WEBVTT - The Shaman and the Scientist: My Egoic Mind 0:00:00.520 --> 0:00:03.239 Brought to you by the two thousand twelve Toyota Cameray. 0:00:03.440 --> 0:00:11.000 It's ready. Are you welcome to Stuff to Blow Your Mind? 0:00:11.160 --> 0:00:18.400 From how Stuff Works dot com? Hey, welcome to Stuff 0:00:18.400 --> 0:00:20.200 to Blow your Mind. My name is Robert lamp and 0:00:20.239 --> 0:00:22.759 I'm Julie Teplas. Just up front, I want to mention 0:00:22.840 --> 0:00:25.920 that on this podcast and the other Shaman and Scientists 0:00:26.000 --> 0:00:28.040 podcast that we're putting out, we are gonna be talking 0:00:28.040 --> 0:00:32.000 about psychedelics and by which any psychedelic drugs of it. 0:00:32.520 --> 0:00:34.839 So just be aware we're gonna handle this and a 0:00:35.040 --> 0:00:40.040 mature science backboned since but I know that this subject 0:00:40.080 --> 0:00:42.120 is probably not for everybody, So just a fair warning 0:00:42.320 --> 0:00:44.040 that that's what we're gonna be talking about. And we 0:00:44.080 --> 0:00:47.240 do not advocate the use of psychedelic substances and illicit 0:00:47.280 --> 0:00:50.320 substances at all in orders you not to do them, 0:00:50.360 --> 0:00:53.240 but the science behind them is really fascinating. The current 0:00:53.280 --> 0:00:56.240 scientific investigations of how they affect our mind and what 0:00:56.280 --> 0:00:58.960 they can help uncover about how our minds work is 0:00:59.400 --> 0:01:03.240 totally aim totally in our wheelhouse, so we just had 0:01:03.240 --> 0:01:04.880 to cover it. We've covered a little bit in the past, 0:01:05.360 --> 0:01:09.000 so here another couple of slices from that particular cake. Yeah, 0:01:09.040 --> 0:01:10.760 and we just couldn't help it because a lot of 0:01:10.760 --> 0:01:13.080 times we talk about what is consciousness and we'll get 0:01:13.120 --> 0:01:16.520 deeper into that question in this podcast, but psychedelics, turns out, 0:01:16.840 --> 0:01:19.080 can help us answer that question or get a little 0:01:19.120 --> 0:01:22.280 bit closer to what we think consciousness is. Um. But 0:01:22.440 --> 0:01:25.800 all of this was actually inspired by a talk that 0:01:25.880 --> 0:01:31.760 you went to, Yes, and you went to in a sense, yeah, yeah, 0:01:32.200 --> 0:01:34.840 via the wonderful recording that you took of it. Um. 0:01:34.840 --> 0:01:37.800 It was a talk at Emory University. Yeah. Yes, it 0:01:37.880 --> 0:01:40.440 was called four I Am the Black Jaguar. Well, it 0:01:40.520 --> 0:01:43.200 was part of the four I Am the Black Jaguar exhibit, 0:01:43.319 --> 0:01:45.679 which is an art exhibit they did having to do 0:01:45.720 --> 0:01:50.080 with shamanistic visionary experience in ancient American art. So a 0:01:50.120 --> 0:01:52.920 lot of ancient American art that depicts things that that 0:01:53.120 --> 0:01:55.480 you know, it might be jaguars, it might be mushroom men, 0:01:55.960 --> 0:01:58.040 things of this nature that have something to do with 0:01:58.080 --> 0:02:02.760 shamanistic traditions, particularly as they relate to m the consumption 0:02:03.120 --> 0:02:06.880 of psychedelic psychotrophic substances, and a lot of it too, 0:02:07.000 --> 0:02:10.000 is this unity with nature and this unity of man 0:02:10.240 --> 0:02:13.040 where the duality, I should say, of of human and 0:02:13.360 --> 0:02:16.400 animal and then the bringing together of of these different 0:02:16.440 --> 0:02:19.840 aspects of our humanness. And the talk that I attended 0:02:20.200 --> 0:02:24.000 was given by Dr Catherine McLean and also Dr Charles 0:02:24.160 --> 0:02:27.639 Raison was there as well. But McLean is particularly interesting 0:02:28.000 --> 0:02:31.720 because she is involved with some really groundbreaking investigations at 0:02:31.800 --> 0:02:36.680 John Hopkins where they are looking into again how these 0:02:36.720 --> 0:02:40.959 substances affect the human mind and human consciousness and human 0:02:41.040 --> 0:02:45.000 perceptions and what that can tell us about how our 0:02:45.040 --> 0:02:47.519 brains actually work. Because it's one of the things she 0:02:47.680 --> 0:02:49.560 pointed out in her talk is that, you know, we're 0:02:49.560 --> 0:02:54.480 talking about how these things change our consciousness, affect our consciousness, 0:02:54.720 --> 0:02:57.920 and we already have a difficult time actually saying what 0:02:58.080 --> 0:03:00.920 human consciousness is and how it works. To get back 0:03:00.960 --> 0:03:03.560 to the title of the episode, we're talking about the 0:03:03.560 --> 0:03:05.160 show like the voice she did, so can you do 0:03:05.200 --> 0:03:08.480 that again on the title of not just the episode, 0:03:08.520 --> 0:03:12.639 but of the exhibit before I Am the Black Chack War. Yes, yeh. 0:03:12.760 --> 0:03:15.600 I was listening to an old Timothy Leary album earlier 0:03:15.639 --> 0:03:19.720 to get kind of stoked because Larry was first of scientists, 0:03:19.720 --> 0:03:22.280 then a shaman and anyway, we're gonna get into that 0:03:22.320 --> 0:03:24.800 a little more. But on the surface of things, you 0:03:24.880 --> 0:03:27.040 have the shaman in one category, and the scientists and 0:03:27.080 --> 0:03:29.800 the other. Right, dragging in a lot of stereotypes here, 0:03:29.840 --> 0:03:32.400 But the shaman, you think of the shaman, you think 0:03:32.440 --> 0:03:36.760 of somebody that's spiritual. They're ritualistic, their magical, their heart felt. 0:03:37.280 --> 0:03:40.640 They might have a really long beard and varying degrees 0:03:40.640 --> 0:03:43.800 of robes or no robes at all, right, man or woman, 0:03:43.880 --> 0:03:46.760 Man or woman. Then you have the scientist, which again 0:03:46.840 --> 0:03:51.680 can be a man or a woman, but logical, meticulous, reasoned, um, 0:03:51.760 --> 0:03:54.600 with a certain amount of distance between themselves and their 0:03:54.680 --> 0:03:57.640 their feelings and the subject matter they're looking into. So we, 0:03:58.040 --> 0:03:59.560 on the surface of things, we tend to think of 0:03:59.600 --> 0:04:02.880 these very very different different people and very different modes 0:04:03.000 --> 0:04:06.080 of perception when it comes to the realities of the 0:04:06.080 --> 0:04:09.440 world and the realities of the mind. But the curious thing, okay, 0:04:09.560 --> 0:04:11.640 is that all right? So the shaman he looks inward. 0:04:11.680 --> 0:04:13.640 Here she looks inward at the mysteries of the soul 0:04:13.680 --> 0:04:16.719 and human consciousness, and so too, of course, does the 0:04:16.800 --> 0:04:21.040 cognitive neuroscientist. So um, you know, the questions of who 0:04:21.120 --> 0:04:24.160 are we? What's the root cause? Of human suffering, how 0:04:24.160 --> 0:04:26.880 do we achieve liberation from it? How can we treat 0:04:26.920 --> 0:04:31.240 mental illness? Questions of these natures nature are on various 0:04:31.320 --> 0:04:34.839 levels covered by both sides. So while they're they're very different. 0:04:34.839 --> 0:04:36.800 If you were to form a then diagram, you know, 0:04:36.839 --> 0:04:40.000 with the two circles with partial overlap, and you had 0:04:40.000 --> 0:04:43.120 one circle as the shaman, one circle as the the neuroscientists, 0:04:43.240 --> 0:04:46.280 there would be a definite overlap there. Now, of course, 0:04:46.320 --> 0:04:49.120 the shaman helps you explore these questions by bringing into 0:04:49.160 --> 0:04:53.040 a sacred space, producing a tray of magical substances that, 0:04:53.120 --> 0:04:56.679 when consumed, alter your perception uh an experience of reality, 0:04:56.760 --> 0:04:59.560 setting you on a journey of exploration. Meanwhile, the scientist 0:04:59.600 --> 0:05:01.800 brings you to a lab, right, gives you a pill 0:05:01.920 --> 0:05:04.360 that might be a pocebo, and then run some tests 0:05:04.360 --> 0:05:07.279 on you, maybe throws you into a brain imaging machine, 0:05:07.400 --> 0:05:10.239 or puts you up to some sensors. Right, these seem 0:05:10.279 --> 0:05:13.320 like very different scenarios the one might find oneself in. 0:05:13.640 --> 0:05:16.160 But then there's also some interesting overlap here as well, 0:05:16.200 --> 0:05:19.040 particularly a John Hopkins University School of Medicine. That's where 0:05:19.040 --> 0:05:22.080 again Dr Kathery McClain conducts her research along with a 0:05:22.160 --> 0:05:27.320 very talented assortment of professionals, and they find themselves not 0:05:27.360 --> 0:05:31.120 going completely halfway between the shaman and the scientists, but 0:05:31.279 --> 0:05:34.440 entering a little more into that shamanistic territory because they 0:05:34.520 --> 0:05:37.520 keep like a calm, meditative space to put the test 0:05:37.520 --> 0:05:40.680 subjects in when they are given some of these psychedelic substances. 0:05:40.680 --> 0:05:43.760 And Kathery McClain in this talk at Emory actually spoke 0:05:43.800 --> 0:05:46.480 a bit about her role as a kind of guide 0:05:46.520 --> 0:05:50.080 for these people too, because they end up trying to 0:05:50.560 --> 0:05:53.520 to color their experiences to a to an extent, you know, 0:05:53.960 --> 0:05:57.120 to to guide their trip, as it were, in a 0:05:57.160 --> 0:06:00.279 direction that's more positive so that they can study it. Yeah, 0:06:00.279 --> 0:06:02.960 we talked about this a bit in our podcast about 0:06:02.960 --> 0:06:09.440 hallucinogens and stage four cancer patients who were taking hallucinogens 0:06:09.480 --> 0:06:12.240 in an effort to try to um get over this 0:06:12.440 --> 0:06:16.880 huge obstacle of fear that was really actually um just 0:06:16.920 --> 0:06:20.440 sort of affecting them on a level where they were 0:06:20.480 --> 0:06:22.919 like deer in the headlights. They couldn't even operate in 0:06:22.920 --> 0:06:26.640 the space of their lives anymore. And so um, you know, 0:06:26.680 --> 0:06:29.960 we've talked about this idea where in a lab setting 0:06:30.040 --> 0:06:32.360 you want to have a level of trust. You want 0:06:32.480 --> 0:06:36.000 to make it as comforting as possible. And so the researchers, 0:06:36.040 --> 0:06:40.400 the scientists are, as you say, taking on this persona 0:06:40.480 --> 0:06:43.599 of guide, of spiritual guide to a certain extent, because 0:06:43.600 --> 0:06:45.600 they have to guide people through this. And I think 0:06:45.600 --> 0:06:49.160 it's really interesting that Kathleen McClain is also a Buddhist 0:06:49.240 --> 0:06:52.000 and she does kind of inhabit that space of the 0:06:52.040 --> 0:06:54.880 Shloman from time to time, heavy in the meditation and 0:06:54.960 --> 0:06:58.360 all that. And I can't help to think about another 0:06:58.480 --> 0:07:03.240 past podcast, UM having to do with magicians and neuroscience, 0:07:03.320 --> 0:07:07.640 because again you've got neuroscience looking at magicians, UM, looking 0:07:07.720 --> 0:07:10.880 at these hundreds of years old practices and trying to 0:07:11.000 --> 0:07:14.280 learn something about reality and illusion on how our mind 0:07:14.320 --> 0:07:18.200 tricks us. And what is so central to this idea 0:07:18.320 --> 0:07:22.000 of mind trickery, I think, is something called the monkey mind. 0:07:22.400 --> 0:07:24.760 And probably a lot of you out there are familiar 0:07:24.800 --> 0:07:27.720 with this concept that this constant chatter in our brains 0:07:28.520 --> 0:07:32.200 um can sometimes hamstring us when we're trying to accomplish 0:07:32.200 --> 0:07:34.440 things in our lives UM. And of course this all 0:07:34.440 --> 0:07:38.480 points back to the question of consciousness and this idea 0:07:38.680 --> 0:07:42.160 about whether or not consciousness is actually a static thing. 0:07:42.240 --> 0:07:44.920 Now McLain and her talk says, I'm not quite sure 0:07:44.960 --> 0:07:49.480 consciousness is something that is coherent. Um. But again it's 0:07:49.480 --> 0:07:52.400 this idea of trying to get into what's going on 0:07:52.440 --> 0:07:57.120 in these three pounds of computation material in our brains. UM. 0:07:57.280 --> 0:08:00.200 She says. You know, it's hard to to really try 0:08:00.280 --> 0:08:02.360 to pin it down and figure out what's going on. 0:08:02.520 --> 0:08:06.400 She says, we can't explain normal consciousness in terms of neuroscience, 0:08:06.400 --> 0:08:10.200 so explaining altered states of consciousness is even more difficult. 0:08:10.920 --> 0:08:14.440 And UM, I also wanted to point this out too, 0:08:14.520 --> 0:08:18.960 as we begin to delve into consciousness and the monkey mind. UM. 0:08:19.000 --> 0:08:21.680 I've brought this up before. There was a study by 0:08:21.720 --> 0:08:26.640 Harvard psychologist Daniel Gilbert and Matthew Killingsworth, and they actually 0:08:26.680 --> 0:08:31.360 developed an iPhone app that would track people's um waking 0:08:31.400 --> 0:08:35.080 states and their ability to concentrate and so on and 0:08:35.120 --> 0:08:40.720 so forth, and something like a people participated in this 0:08:40.800 --> 0:08:44.960 study and what they found was that mind wandering is 0:08:45.000 --> 0:08:49.120 something that takes up half of our time. And that 0:08:49.240 --> 0:08:51.320 seems pretty big, but when you step back and you 0:08:51.360 --> 0:08:54.840 look at it throughout the day, you know, how when 0:08:54.840 --> 0:08:59.200 you're not speaking, when you're not um doing something that 0:08:59.360 --> 0:09:03.760 really requires you to fire in all four cylinders. What 0:09:03.800 --> 0:09:07.440 are you doing your daydreaming? Right? So, hence you've got 0:09:07.440 --> 0:09:09.959 this monkey mind, and hence you have this idea that 0:09:10.040 --> 0:09:13.520 maybe some of those consciousness points back to this chatter 0:09:13.559 --> 0:09:17.040 in our brains. Yeah. There you see that this represented 0:09:17.120 --> 0:09:21.040 various ways to another out modes of thought outside of science. 0:09:21.280 --> 0:09:24.680 There's always a classic vision of the guy with a 0:09:24.720 --> 0:09:26.679 demon on one shoulder and an angel on the other, 0:09:26.720 --> 0:09:28.760 these little voices that are chattering at him saying you 0:09:28.800 --> 0:09:30.920 should be doing this, No, you should be doing this. 0:09:31.000 --> 0:09:33.480 You should steal that candy bar. No, you should pay 0:09:33.520 --> 0:09:35.839 for that candy bar with with hard earned money. Can 0:09:35.840 --> 0:09:38.840 you steal it? Um? I always try and compromise still 0:09:38.840 --> 0:09:41.880 half of it by the other half. But it's the 0:09:42.120 --> 0:09:45.040 classic more dilemma, whether to steal the candy bar. But 0:09:45.080 --> 0:09:47.839 then you also have people like new age guru Akarta 0:09:47.920 --> 0:09:50.400 who calls it the go a mind, and you see 0:09:50.440 --> 0:09:53.240 that term thrown around a lot as well, this idea 0:09:53.280 --> 0:09:55.600 that it's a this this mode of thinking that's very 0:09:55.640 --> 0:09:59.520 tied into who I am, what my story is. We've 0:09:59.520 --> 0:10:01.880 talked about that before. When we're talking about storytelling, the 0:10:01.920 --> 0:10:04.360 power of storytelling, and how we all kind of see 0:10:04.400 --> 0:10:06.440 our lives in this mode of story. I am the 0:10:06.480 --> 0:10:09.000 central character in my story, and these are the obstacles 0:10:09.040 --> 0:10:11.439 I am up against. These are the things I have achieved, 0:10:11.440 --> 0:10:13.880 and these are the things that I've lost. Um So 0:10:13.960 --> 0:10:17.720 it's this default mode network, as it's called in the 0:10:17.760 --> 0:10:21.120 scientific papers. Not to be confused with Depeche mode network, 0:10:21.320 --> 0:10:24.280 because that's that would waver between just can't get enough 0:10:24.320 --> 0:10:27.720 in black celebration, Whereas the default mode network is again 0:10:27.760 --> 0:10:32.560 this this this sort of idol thinking zone, and you know, 0:10:32.600 --> 0:10:36.320 it's it's it's in it's better states, it's introspective, it's daydreaming, 0:10:36.320 --> 0:10:39.280 and it's worst states. It's depressive. It's that that demon 0:10:39.320 --> 0:10:41.319 on your shoulder beating you up and saying, oh, these 0:10:41.320 --> 0:10:43.880 are the things that that I don't have anymore. These 0:10:43.920 --> 0:10:45.880 are the things about me to suck and and then 0:10:45.920 --> 0:10:48.880 and I'm never going to succeed and this kind of thing. Yeah, 0:10:48.880 --> 0:10:50.840 I mean, this is where when we start talking about 0:10:50.840 --> 0:10:54.680 consciousness and defining the eye of ourselves, you start to 0:10:54.720 --> 0:10:58.080 look at the default mode network because this is where 0:10:58.120 --> 0:11:01.400 you have your pastiche of memories, feelings, and thoughts and 0:11:01.440 --> 0:11:04.320 again that chatter that me, me, me. What we're talking 0:11:04.360 --> 0:11:06.720 about when we talk about the default mode network is 0:11:06.760 --> 0:11:11.600 the medial prefrontal cortex, the medial parietal cortex, and the 0:11:11.679 --> 0:11:15.240 medial temporal lobes. The idea, there's a couple of different 0:11:15.280 --> 0:11:19.120 theories about what they're doing. UM. The idea is that 0:11:19.160 --> 0:11:22.319 these associations between these different parts of the brain are 0:11:22.360 --> 0:11:26.439 the brain's baseline of processing and information, where we consolidate 0:11:26.480 --> 0:11:29.880 experiences and we prepare to react to the environment. The 0:11:29.960 --> 0:11:35.480 second theory is that it also facilitates stream of conscious thought, 0:11:35.720 --> 0:11:39.000 also known as stimulus independent thought, which I think is 0:11:39.000 --> 0:11:41.679 really interesting to note. Stimulus independent thought meaning you're not 0:11:41.720 --> 0:11:45.439 even aware of your surroundings. You're just chattering, chattering, chattering 0:11:45.600 --> 0:11:47.400 to me. I think of it as like, you know, 0:11:47.480 --> 0:11:51.080 driving to work every day and I pull into the 0:11:51.080 --> 0:11:53.199 parking lot and go, oh, how did I get here? 0:11:53.200 --> 0:11:55.720 I don't really have a memory of that because I 0:11:55.800 --> 0:11:58.800 was so consumed with my own thoughts. UM. So sort 0:11:58.840 --> 0:12:01.400 of stuff that you see in daydreaming. Again, keep in 0:12:01.440 --> 0:12:04.240 mind that half of our day is spent in this 0:12:04.320 --> 0:12:07.760 state of daydreaming. UM, And it's important not hear It 0:12:07.760 --> 0:12:10.400 also totally takes you out of your surroundings. You know, 0:12:10.480 --> 0:12:12.600 like on your your drive to work, if you kind 0:12:12.600 --> 0:12:15.559 of go into autopilot mode and suddenly you're there, because 0:12:15.600 --> 0:12:17.760 it's like you weren't actually on that drive to work. 0:12:18.200 --> 0:12:20.760 You were wrapped up in these thoughts of what happened 0:12:20.800 --> 0:12:23.040 yesterday or what's going to happen, and with the rest 0:12:23.040 --> 0:12:25.959 of your day, uh, totally wrapped up in your thought life. 0:12:25.960 --> 0:12:28.840 You everything else in your surroundings, be it you know, 0:12:28.840 --> 0:12:30.760 the the highway on the drive to work, or a 0:12:30.800 --> 0:12:33.720 beautiful park or the love of your family, all of 0:12:33.720 --> 0:12:37.959 it just kind of fades as this inner dialogue kicks up. 0:12:38.559 --> 0:12:40.240 And by pointing out the parts of the brain, I 0:12:40.240 --> 0:12:43.200 think that's the really amazing part here is that you know, 0:12:43.240 --> 0:12:45.240 on one hand, we're talking about the devil and angel 0:12:45.280 --> 0:12:48.240 on your soldiers, we're talking about grasping in the Buddhist 0:12:48.240 --> 0:12:51.000 sense for for things that you want or don't have, 0:12:51.200 --> 0:12:52.920 and and all of this this inner and kind of 0:12:52.960 --> 0:12:56.040 spiritual stuff. But we can actually look at the brain 0:12:56.160 --> 0:12:58.439 and and look at the part the network that lights 0:12:58.520 --> 0:13:01.959 up when when this kind of thinking takes place, right 0:13:02.000 --> 0:13:04.480 and this this kind of thinking does need to happen, right, 0:13:04.520 --> 0:13:07.400 because it is balancing this sense of self and this ego, 0:13:07.440 --> 0:13:11.440 and again it's giving us some sort of um consciousness 0:13:11.520 --> 0:13:15.000 or idea of ourselves through this process. The problem, of course, 0:13:15.080 --> 0:13:18.440 is when there's hyperactivity in this area. It's like like 0:13:18.480 --> 0:13:21.160 when a dog has some sort of problem on its skin. Right, 0:13:21.160 --> 0:13:22.960 it's gonna lick, it's gonna know a little bit. But 0:13:23.000 --> 0:13:24.640 then it gets out of hand when that gnawing and 0:13:24.640 --> 0:13:27.720 that looking never stops, when it turns into self harm. 0:13:28.080 --> 0:13:30.079 And certainly we see that time and time again in 0:13:30.160 --> 0:13:32.480 patients who have a variety of mental problems, where we 0:13:32.480 --> 0:13:36.959 see that that see this heightened activity in this default 0:13:37.000 --> 0:13:40.680 mode network. Yeah, and according to Dr Charles Grayson, who 0:13:40.760 --> 0:13:43.320 is also part of that talk, people with depression exhibit 0:13:43.400 --> 0:13:46.160 hyperactivity in the default mode network. So, as you say, 0:13:46.200 --> 0:13:49.960 it's fascinating because you can literally point to that brain 0:13:50.040 --> 0:13:52.839 scan and you can see that hyperactivity and you can 0:13:52.880 --> 0:13:55.160 see that it's the cause of some of this depression. 0:13:55.440 --> 0:13:58.720 Because now think about that chattering in this um, this 0:13:58.880 --> 0:14:03.160 idea of that that chattering is absolutely involved with self 0:14:03.320 --> 0:14:06.920 and worry. So what you have going on is is 0:14:06.960 --> 0:14:10.720 this sort of midline chatter that is encouraging a person 0:14:10.840 --> 0:14:15.479 to turn inward. And then in addition to that hyperactive 0:14:15.800 --> 0:14:19.160 default mode network, it becomes more and more entangled with 0:14:19.200 --> 0:14:23.000 the anterior singular cortex, which is responsible for the fear response. 0:14:23.040 --> 0:14:26.080 So not only do you have this turning in word, 0:14:26.160 --> 0:14:28.920 you now have a fear factor that's involved, and this 0:14:29.000 --> 0:14:32.800 can contribute really heavily to depression. So we bring all 0:14:32.840 --> 0:14:37.000 of this up because this is really important in terms 0:14:37.240 --> 0:14:44.400 of um some experiments with hallucinogens and perhaps relieving this depression. 0:14:44.840 --> 0:14:48.800 This quieting the default mode network as well as meditation, right, 0:14:48.840 --> 0:14:50.960 and before we get that, do, of course need to stress. 0:14:51.000 --> 0:14:53.360 The thing about the default mode network is that under 0:14:53.400 --> 0:14:56.640 normal situations, it's more active during rest than it is 0:14:56.720 --> 0:15:00.720 during cast performance. So it's it's when you're in that uh, 0:15:01.000 --> 0:15:03.080 that easy state of driving to work a road that 0:15:03.120 --> 0:15:05.560 you travel every day, or you're waiting on something, you're 0:15:05.600 --> 0:15:08.440 just sitting around, it's it's like the screen saver of 0:15:08.440 --> 0:15:11.360 your mind. But if you're busy, if you are just 0:15:11.520 --> 0:15:14.120 vigorously trying to get something done at the last minute, 0:15:14.200 --> 0:15:16.320 or you're in that state of flow the job or 0:15:16.320 --> 0:15:19.600 a hobby that you love, or certainly if you're engaging 0:15:19.880 --> 0:15:22.560 saying yoga where you're you're totally in your body and 0:15:22.640 --> 0:15:26.400 not in your mind, we see that network shut down 0:15:26.560 --> 0:15:28.920 to a certain extent. Yeah, I'm glad you brought that up, 0:15:28.920 --> 0:15:32.280 because there is this idea of getting outside of yourself. Right, 0:15:32.360 --> 0:15:34.600 So if you're doing something that's in a state of flow, 0:15:34.680 --> 0:15:37.320 then you're getting outside of that chatter and that that mind, 0:15:37.440 --> 0:15:40.240 and you're quieting the default mode network. Now, this is 0:15:40.280 --> 0:15:43.160 where we're gonna get a little more back into into psychedelics. 0:15:43.200 --> 0:15:44.840 And I just want to do a quick note about 0:15:44.960 --> 0:15:47.240 the nature of psychedelicis just reminded about what we're talking 0:15:47.240 --> 0:15:50.920 about here. Okay, uh for the most part, especially as 0:15:50.920 --> 0:15:55.200 far as shamanistic practices go, you know, ancient spiritual practices 0:15:55.240 --> 0:15:58.560 that date back long before ability to create synthetic drugs. 0:15:58.640 --> 0:16:04.240 We're talking about naturally occur ring substances such as psilocybin, mushrooms, iowa, 0:16:04.320 --> 0:16:08.240 sa vines. We're talking about peyote, cacti, and other naturally 0:16:08.240 --> 0:16:14.560 occurring psychoactics, active substances in vegetation in animals, um you know, toads, centipedes, 0:16:14.640 --> 0:16:17.000 what have you. And then when taken they have the 0:16:17.040 --> 0:16:21.920 potential to alter vultually every level of awareness and experience. Now, 0:16:22.080 --> 0:16:23.880 some of you listening may have had some sort of 0:16:23.920 --> 0:16:26.360 experiences with this kind of altered state of mind, either 0:16:26.480 --> 0:16:30.400 naturally occurring or due to illness or any other lucid dreaming, 0:16:30.640 --> 0:16:34.200 sometimes dreaming, and sometimes in this chac But for for 0:16:34.240 --> 0:16:35.680 a lot of a lot of other people, you may 0:16:35.680 --> 0:16:37.720 think you may hear about, you know, tripping on psychedelics, 0:16:37.720 --> 0:16:39.920 and you instantly think of the movie Fear and Loathing 0:16:39.920 --> 0:16:42.560 in Las Vegas, or any number of movies that have 0:16:42.640 --> 0:16:46.240 attempted to show an altered state of of awareness and perception. 0:16:46.560 --> 0:16:49.520 It's kind of kind of like Hollywood tripping. And it's 0:16:49.520 --> 0:16:53.120 important to note that while yes, if one took enough 0:16:53.240 --> 0:16:56.840 of certain hallucinogens, they could have this kind of very visual, 0:16:57.400 --> 0:17:00.560 crazy fantastic experience of dinosaurs climb ending out of the 0:17:00.560 --> 0:17:04.040 walls and all that. Yes, that's that's possible, but that's 0:17:04.080 --> 0:17:07.040 not that in and of itself, is just like one 0:17:07.320 --> 0:17:08.800 slice of the cake. There are a lot of other 0:17:09.280 --> 0:17:11.840 modes of perception and modes of understanding that can be 0:17:11.880 --> 0:17:15.360 altered by psychedelics. We're talking about changes in your awareness 0:17:15.400 --> 0:17:20.560 of your own body of visual peculiarities, audible peculiarities, strangeness 0:17:20.560 --> 0:17:24.120 and thought and perception, in the experience of time and self. 0:17:24.440 --> 0:17:28.040 So pretty much any way that we think or see 0:17:28.080 --> 0:17:32.119 the world can be tweaked, you know, because when we 0:17:32.160 --> 0:17:34.239 talked again earlier, like what is consciousness? All right, Well, 0:17:34.359 --> 0:17:36.199 what do we know about how we think and what 0:17:36.240 --> 0:17:38.720 our brain is. We know that their chemical processes, that 0:17:38.840 --> 0:17:41.840 biological processes, and it's subject to change. You can change 0:17:41.840 --> 0:17:45.040 the way you think by looking at a puppy or 0:17:45.000 --> 0:17:47.040 or or a cat. We've talked about that before. They're 0:17:47.240 --> 0:17:49.240 there are all sorts of ways to tweak what you're 0:17:49.240 --> 0:17:51.640 experiencing and how you're experiencing the world and how you're 0:17:51.640 --> 0:17:55.720 constructing this world that you perceive. We talked about, you know, 0:17:55.840 --> 0:17:59.480 the whole child versus adult. The child has this lamplight 0:17:59.760 --> 0:18:01.720 of view of the world and that the human has 0:18:01.720 --> 0:18:04.200 the flashlight view. I mean, all of this is we're 0:18:04.200 --> 0:18:08.760 talking about changes in perception and these substances, and depending 0:18:08.800 --> 0:18:12.040 on what a person takes, how much they take, and 0:18:12.119 --> 0:18:17.160 also an individual's particular biochemistry, it'll it'll affect that person 0:18:17.160 --> 0:18:19.919 on varying levels. Yes, So I think it's interesting to 0:18:20.080 --> 0:18:23.040 introduce it like that because there are various ways, as 0:18:23.040 --> 0:18:25.200 you say, we can change our perception, and you can 0:18:25.200 --> 0:18:26.840 sort of do it a little bit or a lot, 0:18:27.480 --> 0:18:31.560 and certainly through something like psilocybin, that is something that 0:18:31.600 --> 0:18:34.000 will get you into that spot where you are sort 0:18:34.000 --> 0:18:37.080 of blowing open the doors of perception. And that is 0:18:37.160 --> 0:18:40.000 why scientists use it, because they are trying to figure 0:18:40.040 --> 0:18:42.400 out how it is interacting with the brain, what it's 0:18:42.440 --> 0:18:45.480 doing um to personality as well. So we talked about 0:18:45.480 --> 0:18:48.520 the default mode network and depression. Then it makes sense 0:18:48.560 --> 0:18:51.919 that neuroscientists want to look at psilocybin and see what 0:18:52.000 --> 0:18:54.960 sort of effect it has on the human brain. Yeah. Now, 0:18:55.520 --> 0:18:58.080 another interesting thing about research into this, and we've stopped 0:18:58.080 --> 0:18:59.840 in this in the past, and around the mid fifties, 0:19:00.040 --> 0:19:03.879 twin science really got got interested in psychedelics and and 0:19:03.880 --> 0:19:05.760 that's also you know, you saw the the advent of 0:19:05.880 --> 0:19:08.440 LSD in that age, and you also saw of course, 0:19:08.520 --> 0:19:11.080 the rise of the counterculture and all that. So by 0:19:11.119 --> 0:19:14.240 the end of the nineteen sixties you saw the the 0:19:14.400 --> 0:19:16.840 end of actual research into this because it started off 0:19:16.880 --> 0:19:18.840 people were looking into Okay, what are these chemicals doing, 0:19:18.840 --> 0:19:20.879 how are they affecting the mind. And then you have 0:19:20.920 --> 0:19:25.480 Timothy Leary out there, but you know, again initially approaching 0:19:25.480 --> 0:19:28.520 things from a more scientific standpoint, but then becoming more 0:19:28.560 --> 0:19:30.359 and more of a cultural figure and more of the 0:19:30.400 --> 0:19:33.320 shaman and less of the scientists. And then eventually you 0:19:33.359 --> 0:19:36.879 have people like John C. Lily who are just taking 0:19:37.000 --> 0:19:40.480 LSD in there in the tank next to the apartment 0:19:40.520 --> 0:19:42.639 in which the dolphin lives, so that he can communicate 0:19:42.640 --> 0:19:46.600 with the dolphin people, and and subsequently losing his funding 0:19:46.640 --> 0:19:48.600 because eventually it just gets so natty that they pull 0:19:48.680 --> 0:19:50.960 his funding. So you're right, it starts to get clouded 0:19:50.960 --> 0:19:53.320 with this idea that it's not a good idea to 0:19:53.480 --> 0:19:58.560 research this culturally, politically, it just falls off until basically, 0:19:58.560 --> 0:20:01.160 I'm saw the dawn of the twenty century and and 0:20:01.240 --> 0:20:03.840 so we that's where we are now a decade and 0:20:03.960 --> 0:20:06.440 some change into that. Yeah, the nineties really saw a 0:20:06.560 --> 0:20:08.920 resurgence in this, and particularly the last couple of years too, 0:20:08.920 --> 0:20:12.400 we've seen a ton of data coming online about this um. 0:20:12.440 --> 0:20:15.000 But when we talk about the default mode network and 0:20:15.040 --> 0:20:18.440 depression in psilocybin, it's important to talk about someone named 0:20:18.520 --> 0:20:21.359 David Jane Nutt. He is a psychiatrist at the Imperial 0:20:21.520 --> 0:20:26.240 College of London and his team recruited fifteen healthy people, 0:20:26.440 --> 0:20:29.760 people that they made sure to scan beforehand, and they 0:20:29.840 --> 0:20:34.400 are that they were sound and mind and body UM. 0:20:34.440 --> 0:20:35.920 And then they also wanted to make sure that these 0:20:35.920 --> 0:20:39.720 people had previous experience taking ho lucinogens. This is key 0:20:39.760 --> 0:20:42.399 and this is something that McLean brought up in her 0:20:42.440 --> 0:20:46.120 talk as well. Because you're bringing people into experiment UM, 0:20:46.160 --> 0:20:48.200 you know how their brains work and how they perceive 0:20:48.280 --> 0:20:50.320 things in the state. You don't want to be to 0:20:50.720 --> 0:20:53.439 introduce them to it for the first time because that 0:20:53.440 --> 0:20:56.560 can be a very overwhelming and frightening experience. Better that 0:20:56.640 --> 0:21:00.240 the that the test subjects have some experience with this 0:21:00.440 --> 0:21:02.800 altered state of awareness, some sort of context, so that 0:21:02.840 --> 0:21:05.720 they can study the effects of it better. Over a 0:21:05.720 --> 0:21:08.880 two day period, the researchers monitored activity in the brains 0:21:09.080 --> 0:21:12.320 of these volunteers as they land a scanner for up 0:21:12.320 --> 0:21:15.400 to an hour. On the first day, participants received an 0:21:15.400 --> 0:21:19.400 intravenous shot of the placebo solution UH. The next day, 0:21:19.440 --> 0:21:22.080 they got a shot of psilocybin that was dozed to 0:21:22.119 --> 0:21:26.679 peak about UH let me see about four minutes, and 0:21:26.720 --> 0:21:29.320