How to Change Your Mind What the New Science of Psychedelics Teaches Us About Consciousness, Dying, Addiction, Depression, and Transcendence

I recommend reading how to change your mind if you're really interested in the stuff read how to change your mind by Michael Pollen we actually did an episode of this show with him about that that's a good read a good guide on how to start to approach these substances

I actually recommend I heard about this from Michael Pollen who talked earlier on the show last year about his book is called how to change your mind it's about psychedelics

Today we're talking with Michael Pollan, author of How to Change Your Mind With the new science of psychedelics teaches us about consciousness, dying, addiction, depression and transcendence.

I would not include, for example, MDMA or ecstasy, although some people do or cannabis that some people consider a mild psychedelic.

There's a well a very good book called the psychedelic explorer's manual, oh yeah, that um, you know if you want to figure out how to do this or trade that favor with a friend you could do that.

I don't think it's so crazy anymore uh I think that this is opening a window on consciousness that and we have very few windows unconscious it's a very hard to study and it's a huge mystery we do not know how brains produce consciousness the feeling of being you where does that come from and indeed we do not know for sure that it is brains that produce consciousness.

I've heard the fda is asked for trials with yeah and and which i don't does that happen a lot it doesn't seem like it happens a lot well you go into the fda i mean what happened was that um people who had done pilot studies and small studies of uh the the cancer anxiety study uh and another depression study go to the fda and say now we want to go to phase three on what we were doing which was treating cancer patients and apparently what happened uh is that the people at the fda at this at this it's a kind of an advise meeting advice meeting uh said you know you're getting a real signal here that this may be helpful in depression and we want you to test it in the general public not just the dying so they were actually asked to expand the scope of their ambition and um and i think that's a measure of the fact that the fda knows there's not a lot a lot of work being done to come up with new medicines for depression uh big farmers not doing this work um they're not they're disinvesting in mental health drugs if anything and um uh so the fda would love to see some new pharmaceuticals involved so we'll see we'll see how it goes i you know there's a reason to believe it would work better in the depression of people dying than in depression in general in that it is an existential or spiritual crisis that's causing the depression and and depression may be have a variety of different causes.

I actually recommend I heard about this from Michael pollen who talked earlier on the show last year about his book is called how to change your mind it's about psychedelics

Today we're talking with Michael Pollan, author of How to Change Your Mind With the new science of psychedelics teaches us about consciousness, dying, addiction, depression and transcendence.

I'm very reluctant to proselytize in any way I interviewed a lot of people for whom it was enormously helpful and I learned a lot myself it was uh I'm so happy I went on this journey um I know things that I didn't know before I had you know some of the more profound experiences of my life um due to a molecule how how amazing is that

The book how to change your mind we'll link to it in the show notes as well a lot of good stuff in here thank you

it's not just for tie-dye wearing hippies anymore and we'll learn who can potentially benefit from the use of psychedelics, from quitting smoking, to lowering anxiety, interminal disease and coping with end of life.

I think that there's potential for neural feedback in this area I had a really interesting experience where I went to a lab uh of a of a man named Jetson Brewer who's a psychiatrist and neuroscientist who studies meditation and he's very interested in a part of the default mode network called the posterior single-it cortex which is involved and we were talking earlier about the autobiographical or narrative self and you wear this bathing cap that has 128 sensors and uh it's they're all aimed at this particular structure and um you can uh do various exercise to see if you can downregulate the self obsession basically

I recommend reading How to Change Your Mind if you're really interested in the stuff read How to Change Your Mind by Michael Pollen we actually did an episode of this show with him about that that's a good read a good guide on how to start to approach these substances

I actually recommend I heard about this from Michael Pollen who talked earlier on the show last year about his book is called how to change your mind it's about psychedelics

and one of the things that he had mentioned on the show and the book was psychedelic therapy you've got to go to the right person but studies have shown that MDMA silo cyber aka magic mushrooms can be really helpful for families especially the patient when dealing with the prospect of death and it is in the book how to change your mind will link to that

His findings will absolutely surprise and hopefully enlighten you.

It's not just for tie-dye wearing hippies anymore.

There's a lot of amazing discoveries in this one and today's discussion is really something outside the norm and I know you'll enjoy it.

The drugs at that time were called psychotomimetics... which meant mimicking psychosis.

I think that this is opening a window on consciousness that we have very few windows unconsciousness. It's a very hard to study and it's a huge mystery.

Pollan used psychedelics in the process of writing his book, How to Change Your Mind.

How to Change Your Mind, colon, what the new science of psychedelics teaches us about consciousness, dying, addiction, depression and transcendence.

I loved How to Change Your Mind.

maybe psychedelics are wasted on the young.

How to Change Your Mind, colon, what the new science of psychedelics teaches us about consciousness, dying, addiction, depression and transcendence.

I loved How to Change Your Mind.

maybe psychedelics are wasted on the young.

I've spoken about psychedelics at length with Michael Pollan bestselling author of How to Change Your Mind who suggested Olivia Goldhill as our expert of the week.