1: the scientists are, as you say, taking on this persona

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Speaker 1: of guide, of spiritual guide to a certain extent, because

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Speaker 1: they have to guide people through this. And I think

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Speaker 1: it's really interesting that Kathleen McClain is also a Buddhist

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Speaker 1: and she does kind of inhabit that space of the

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Speaker 1: Shloman from time to time, heavy in the meditation and

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Speaker 1: all that. And I can't help to think about another

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Speaker 1: past podcast, UM having to do with magicians and neuroscience,

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Speaker 1: because again you've got neuroscience looking at magicians, UM, looking

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Speaker 1: at these hundreds of years old practices and trying to

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Speaker 1: learn something about reality and illusion on how our mind

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Speaker 1: tricks us. And what is so central to this idea

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Speaker 1: of mind trickery, I think, is something called the monkey mind.

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Speaker 1: And probably a lot of you out there are familiar

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Speaker 1: with this concept that this constant chatter in our brains

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Speaker 1: um can sometimes hamstring us when we're trying to accomplish

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Speaker 1: things in our lives UM. And of course this all

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Speaker 1: points back to the question of consciousness and this idea

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Speaker 1: about whether or not consciousness is actually a static thing.

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Speaker 1: Now McLain and her talk says, I'm not quite sure

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Speaker 1: consciousness is something that is coherent. Um. But again it's

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Speaker 1: this idea of trying to get into what's going on

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Speaker 1: in these three pounds of computation material in our brains. UM.

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Speaker 1: She says. You know, it's hard to to really try

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Speaker 1: to pin it down and figure out what's going on.

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Speaker 1: She says, we can't explain normal consciousness in terms of neuroscience,

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Speaker 1: so explaining altered states of consciousness is even more difficult.

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Speaker 1: And UM, I also wanted to point this out too,

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Speaker 1: as we begin to delve into consciousness and the monkey mind. UM.

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Speaker 1: I've brought this up before. There was a study by

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Speaker 1: Harvard psychologist Daniel Gilbert and Matthew Killingsworth, and they actually

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Speaker 1: developed an iPhone app that would track people's um waking

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Speaker 1: states and their ability to concentrate and so on and

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Speaker 1: so forth, and something like a people participated in this

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Speaker 1: study and what they found was that mind wandering is

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Speaker 1: something that takes up half of our time. And that

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Speaker 1: seems pretty big, but when you step back and you

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Speaker 1: look at it throughout the day, you know, how when

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Speaker 1: you're not speaking, when you're not um doing something that

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Speaker 1: really requires you to fire in all four cylinders. What

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Speaker 1: are you doing your daydreaming? Right? So, hence you've got

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Speaker 1: this monkey mind, and hence you have this idea that

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Speaker 1: maybe some of those consciousness points back to this chatter

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Speaker 1: in our brains. Yeah. There you see that this represented

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Speaker 1: various ways to another out modes of thought outside of science.

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Speaker 1: There's always a classic vision of the guy with a

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Speaker 1: demon on one shoulder and an angel on the other,

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Speaker 1: these little voices that are chattering at him saying you

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Speaker 1: should be doing this, No, you should be doing this.

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Speaker 1: You should steal that candy bar. No, you should pay

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Speaker 1: for that candy bar with with hard earned money. Can

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Speaker 1: you steal it? Um? I always try and compromise still

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Speaker 1: half of it by the other half. But it's the

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Speaker 1: classic more dilemma, whether to steal the candy bar. But

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Speaker 1: then you also have people like new age guru Akarta

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Speaker 1: who calls it the go a mind, and you see

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Speaker 1: that term thrown around a lot as well, this idea

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Speaker 1: that it's a this this mode of thinking that's very

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Speaker 1: tied into who I am, what my story is. We've

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Speaker 1: talked about that before. When we're talking about storytelling, the

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Speaker 1: power of storytelling, and how we all kind of see

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Speaker 1: our lives in this mode of story. I am the

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Speaker 1: central character in my story, and these are the obstacles

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Speaker 1: I am up against. These are the things I have achieved,

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Speaker 1: and these are the things that I've lost. Um So

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Speaker 1: it's this default mode network, as it's called in the

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Speaker 1: scientific papers. Not to be confused with Depeche mode network,

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Speaker 1: because that's that would waver between just can't get enough

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Speaker 1: in black celebration, Whereas the default mode network is again

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Speaker 1: this this this sort of idol thinking zone, and you know,

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Speaker 1: it's it's it's in it's better states, it's introspective, it's daydreaming,

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Speaker 1: and it's worst states. It's depressive. It's that that demon

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Speaker 1: on your shoulder beating you up and saying, oh, these

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Speaker 1: are the things that that I don't have anymore. These

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Speaker 1: are the things about me to suck and and then

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Speaker 1: and I'm never going to succeed and this kind of thing. Yeah,

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Speaker 1: I mean, this is where when we start talking about

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Speaker 1: consciousness and defining the eye of ourselves, you start to

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Speaker 1: look at the default mode network because this is where

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Speaker 1: you have your pastiche of memories, feelings, and thoughts and

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Speaker 1: again that chatter that me, me, me. What we're talking

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Speaker 1: about when we talk about the default mode network is

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Speaker 1: the medial prefrontal cortex, the medial parietal cortex, and the

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Speaker 1: medial temporal lobes. The idea, there's a couple of different

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Speaker 1: theories about what they're doing. UM. The idea is that

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Speaker 1: these associations between these different parts of the brain are

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Speaker 1: the brain's baseline of processing and information, where we consolidate

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Speaker 1: experiences and we prepare to react to the environment. The

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Speaker 1: second theory is that it also facilitates stream of conscious thought,

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Speaker 1: also known as stimulus independent thought, which I think is

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Speaker 1: really interesting to note. Stimulus independent thought meaning you're not

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Speaker 1: even aware of your surroundings. You're just chattering, chattering, chattering

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Speaker 1: to me. I think of it as like, you know,

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Speaker 1: driving to work every day and I pull into the

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Speaker 1: parking lot and go, oh, how did I get here?

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Speaker 1: I don't really have a memory of that because I

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Speaker 1: was so consumed with my own thoughts. UM. So sort

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Speaker 1: of stuff that you see in daydreaming. Again, keep in

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Speaker 1: mind that half of our day is spent in this

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Speaker 1: state of daydreaming. UM, And it's important not hear It

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Speaker 1: also totally takes you out of your surroundings. You know,

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Speaker 1: like on your your drive to work, if you kind

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Speaker 1: of go into autopilot mode and suddenly you're there, because

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Speaker 1: it's like you weren't actually on that drive to work.

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Speaker 1: You were wrapped up in these thoughts of what happened

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Speaker 1: yesterday or what's going to happen, and with the rest

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Speaker 1: of your day, uh, totally wrapped up in your thought life.

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Speaker 1: You everything else in your surroundings, be it you know,

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Speaker 1: the the highway on the drive to work, or a

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Speaker 1: beautiful park or the love of your family, all of

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Speaker 1: it just kind of fades as this inner dialogue kicks up.

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Speaker 1: And by pointing out the parts of the brain, I

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Speaker 1: think that's the really amazing part here is that you know,

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Speaker 1: on one hand, we're talking about the devil and angel

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Speaker 1: on your soldiers, we're talking about grasping in the Buddhist

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Speaker 1: sense for for things that you want or don't have,

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Speaker 1: and and all of this this inner and kind of

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Speaker 1: spiritual stuff. But we can actually look at the brain

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Speaker 1: and and look at the part the network that lights

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Speaker 1: up when when this kind of thinking takes place, right

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Speaker 1: and this this kind of thinking does need to happen, right,

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Speaker 1: because it is balancing this sense of self and this ego,

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Speaker 1: and again it's giving us some sort of um consciousness

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Speaker 1: or idea of ourselves through this process. The problem, of course,

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Speaker 1: is when there's hyperactivity in this area. It's like like

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Speaker 1: when a dog has some sort of problem on its skin. Right,

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Speaker 1: it's gonna lick, it's gonna know a little bit. But

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Speaker 1: then it gets out of hand when that gnawing and

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Speaker 1: that looking never stops, when it turns into self harm.

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Speaker 1: And certainly we see that time and time again in

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Speaker 1: patients who have a variety of mental problems, where we

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Speaker 1: see that that see this heightened activity in this default

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Speaker 1: mode network. Yeah, and according to Dr Charles Grayson, who

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Speaker 1: is also part of that talk, people with depression exhibit

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Speaker 1: hyperactivity in the default mode network. So, as you say,

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Speaker 1: it's fascinating because you can literally point to that brain

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Speaker 1: scan and you can see that hyperactivity and you can

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Speaker 1: see that it's the cause of some of this depression.

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Speaker 1: Because now think about that chattering in this um, this

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Speaker 1: idea of that that chattering is absolutely involved with self

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Speaker 1: and worry. So what you have going on is is

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Speaker 1: this sort of midline chatter that is encouraging a person

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Speaker 1: to turn inward. And then in addition to that hyperactive

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Speaker 1: default mode network, it becomes more and more entangled with

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Speaker 1: the anterior singular cortex, which is responsible for the fear response.

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Speaker 1: So not only do you have this turning in word,

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Speaker 1: you now have a fear factor that's involved, and this

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Speaker 1: can contribute really heavily to depression. So we bring all

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Speaker 1: of this up because this is really important in terms

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Speaker 1: of um some experiments with hallucinogens and perhaps relieving this depression.

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Speaker 1: This quieting the default mode network as well as meditation, right,

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Speaker 1: and before we get that, do, of course need to stress.

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Speaker 1: The thing about the default mode network is that under

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Speaker 1: normal situations, it's more active during rest than it is

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Speaker 1: during cast performance. So it's it's when you're in that uh,

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Speaker 1: that easy state of driving to work a road that

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Speaker 1: you travel every day, or you're waiting on something, you're

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Speaker 1: just sitting around, it's it's like the screen saver of

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Speaker 1: your mind. But if you're busy, if you are just

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Speaker 1: vigorously trying to get something done at the last minute,

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Speaker 1: or you're in that state of flow the job or

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Speaker 1: a hobby that you love, or certainly if you're engaging

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Speaker 1: saying yoga where you're you're totally in your body and

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Speaker 1: not in your mind, we see that network shut down

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Speaker 1: to a certain extent. Yeah, I'm glad you brought that up,

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Speaker 1: because there is this idea of getting outside of yourself. Right,

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Speaker 1: So if you're doing something that's in a state of flow,

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Speaker 1: then you're getting outside of that chatter and that that mind,

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Speaker 1: and you're quieting the default mode network. Now, this is

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Speaker 1: where we're gonna get a little more back into into psychedelics.

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Speaker 1: And I just want to do a quick note about

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Speaker 1: the nature of psychedelicis just reminded about what we're talking

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Speaker 1: about here. Okay, uh for the most part, especially as

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Speaker 1: far as shamanistic practices go, you know, ancient spiritual practices

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Speaker 1: that date back long before ability to create synthetic drugs.

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Speaker 1: We're talking about naturally occur ring substances such as psilocybin, mushrooms, iowa,

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Speaker 1: sa vines. We're talking about peyote, cacti, and other naturally

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Speaker 1: occurring psychoactics, active substances in vegetation in animals, um you know, toads, centipedes,

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Speaker 1: what have you. And then when taken they have the

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Speaker 1: potential to alter vultually every level of awareness and experience. Now,

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Speaker 1: some of you listening may have had some sort of

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Speaker 1: experiences with this kind of altered state of mind, either

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Speaker 1: naturally occurring or due to illness or any other lucid dreaming,

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Speaker 1: sometimes dreaming, and sometimes in this chac But for for

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Speaker 1: a lot of a lot of other people, you may

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Speaker 1: think you may hear about, you know, tripping on psychedelics,

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Speaker 1: and you instantly think of the movie Fear and Loathing

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Speaker 1: in Las Vegas, or any number of movies that have

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Speaker 1: attempted to show an altered state of of awareness and perception.

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Speaker 1: It's kind of kind of like Hollywood tripping. And it's

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Speaker 1: important to note that while yes, if one took enough

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Speaker 1: of certain hallucinogens, they could have this kind of very visual,

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Speaker 1: crazy fantastic experience of dinosaurs climb ending out of the

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Speaker 1: walls and all that. Yes, that's that's possible, but that's

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Speaker 1: not that in and of itself, is just like one

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Speaker 1: slice of the cake. There are a lot of other

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Speaker 1: modes of perception and modes of understanding that can be

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Speaker 1: altered by psychedelics. We're talking about changes in your awareness

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Speaker 1: of your own body of visual peculiarities, audible peculiarities, strangeness

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Speaker 1: and thought and perception, in the experience of time and self.

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Speaker 1: So pretty much any way that we think or see

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Speaker 1: the world can be tweaked, you know, because when we

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Speaker 1: talked again earlier, like what is consciousness? All right, Well,

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Speaker 1: what do we know about how we think and what

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Speaker 1: our brain is. We know that their chemical processes, that

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Speaker 1: biological processes, and it's subject to change. You can change

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Speaker 1: the way you think by looking at a puppy or

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Speaker 1: or or a cat. We've talked about that before. They're

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Speaker 1: there are all sorts of ways to tweak what you're

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Speaker 1: experiencing and how you're experiencing the world and how you're

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Speaker 1: constructing this world that you perceive. We talked about, you know,

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Speaker 1: the whole child versus adult. The child has this lamplight

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Speaker 1: of view of the world and that the human has

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Speaker 1: the flashlight view. I mean, all of this is we're

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Speaker 1: talking about changes in perception and these substances, and depending

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Speaker 1: on what a person takes, how much they take, and

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Speaker 1: also an individual's particular biochemistry, it'll it'll affect that person

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Speaker 1: on varying levels. Yes, So I think it's interesting to

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Speaker 1: introduce it like that because there are various ways, as

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Speaker 1: you say, we can change our perception, and you can

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Speaker 1: sort of do it a little bit or a lot,

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Speaker 1: and certainly through something like psilocybin, that is something that

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Speaker 1: will get you into that spot where you are sort

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Speaker 1: of blowing open the doors of perception. And that is

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Speaker 1: why scientists use it, because they are trying to figure

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Speaker 1: out how it is interacting with the brain, what it's

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Speaker 1: doing um to personality as well. So we talked about

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Speaker 1: the default mode network and depression. Then it makes sense

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Speaker 1: that neuroscientists want to look at psilocybin and see what

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Speaker 1: sort of effect it has on the human brain. Yeah. Now,

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Speaker 1: another interesting thing about research into this, and we've stopped

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Speaker 1: in this in the past, and around the mid fifties,

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Speaker 1: twin science really got got interested in psychedelics and and

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Speaker 1: that's also you know, you saw the the advent of

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Speaker 1: LSD in that age, and you also saw of course,

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Speaker 1: the rise of the counterculture and all that. So by

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Speaker 1: the end of the nineteen sixties you saw the the

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Speaker 1: end of actual research into this because it started off

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Speaker 1: people were looking into Okay, what are these chemicals doing,

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Speaker 1: how are they affecting the mind. And then you have

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Speaker 1: Timothy Leary out there, but you know, again initially approaching

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Speaker 1: things from a more scientific standpoint, but then becoming more

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Speaker 1: and more of a cultural figure and more of the

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Speaker 1: shaman and less of the scientists. And then eventually you

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Speaker 1: have people like John C. Lily who are just taking

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Speaker 1: LSD in there in the tank next to the apartment

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Speaker 1: in which the dolphin lives, so that he can communicate

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Speaker 1: with the dolphin people, and and subsequently losing his funding

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Speaker 1: because eventually it just gets so natty that they pull

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Speaker 1: his funding. So you're right, it starts to get clouded

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Speaker 1: with this idea that it's not a good idea to

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Speaker 1: research this culturally, politically, it just falls off until basically,

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Speaker 1: I'm saw the dawn of the twenty century and and

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Speaker 1: so we that's where we are now a decade and

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Speaker 1: some change into that. Yeah, the nineties really saw a

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Speaker 1: resurgence in this, and particularly the last couple of years too,

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Speaker 1: we've seen a ton of data coming online about this um.

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Speaker 1: But when we talk about the default mode network and

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Speaker 1: depression in psilocybin, it's important to talk about someone named

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Speaker 1: David Jane Nutt. He is a psychiatrist at the Imperial

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Speaker 1: College of London and his team recruited fifteen healthy people,

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Speaker 1: people that they made sure to scan beforehand, and they

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Speaker 1: are that they were sound and mind and body UM.

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Speaker 1: And then they also wanted to make sure that these

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Speaker 1: people had previous experience taking ho lucinogens. This is key

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Speaker 1: and this is something that McLean brought up in her

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Speaker 1: talk as well. Because you're bringing people into experiment UM,

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Speaker 1: you know how their brains work and how they perceive

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Speaker 1: things in the state. You don't want to be to

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Speaker 1: introduce them to it for the first time because that

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Speaker 1: can be a very overwhelming and frightening experience. Better that

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Speaker 1: the that the test subjects have some experience with this

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Speaker 1: altered state of awareness, some sort of context, so that

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Speaker 1: they can study the effects of it better. Over a

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Speaker 1: two day period, the researchers monitored activity in the brains

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Speaker 1: of these volunteers as they land a scanner for up

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Speaker 1: to an hour. On the first day, participants received an

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Speaker 1: intravenous shot of the placebo solution UH. The next day,

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Speaker 1: they got a shot of psilocybin that was dozed to

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Speaker 1: peak about UH let me see about four minutes, and

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Speaker 1: then was mostly over At about thirty minutes. We're trying

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Speaker 1: to short short amount of time here. Yeah, because the

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Speaker 1: traditional you know, hippie way of taking these in the

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Speaker 1: shamanistic way of taking these substances, of course, just to

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Speaker 1: eat it, which then is a gradual absorption, gradual shrip

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Speaker 1: that without grad you know, thinking hippie, you know, anyone

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Speaker 1: who would say, pick one of these things in the

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Speaker 1: natural world and then eat it, that is going to

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Speaker 1: be a slower uptake and then a slower fall off.

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Speaker 1: But this is introduced with I V. So it's just

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Speaker 1: like a rocket ship. On a side note too, it's

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Speaker 1: probably really obvious to the participants which was the placebo

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Speaker 1: in which was the actual psilocybin in this case. Don't

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Speaker 1: you think I have to guess there's not much of

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Speaker 1: a placebo effect? Yeah, I mean, yeah, definitely. So all

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Speaker 1: of the participants described kaleidoscope vision with images of bright

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Speaker 1: and angular shapes um the rush of the first tend

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Speaker 1: to thirty seconds and do some fear nuts said, but

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Speaker 1: positive feelings then swept over them, and many participants said

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Speaker 1: that the benefits of the experience were profound, and they

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Speaker 1: felt that they had moved on from where they had

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Speaker 1: been um. So what they found when they were scanning

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Speaker 1: the brains of these participants was a decrease in both

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Speaker 1: blood flow and metabolism in several key areas after injection.

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Speaker 1: So we're talking about the anterior singulate cortex, So that

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Speaker 1: was the one that I mentioned that has a lot

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Speaker 1: to do with the the fear and pain response. And

428
00:22:49,520 --> 00:22:55,000
Speaker 1: also they saw that default mode network quieting itself. So

429
00:22:55,040 --> 00:22:58,520
Speaker 1: what they found is that here is this way that

430
00:22:58,600 --> 00:23:03,040
Speaker 1: you can dial on hyperactivity or activity in general in

431
00:23:03,080 --> 00:23:06,880
Speaker 1: this area of the brain and perhaps relieve depression through

432
00:23:06,880 --> 00:23:10,280
Speaker 1: this process. And on one level, I mean, how into

433
00:23:10,359 --> 00:23:12,159
Speaker 1: your own problems can you be if the wall is

434
00:23:12,160 --> 00:23:15,680
Speaker 1: breathing right, that's true, there's not a lot of mimim

435
00:23:15,880 --> 00:23:18,720
Speaker 1: going on, and it is interested Along those lines, one

436
00:23:18,760 --> 00:23:20,520
Speaker 1: of the things that mcclaimntioned is how a lot of

437
00:23:20,560 --> 00:23:22,760
Speaker 1: this research she feels needs to get out of the

438
00:23:22,840 --> 00:23:27,760
Speaker 1: lab and deal with because traditionally, shamanistically they're not taking

439
00:23:27,800 --> 00:23:30,840
Speaker 1: these substances and then watching twin peaks in the basement,

440
00:23:30,920 --> 00:23:33,879
Speaker 1: you know, they're they're not shutting their eyes and playing

441
00:23:33,920 --> 00:23:37,480
Speaker 1: in some headphones. Now they're taking them in nature. They're

442
00:23:37,520 --> 00:23:41,480
Speaker 1: they're experiencing the natural world through these substances. Granted, they're

443
00:23:41,480 --> 00:23:46,000
Speaker 1: experiencing an altered understanding and experience of the natural world,

444
00:23:46,119 --> 00:23:49,040
Speaker 1: but it's a rather different kettle fish than taking it

445
00:23:49,080 --> 00:23:52,480
Speaker 1: inside of a closed environment. So again, someone is suddenly

446
00:23:52,520 --> 00:23:56,399
Speaker 1: becoming more aware of what's around them and outside of themselves,

447
00:23:56,960 --> 00:24:00,560
Speaker 1: as opposed to that same saddled story about who they

448
00:24:00,560 --> 00:24:03,080
Speaker 1: are and what their their deal is. Now there's still

449
00:24:03,080 --> 00:24:06,240
Speaker 1: the question about how long this um this can actually

450
00:24:06,240 --> 00:24:08,679
Speaker 1: affect person, and that's what they're trying to still go

451
00:24:08,720 --> 00:24:11,080
Speaker 1: through this data and figure out if these are long

452
00:24:11,200 --> 00:24:14,880
Speaker 1: term meaningful changes in terms of alleviating depression. And we'll

453
00:24:14,880 --> 00:24:17,840
Speaker 1: talk more about that in in part two of this episode.

454
00:24:18,040 --> 00:24:20,199
Speaker 1: So I did want to mention that there's another way

455
00:24:20,240 --> 00:24:23,760
Speaker 1: to go about quieting the default mode network, and right

456
00:24:23,800 --> 00:24:25,960
Speaker 1: now it seems to be the best way to go

457
00:24:26,000 --> 00:24:30,080
Speaker 1: about it in terms of sustaining long term, meaningful changes

458
00:24:30,160 --> 00:24:33,480
Speaker 1: to your brain. And this is through meditation, yes, and

459
00:24:33,520 --> 00:24:36,119
Speaker 1: this is yeah, this is really fascinating. We spoke earlier.

460
00:24:36,119 --> 00:24:38,120
Speaker 1: You know, when you when you're looking at the brain

461
00:24:38,160 --> 00:24:40,040
Speaker 1: and activity in the brain, you can we're able to

462
00:24:40,040 --> 00:24:45,320
Speaker 1: identify what's happening with this particular network we're identifying this, uh,

463
00:24:45,400 --> 00:24:49,520
Speaker 1: this default mode network, and then under psilocybin, we're watching

464
00:24:49,560 --> 00:24:52,800
Speaker 1: the activity there decrease. But then the same thing occurs.

465
00:24:53,320 --> 00:24:57,240
Speaker 1: The same decreation occurs during meditation. Now it's important to

466
00:24:57,280 --> 00:25:02,160
Speaker 1: note here that that the similar brain activity in brain scans,

467
00:25:03,040 --> 00:25:05,399
Speaker 1: that doesn't mean it's the same experience. So it's not

468
00:25:05,480 --> 00:25:08,479
Speaker 1: saying that that anyone going into meditation should you know,

469
00:25:09,160 --> 00:25:12,320
Speaker 1: should be seeing crazy amazing things in their mind. Not

470
00:25:12,359 --> 00:25:13,840
Speaker 1: to say that there's not that some of that isn't

471
00:25:13,880 --> 00:25:16,359
Speaker 1: going on, But identical brain scans don't mean the exact

472
00:25:16,359 --> 00:25:18,640
Speaker 1: same experience for the individual. Yeah, I mean, what it's

473
00:25:18,680 --> 00:25:20,840
Speaker 1: pointing to you again is that there's just quieting in

474
00:25:20,840 --> 00:25:24,919
Speaker 1: this chatter area. Dr Judson Brewer, medical director of the

475
00:25:25,000 --> 00:25:29,760
Speaker 1: Yale Therapeutic Neuroscience Clinic, and his colleagues asked ten experienced

476
00:25:29,840 --> 00:25:33,480
Speaker 1: meditators and thirteen people with no meditation experience to practice

477
00:25:33,520 --> 00:25:41,280
Speaker 1: three basic meditation techniques concentration, loving kindness, and choiceless awareness,

478
00:25:42,320 --> 00:25:45,160
Speaker 1: and the team then used fm R I to observe

479
00:25:45,200 --> 00:25:48,480
Speaker 1: the participants in brain activity when they were practicing the techniques,

480
00:25:48,800 --> 00:25:50,919
Speaker 1: and then we are when they were instructed not to

481
00:25:50,960 --> 00:25:54,000
Speaker 1: think of anything in particular, So the experience meditators had

482
00:25:54,040 --> 00:25:59,520
Speaker 1: this decreased activity in the default mode network. Moreover, they

483
00:25:59,560 --> 00:26:01,639
Speaker 1: found out that this region of their brain was much

484
00:26:01,760 --> 00:26:07,440
Speaker 1: quieter than in their inexperienced counterparts. So we've talked about

485
00:26:07,440 --> 00:26:10,280
Speaker 1: this before. The the idea that you can actually change

486
00:26:10,320 --> 00:26:13,640
Speaker 1: your brain to a certain extent through meditation, again long

487
00:26:13,760 --> 00:26:16,639
Speaker 1: term changes, and you'll see this again and again in

488
00:26:16,720 --> 00:26:20,800
Speaker 1: studies with meditators, is that there's just this ability to

489
00:26:20,880 --> 00:26:25,000
Speaker 1: concentrate better, to quiet the chattering mind and not wander

490
00:26:25,040 --> 00:26:27,560
Speaker 1: as much. And I wanted to point this up because again,

491
00:26:27,760 --> 00:26:30,400
Speaker 1: the mind is going to wander. Half of our days

492
00:26:30,440 --> 00:26:34,160
Speaker 1: spent doing this. But there are some studies that point

493
00:26:34,200 --> 00:26:37,000
Speaker 1: to this idea that if you can be conscious of

494
00:26:37,040 --> 00:26:39,600
Speaker 1: your own mind wandering, you can actually be a more

495
00:26:39,640 --> 00:26:42,600
Speaker 1: creative individual. You can harness your thoughts a lot better.

496
00:26:43,200 --> 00:26:45,960
Speaker 1: So again pointing to this idea of meditation as a

497
00:26:45,960 --> 00:26:49,160
Speaker 1: way not only to quiet the monkey mind, but also

498
00:26:49,240 --> 00:26:52,720
Speaker 1: to access some really novel ways of thinking. Yeah, I

499
00:26:52,720 --> 00:26:55,119
Speaker 1: mean that's the You listen to various s gurus on

500
00:26:55,160 --> 00:26:57,200
Speaker 1: this matter, and then that's always like the first step

501
00:26:57,320 --> 00:27:00,639
Speaker 1: is being able to identify the monkey mind, the mind

502
00:27:01,000 --> 00:27:03,560
Speaker 1: the devil on your shoulder, whatever however you choose to

503
00:27:03,560 --> 00:27:06,960
Speaker 1: to see conceive that the default mode network, if you

504
00:27:07,000 --> 00:27:09,680
Speaker 1: can identify it when it's happening, I mean, that's that's

505
00:27:09,680 --> 00:27:12,800
Speaker 1: the first big battle that you can actually stop and say, like,

506
00:27:12,800 --> 00:27:14,920
Speaker 1: what am I doing? What? What are my thoughts doing

507
00:27:15,000 --> 00:27:18,000
Speaker 1: right now? Why am I relaying this stupid idea or

508
00:27:18,000 --> 00:27:20,680
Speaker 1: this silly fear or even this very real fear. Why

509
00:27:20,680 --> 00:27:23,000
Speaker 1: am I occupying my mind with it at this moment?

510
00:27:23,280 --> 00:27:25,840
Speaker 1: And what else could I potentially be using it for?

511
00:27:26,359 --> 00:27:29,200
Speaker 1: Right Or if you're if you realize that your brain

512
00:27:29,280 --> 00:27:31,400
Speaker 1: is working to stay on a problem and turning things

513
00:27:31,440 --> 00:27:33,480
Speaker 1: over and over in your mind, but you know that

514
00:27:33,520 --> 00:27:36,040
Speaker 1: your mind is wandering and it's dealing with this, then

515
00:27:36,119 --> 00:27:38,479
Speaker 1: you can kind of have a breakthrough if you have

516
00:27:38,560 --> 00:27:41,000
Speaker 1: the realization that your mind is doing this, and then

517
00:27:41,200 --> 00:27:43,919
Speaker 1: instead of sort of going into the feedback loop of

518
00:27:44,000 --> 00:27:46,800
Speaker 1: negativity that our brains can kind of do with certain

519
00:27:46,840 --> 00:27:49,640
Speaker 1: stories that we tell ourselves, you catch yourself like, oh,

520
00:27:49,640 --> 00:27:51,600
Speaker 1: this is a problem my brain is working on, and

521
00:27:51,920 --> 00:27:54,679
Speaker 1: you know, maybe there's a solution here. Yeah, Because sometimes

522
00:27:54,720 --> 00:27:56,359
Speaker 1: sometimes you just need to turn the dryer off and

523
00:27:56,400 --> 00:28:00,000
Speaker 1: take the clothes out before the cycle finishers, you know, um,

524
00:28:00,040 --> 00:28:02,399
Speaker 1: month before they get rankled. On the note of meditation

525
00:28:02,600 --> 00:28:07,280
Speaker 1: and hallucinations and psychedelic experiences, I will say that in savasana,

526
00:28:07,520 --> 00:28:09,800
Speaker 1: the period at the end of yoga where one after

527
00:28:09,880 --> 00:28:12,680
Speaker 1: one is don their yoga exercises for you know, an hour,

528
00:28:12,800 --> 00:28:14,760
Speaker 1: hour and a half whatever the the link may be.

529
00:28:15,160 --> 00:28:17,120
Speaker 1: And in this state, you're getting out of your mind,

530
00:28:17,160 --> 00:28:20,199
Speaker 1: You're getting engaged in your body. You're shutting down the

531
00:28:20,200 --> 00:28:23,639
Speaker 1: default mode network just by putting yourself through a lot

532
00:28:23,680 --> 00:28:27,240
Speaker 1: of physical poses and engaging the physical body rather than

533
00:28:27,520 --> 00:28:29,920
Speaker 1: the mind. At the end of that, you go into

534
00:28:30,000 --> 00:28:32,360
Speaker 1: this state where you you either said or you lay

535
00:28:32,400 --> 00:28:33,879
Speaker 1: back or maybe legs up the wall, and you go

536
00:28:33,960 --> 00:28:37,040
Speaker 1: into this this meditative state and and on. On a

537
00:28:37,040 --> 00:28:42,080
Speaker 1: personal note, I regularly see some really crazy stuff during

538
00:28:42,120 --> 00:28:46,480
Speaker 1: that period, you know, colors, explosions, cloud smoke, that kind

539
00:28:46,480 --> 00:28:49,120
Speaker 1: of thing. Occasionally. Um, you know, I see people. I

540
00:28:49,160 --> 00:28:51,400
Speaker 1: don't interact with them or anything that that would be

541
00:28:51,560 --> 00:28:55,040
Speaker 1: a different situation. But um, but but I do have

542
00:28:55,120 --> 00:29:00,160
Speaker 1: these uh these in a sense psychedelic experiences during chava. Know,

543
00:29:00,240 --> 00:29:03,800
Speaker 1: a lot of people do get this well, and so

544
00:29:04,200 --> 00:29:07,040
Speaker 1: that's sort of uh, that's sort of a perfect way

545
00:29:07,080 --> 00:29:09,360
Speaker 1: to segue into what we will talk about in the

546
00:29:09,440 --> 00:29:12,800
Speaker 1: second podcast, which is this idea of whether or not

547
00:29:12,840 --> 00:29:17,680
Speaker 1: hallucinations are natural to humans, to all creatures on the world,

548
00:29:18,400 --> 00:29:21,360
Speaker 1: on the world, in the world. Um, so something will

549
00:29:21,360 --> 00:29:24,280
Speaker 1: explore a little bit more. Yeah, so tune in for that.

550
00:29:24,600 --> 00:29:28,040
Speaker 1: It'll be just another podcast. It's title will be Shaman

551
00:29:28,120 --> 00:29:32,040
Speaker 1: and the Scientist colon Hallucination and it's gonna pick up

552
00:29:32,040 --> 00:29:33,960
Speaker 1: with this one left off. Who knows, I mean, it's

553
00:29:33,960 --> 00:29:35,920
Speaker 1: possibly listen to that one first. Who are we to

554
00:29:35,960 --> 00:29:38,720
Speaker 1: tell you in what order you listen to our episodes? Um,

555
00:29:38,840 --> 00:29:40,000
Speaker 1: you can do what you like. I'm not going to

556
00:29:40,240 --> 00:29:43,000
Speaker 1: boss you around, but but hey, these are the two

557
00:29:43,040 --> 00:29:47,400
Speaker 1: episodes that are dealing with this particular except if you

558
00:29:47,400 --> 00:29:49,320
Speaker 1: have something you would like to share with us, we

559
00:29:49,320 --> 00:29:51,120
Speaker 1: would love to hear about it, and certainly on a

560
00:29:51,160 --> 00:29:53,720
Speaker 1: topic like this would depending on what you have to share,

561
00:29:53,760 --> 00:29:55,200
Speaker 1: we may not be able to share that with the

562
00:29:55,240 --> 00:29:58,320
Speaker 1: rest of the listeners, but totally game to hear anyone's

563
00:29:58,400 --> 00:30:01,080
Speaker 1: take or experiences having to do of the subject. You

564
00:30:01,120 --> 00:30:05,000
Speaker 1: can find us also on Facebook and Tumblr. Our handle

565
00:30:05,120 --> 00:30:06,760
Speaker 1: on both of those is stuff to blow your mind

566
00:30:06,880 --> 00:30:08,280
Speaker 1: and you can also find us on Twitter, where our

567
00:30:08,320 --> 00:30:10,600
Speaker 1: handle is blow the Mind, and you can also drop

568
00:30:10,640 --> 00:30:19,840
Speaker 1: us a line at blow the Mind at Discovery dot com.

569
00:30:19,880 --> 00:30:22,400
Speaker 1: For more on this and thousands of other topics, visit

570
00:30:22,480 --> 00:30:29,280
Speaker 1: how Stuff Works dot com. Brought to you by the

571
00:30:29,320 --> 00:30:32,720
Speaker 1: two thousand twelve Toyota Camera. It's ready, are you