Speaker 1: Brought to you by the two thousand twelve Toyota Cameray.
Speaker 1: It's ready. Are you welcome to Stuff to Blow Your Mind?
Speaker 1: From how Stuff Works dot com? Hey, welcome to Stuff
Speaker 1: to Blow your Mind. My name is Robert lamp and
Speaker 1: I'm Julie Teplas. Just up front, I want to mention
Speaker 1: that on this podcast and the other Shaman and Scientists
Speaker 1: podcast that we're putting out, we are gonna be talking
Speaker 1: about psychedelics and by which any psychedelic drugs of it.
Speaker 1: So just be aware we're gonna handle this and a
Speaker 1: mature science backboned since but I know that this subject
Speaker 1: is probably not for everybody, So just a fair warning
Speaker 1: that that's what we're gonna be talking about. And we
Speaker 1: do not advocate the use of psychedelic substances and illicit
Speaker 1: substances at all in orders you not to do them,
Speaker 1: but the science behind them is really fascinating. The current
Speaker 1: scientific investigations of how they affect our mind and what
Speaker 1: they can help uncover about how our minds work is
Speaker 1: totally aim totally in our wheelhouse, so we just had
Speaker 1: to cover it. We've covered a little bit in the past,
Speaker 1: so here another couple of slices from that particular cake. Yeah,
Speaker 1: and we just couldn't help it because a lot of
Speaker 1: times we talk about what is consciousness and we'll get
Speaker 1: deeper into that question in this podcast, but psychedelics, turns out,
Speaker 1: can help us answer that question or get a little
Speaker 1: bit closer to what we think consciousness is. Um. But
Speaker 1: all of this was actually inspired by a talk that
Speaker 1: you went to, Yes, and you went to in a sense, yeah, yeah,
Speaker 1: via the wonderful recording that you took of it. Um.
Speaker 1: It was a talk at Emory University. Yeah. Yes, it
Speaker 1: was called four I Am the Black Jaguar. Well, it
Speaker 1: was part of the four I Am the Black Jaguar exhibit,
Speaker 1: which is an art exhibit they did having to do
Speaker 1: with shamanistic visionary experience in ancient American art. So a
Speaker 1: lot of ancient American art that depicts things that that
Speaker 1: you know, it might be jaguars, it might be mushroom men,
Speaker 1: things of this nature that have something to do with
Speaker 1: shamanistic traditions, particularly as they relate to m the consumption
Speaker 1: of psychedelic psychotrophic substances, and a lot of it too,
Speaker 1: is this unity with nature and this unity of man
Speaker 1: where the duality, I should say, of of human and
Speaker 1: animal and then the bringing together of of these different
Speaker 1: aspects of our humanness. And the talk that I attended
Speaker 1: was given by Dr Catherine McLean and also Dr Charles
Speaker 1: Raison was there as well. But McLean is particularly interesting
Speaker 1: because she is involved with some really groundbreaking investigations at
Speaker 1: John Hopkins where they are looking into again how these
Speaker 1: substances affect the human mind and human consciousness and human
Speaker 1: perceptions and what that can tell us about how our
Speaker 1: brains actually work. Because it's one of the things she
Speaker 1: pointed out in her talk is that, you know, we're
Speaker 1: talking about how these things change our consciousness, affect our consciousness,
Speaker 1: and we already have a difficult time actually saying what
Speaker 1: human consciousness is and how it works. To get back
Speaker 1: to the title of the episode, we're talking about the
Speaker 1: show like the voice she did, so can you do
Speaker 1: that again on the title of not just the episode,
Speaker 1: but of the exhibit before I Am the Black Chack War. Yes, yeh.
Speaker 1: I was listening to an old Timothy Leary album earlier
Speaker 1: to get kind of stoked because Larry was first of scientists,
Speaker 1: then a shaman and anyway, we're gonna get into that
Speaker 1: a little more. But on the surface of things, you
Speaker 1: have the shaman in one category, and the scientists and
Speaker 1: the other. Right, dragging in a lot of stereotypes here,
Speaker 1: But the shaman, you think of the shaman, you think
Speaker 1: of somebody that's spiritual. They're ritualistic, their magical, their heart felt.
Speaker 1: They might have a really long beard and varying degrees
Speaker 1: of robes or no robes at all, right, man or woman,
Speaker 1: Man or woman. Then you have the scientist, which again
Speaker 1: can be a man or a woman, but logical, meticulous, reasoned, um,
Speaker 1: with a certain amount of distance between themselves and their
Speaker 1: their feelings and the subject matter they're looking into. So we,
Speaker 1: on the surface of things, we tend to think of
Speaker 1: these very very different different people and very different modes
Speaker 1: of perception when it comes to the realities of the
Speaker 1: world and the realities of the mind. But the curious thing, okay,
Speaker 1: is that all right? So the shaman he looks inward.
Speaker 1: Here she looks inward at the mysteries of the soul
Speaker 1: and human consciousness, and so too, of course, does the
Speaker 1: cognitive neuroscientist. So um, you know, the questions of who
Speaker 1: are we? What's the root cause? Of human suffering, how
Speaker 1: do we achieve liberation from it? How can we treat
Speaker 1: mental illness? Questions of these natures nature are on various
Speaker 1: levels covered by both sides. So while they're they're very different.
Speaker 1: If you were to form a then diagram, you know,
Speaker 1: with the two circles with partial overlap, and you had
Speaker 1: one circle as the shaman, one circle as the the neuroscientists,
Speaker 1: there would be a definite overlap there. Now, of course,
Speaker 1: the shaman helps you explore these questions by bringing into
Speaker 1: a sacred space, producing a tray of magical substances that,
Speaker 1: when consumed, alter your perception uh an experience of reality,
Speaker 1: setting you on a journey of exploration. Meanwhile, the scientist
Speaker 1: brings you to a lab, right, gives you a pill
Speaker 1: that might be a pocebo, and then run some tests
Speaker 1: on you, maybe throws you into a brain imaging machine,
Speaker 1: or puts you up to some sensors. Right, these seem
Speaker 1: like very different scenarios the one might find oneself in.
Speaker 1: But then there's also some interesting overlap here as well,
Speaker 1: particularly a John Hopkins University School of Medicine. That's where
Speaker 1: again Dr Kathery McClain conducts her research along with a
Speaker 1: very talented assortment of professionals, and they find themselves not
Speaker 1: going completely halfway between the shaman and the scientists, but
Speaker 1: entering a little more into that shamanistic territory because they
Speaker 1: keep like a calm, meditative space to put the test
Speaker 1: subjects in when they are given some of these psychedelic substances.
Speaker 1: And Kathery McClain in this talk at Emory actually spoke
Speaker 1: a bit about her role as a kind of guide
Speaker 1: for these people too, because they end up trying to
Speaker 1: to color their experiences to a to an extent, you know,
Speaker 1: to to guide their trip, as it were, in a
Speaker 1: direction that's more positive so that they can study it. Yeah,
Speaker 1: we talked about this a bit in our podcast about
Speaker 1: hallucinogens and stage four cancer patients who were taking hallucinogens
Speaker 1: in an effort to try to um get over this
Speaker 1: huge obstacle of fear that was really actually um just
Speaker 1: sort of affecting them on a level where they were
Speaker 1: like deer in the headlights. They couldn't even operate in
Speaker 1: the space of their lives anymore. And so um, you know,
Speaker 1: we've talked about this idea where in a lab setting
Speaker 1: you want to have a level of trust. You want
Speaker 1: to make it as comforting as possible. And so the researchers,
Speaker 1: the scientists are, as you say, taking on this persona
Speaker 1: of guide, of spiritual guide to a certain extent, because
Speaker 1: they have to guide people through this. And I think
Speaker 1: it's really interesting that Kathleen McClain is also a Buddhist
Speaker 1: and she does kind of inhabit that space of the
Speaker 1: Shloman from time to time, heavy in the meditation and
Speaker 1: all that. And I can't help to think about another
Speaker 1: past podcast, UM having to do with magicians and neuroscience,
Speaker 1: because again you've got neuroscience looking at magicians, UM, looking
Speaker 1: at these hundreds of years old practices and trying to
Speaker 1: learn something about reality and illusion on how our mind
Speaker 1: tricks us. And what is so central to this idea
Speaker 1: of mind trickery, I think, is something called the monkey mind.
Speaker 1: And probably a lot of you out there are familiar
Speaker 1: with this concept that this constant chatter in our brains
Speaker 1: um can sometimes hamstring us when we're trying to accomplish
Speaker 1: things in our lives UM. And of course this all
Speaker 1: points back to the question of consciousness and this idea
Speaker 1: about whether or not consciousness is actually a static thing.
Speaker 1: Now McLain and her talk says, I'm not quite sure
Speaker 1: consciousness is something that is coherent. Um. But again it's
Speaker 1: this idea of trying to get into what's going on
Speaker 1: in these three pounds of computation material in our brains. UM.
Speaker 1: She says. You know, it's hard to to really try
Speaker 1: to pin it down and figure out what's going on.
Speaker 1: She says, we can't explain normal consciousness in terms of neuroscience,
Speaker 1: so explaining altered states of consciousness is even more difficult.
Speaker 1: And UM, I also wanted to point this out too,
Speaker 1: as we begin to delve into consciousness and the monkey mind. UM.
Speaker 1: I've brought this up before. There was a study by
Speaker 1: Harvard psychologist Daniel Gilbert and Matthew Killingsworth, and they actually
Speaker 1: developed an iPhone app that would track people's um waking
Speaker 1: states and their ability to concentrate and so on and
Speaker 1: so forth, and something like a people participated in this
Speaker 1: study and what they found was that mind wandering is
Speaker 1: something that takes up half of our time. And that
Speaker 1: seems pretty big, but when you step back and you
Speaker 1: look at it throughout the day, you know, how when
Speaker 1: you're not speaking, when you're not um doing something that
Speaker 1: really requires you to fire in all four cylinders. What
Speaker 1: are you doing your daydreaming? Right? So, hence you've got
Speaker 1: this monkey mind, and hence you have this idea that
Speaker 1: maybe some of those consciousness points back to this chatter
Speaker 1: in our brains. Yeah. There you see that this represented
Speaker 1: various ways to another out modes of thought outside of science.
Speaker 1: There's always a classic vision of the guy with a
Speaker 1: demon on one shoulder and an angel on the other,
Speaker 1: these little voices that are chattering at him saying you
Speaker 1: should be doing this, No, you should be doing this.
Speaker 1: You should steal that candy bar. No, you should pay
Speaker 1: for that candy bar with with hard earned money. Can
Speaker 1: you steal it? Um? I always try and compromise still
Speaker 1: half of it by the other half. But it's the
Speaker 1: classic more dilemma, whether to steal the candy bar. But
Speaker 1: then you also have people like new age guru Akarta
Speaker 1: who calls it the go a mind, and you see
Speaker 1: that term thrown around a lot as well, this idea
Speaker 1: that it's a this this mode of thinking that's very
Speaker 1: tied into who I am, what my story is. We've
Speaker 1: talked about that before. When we're talking about storytelling, the
Speaker 1: power of storytelling, and how we all kind of see
Speaker 1: our lives in this mode of story. I am the
Speaker 1: central character in my story, and these are the obstacles
Speaker 1: I am up against. These are the things I have achieved,
Speaker 1: and these are the things that I've lost. Um So
Speaker 1: it's this default mode network, as it's called in the
Speaker 1: scientific papers. Not to be confused with Depeche mode network,
Speaker 1: because that's that would waver between just can't get enough
Speaker 1: in black celebration, Whereas the default mode network is again
Speaker 1: this this this sort of idol thinking zone, and you know,
Speaker 1: it's it's it's in it's better states, it's introspective, it's daydreaming,
Speaker 1: and it's worst states. It's depressive. It's that that demon
Speaker 1: on your shoulder beating you up and saying, oh, these
Speaker 1: are the things that that I don't have anymore. These
Speaker 1: are the things about me to suck and and then
Speaker 1: and I'm never going to succeed and this kind of thing. Yeah,
Speaker 1: I mean, this is where when we start talking about
Speaker 1: consciousness and defining the eye of ourselves, you start to
Speaker 1: look at the default mode network because this is where
Speaker 1: you have your pastiche of memories, feelings, and thoughts and
Speaker 1: again that chatter that me, me, me. What we're talking
Speaker 1: about when we talk about the default mode network is
Speaker 1: the medial prefrontal cortex, the medial parietal cortex, and the
Speaker 1: medial temporal lobes. The idea, there's a couple of different
Speaker 1: theories about what they're doing. UM. The idea is that
Speaker 1: these associations between these different parts of the brain are
Speaker 1: the brain's baseline of processing and information, where we consolidate
Speaker 1: experiences and we prepare to react to the environment. The
Speaker 1: second theory is that it also facilitates stream of conscious thought,
Speaker 1: also known as stimulus independent thought, which I think is
Speaker 1: really interesting to note. Stimulus independent thought meaning you're not
Speaker 1: even aware of your surroundings. You're just chattering, chattering, chattering
Speaker 1: to me. I think of it as like, you know,
Speaker 1: driving to work every day and I pull into the
Speaker 1: parking lot and go, oh, how did I get here?
Speaker 1: I don't really have a memory of that because I
Speaker 1: was so consumed with my own thoughts. UM. So sort
Speaker 1: of stuff that you see in daydreaming. Again, keep in
Speaker 1: mind that half of our day is spent in this
Speaker 1: state of daydreaming. UM, And it's important not hear It
Speaker 1: also totally takes you out of your surroundings. You know,
Speaker 1: like on your your drive to work, if you kind
Speaker 1: of go into autopilot mode and suddenly you're there, because
Speaker 1: it's like you weren't actually on that drive to work.
Speaker 1: You were wrapped up in these thoughts of what happened
Speaker 1: yesterday or what's going to happen, and with the rest
Speaker 1: of your day, uh, totally wrapped up in your thought life.
Speaker 1: You everything else in your surroundings, be it you know,
Speaker 1: the the highway on the drive to work, or a
Speaker 1: beautiful park or the love of your family, all of
Speaker 1: it just kind of fades as this inner dialogue kicks up.
Speaker 1: And by pointing out the parts of the brain, I
Speaker 1: think that's the really amazing part here is that you know,
Speaker 1: on one hand, we're talking about the devil and angel
Speaker 1: on your soldiers, we're talking about grasping in the Buddhist
Speaker 1: sense for for things that you want or don't have,
Speaker 1: and and all of this this inner and kind of
Speaker 1: spiritual stuff. But we can actually look at the brain
Speaker 1: and and look at the part the network that lights
Speaker 1: up when when this kind of thinking takes place, right
Speaker 1: and this this kind of thinking does need to happen, right,
Speaker 1: because it is balancing this sense of self and this ego,
Speaker 1: and again it's giving us some sort of um consciousness
Speaker 1: or idea of ourselves through this process. The problem, of course,
Speaker 1: is when there's hyperactivity in this area. It's like like
Speaker 1: when a dog has some sort of problem on its skin. Right,
Speaker 1: it's gonna lick, it's gonna know a little bit. But
Speaker 1: then it gets out of hand when that gnawing and
Speaker 1: that looking never stops, when it turns into self harm.
Speaker 1: And certainly we see that time and time again in
Speaker 1: patients who have a variety of mental problems, where we
Speaker 1: see that that see this heightened activity in this default
Speaker 1: mode network. Yeah, and according to Dr Charles Grayson, who
Speaker 1: is also part of that talk, people with depression exhibit
Speaker 1: hyperactivity in the default mode network. So, as you say,
Speaker 1: it's fascinating because you can literally point to that brain
Speaker 1: scan and you can see that hyperactivity and you can
Speaker 1: see that it's the cause of some of this depression.
Speaker 1: Because now think about that chattering in this um, this
Speaker 1: idea of that that chattering is absolutely involved with self
Speaker 1: and worry. So what you have going on is is
Speaker 1: this sort of midline chatter that is encouraging a person
Speaker 1: to turn inward. And then in addition to that hyperactive
Speaker 1: default mode network, it becomes more and more entangled with
Speaker 1: the anterior singular cortex, which is responsible for the fear response.
Speaker 1: So not only do you have this turning in word,
Speaker 1: you now have a fear factor that's involved, and this
Speaker 1: can contribute really heavily to depression. So we bring all
Speaker 1: of this up because this is really important in terms
Speaker 1: of um some experiments with hallucinogens and perhaps relieving this depression.
Speaker 1: This quieting the default mode network as well as meditation, right,
Speaker 1: and before we get that, do, of course need to stress.
Speaker 1: The thing about the default mode network is that under
Speaker 1: normal situations, it's more active during rest than it is
Speaker 1: during cast performance. So it's it's when you're in that uh,
Speaker 1: that easy state of driving to work a road that
Speaker 1: you travel every day, or you're waiting on something, you're
Speaker 1: just sitting around, it's it's like the screen saver of
Speaker 1: your mind. But if you're busy, if you are just
Speaker 1: vigorously trying to get something done at the last minute,
Speaker 1: or you're in that state of flow the job or
Speaker 1: a hobby that you love, or certainly if you're engaging
Speaker 1: saying yoga where you're you're totally in your body and
Speaker 1: not in your mind, we see that network shut down
Speaker 1: to a certain extent. Yeah, I'm glad you brought that up,
Speaker 1: because there is this idea of getting outside of yourself. Right,
Speaker 1: So if you're doing something that's in a state of flow,
Speaker 1: then you're getting outside of that chatter and that that mind,
Speaker 1: and you're quieting the default mode network. Now, this is
Speaker 1: where we're gonna get a little more back into into psychedelics.
Speaker 1: And I just want to do a quick note about
Speaker 1: the nature of psychedelicis just reminded about what we're talking
Speaker 1: about here. Okay, uh for the most part, especially as
Speaker 1: far as shamanistic practices go, you know, ancient spiritual practices
Speaker 1: that date back long before ability to create synthetic drugs.
Speaker 1: We're talking about naturally occur ring substances such as psilocybin, mushrooms, iowa,
Speaker 1: sa vines. We're talking about peyote, cacti, and other naturally
Speaker 1: occurring psychoactics, active substances in vegetation in animals, um you know, toads, centipedes,
Speaker 1: what have you. And then when taken they have the
Speaker 1: potential to alter vultually every level of awareness and experience. Now,
Speaker 1: some of you listening may have had some sort of
Speaker 1: experiences with this kind of altered state of mind, either
Speaker 1: naturally occurring or due to illness or any other lucid dreaming,
Speaker 1: sometimes dreaming, and sometimes in this chac But for for
Speaker 1: a lot of a lot of other people, you may
Speaker 1: think you may hear about, you know, tripping on psychedelics,
Speaker 1: and you instantly think of the movie Fear and Loathing
Speaker 1: in Las Vegas, or any number of movies that have
Speaker 1: attempted to show an altered state of of awareness and perception.
Speaker 1: It's kind of kind of like Hollywood tripping. And it's
Speaker 1: important to note that while yes, if one took enough
Speaker 1: of certain hallucinogens, they could have this kind of very visual,
Speaker 1: crazy fantastic experience of dinosaurs climb ending out of the
Speaker 1: walls and all that. Yes, that's that's possible, but that's
Speaker 1: not that in and of itself, is just like one
Speaker 1: slice of the cake. There are a lot of other
Speaker 1: modes of perception and modes of understanding that can be
Speaker 1: altered by psychedelics. We're talking about changes in your awareness
Speaker 1: of your own body of visual peculiarities, audible peculiarities, strangeness
Speaker 1: and thought and perception, in the experience of time and self.
Speaker 1: So pretty much any way that we think or see
Speaker 1: the world can be tweaked, you know, because when we
Speaker 1: talked again earlier, like what is consciousness? All right, Well,
Speaker 1: what do we know about how we think and what
Speaker 1: our brain is. We know that their chemical processes, that
Speaker 1: biological processes, and it's subject to change. You can change
Speaker 1: the way you think by looking at a puppy or
Speaker 1: or or a cat. We've talked about that before. They're
Speaker 1: there are all sorts of ways to tweak what you're
Speaker 1: experiencing and how you're experiencing the world and how you're
Speaker 1: constructing this world that you perceive. We talked about, you know,
Speaker 1: the whole child versus adult. The child has this lamplight
Speaker 1: of view of the world and that the human has
Speaker 1: the flashlight view. I mean, all of this is we're
Speaker 1: talking about changes in perception and these substances, and depending
Speaker 1: on what a person takes, how much they take, and
Speaker 1: also an individual's particular biochemistry, it'll it'll affect that person
Speaker 1: on varying levels. Yes, So I think it's interesting to
Speaker 1: introduce it like that because there are various ways, as
Speaker 1: you say, we can change our perception, and you can
Speaker 1: sort of do it a little bit or a lot,
Speaker 1: and certainly through something like psilocybin, that is something that
Speaker 1: will get you into that spot where you are sort
Speaker 1: of blowing open the doors of perception. And that is
Speaker 1: why scientists use it, because they are trying to figure
Speaker 1: out how it is interacting with the brain, what it's
Speaker 1: doing um to personality as well. So we talked about
Speaker 1: the default mode network and depression. Then it makes sense
Speaker 1: that neuroscientists want to look at psilocybin and see what
Speaker 1: sort of effect it has on the human brain. Yeah. Now,
Speaker 1: another interesting thing about research into this, and we've stopped
Speaker 1: in this in the past, and around the mid fifties,
Speaker 1: twin science really got got interested in psychedelics and and
Speaker 1: that's also you know, you saw the the advent of
Speaker 1: LSD in that age, and you also saw of course,
Speaker 1: the rise of the counterculture and all that. So by
Speaker 1: the end of the nineteen sixties you saw the the
Speaker 1: end of actual research into this because it started off
Speaker 1: people were looking into Okay, what are these chemicals doing,
Speaker 1: how are they affecting the mind. And then you have
Speaker 1: Timothy Leary out there, but you know, again initially approaching
Speaker 1: things from a more scientific standpoint, but then becoming more
Speaker 1: and more of a cultural figure and more of the
Speaker 1: shaman and less of the scientists. And then eventually you
Speaker 1: have people like John C. Lily who are just taking
Speaker 1: LSD in there in the tank next to the apartment
Speaker 1: in which the dolphin lives, so that he can communicate
Speaker 1: with the dolphin people, and and subsequently losing his funding
Speaker 1: because eventually it just gets so natty that they pull
Speaker 1: his funding. So you're right, it starts to get clouded
Speaker 1: with this idea that it's not a good idea to
Speaker 1: research this culturally, politically, it just falls off until basically,
Speaker 1: I'm saw the dawn of the twenty century and and
Speaker 1: so we that's where we are now a decade and
Speaker 1: some change into that. Yeah, the nineties really saw a
Speaker 1: resurgence in this, and particularly the last couple of years too,
Speaker 1: we've seen a ton of data coming online about this um.
Speaker 1: But when we talk about the default mode network and
Speaker 1: depression in psilocybin, it's important to talk about someone named
Speaker 1: David Jane Nutt. He is a psychiatrist at the Imperial
Speaker 1: College of London and his team recruited fifteen healthy people,
Speaker 1: people that they made sure to scan beforehand, and they
Speaker 1: are that they were sound and mind and body UM.
Speaker 1: And then they also wanted to make sure that these
Speaker 1: people had previous experience taking ho lucinogens. This is key
Speaker 1: and this is something that McLean brought up in her
Speaker 1: talk as well. Because you're bringing people into experiment UM,
Speaker 1: you know how their brains work and how they perceive
Speaker 1: things in the state. You don't want to be to
Speaker 1: introduce them to it for the first time because that
Speaker 1: can be a very overwhelming and frightening experience. Better that
Speaker 1: the that the test subjects have some experience with this
Speaker 1: altered state of awareness, some sort of context, so that
Speaker 1: they can study the effects of it better. Over a
Speaker 1: two day period, the researchers monitored activity in the brains
Speaker 1: of these volunteers as they land a scanner for up
Speaker 1: to an hour. On the first day, participants received an
Speaker 1: intravenous shot of the placebo solution UH. The next day,
Speaker 1: they got a shot of psilocybin that was dozed to
Speaker 1: peak about UH let me see about four minutes, and
Speaker 1: then was mostly over At about thirty minutes. We're trying
Speaker 1: to short short amount of time here. Yeah, because the
Speaker 1: traditional you know, hippie way of taking these in the
Speaker 1: shamanistic way of taking these substances, of course, just to
Speaker 1: eat it, which then is a gradual absorption, gradual shrip
Speaker 1: that without grad you know, thinking hippie, you know, anyone
Speaker 1: who would say, pick one of these things in the
Speaker 1: natural world and then eat it, that is going to
Speaker 1: be a slower uptake and then a slower fall off.
Speaker 1: But this is introduced with I V. So it's just
Speaker 1: like a rocket ship. On a side note too, it's
Speaker 1: probably really obvious to the participants which was the placebo
Speaker 1: in which was the actual psilocybin in this case. Don't
Speaker 1: you think I have to guess there's not much of
Speaker 1: a placebo effect? Yeah, I mean, yeah, definitely. So all
Speaker 1: of the participants described kaleidoscope vision with images of bright
Speaker 1: and angular shapes um the rush of the first tend
Speaker 1: to thirty seconds and do some fear nuts said, but
Speaker 1: positive feelings then swept over them, and many participants said
Speaker 1: that the benefits of the experience were profound, and they
Speaker 1: felt that they had moved on from where they had
Speaker 1: been um. So what they found when they were scanning
Speaker 1: the brains of these participants was a decrease in both
Speaker 1: blood flow and metabolism in several key areas after injection.
Speaker 1: So we're talking about the anterior singulate cortex, So that
Speaker 1: was the one that I mentioned that has a lot
Speaker 1: to do with the the fear and pain response. And
Speaker 1: also they saw that default mode network quieting itself. So
Speaker 1: what they found is that here is this way that
Speaker 1: you can dial on hyperactivity or activity in general in
Speaker 1: this area of the brain and perhaps relieve depression through
Speaker 1: this process. And on one level, I mean, how into
Speaker 1: your own problems can you be if the wall is
Speaker 1: breathing right, that's true, there's not a lot of mimim
Speaker 1: going on, and it is interested Along those lines, one
Speaker 1: of the things that mcclaimntioned is how a lot of
Speaker 1: this research she feels needs to get out of the
Speaker 1: lab and deal with because traditionally, shamanistically they're not taking
Speaker 1: these substances and then watching twin peaks in the basement,
Speaker 1: you know, they're they're not shutting their eyes and playing
Speaker 1: in some headphones. Now they're taking them in nature. They're
Speaker 1: they're experiencing the natural world through these substances. Granted, they're
Speaker 1: experiencing an altered understanding and experience of the natural world,
Speaker 1: but it's a rather different kettle fish than taking it
Speaker 1: inside of a closed environment. So again, someone is suddenly
Speaker 1: becoming more aware of what's around them and outside of themselves,
Speaker 1: as opposed to that same saddled story about who they
Speaker 1: are and what their their deal is. Now there's still
Speaker 1: the question about how long this um this can actually
Speaker 1: affect person, and that's what they're trying to still go
Speaker 1: through this data and figure out if these are long
Speaker 1: term meaningful changes in terms of alleviating depression. And we'll
Speaker 1: talk more about that in in part two of this episode.
Speaker 1: So I did want to mention that there's another way
Speaker 1: to go about quieting the default mode network, and right
Speaker 1: now it seems to be the best way to go
Speaker 1: about it in terms of sustaining long term, meaningful changes
Speaker 1: to your brain. And this is through meditation, yes, and
Speaker 1: this is yeah, this is really fascinating. We spoke earlier.
Speaker 1: You know, when you when you're looking at the brain
Speaker 1: and activity in the brain, you can we're able to
Speaker 1: identify what's happening with this particular network we're identifying this, uh,
Speaker 1: this default mode network, and then under psilocybin, we're watching
Speaker 1: the activity there decrease. But then the same thing occurs.
Speaker 1: The same decreation occurs during meditation. Now it's important to
Speaker 1: note here that that the similar brain activity in brain scans,
Speaker 1: that doesn't mean it's the same experience. So it's not
Speaker 1: saying that that anyone going into meditation should you know,
Speaker 1: should be seeing crazy amazing things in their mind. Not
Speaker 1: to say that there's not that some of that isn't
Speaker 1: going on, But identical brain scans don't mean the exact
Speaker 1: same experience for the individual. Yeah, I mean, what it's
Speaker 1: pointing to you again is that there's just quieting in
Speaker 1: this chatter area. Dr Judson Brewer, medical director of the
Speaker 1: Yale Therapeutic Neuroscience Clinic, and his colleagues asked ten experienced
Speaker 1: meditators and thirteen people with no meditation experience to practice
Speaker 1: three basic meditation techniques concentration, loving kindness, and choiceless awareness,
Speaker 1: and the team then used fm R I to observe
Speaker 1: the participants in brain activity when they were practicing the techniques,
Speaker 1: and then we are when they were instructed not to
Speaker 1: think of anything in particular, So the experience meditators had
Speaker 1: this decreased activity in the default mode network. Moreover, they
Speaker 1: found out that this region of their brain was much
Speaker 1: quieter than in their inexperienced counterparts. So we've talked about
Speaker 1: this before. The the idea that you can actually change
Speaker 1: your brain to a certain extent through meditation, again long
Speaker 1: term changes, and you'll see this again and again in
Speaker 1: studies with meditators, is that there's just this ability to
Speaker 1: concentrate better, to quiet the chattering mind and not wander
Speaker 1: as much. And I wanted to point this up because again,
Speaker 1: the mind is going to wander. Half of our days
Speaker 1: spent doing this. But there are some studies that point
Speaker 1: to this idea that if you can be conscious of
Speaker 1: your own mind wandering, you can actually be a more
Speaker 1: creative individual. You can harness your thoughts a lot better.
Speaker 1: So again pointing to this idea of meditation as a
Speaker 1: way not only to quiet the monkey mind, but also
Speaker 1: to access some really novel ways of thinking. Yeah, I
Speaker 1: mean that's the You listen to various s gurus on
Speaker 1: this matter, and then that's always like the first step
Speaker 1: is being able to identify the monkey mind, the mind
Speaker 1: the devil on your shoulder, whatever however you choose to
Speaker 1: to see conceive that the default mode network, if you
Speaker 1: can identify it when it's happening, I mean, that's that's
Speaker 1: the first big battle that you can actually stop and say, like,
Speaker 1: what am I doing? What? What are my thoughts doing
Speaker 1: right now? Why am I relaying this stupid idea or
Speaker 1: this silly fear or even this very real fear. Why
Speaker 1: am I occupying my mind with it at this moment?
Speaker 1: And what else could I potentially be using it for?
Speaker 1: Right Or if you're if you realize that your brain
Speaker 1: is working to stay on a problem and turning things
Speaker 1: over and over in your mind, but you know that
Speaker 1: your mind is wandering and it's dealing with this, then
Speaker 1: you can kind of have a breakthrough if you have
Speaker 1: the realization that your mind is doing this, and then
Speaker 1: instead of sort of going into the feedback loop of
Speaker 1: negativity that our brains can kind of do with certain
Speaker 1: stories that we tell ourselves, you catch yourself like, oh,
Speaker 1: this is a problem my brain is working on, and
Speaker 1: you know, maybe there's a solution here. Yeah, Because sometimes
Speaker 1: sometimes you just need to turn the dryer off and
Speaker 1: take the clothes out before the cycle finishers, you know, um,
Speaker 1: month before they get rankled. On the note of meditation
Speaker 1: and hallucinations and psychedelic experiences, I will say that in savasana,
Speaker 1: the period at the end of yoga where one after
Speaker 1: one is don their yoga exercises for you know, an hour,
Speaker 1: hour and a half whatever the the link may be.
Speaker 1: And in this state, you're getting out of your mind,
Speaker 1: You're getting engaged in your body. You're shutting down the
Speaker 1: default mode network just by putting yourself through a lot
Speaker 1: of physical poses and engaging the physical body rather than
Speaker 1: the mind. At the end of that, you go into
Speaker 1: this state where you you either said or you lay
Speaker 1: back or maybe legs up the wall, and you go
Speaker 1: into this this meditative state and and on. On a
Speaker 1: personal note, I regularly see some really crazy stuff during
Speaker 1: that period, you know, colors, explosions, cloud smoke, that kind
Speaker 1: of thing. Occasionally. Um, you know, I see people. I
Speaker 1: don't interact with them or anything that that would be
Speaker 1: a different situation. But um, but but I do have
Speaker 1: these uh these in a sense psychedelic experiences during chava. Know,
Speaker 1: a lot of people do get this well, and so
Speaker 1: that's sort of uh, that's sort of a perfect way
Speaker 1: to segue into what we will talk about in the
Speaker 1: second podcast, which is this idea of whether or not
Speaker 1: hallucinations are natural to humans, to all creatures on the world,
Speaker 1: on the world, in the world. Um, so something will
Speaker 1: explore a little bit more. Yeah, so tune in for that.
Speaker 1: It'll be just another podcast. It's title will be Shaman
Speaker 1: and the Scientist colon Hallucination and it's gonna pick up
Speaker 1: with this one left off. Who knows, I mean, it's
Speaker 1: possibly listen to that one first. Who are we to
Speaker 1: tell you in what order you listen to our episodes? Um,
Speaker 1: you can do what you like. I'm not going to
Speaker 1: boss you around, but but hey, these are the two
Speaker 1: episodes that are dealing with this particular except if you
Speaker 1: have something you would like to share with us, we
Speaker 1: would love to hear about it, and certainly on a
Speaker 1: topic like this would depending on what you have to share,
Speaker 1: we may not be able to share that with the
Speaker 1: rest of the listeners, but totally game to hear anyone's
Speaker 1: take or experiences having to do of the subject. You
Speaker 1: can find us also on Facebook and Tumblr. Our handle
Speaker 1: on both of those is stuff to blow your mind
Speaker 1: and you can also find us on Twitter, where our
Speaker 1: handle is blow the Mind, and you can also drop
Speaker 1: us a line at blow the Mind at Discovery dot com.
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