WEBVTT 00:00:01.540 --> 00:00:04.980 Hello, and welcome to the further podcast where 00:00:04.980 --> 00:00:08.199 we explore the far reaches of the human experience 00:00:08.199 --> 00:00:11.699 from missions to Mars to skydiving to blowing 00:00:11.699 --> 00:00:14.779 one's mind of psychoactive substances. These 00:00:14.779 --> 00:00:18.320 conversations offer insight into how these extreme 00:00:18.320 --> 00:00:22.260 experiences showcase the human spirit and just 00:00:22.260 --> 00:00:24.839 might teach us how to live our everyday lives 00:00:24.839 --> 00:00:29.179 a bit better. I'm your host, Haley Miranda -Rod. 00:00:29.469 --> 00:00:32.950 and I study the effects of psychedelics and other 00:00:32.950 --> 00:00:36.210 out there experiences on people's minds and brains. 00:00:44.719 --> 00:00:47.920 So this is one of the most fun and wide -ranging 00:00:47.920 --> 00:00:50.560 conversations I've had on further in a while, 00:00:50.719 --> 00:00:53.539 and probably one of the weirder ones. Dr. David 00:00:53.539 --> 00:00:56.820 Luke, author of Other Worlds, Psychedelics and 00:00:56.820 --> 00:01:00.200 Exceptional Human Experiences, has quite the 00:01:00.200 --> 00:01:03.579 interesting research career. He investigates 00:01:03.579 --> 00:01:06.260 everything from how psychedelics might increase 00:01:06.260 --> 00:01:10.159 the odds of ESP -like experiences and paranormal 00:01:10.159 --> 00:01:14.359 beliefs to how people cope with existential distress. 00:01:14.310 --> 00:01:18.709 stress after challenging experiences with psychedelics. 00:01:19.010 --> 00:01:22.150 He also has been, let's just say, his own guinea 00:01:22.150 --> 00:01:26.329 pig for science and isn't afraid to tell us that 00:01:26.329 --> 00:01:29.310 tale. Even though studying ESP -related phenomena 00:01:29.310 --> 00:01:31.609 and psychedelics might seem a bit out there, 00:01:31.670 --> 00:01:34.510 maybe even unicorn dimension level weirdness, 00:01:34.930 --> 00:01:37.000 um... There's no denying that there are pretty 00:01:37.000 --> 00:01:41.420 strong historical roots in the history of psychedelics 00:01:41.420 --> 00:01:44.420 of people being intrigued by such phenomenon. 00:01:44.959 --> 00:01:48.459 So everybody from serious scientists in the 1950s 00:01:48.459 --> 00:01:52.700 to indigenous cultures worldwide or who use psychedelics 00:01:52.700 --> 00:01:55.909 are a bit entwined with it. We also get into 00:01:55.909 --> 00:01:59.209 a bit of the challenging experiences project 00:01:59.209 --> 00:02:02.829 which investigates how people cope with adverse 00:02:02.829 --> 00:02:06.150 effects after using psychedelics. I think this 00:02:06.150 --> 00:02:09.729 part of the podcast is be best. We get into a 00:02:09.729 --> 00:02:12.610 lot of nuances about just how little is really 00:02:12.610 --> 00:02:16.210 known about what can go wrong after challenging 00:02:16.210 --> 00:02:19.430 experiences and it's great because there are 00:02:19.430 --> 00:02:21.710 a few people out there that are exploring what 00:02:21.710 --> 00:02:24.490 can go wrong with more nuance and just saying, 00:02:24.789 --> 00:02:27.469 oh hallucinogen persisting perceptual disorder 00:02:27.469 --> 00:02:31.289 or psychosis -like experiences. This is building 00:02:31.479 --> 00:02:35.520 from the ground up, a sort of taxonomy and also 00:02:35.520 --> 00:02:38.539 what people find helpful, which I think is extremely 00:02:38.539 --> 00:02:41.800 important that people start to investigate. In 00:02:41.800 --> 00:02:44.979 a lot of ways, our discussion of the challenging 00:02:44.979 --> 00:02:47.960 experiences project kind of parallels some of 00:02:47.960 --> 00:02:50.500 the discussions I had with Dr. Willoughby Britton 00:02:50.500 --> 00:02:54.500 in our episode on meditation gone wrong, which 00:02:54.500 --> 00:02:56.699 looks at meditation related side effects. If 00:02:56.699 --> 00:02:59.259 you find this part of the discussion with Dr. 00:02:59.419 --> 00:03:01.659 David Luke interesting, be sure to check out 00:03:01.659 --> 00:03:04.860 that episode as well. And now let's turn to the 00:03:04.860 --> 00:03:08.969 actual conversation. So I am here with Dr. David 00:03:08.969 --> 00:03:13.090 Luke, who has, I think, some of the most interesting 00:03:13.090 --> 00:03:17.449 areas of focus in psychedelic science. Definitely 00:03:17.449 --> 00:03:21.069 focusing on some weird and out there experiences. 00:03:21.430 --> 00:03:25.169 Dr. Luke is especially known for studying exceptional 00:03:25.169 --> 00:03:28.530 experiences. And a lot of these experiences are 00:03:28.530 --> 00:03:32.110 a bit outside, I guess, typical academic norms, 00:03:32.110 --> 00:03:35.069 you could say. Maybe you could tell us a bit 00:03:35.069 --> 00:03:38.370 about how you got interested in studying such 00:03:38.370 --> 00:03:41.909 weird phenomena and what exceptional experiences 00:03:41.909 --> 00:03:44.509 are. Thank you, Hayley. Thanks for having me 00:03:44.509 --> 00:03:47.409 along. Yeah, I think I was always interested 00:03:47.409 --> 00:03:50.729 in weird experiences. I guess I had quite a few 00:03:50.729 --> 00:03:54.330 strange experiences as a kid. I had a very, very 00:03:54.330 --> 00:03:57.870 active dream life. You know, like I would just 00:03:57.870 --> 00:04:01.729 be off having cosmic battles. most nights and 00:04:01.729 --> 00:04:05.490 strange hypnagogic phenomena and body experiences. 00:04:06.189 --> 00:04:09.490 And so I was always drawn towards exploring that 00:04:09.490 --> 00:04:13.129 end of the spectrum of psychology, which led 00:04:13.129 --> 00:04:16.990 me to also kind of treat my brain like a neurochemistry 00:04:16.990 --> 00:04:20.750 playset as a teenager and explore psychedelics, 00:04:20.810 --> 00:04:23.230 which led to me going away to study psychology 00:04:23.230 --> 00:04:26.480 at university. Although hopefully disappointed 00:04:26.480 --> 00:04:29.339 when I got to do a degree that you basically 00:04:29.339 --> 00:04:31.899 don't learn anything about this stuff about psychedelic 00:04:31.899 --> 00:04:34.959 experiences or exceptional experiences. And so 00:04:34.959 --> 00:04:37.319 I was kind of forced to go back and do a PhD 00:04:37.319 --> 00:04:41.290 and try and inject into the academy what I found 00:04:41.290 --> 00:04:43.930 to be missing. So exceptional experiences is 00:04:43.930 --> 00:04:46.870 a kind of really broad heading for all of the 00:04:46.870 --> 00:04:48.290 weird and wonderful stuff you don't normally 00:04:48.290 --> 00:04:51.329 get in a psychology degree. So can be psychedelic 00:04:51.329 --> 00:04:55.329 experiences or paranormal or spiritual or anomalous 00:04:55.329 --> 00:04:57.949 experiences, unusual experiences which don't 00:04:57.949 --> 00:05:01.490 fit the norm, which I also include kind of neurodivergence 00:05:01.490 --> 00:05:04.730 in there as well. So things like aphantasia and 00:05:04.730 --> 00:05:06.930 synesthesia, which are not necessarily paranormal, 00:05:07.170 --> 00:05:09.250 spiritual or psychedelic, but at least they're 00:05:09.250 --> 00:05:11.769 not the kind of usual kind of everyday experience 00:05:11.769 --> 00:05:14.410 for most people. So it covers everything that 00:05:14.410 --> 00:05:16.970 falls down the cracks in usual psychology and 00:05:16.970 --> 00:05:20.550 it also points to and illuminates some interesting 00:05:20.550 --> 00:05:22.589 dimensions of consciousness which I think have 00:05:22.589 --> 00:05:26.610 been woefully ignored. So you were just a kid 00:05:26.610 --> 00:05:29.490 having strange dreams basically. And you're like, 00:05:29.490 --> 00:05:32.930 I need to go study psychology to understand what 00:05:32.930 --> 00:05:35.709 the heck is going on here. And that led you down 00:05:35.709 --> 00:05:40.370 quite a rabbit hole. And one thing that I appreciate 00:05:40.370 --> 00:05:43.310 about your work is it's not just psychedelic 00:05:43.310 --> 00:05:46.410 experiences. You use psychedelics as a lens to 00:05:46.410 --> 00:05:49.750 study other things like psi phenomena and near 00:05:49.750 --> 00:05:52.629 -death experiences. So the interesting thing 00:05:52.629 --> 00:05:57.569 about psychedelics is They are a very reliable 00:05:57.569 --> 00:06:00.350 way of inducing these kinds of exceptional experiences. 00:06:00.750 --> 00:06:02.829 Exceptional experiences tend to occur more with 00:06:02.829 --> 00:06:05.509 psychedelics than any other kind of access route 00:06:05.509 --> 00:06:08.110 due to their potency. But I think the kinds of 00:06:08.110 --> 00:06:11.410 experiences you can access through these substances 00:06:11.769 --> 00:06:15.629 you can access through any other means of altered 00:06:15.629 --> 00:06:17.970 states of consciousness, pretty much the most 00:06:17.970 --> 00:06:20.370 phenomena. And so like more broadly, it's the 00:06:20.370 --> 00:06:22.870 study of altered states, which includes psychedelics 00:06:22.870 --> 00:06:27.149 and these kinds of experiences. ESP and psychedelics, 00:06:27.269 --> 00:06:29.149 like that's something that kind of I think gets 00:06:29.149 --> 00:06:33.449 sanitized out of more medicalized discussions 00:06:33.449 --> 00:06:36.089 of like, oh, this could be a treatment for depression, 00:06:36.269 --> 00:06:38.930 addiction and what have you. But it seems that 00:06:39.079 --> 00:06:42.139 in indigenous cultures at least, that that was 00:06:42.139 --> 00:06:45.100 one of sort of the main ways that people were 00:06:45.100 --> 00:06:48.040 examining psychedelics being useful. Using things 00:06:48.040 --> 00:06:51.899 like ayahuasca to be able to tell what somebody 00:06:51.899 --> 00:06:55.819 was sick with, for example, right? Yes. So I 00:06:55.819 --> 00:06:58.100 think this is an interesting thing. You know, 00:06:58.199 --> 00:07:00.339 psychedelics as they used by indigenous people 00:07:00.339 --> 00:07:03.259 are just part of an armory of techniques for 00:07:03.259 --> 00:07:05.579 accessing our states of consciousness. So in 00:07:05.579 --> 00:07:08.139 lots of indigenous cultures that engage in what 00:07:08.139 --> 00:07:11.240 we might call shamanism, it's a practice by whereby 00:07:11.240 --> 00:07:13.300 you go into an altered state of consciousness 00:07:13.300 --> 00:07:16.240 to transcend time and space and bring back useful 00:07:16.240 --> 00:07:18.519 information for your community. So it's very 00:07:18.519 --> 00:07:22.019 pragmatic, magical, spiritual practice. And psychedelics 00:07:22.019 --> 00:07:24.720 are just one means of going into those states 00:07:24.720 --> 00:07:27.480 to transcend time and space. It's not something 00:07:27.480 --> 00:07:31.040 we have kind of continued with in the kind of 00:07:31.040 --> 00:07:34.500 the global north particularly. So like the anthropologist 00:07:34.500 --> 00:07:37.519 Charles Loughlin talks about how we have, you 00:07:37.519 --> 00:07:41.060 can separate the world into monophasic and polyphasic 00:07:41.060 --> 00:07:43.720 cultures. So monophasic cultures are those cultures 00:07:43.720 --> 00:07:48.060 like in Euro America that only really value and 00:07:48.060 --> 00:07:50.740 engage with the ordinary waking state of consciousness, 00:07:50.920 --> 00:07:53.199 like one phase of consciousness. Everything else 00:07:53.199 --> 00:07:56.100 is denigrated. It's like, oh, that's just hallucination. 00:07:56.170 --> 00:07:58.810 really pay attention to that. So dreams aren't 00:07:58.810 --> 00:08:00.860 really... paid attention to psychedelic drugs 00:08:00.860 --> 00:08:03.480 are frowned upon, other altered states practices 00:08:03.480 --> 00:08:06.180 are frowned upon, or at least they were. And 00:08:06.180 --> 00:08:08.579 you know, you get some special dispensation to 00:08:08.579 --> 00:08:11.220 have coffee to make you function and work harder. 00:08:11.220 --> 00:08:13.579 And maybe you can have a few beers on the weekend 00:08:13.579 --> 00:08:16.540 as a way of relaxing. But you know, we don't 00:08:16.540 --> 00:08:20.360 really value the drunken state is any way important 00:08:20.360 --> 00:08:23.319 to our kind of civic responsibilities. Whereas 00:08:23.319 --> 00:08:27.300 in polyphasic cultures, you know, the information 00:08:27.300 --> 00:08:29.959 coming from altered states such as dreams or 00:08:29.959 --> 00:08:32.460 psychedelic experiences are very much valued 00:08:32.460 --> 00:08:35.240 and engaged with at least on a level with ordinary 00:08:35.240 --> 00:08:37.980 waking consciousness, if not more so. And there 00:08:37.980 --> 00:08:40.799 are means of accessing information like it's 00:08:40.799 --> 00:08:43.679 a system of epistemology, the way in which we 00:08:43.679 --> 00:08:47.279 obtain knowledge. part of the world. It's generally 00:08:47.279 --> 00:08:51.580 through observation and science and education 00:08:51.580 --> 00:08:54.840 and logic and philosophy. Whereas in a lot of 00:08:54.840 --> 00:08:57.659 indigenous cultures, their epistemology derives 00:08:57.659 --> 00:09:00.419 through altered states, through engaging with 00:09:00.419 --> 00:09:03.860 the natural world. through kind of shamanic practices. 00:09:04.279 --> 00:09:06.559 Like if you want to understand what the medicinal 00:09:06.559 --> 00:09:09.899 properties of a plant are, you may drink ayahuasca 00:09:09.899 --> 00:09:13.240 and dieta and diet with that plant and then come 00:09:13.240 --> 00:09:17.240 to know the plant in a relational way, on a subjective 00:09:17.240 --> 00:09:19.379 way and understand what its healing properties 00:09:19.379 --> 00:09:22.580 are. So these are two very different worldviews 00:09:22.580 --> 00:09:25.399 and epistemologies and ontologies that we have 00:09:25.399 --> 00:09:28.340 where one is accepted that altostates are good 00:09:28.340 --> 00:09:31.179 and useful and the other is where they are denigrated. 00:09:31.019 --> 00:09:36.100 hated and denied. So I guess that kind of explains 00:09:36.100 --> 00:09:39.240 why for a period of time you went to Mexico to 00:09:39.240 --> 00:09:43.759 try to learn more about shamanism in a more polyphasic 00:09:43.759 --> 00:09:46.299 cultural setting, it sounds like. Maybe you could 00:09:46.299 --> 00:09:49.039 tell us a bit about what you got out of that 00:09:49.039 --> 00:09:52.360 experience. Well, I've got a fine collection 00:09:52.360 --> 00:09:54.960 of Mexican shirts. As you can see, that was one 00:09:54.960 --> 00:09:59.179 of the most important things for me. I also got 00:09:59.179 --> 00:10:01.779 to learn a little bit about what is the nature 00:10:01.779 --> 00:10:05.980 of shamanism and these very different ways of 00:10:05.980 --> 00:10:11.059 interacting and seeing the world. northern global 00:10:11.059 --> 00:10:16.039 people, I was very naive to what these realities 00:10:16.039 --> 00:10:19.340 entail. But I would say that as a general rule 00:10:19.340 --> 00:10:23.039 bull who live within a magical spiritual kind 00:10:23.039 --> 00:10:26.080 of culture, which engages with shamanism, live 00:10:26.080 --> 00:10:28.840 in a kind of permanent magical reality, which 00:10:28.840 --> 00:10:33.159 is at odds with our kind of cultural reality 00:10:33.159 --> 00:10:35.960 in the global north. And that is, you know, it 00:10:35.960 --> 00:10:39.399 is possible to transcend time and space and obtain 00:10:39.399 --> 00:10:42.399 information from those states of consciousness. 00:10:43.120 --> 00:10:46.799 They do so to communicate and mediate with what 00:10:46.799 --> 00:10:50.159 we might call the spirits of nature, but the 00:10:50.159 --> 00:10:55.269 rest of the ecological world. and to negotiate 00:10:55.269 --> 00:11:00.690 and discover animals to go and hunt or ways of 00:11:00.690 --> 00:11:03.789 healing or to divine the future or to find lost 00:11:03.789 --> 00:11:07.389 objects or to negotiate spiritual contracts. 00:11:07.850 --> 00:11:10.190 And that's a lot for somebody from the global 00:11:10.190 --> 00:11:12.549 North to get their head around in any kind of 00:11:12.549 --> 00:11:17.809 open way without either just denigrating it, 00:11:17.929 --> 00:11:20.980 denying it or on the opposite side of it, you 00:11:20.980 --> 00:11:24.740 know, kind of elevating it in a kind of way, 00:11:25.340 --> 00:11:28.100 which, yeah, puts it on a pedestal. So it's just 00:11:28.100 --> 00:11:33.080 another mode of being, I think, that we probably 00:11:33.080 --> 00:11:36.379 also engaged with in our history, you know, our 00:11:36.379 --> 00:11:39.720 ancestors would almost certainly have been animists, 00:11:39.720 --> 00:11:42.679 but it's something that's been kind of ironed 00:11:42.679 --> 00:11:47.600 out of the Global North's kind of working ontology. 00:11:47.919 --> 00:11:50.840 Yeah, I can see how it would be easy to either 00:11:50.840 --> 00:11:53.159 idealize it or just be like, oh, there must be 00:11:53.159 --> 00:11:56.860 some other explanation to whatever you're witnessing 00:11:56.860 --> 00:11:59.659 just because it is such a different worldview. 00:12:00.299 --> 00:12:02.840 But were there any specific instances you can 00:12:02.840 --> 00:12:04.480 think of that you encountered where you were 00:12:04.480 --> 00:12:08.720 just so surprised at how people interacted, I 00:12:08.720 --> 00:12:11.399 guess, with that more magical realm or way of 00:12:11.399 --> 00:12:14.490 thinking? I mean, always surprised. I mean, my 00:12:14.490 --> 00:12:18.809 time working with the Borradica in Mexico, they're 00:12:18.809 --> 00:12:20.610 otherwise known as the Huicholis, but that's 00:12:20.610 --> 00:12:22.470 not what they call themselves. And they have 00:12:22.470 --> 00:12:25.009 a really interesting tradition in that their 00:12:25.009 --> 00:12:28.110 use of peyote, which is psychedelic cactuses, 00:12:28.350 --> 00:12:32.090 is core to their whole cultural identity and 00:12:32.090 --> 00:12:35.090 their annual calendar and their way of life. 00:12:36.679 --> 00:12:40.659 So I guess while you were there in Mexico, you 00:12:40.659 --> 00:12:43.679 probably encountered a lot of instances where 00:12:43.679 --> 00:12:46.480 people were interacting with that sort of more 00:12:46.480 --> 00:12:50.120 magical worldview in a way that was kind of shocking 00:12:50.120 --> 00:12:53.320 or surprising to you. What were some of the more 00:12:53.320 --> 00:12:57.740 weird, to you at least, instances that you encountered. 00:12:58.100 --> 00:13:01.320 I guess one of the kind of wildest things I saw 00:13:01.320 --> 00:13:05.580 or experienced was that the Warradica, like many 00:13:05.580 --> 00:13:08.399 indigenous people around the world, professed 00:13:08.399 --> 00:13:12.200 to have some control over local weather systems, 00:13:12.480 --> 00:13:15.860 which is something that lots of rainmakers do 00:13:15.860 --> 00:13:19.019 around the world. And one time we had this encounter 00:13:19.019 --> 00:13:20.600 where it was the first time we were going to 00:13:20.600 --> 00:13:22.899 go on their sacred pilgrimage and I think it 00:13:22.899 --> 00:13:25.139 was the first time they'd taken any gringos on 00:13:25.139 --> 00:13:27.200 the pilgrimage. It's like a thousand kilometer 00:13:27.200 --> 00:13:29.940 round trip to go and harvest the peyote. And 00:13:29.940 --> 00:13:32.419 we rocked up on the edge of their territory. 00:13:32.979 --> 00:13:35.860 with this one Marakami, that's what they call 00:13:35.860 --> 00:13:38.179 their shamans. And we met with a whole bunch 00:13:38.179 --> 00:13:40.720 of other Marakamis from their ceremonial group. 00:13:41.039 --> 00:13:44.100 And they came in one pickup truck and we came 00:13:44.100 --> 00:13:45.759 the other way in a pickup truck and we all got 00:13:45.759 --> 00:13:48.220 out. And we were just about to kind of introduce 00:13:48.220 --> 00:13:50.059 ourselves and say hello. And they immediately 00:13:50.059 --> 00:13:53.220 got to arguing with the Marakami we were with. 00:13:53.460 --> 00:13:55.299 And so there was like five or six of these shamans 00:13:55.299 --> 00:13:57.779 all arguing. And we were just stood there like 00:13:57.779 --> 00:14:01.360 lemons going, okay. This is a bit awkward. And 00:14:01.360 --> 00:14:05.460 then like this huge dust devil got up in the 00:14:05.460 --> 00:14:08.039 field behind them. They like they had their backs 00:14:08.039 --> 00:14:09.860 to it. And we could see this thing, you know, 00:14:09.860 --> 00:14:12.820 like a tornado, like not a tornado, but a very, 00:14:13.080 --> 00:14:16.000 very big dust devil and a couple of hundred feet 00:14:16.000 --> 00:14:19.240 high, 30, 40 foot across. And it was sucking 00:14:19.240 --> 00:14:22.679 up all the dried maize leaves in the field. and 00:14:22.679 --> 00:14:25.840 started coming towards us. And myself and my 00:14:25.840 --> 00:14:27.639 kind of gringo buddies were all stood there going, 00:14:27.720 --> 00:14:30.480 wow, what's going on here? And it was moving 00:14:30.480 --> 00:14:32.980 in a direct line towards us and getting closer 00:14:32.980 --> 00:14:35.659 and closer. These guys were still arguing and 00:14:35.659 --> 00:14:38.039 at some point it was, it was going to hit us. 00:14:38.139 --> 00:14:40.120 And I was like, I kind of interrupted them and 00:14:40.120 --> 00:14:42.200 said, Hey guys, like, you know, look behind you. 00:14:42.559 --> 00:14:45.580 And they saw it and they were completely unfazed. 00:14:45.700 --> 00:14:47.580 Like one of them, two of them did this kind of 00:14:47.580 --> 00:14:49.840 gesture with their arms. One had their arms crossed 00:14:49.840 --> 00:14:53.649 and kind of shoved. the dust devil with his arms 00:14:53.649 --> 00:14:55.429 and the other one just pushed it with his hands. 00:14:55.929 --> 00:14:58.049 And the whole thing changed direction suddenly 00:14:58.049 --> 00:15:00.370 in the direction in which they were kind of gesturing 00:15:00.370 --> 00:15:03.090 with their hands. And it went round us in an 00:15:03.090 --> 00:15:05.909 arc. We watched the whole thing kind of bend 00:15:05.909 --> 00:15:08.710 around us on his direction and then continued 00:15:08.710 --> 00:15:11.710 on this kind of the trajectory that it had previous 00:15:11.710 --> 00:15:14.230 to being seemingly shoved. So it looked like 00:15:14.230 --> 00:15:16.950 they, for all intents and purposes, just pushed 00:15:16.950 --> 00:15:21.100 a ginormous dust devil out of the way. or a bit 00:15:21.100 --> 00:15:24.240 gobsmacked to say the least. We're like, did 00:15:24.240 --> 00:15:28.399 you see that? I saw that. Meanwhile, the interesting 00:15:28.399 --> 00:15:30.759 thing is they did this gesture with their hands 00:15:30.759 --> 00:15:33.299 and then immediately got back to arguing. They 00:15:33.299 --> 00:15:35.360 didn't even pay the dust devil any attention. 00:15:37.580 --> 00:15:40.679 aren't more important. We were all just completely 00:15:40.679 --> 00:15:43.299 gobsmacked. That was at the start of the trip. 00:15:43.639 --> 00:15:46.259 We'd literally just met them. We were like, well, 00:15:46.559 --> 00:15:48.720 if that happens now, what's going to happen on 00:15:48.720 --> 00:15:53.179 the rest of this journey? That was the most exotic 00:15:53.179 --> 00:15:55.460 phenomenon we saw. I think maybe perhaps they 00:15:55.460 --> 00:15:58.039 were just showing off or something. I don't know. 00:15:58.320 --> 00:16:00.559 For all intents and purposes, it looked very 00:16:00.559 --> 00:16:03.750 much like ... They just manipulated this weather 00:16:03.750 --> 00:16:07.090 phenomena in a way in which we have no concept 00:16:07.090 --> 00:16:10.049 of. Now it could just have been some kind of 00:16:10.049 --> 00:16:13.009 coincidence or, you know, trick of the light, 00:16:13.230 --> 00:16:16.649 but I doubt it. So, you know, stuff like that 00:16:16.649 --> 00:16:20.470 kind of gives you some sense in which when they 00:16:20.470 --> 00:16:23.549 talk about their magical reality, they aren't 00:16:23.549 --> 00:16:26.610 saying it flippantly or in any kind of illusionary 00:16:26.610 --> 00:16:31.269 way. They genuinely believe in this and you begin 00:16:31.269 --> 00:16:33.929 to have the inclination that what they're saying 00:16:33.929 --> 00:16:38.169 might actually be real. It leads you to question 00:16:38.169 --> 00:16:42.500 your own take on consensus reality. Or maybe 00:16:42.500 --> 00:16:44.860 they were just trying to get you very entranced 00:16:44.860 --> 00:16:48.279 with their magical skills and do a little show 00:16:48.279 --> 00:16:52.799 for you basically. But how did their experiences... 00:16:52.860 --> 00:16:56.759 and I guess use of peyote relate to this whole 00:16:56.759 --> 00:17:00.639 ability to change the weather or whatnot? Did 00:17:00.639 --> 00:17:03.440 there seem to be a relationship between their 00:17:03.440 --> 00:17:05.960 magical abilities, I guess you could say, and 00:17:05.960 --> 00:17:08.460 their use of psychedelics? Or were those separate 00:17:08.460 --> 00:17:11.839 things? Yeah, it's all very much embedded in 00:17:11.839 --> 00:17:15.900 a deeper core magico -spiritual practice at which, 00:17:15.900 --> 00:17:19.319 you know, peyote is at the center in that this 00:17:19.319 --> 00:17:23.630 is how they form their deep connection with nature. 00:17:23.970 --> 00:17:27.150 Everything is sacred in the natural world and 00:17:27.150 --> 00:17:31.089 they utilize peyote as a means of training and 00:17:31.089 --> 00:17:34.809 negotiation in this shamanic world. It's an ecological 00:17:34.809 --> 00:17:38.890 epistemology where they're very much engaging 00:17:38.890 --> 00:17:41.390 with the natural world and everything is sacred 00:17:41.390 --> 00:17:45.599 and sanctified. They'll train to be a Murakami, 00:17:45.759 --> 00:17:48.859 a shaman for 12 years, which includes all kinds 00:17:48.859 --> 00:17:52.400 of ordeals and a lot of time, all of the time 00:17:52.400 --> 00:17:57.599 is spent in nature. So, and they work very elementally, 00:17:58.059 --> 00:18:01.779 like they're most important. Praxis is around 00:18:01.779 --> 00:18:04.859 kind of the elements, the four elements as they 00:18:04.859 --> 00:18:08.279 break it down, earth, air, fire and water. And 00:18:08.279 --> 00:18:11.000 they primarily work with fire. That's their central. 00:18:11.339 --> 00:18:15.220 deity, if you like, and the most important element. 00:18:15.619 --> 00:18:18.039 So it's a kind of elemental and ecological kind 00:18:18.039 --> 00:18:22.000 of animism, which means for them, they can engage 00:18:22.000 --> 00:18:25.859 with and negotiate with all the forces and species 00:18:25.859 --> 00:18:28.500 of the natural world through their use of peyote. 00:18:28.700 --> 00:18:31.099 But they weren't tripping at the time. I don't 00:18:31.099 --> 00:18:36.079 think they're living a trip, basically. Well, 00:18:36.240 --> 00:18:40.180 later on, you went on to investigate whether 00:18:40.410 --> 00:18:43.670 a different mescaline containing cactus, San 00:18:43.670 --> 00:18:48.609 Pedro, could increase ESP abilities and you ended 00:18:48.609 --> 00:18:51.470 up using yourself as a guinea pig. Why were you 00:18:51.470 --> 00:18:54.529 looking at San Pedro? Yeah, actually this was 00:18:54.529 --> 00:18:57.410 before I connected with the Borradica and I was 00:18:57.410 --> 00:19:00.569 in South America in Ecuador. I'd previously been 00:19:00.569 --> 00:19:03.009 doing some research on extrasensory perception 00:19:03.009 --> 00:19:06.109 with ayahuasca, but that was problematic for 00:19:06.170 --> 00:19:08.589 various reasons. And while I was in Ecuador, 00:19:08.789 --> 00:19:11.829 I figured it would be more sense to work with 00:19:11.829 --> 00:19:15.009 San Pedro, which is just a bit easier to manage 00:19:15.009 --> 00:19:18.210 in many ways than ayahuasca. And I certainly 00:19:18.210 --> 00:19:20.789 get on with it better. I'd attempted to do an 00:19:20.789 --> 00:19:24.210 experiment with people taking San Pedro and they 00:19:24.210 --> 00:19:26.779 were going to engage in a precognition task, 00:19:27.039 --> 00:19:29.680 a kind of computerized randomized precognition 00:19:29.680 --> 00:19:32.279 task, which was pretty, pretty fail safe. You 00:19:32.279 --> 00:19:34.380 know, the results of which could only be due 00:19:34.380 --> 00:19:39.130 to like probability, which we controlled or the 00:19:39.130 --> 00:19:41.849 possibility of some kind of precognition. However, 00:19:41.990 --> 00:19:44.130 when I'd attempted to recruit people to take 00:19:44.130 --> 00:19:46.690 part in this experiment, the currendiro, the 00:19:46.690 --> 00:19:49.029 shaman, the healer I was working with, refused 00:19:49.029 --> 00:19:52.269 to let me bring my laptop into his ceremony. 00:19:52.470 --> 00:19:54.309 And I was running out of time. So I figured instead 00:19:54.309 --> 00:19:57.670 of getting 20 people to do a trial each of my 00:19:57.670 --> 00:20:00.269 task, the cognition task whilst they're on San 00:20:00.269 --> 00:20:03.519 Pedro cactus, I would do all 20 trials myself 00:20:03.519 --> 00:20:06.640 under the influence of San Pedro, which fortunately, 00:20:06.700 --> 00:20:09.519 you know, the mescaline lasts about 12 hours. 00:20:09.680 --> 00:20:12.420 So you've got plenty of time to run 20 trials 00:20:12.420 --> 00:20:14.660 of a precognition experiment. And that was quite 00:20:14.660 --> 00:20:17.160 illuminating in that, you know, the design is 00:20:17.160 --> 00:20:19.279 such that you can't cheat it. Like, you know, 00:20:19.359 --> 00:20:22.579 the, the targets aren't even chosen until the 00:20:22.579 --> 00:20:26.299 future. And so it's got a safe design. So you 00:20:26.299 --> 00:20:29.220 can be both a participant and experimenter without 00:20:29.220 --> 00:20:32.180 compromising the experiment because because you 00:20:32.180 --> 00:20:35.299 actually have to use precognition to do well 00:20:35.299 --> 00:20:40.140 at the task. I got a significant result, which 00:20:40.140 --> 00:20:42.779 was great. It's a kind of proof of process. I 00:20:42.779 --> 00:20:45.440 wouldn't say it's necessarily evidential, but 00:20:45.440 --> 00:20:50.130 it shows that the study design is feasible. a 00:20:50.130 --> 00:20:54.170 lot about the potential medium and process through 00:20:54.170 --> 00:20:56.710 which this could work in that, you know, I had 00:20:56.710 --> 00:20:59.809 to basically, I would set the intention to try 00:20:59.809 --> 00:21:02.849 and identify the future target. which would be 00:21:02.849 --> 00:21:05.710 one of four one minute video clips, which I didn't 00:21:05.710 --> 00:21:07.930 know which one would be the target or what the 00:21:07.930 --> 00:21:10.490 video clips were. And so I'd like try and visualize 00:21:10.490 --> 00:21:14.329 this video clip and I would get some wild mental 00:21:14.329 --> 00:21:17.190 imagery and I'd write it down if I could actually 00:21:17.190 --> 00:21:19.809 put it into words. And then I would see the four 00:21:19.809 --> 00:21:22.069 one minute video clips and I would rate them 00:21:22.069 --> 00:21:24.430 according to how similar they were to my mescaline 00:21:24.430 --> 00:21:27.450 vision. And then the computer would then randomly 00:21:27.450 --> 00:21:30.609 select the target using a random number generator 00:21:30.609 --> 00:21:33.069 and we'd see whether or not I was correct or 00:21:33.069 --> 00:21:34.769 not. And through this process, you could see 00:21:34.769 --> 00:21:37.369 that there was kind of thematic elements. Like 00:21:37.369 --> 00:21:40.950 I never actually fully saw any one of those video 00:21:40.950 --> 00:21:44.369 clips in its entirety in my vision, but there 00:21:44.369 --> 00:21:47.730 were very much kind of themes and elements which 00:21:47.730 --> 00:21:51.109 corresponded to the actual targets. And often 00:21:51.109 --> 00:21:53.369 in quite surprising ways. Sometimes they were 00:21:53.369 --> 00:21:56.430 quite spot on. Like one was like the sands of 00:21:56.430 --> 00:22:00.009 time, desert dunes, and there was a scene of 00:22:00.009 --> 00:22:02.609 a side wind. going across the desert, which I 00:22:02.609 --> 00:22:05.109 chose as the target and the random number generator 00:22:05.109 --> 00:22:08.150 also selected afterwards. So, but then there 00:22:08.150 --> 00:22:10.950 was other elements whereby there was like a, 00:22:10.950 --> 00:22:13.470 you know, these were random pools of all one 00:22:13.470 --> 00:22:15.569 minute video clips, which had been selected by 00:22:15.569 --> 00:22:18.450 another researcher to be as heterogeneous as 00:22:18.450 --> 00:22:20.769 possible. That is they, to be as different from 00:22:20.769 --> 00:22:23.170 each other as possible so that it was easier 00:22:23.170 --> 00:22:26.069 to determine, you know, like which video clip 00:22:26.069 --> 00:22:28.869 was most like your visual mentations. If they're 00:22:28.869 --> 00:22:31.700 all really similar, it's harder to discern any 00:22:31.700 --> 00:22:35.039 differences between them. And yet on this one 00:22:35.039 --> 00:22:39.880 trial, I'd had a vision of a broken limb. That's 00:22:39.880 --> 00:22:42.200 what I'd written down, a broken limb. And then 00:22:42.200 --> 00:22:44.390 it turned out... Then when I watched the four 00:22:44.390 --> 00:22:46.950 video clips, although they were all very, very 00:22:46.950 --> 00:22:50.069 different in content and theme and style, three 00:22:50.069 --> 00:22:53.009 of them had broken limbs in them, right? Which 00:22:53.009 --> 00:22:56.410 led me to have some difficulty discerning what 00:22:56.410 --> 00:22:59.829 the target might be. But weirdly, you know, my 00:22:59.829 --> 00:23:03.589 bemescalined mind had picked up on a theme that 00:23:03.589 --> 00:23:06.190 was apparent in this pool of four video clips 00:23:06.190 --> 00:23:09.009 that I had no idea was there because I hadn't 00:23:09.009 --> 00:23:12.960 even seen the videos. So Sometimes it was doing 00:23:12.960 --> 00:23:16.279 things in weird ways which wouldn't necessarily 00:23:16.279 --> 00:23:20.400 translate into a statistically significant result. 00:23:20.759 --> 00:23:22.619 So that tells you something about the nature 00:23:22.619 --> 00:23:26.579 of this process if it is indeed real. It's definitely 00:23:26.579 --> 00:23:29.779 fascinating and it sounds like a fine experiment 00:23:29.779 --> 00:23:32.059 to put yourself through being the guinea pig 00:23:32.059 --> 00:23:35.319 for. It's interesting because even though, you 00:23:35.319 --> 00:23:38.619 know, in modern research this ESP stuff doesn't 00:23:38.619 --> 00:23:41.799 seem to be a focus, it seems like in the 1950s 00:23:41.799 --> 00:23:45.359 and 60s a lot of sort of the founders of psychedelic 00:23:45.359 --> 00:23:48.240 research were somewhat into it. Like apparently 00:23:48.240 --> 00:23:52.150 Groff was guessing correctly on a remote viewing 00:23:52.150 --> 00:23:55.289 task several times in a row and like got freaked 00:23:55.289 --> 00:23:57.609 out or something and had to stop. And there are, 00:23:57.609 --> 00:24:00.769 I think, other instances as well. Maybe you could 00:24:00.769 --> 00:24:03.569 tell us a bit about those. Yeah, Groff famously 00:24:03.569 --> 00:24:06.970 did do, he did extremely well on this, I think 00:24:06.970 --> 00:24:09.650 it was a telepathy task or a precognition task. 00:24:09.829 --> 00:24:11.630 And yeah, he had to stop basically because he 00:24:11.630 --> 00:24:14.410 was he was doing so well, it kind of weirded 00:24:14.410 --> 00:24:16.849 him out. And there are similar stories like that. 00:24:16.990 --> 00:24:19.569 I think it was John Smithies and Duncan Blewett. 00:24:19.730 --> 00:24:23.049 Smithies worked with Humphrey Osmond, who coined 00:24:23.049 --> 00:24:25.670 the term psychedelic. And Humphrey Osmond was 00:24:25.670 --> 00:24:27.809 also interested in this research and they run 00:24:27.809 --> 00:24:30.970 an ESP experiment on mescaline, which freaked 00:24:30.970 --> 00:24:33.549 out their research assistant because they were 00:24:33.640 --> 00:24:36.299 so successful that they had again had to stop 00:24:36.299 --> 00:24:38.819 the experiment because it was like too uncanny 00:24:38.819 --> 00:24:41.900 and it was making people quite nervous. And so, 00:24:42.019 --> 00:24:44.859 you know, a lot of these early psychedelic pioneers 00:24:44.859 --> 00:24:48.039 often had their own paranormal -like experiences 00:24:48.039 --> 00:24:51.039 or psy -like experiences. Albert Hoffman on his 00:24:51.039 --> 00:24:54.180 first LSD trip basically had a kind of out of 00:24:54.180 --> 00:24:57.240 body experience or something akin to a near -death 00:24:57.240 --> 00:24:59.940 experience and felt like he'd left his body and 00:24:59.940 --> 00:25:02.319 he was looking down on his body and thought he 00:25:02.319 --> 00:25:04.380 might have died and that kind of freaked him 00:25:04.380 --> 00:25:06.920 out. Gordon Wasson as well, the first time they 00:25:06.920 --> 00:25:10.630 encountered a Mazatec Corundiro, who ran the 00:25:10.630 --> 00:25:14.230 first ever account of a Westerner gringo engaging 00:25:14.230 --> 00:25:19.029 in a mushroom ceremony. The Corundiro Donarulio 00:25:19.029 --> 00:25:21.630 told him all these things about his son back 00:25:21.630 --> 00:25:24.349 home in the States that he didn't know about. 00:25:24.769 --> 00:25:26.789 And when they got back to the States after their 00:25:26.789 --> 00:25:28.910 research trip in Mexico, they found out it was 00:25:28.910 --> 00:25:32.490 all true. So you pretty much all of the big pioneers 00:25:32.490 --> 00:25:35.750 of psychedelic research. in the fifties and sixties 00:25:35.750 --> 00:25:39.130 had their own encounters with psi phenomena and 00:25:39.130 --> 00:25:42.529 were engaged with it. Even Walter Panke, we did 00:25:42.529 --> 00:25:44.829 the first Good Friday, the Good Friday experiment 00:25:44.829 --> 00:25:49.009 ran his own psilocybin ESP experiments as well. 00:25:49.309 --> 00:25:51.609 And then of course, prohibition happened and 00:25:51.609 --> 00:25:54.329 parapsychologists like not wanting to tarnish 00:25:54.329 --> 00:25:57.130 their reputation very quickly moved away from 00:25:57.130 --> 00:26:00.579 psychedelics. which was seen as more taboo than 00:26:00.579 --> 00:26:03.279 parapsychology, although that now has kind of 00:26:03.279 --> 00:26:05.740 completely flipped. It's definitely interesting 00:26:05.740 --> 00:26:09.940 how there seems to be this line studying or at 00:26:09.940 --> 00:26:13.220 least considering parapsychology in indigenous 00:26:13.220 --> 00:26:17.059 cultures in the 50s and 60s with your previous 00:26:17.059 --> 00:26:21.019 work. there does seem to be something going on 00:26:21.019 --> 00:26:23.720 where at least people are experiencing things 00:26:23.720 --> 00:26:26.480 like clairvoyance, like, you know, being able 00:26:26.480 --> 00:26:29.680 to predict videos and whatnot. But even though 00:26:29.680 --> 00:26:32.519 they're having that experience, maybe it's not 00:26:32.519 --> 00:26:35.099 really, you know, they're developing some sort 00:26:35.099 --> 00:26:38.119 of paranormal capabilities, but it just feels 00:26:38.119 --> 00:26:41.619 like it. And I guess it's possible that, I don't 00:26:41.619 --> 00:26:44.519 know, I spend a lot of time comparing psychosis 00:26:44.519 --> 00:26:46.960 and psychedelics and that's kind of my lens and 00:26:46.960 --> 00:26:49.279 in some ways a lot of these experiences sound 00:26:49.279 --> 00:26:52.519 a little bit psychotic like, a little bit like 00:26:52.519 --> 00:26:55.579 maybe somebody has some aberrant salience where 00:26:55.579 --> 00:26:59.579 they're assigning meaning to small things and 00:26:59.579 --> 00:27:03.500 making big symbols out of these tiny coincidences. 00:27:03.839 --> 00:27:07.049 How would you push back against that? sort of 00:27:07.049 --> 00:27:09.390 guess interpretation that this is just a kind 00:27:09.390 --> 00:27:12.329 of a psychotic like thinking that people are 00:27:12.329 --> 00:27:15.250 having during these experiences. Yeah. It's interesting. 00:27:15.269 --> 00:27:17.250 And I think, you know, there is an overlap because 00:27:17.250 --> 00:27:20.049 of course in, in states of psychosis, everything 00:27:20.049 --> 00:27:23.109 becomes meaningful. We have a massive increase 00:27:23.109 --> 00:27:26.950 in what we might call apophenia in kind of like 00:27:26.950 --> 00:27:31.549 super high gain sensitivity on our pattern recognition 00:27:31.549 --> 00:27:34.509 and thereby making associations and things and 00:27:34.509 --> 00:27:37.140 finding synchronicities and coincidences and 00:27:37.140 --> 00:27:39.680 everything. It's hard to draw the line. Sometimes 00:27:39.680 --> 00:27:43.819 the point is that, is that a symptom of psychosis? 00:27:44.180 --> 00:27:47.819 At what point is that? There's genuinely something 00:27:47.819 --> 00:27:50.960 unusual happening. There are other ways in which 00:27:50.960 --> 00:27:52.900 we can discern whether or not it's psychosis 00:27:52.900 --> 00:27:56.480 or not, but it may be partly a matter of degree 00:27:56.480 --> 00:28:00.279 and partly qualitative. Nevertheless, lots of 00:28:00.279 --> 00:28:04.299 people who are not psychotic have these experiences 00:28:04.299 --> 00:28:07.099 and they're very common actually with psychedelics. 00:28:07.359 --> 00:28:09.180 Something like half of all people have taken 00:28:09.180 --> 00:28:11.460 psychedelics have had a telepathic experience 00:28:11.460 --> 00:28:14.599 according to some of my survey research, less 00:28:14.599 --> 00:28:16.779 so with precognition. And of course it tends 00:28:16.779 --> 00:28:21.099 to increase people's belief in psi, in extrasensory 00:28:21.099 --> 00:28:23.880 perception and other paranormal like phenomena. 00:28:24.079 --> 00:28:26.920 Having taken psychedelics, you know, people change 00:28:26.920 --> 00:28:29.339 their worldview around the nature of these things, 00:28:29.539 --> 00:28:32.259 but not all those people are psychotic, far from 00:28:32.259 --> 00:28:34.779 it. Whether or not they're genuine or not is 00:28:34.779 --> 00:28:38.240 a very different question. We can only really 00:28:38.240 --> 00:28:41.220 discern that through controlled experimental 00:28:41.220 --> 00:28:44.640 research, but there's a long history of parapsychological 00:28:44.640 --> 00:28:47.799 research going back about 140 years predating 00:28:47.799 --> 00:28:50.539 the study of psychology really as a discipline. 00:28:50.920 --> 00:28:54.279 That's amassed a great deal of evidence to quite 00:28:54.279 --> 00:28:56.940 strongly suggest that, you know, psi phenomena 00:28:56.940 --> 00:29:01.480 is genuine, albeit very, very subtle and almost 00:29:01.480 --> 00:29:03.859 entirely unconscious. So it's very difficult 00:29:03.859 --> 00:29:07.460 to pin down and establish experimentally. But 00:29:07.460 --> 00:29:10.859 if you look at the mass of studies that have 00:29:10.859 --> 00:29:15.000 been conducted and meta -analyses, they're extremely 00:29:15.000 --> 00:29:19.720 significant. So it seems like a latent or unconscious 00:29:19.720 --> 00:29:23.299 and therefore largely ignored and unidentified 00:29:23.299 --> 00:29:27.579 possibility that we can genuinely transcend time 00:29:27.579 --> 00:29:30.839 and space and access information from beyond 00:29:30.839 --> 00:29:34.559 these spatial time coordinates, right? But it's 00:29:34.559 --> 00:29:37.539 not an everyday phenomena and people like shamans 00:29:37.539 --> 00:29:40.319 actively utilize this, right? At least that's 00:29:40.319 --> 00:29:42.859 what they profess to do. So it's a fine thin 00:29:42.859 --> 00:29:46.420 line in many ways because that way psychosis 00:29:46.420 --> 00:29:49.140 also lies. I wouldn't say having a psych experience 00:29:49.140 --> 00:29:52.619 makes you psychotic, but people with psychosis 00:29:52.619 --> 00:29:55.779 may be professing to have. you know, certainly 00:29:55.779 --> 00:29:58.980 a high degree of coincidences and also occasionally 00:29:58.980 --> 00:30:01.779 they have symptoms of, you know, thought transference 00:30:01.779 --> 00:30:03.420 that, you know, people are reading their minds 00:30:03.420 --> 00:30:06.500 as CIA's beaming thoughts into their brain directly 00:30:06.500 --> 00:30:08.450 and all this kind of stuff. But the kinds of 00:30:08.450 --> 00:30:10.609 experiences that people are having are a bit 00:30:10.609 --> 00:30:13.470 more contained and prosaic than that. You know, 00:30:13.569 --> 00:30:16.450 it's not kind of like everything is associative 00:30:16.450 --> 00:30:18.650 and meaningful like you would have with psychosis, 00:30:19.009 --> 00:30:21.690 but people are having kind of quite discrete, 00:30:21.710 --> 00:30:25.109 very meaningful experiences, which may be passed 00:30:25.109 --> 00:30:27.730 off as a coincidence, or they could be explored 00:30:27.730 --> 00:30:32.349 for their potential for a genuine trans cerebral 00:30:32.349 --> 00:30:34.809 kind of phenomena. It depends on which way you 00:30:34.809 --> 00:30:37.640 want to look at it. Yeah, there's definitely 00:30:37.640 --> 00:30:40.920 quite a history of people, I think, interpreting 00:30:40.920 --> 00:30:44.380 adverse events, especially related to psychedelics, 00:30:44.579 --> 00:30:47.180 through the lens of them being somehow psychosis 00:30:47.180 --> 00:30:50.279 -like, even though I think oftentimes the reality 00:30:50.279 --> 00:30:54.640 is a bit more complicated. Recently, a paper 00:30:54.640 --> 00:30:56.720 that you were on came out that was exploring 00:30:56.720 --> 00:31:01.559 how people responded to ontological shock and 00:31:01.559 --> 00:31:04.900 existential distress. after using psychedelics 00:31:04.900 --> 00:31:07.759 and that paper to me was quite fascinating because 00:31:07.759 --> 00:31:11.180 it covered how their often are like worldview 00:31:11.180 --> 00:31:13.940 shifts and people can think that they're going 00:31:13.940 --> 00:31:16.740 crazy or whatever and become very kind of obsessed 00:31:16.740 --> 00:31:19.579 with understanding these different metaphysical 00:31:19.579 --> 00:31:23.099 like frameworks. Yeah. It's not really psychosis 00:31:23.099 --> 00:31:26.180 like per se. Yeah. I think, and I think ontological 00:31:26.180 --> 00:31:28.440 shock is, I think ontological shock is often 00:31:28.440 --> 00:31:31.400 part and parcel of, of profound psychedelic experiences. 00:31:31.559 --> 00:31:35.380 Unless your prior worldview already has room 00:31:35.380 --> 00:31:38.819 for a mystical kind of experience within it. 00:31:38.799 --> 00:31:42.299 frame, then if you have a full blown psychedelic 00:31:42.299 --> 00:31:44.799 slash mystical experience, it is going to throw 00:31:44.799 --> 00:31:48.200 up some challenges to your reality and worldview. 00:31:48.500 --> 00:31:50.059 You know, often people describe having these 00:31:50.059 --> 00:31:53.099 experiences as going beyond what they imagined 00:31:53.099 --> 00:31:56.680 was even possible to experience. And so for many 00:31:56.680 --> 00:31:59.880 people, I think the ontological shock is well 00:31:59.880 --> 00:32:02.740 integrated and incorporated into their life. 00:32:03.099 --> 00:32:05.740 often leads to people taking a more spiritual 00:32:05.740 --> 00:32:09.099 orientation or shifting their metaphysical beliefs. 00:32:09.779 --> 00:32:12.900 But often as well, this can often be a challenge 00:32:12.900 --> 00:32:16.099 and can lead to extended difficulties and of 00:32:16.099 --> 00:32:18.940 course people fearing for their sanity. So in 00:32:18.940 --> 00:32:20.960 the Challenging Psychedelic Experience Project, 00:32:21.160 --> 00:32:22.960 You know, we've been particularly exploring people 00:32:22.960 --> 00:32:25.319 who have difficulties longer than a day. And 00:32:25.319 --> 00:32:27.619 sometimes these can last for weeks, months or 00:32:27.619 --> 00:32:30.299 years. And they comprise lots of different symptoms, 00:32:30.640 --> 00:32:33.200 but one of the recurring symptoms that is most 00:32:33.200 --> 00:32:36.779 prevalent and also The longest lasting and also 00:32:36.779 --> 00:32:40.299 the most challenging typically is ontological 00:32:40.299 --> 00:32:44.180 shock. We find it in upwards of half of all people 00:32:44.180 --> 00:32:47.220 expressing extended difficulties following psychedelic 00:32:47.220 --> 00:32:49.599 experiences. And that is that they have a kind 00:32:49.599 --> 00:32:52.960 of cognitive dissonance between their prior worldview. 00:32:53.480 --> 00:32:57.279 and the worldview that their psychedelic experience 00:32:57.279 --> 00:33:00.460 presents at face value. And that can be challenging 00:33:00.460 --> 00:33:03.579 for people to negotiate and integrate. It threatens 00:33:03.579 --> 00:33:06.819 what we call their ontological security, a sense 00:33:06.819 --> 00:33:09.359 in which you kind of understand the world and 00:33:09.359 --> 00:33:12.359 how it works and reality. And then suddenly this 00:33:12.359 --> 00:33:14.279 experience comes along and it kind of throws 00:33:14.279 --> 00:33:17.259 all your prior beliefs about the nature of reality 00:33:17.259 --> 00:33:20.259 into disarray. And that can be very destabilizing. 00:33:20.420 --> 00:33:22.720 So yeah, that paper was focusing on that particular 00:33:22.720 --> 00:33:24.960 phenomenon. phenomena and ways in which people 00:33:24.960 --> 00:33:28.460 found useful in helping them cope or stabilize 00:33:28.460 --> 00:33:31.579 their experience to lead towards a kind of more 00:33:31.579 --> 00:33:35.079 whole integration. Yeah, it's definitely important 00:33:35.079 --> 00:33:38.579 work because I feel like understanding what goes 00:33:38.579 --> 00:33:41.319 wrong with psychedelics when things do go wrong 00:33:41.319 --> 00:33:45.019 is really under categorized at this point and 00:33:45.019 --> 00:33:47.880 anything that sort of builds what can go wrong 00:33:47.880 --> 00:33:51.099 from the bottom up. Doing qualitative interviews 00:33:51.099 --> 00:33:53.339 with people that are in depth can really, I think, 00:33:53.660 --> 00:33:57.000 facilitate a better understanding. Any sort of 00:33:57.000 --> 00:34:00.480 patterns in the sorts of people maybe prone to 00:34:00.480 --> 00:34:03.920 having ontological shock or existential distress, 00:34:03.920 --> 00:34:07.279 did any patterns emerge? Any specific sorts of 00:34:07.279 --> 00:34:10.519 experience that seemed more risky than others? 00:34:10.719 --> 00:34:13.619 Well, it's hard to kind of extrapolate because 00:34:13.619 --> 00:34:17.699 it's a relatively small sample. because it is 00:34:17.699 --> 00:34:22.880 qualitative. So it's more about the depth of 00:34:22.880 --> 00:34:25.579 the lived experience and what they were going 00:34:25.579 --> 00:34:27.300 through and what they found useful in coping 00:34:27.300 --> 00:34:31.230 rather than identifying. trends in particular. 00:34:31.670 --> 00:34:34.070 So it's kind of more like the themes that emerge 00:34:34.070 --> 00:34:37.429 rather than, okay, this kind of personality leads 00:34:37.429 --> 00:34:40.070 to this kind of difficulty. But the kinds of 00:34:40.070 --> 00:34:44.550 things that come up are crisis, despair, confusion, 00:34:45.090 --> 00:34:49.630 questioning one's identity, grief over the loss 00:34:49.630 --> 00:34:52.469 of you know, your previous self is like often 00:34:52.469 --> 00:34:55.510 seen as a bit of a one way street in that, you 00:34:55.510 --> 00:34:57.730 know, you, you can't necessarily unsee what you've 00:34:57.730 --> 00:35:00.869 seen or experienced and that's changing your 00:35:00.869 --> 00:35:04.329 reality permanently, you know, fears of psychosis 00:35:04.329 --> 00:35:08.429 or paranoia and so on. So the roadmap is kind 00:35:08.429 --> 00:35:10.750 of what's interesting in this is this is coming 00:35:10.750 --> 00:35:13.190 from psychedelic experiences, but there's, there's 00:35:13.190 --> 00:35:15.530 people have already mapped this kind of trajectory 00:35:15.530 --> 00:35:18.050 out with exceptional experiences more generally, 00:35:18.050 --> 00:35:21.449 and it tends to follow. a similar kind of path, 00:35:21.610 --> 00:35:24.550 if you like. There's this deep period of questioning 00:35:24.550 --> 00:35:27.590 and confusion that follows these ontologically 00:35:27.590 --> 00:35:30.329 challenging experiences or exceptional experiences, 00:35:30.469 --> 00:35:33.750 which can lead to various pitfalls and challenges 00:35:33.750 --> 00:35:36.710 such as you may end up kind of joining a cult. 00:35:37.150 --> 00:35:40.050 falling into guru worship and handing over your 00:35:40.050 --> 00:35:43.610 entire bank account or personal self -aggrandizement, 00:35:43.849 --> 00:35:46.929 narcissism, spiritual bypassing, believing that 00:35:46.929 --> 00:35:50.489 you're psychotic. So there's many potential risks 00:35:50.489 --> 00:35:54.010 in having one of these really kind of worldview 00:35:54.010 --> 00:35:56.550 destabilizing experiences. But then there's also 00:35:56.550 --> 00:35:59.349 a kind of pathway through into growth and maybe 00:35:59.349 --> 00:36:01.789 in a similar way into which we see like post 00:36:01.789 --> 00:36:04.539 -traumatic growth. as well. There's a period 00:36:04.539 --> 00:36:07.840 of destabilization, but then there is a movement 00:36:07.840 --> 00:36:11.679 towards feeling more whole and integrated and 00:36:11.679 --> 00:36:15.119 largely coming out the other side, a bigger and 00:36:15.119 --> 00:36:17.380 better person, if you like, more experienced 00:36:17.380 --> 00:36:21.659 and more whole. Yeah, I wonder if other cultures 00:36:21.659 --> 00:36:25.119 where sort of magical frameworks are more embedded 00:36:25.119 --> 00:36:28.539 and accepted in their society. If they have... 00:36:28.639 --> 00:36:32.820 a way to make sense of rapid ontological changes. 00:36:32.980 --> 00:36:36.019 I don't know if they would be prone to experiencing 00:36:36.019 --> 00:36:39.460 such a thing or not. Did the people that you 00:36:39.670 --> 00:36:42.070 who are around in Mexico, did they have a framework? 00:36:42.289 --> 00:36:45.150 Did any other shamanistic sort of traditions 00:36:45.150 --> 00:36:48.349 that you're aware of have a pathway forward for 00:36:48.349 --> 00:36:52.269 people who are somehow distressed by their vague 00:36:52.269 --> 00:36:54.489 experiences, I guess you could say? Interestingly, 00:36:54.690 --> 00:36:56.670 I mean, it's not like we've had like, have studied 00:36:56.670 --> 00:37:00.190 it directly, but I do think they already have 00:37:00.190 --> 00:37:05.110 a cultural cosmology, an ontology, which is accepting 00:37:05.110 --> 00:37:07.570 immediately of those experiences. So I think 00:37:07.570 --> 00:37:10.650 there's less of a kind of ontological shock. 00:37:10.829 --> 00:37:13.449 And this is just my kind of interpretation in 00:37:13.449 --> 00:37:15.889 that, you know, it already fits within their 00:37:15.889 --> 00:37:18.750 cultural framework to have these kinds of experiences 00:37:18.750 --> 00:37:21.699 and it not. just to be psychosis. It's like, 00:37:22.000 --> 00:37:24.260 oh, you, you know, you had some kind of spiritual 00:37:24.260 --> 00:37:27.000 attack or, you know, whatever it might be. And 00:37:27.000 --> 00:37:29.719 yet the way of dealing with it is, is, is, is 00:37:29.719 --> 00:37:31.400 different as well. So like, you know, for instance, 00:37:31.440 --> 00:37:33.840 I've been in ceremonies where for all intents 00:37:33.840 --> 00:37:35.519 and purposes, somebody looked like they were 00:37:35.519 --> 00:37:38.260 possessed and had to be kind of held down. This 00:37:38.260 --> 00:37:41.780 was gringos, right? And the shaman's going, yeah, 00:37:42.079 --> 00:37:44.039 don't worry about it. You know, this happens 00:37:44.039 --> 00:37:46.460 all the time and just tie them up and wait for 00:37:46.460 --> 00:37:49.949 them to come back. And, and basically if you 00:37:49.949 --> 00:37:52.670 want to be a shaman, yes, I just tied them up 00:37:52.670 --> 00:37:54.630 till they come back. And, you know, if you want 00:37:54.630 --> 00:37:56.809 to be a shaman, you're going to have to go through 00:37:56.809 --> 00:37:59.690 that. That's actually part of the journey. Like 00:37:59.690 --> 00:38:02.269 this is like, this isn't anything bad. This is 00:38:02.269 --> 00:38:05.530 just like a natural step in the process. Like 00:38:05.530 --> 00:38:08.130 we see it all the time. It's no big deal, you 00:38:08.130 --> 00:38:10.829 know? So they've got kind of a bit more of a 00:38:10.829 --> 00:38:14.119 relaxed approach to this kind of. these kinds 00:38:14.119 --> 00:38:17.239 of experiences of phenomena and a home for them 00:38:17.239 --> 00:38:20.340 as well in which they hithered or pathologized, 00:38:20.619 --> 00:38:22.940 right? Which I do think probably makes a big 00:38:22.940 --> 00:38:25.940 difference. So going back to, I guess, Westerners' 00:38:26.079 --> 00:38:28.619 experiences, what were some of the things that 00:38:28.619 --> 00:38:32.199 helped people make sense of ontological shock 00:38:32.199 --> 00:38:35.340 or existential distress? Yeah. So there's, you 00:38:35.340 --> 00:38:38.179 know, there's a variety of different coping practices. 00:38:38.440 --> 00:38:40.340 I think one of the biggest ones we found certainly 00:38:40.340 --> 00:38:43.019 from our survey data, not necessarily the interviews 00:38:43.019 --> 00:38:45.800 is kind of psycho education. Like, you know, 00:38:45.840 --> 00:38:47.619 some people would turn to therapists and things 00:38:47.619 --> 00:38:50.639 like that and they didn't necessarily find that 00:38:50.639 --> 00:38:52.860 the most helpful. And that could be just a sign 00:38:52.860 --> 00:38:56.420 of the times in that most therapists are probably 00:38:56.420 --> 00:38:58.960 A, not familiar with psychedelic experiences 00:38:58.960 --> 00:39:01.760 and B, not familiar with the weirder end of the 00:39:01.760 --> 00:39:04.190 psychedelic experience spectrum. of those kinds 00:39:04.190 --> 00:39:06.829 of ontologically challenging experiences, like 00:39:06.829 --> 00:39:08.690 feeling like you've been possessed or whatever, 00:39:08.929 --> 00:39:12.969 right? So classic CBT, for instance, doesn't 00:39:12.969 --> 00:39:15.630 really have a space for dealing with that kind 00:39:15.630 --> 00:39:18.869 of experience. So on the whole, people tended 00:39:18.869 --> 00:39:22.570 not to say that therapy was not the kind of go 00:39:22.570 --> 00:39:26.150 -to route of helping to integrate these experiences. 00:39:26.760 --> 00:39:30.179 It was about typically like finding other people 00:39:30.179 --> 00:39:33.219 or resources where people have gone through similar 00:39:33.219 --> 00:39:35.679 processes and come out the other side and they 00:39:35.679 --> 00:39:38.920 weren't psychotic or stabilizing their experiencing 00:39:38.920 --> 00:39:42.380 and grounding themselves through maybe spending 00:39:42.380 --> 00:39:47.019 time in nature, changing their diet. doing yoga 00:39:47.019 --> 00:39:49.840 or some kind of bodywork practice. So often these 00:39:49.840 --> 00:39:53.360 kinds of things were seen to be useful. Yeah. 00:39:53.579 --> 00:39:57.179 I could see how a therapist who really wasn't 00:39:57.179 --> 00:40:00.480 all that familiar with psychedelics would be 00:40:00.480 --> 00:40:03.320 startled by somebody coming to the session being 00:40:03.320 --> 00:40:05.699 like, I felt like I got possessed when I did 00:40:05.699 --> 00:40:08.219 an ayahuasca ceremony. How do I make sense of 00:40:08.219 --> 00:40:10.719 this? Like, yeah. Of course, that's going to 00:40:10.719 --> 00:40:15.239 be not necessarily the ideal environment. There's 00:40:15.239 --> 00:40:18.320 this whole history of psychedelics and psychosis 00:40:18.320 --> 00:40:21.800 being the main concern that people have, even 00:40:21.800 --> 00:40:24.800 though that could be a concern, but it's not 00:40:24.800 --> 00:40:27.760 necessarily the main adverse effect that people 00:40:27.760 --> 00:40:30.539 are most prone to. So a therapist hearing that 00:40:30.539 --> 00:40:33.420 somebody is having a challenging time, they might 00:40:33.420 --> 00:40:35.940 just think, are they becoming psychotic? and 00:40:35.940 --> 00:40:38.719 I could see how that could be difficult. Going 00:40:38.719 --> 00:40:41.539 forward, what do you think needs to happen for 00:40:41.539 --> 00:40:45.139 people to be more informed about how to handle 00:40:45.139 --> 00:40:48.599 challenging experiences? Yeah, I think we just 00:40:48.599 --> 00:40:52.960 need a better literacy generally around exceptional 00:40:52.960 --> 00:40:57.460 experiences and challenging experiences and metaphysical 00:40:57.460 --> 00:40:59.519 challenges too, you know, ontological shock, 00:40:59.699 --> 00:41:03.630 etc. which I don't think is necessarily there 00:41:03.630 --> 00:41:07.110 in most kind of generic types of psychotherapy. 00:41:07.550 --> 00:41:10.309 Perhaps existential psychology or therapy may 00:41:10.309 --> 00:41:13.030 be better suited or transpersonal. Psychotherapy 00:41:13.030 --> 00:41:16.250 are probably more able to engage with this kind 00:41:16.250 --> 00:41:18.610 of phenomena. But as a general rule, I think 00:41:18.610 --> 00:41:21.969 people aren't very familiar with the range of 00:41:21.969 --> 00:41:24.190 exceptional experiences that people may have 00:41:24.190 --> 00:41:27.730 and just a kind of understanding of those. More 00:41:27.730 --> 00:41:30.190 broadly, I mean, these aren't always the stuff 00:41:30.190 --> 00:41:32.369 that comes up. You know, often people's challenges 00:41:32.369 --> 00:41:34.949 are of an intrapersonal nature, right? They may 00:41:34.949 --> 00:41:36.769 be rather than transpersonal, you know, maybe 00:41:36.769 --> 00:41:39.349 kind of dealing with childhood trauma that they 00:41:39.349 --> 00:41:41.489 were unaware of or this kind of stuff. You know, 00:41:41.889 --> 00:41:44.750 also we get a lot of these kind of more transpersonal 00:41:44.750 --> 00:41:47.809 kind of challenges. And so I think there is a 00:41:47.809 --> 00:41:50.730 need for better education around this. I think 00:41:50.730 --> 00:41:54.179 it really needs to be embedded in kind of sitter 00:41:54.179 --> 00:41:56.739 guide therapist training for people wanting to 00:41:56.739 --> 00:41:59.179 work with psychedelics. So they at least have 00:41:59.179 --> 00:42:02.699 a working awareness of it. And it requires a 00:42:02.699 --> 00:42:06.079 kind of metaphysical neutrality as well, you 00:42:06.079 --> 00:42:08.860 know, an openness on behalf of the therapists 00:42:08.860 --> 00:42:11.519 or sitters and guides in that, you know, you're 00:42:11.519 --> 00:42:14.500 not automatically prejudging and having a sense 00:42:14.500 --> 00:42:16.800 of self -awareness and enough of a container 00:42:16.800 --> 00:42:19.500 that you're not projecting your own metaphysical 00:42:19.500 --> 00:42:22.500 worldviews onto your client as well as all your 00:42:22.500 --> 00:42:25.639 kind of cultural, social and interpersonal ones 00:42:25.639 --> 00:42:28.619 as well. So it just adds another level to the 00:42:28.619 --> 00:42:32.539 onion of things that therapists need to be kind 00:42:32.539 --> 00:42:34.960 of aware of when they're dealing with people 00:42:34.960 --> 00:42:37.199 having challenging psychedelic experiences, I 00:42:37.199 --> 00:42:40.099 would say. Yeah, it's definitely true. I mean, 00:42:40.420 --> 00:42:43.159 I guess psychedelics have long had an association 00:42:43.159 --> 00:42:47.079 with more like woo woo out there things. So that 00:42:47.079 --> 00:42:50.039 these side effects can also be a bit out there. 00:42:50.230 --> 00:42:53.349 to me does not seem that weird. Another thing 00:42:53.349 --> 00:42:55.909 that people frequently do, I find, is that they 00:42:55.909 --> 00:43:00.289 compare psychedelic experiences to other extreme 00:43:00.289 --> 00:43:02.889 experiences. So there's this whole thing about 00:43:02.889 --> 00:43:07.050 comparing 5 -MeO DMT to near -death experiences 00:43:07.050 --> 00:43:10.070 that you've also written a bit about. Maybe you 00:43:10.070 --> 00:43:12.289 could tell us about that as well? Yeah, so this 00:43:12.289 --> 00:43:14.590 has kind of been an ongoing research project 00:43:14.590 --> 00:43:17.389 and interest, particularly of my ex -PhD student, 00:43:17.690 --> 00:43:20.800 Pascal Michael. who's kind of the expert on this, 00:43:20.980 --> 00:43:23.699 but there is a sense in which there is a large 00:43:23.699 --> 00:43:26.800 degree of similarity between near -death experiences 00:43:26.800 --> 00:43:29.340 and psychedelic experiences, particularly with 00:43:29.340 --> 00:43:33.019 things like DMT and fibemia, and not just in 00:43:33.019 --> 00:43:35.500 the acute phenomenology, like the experiences 00:43:35.500 --> 00:43:39.530 themselves have a great deal. deal of resemblance 00:43:39.530 --> 00:43:42.449 and also some mismatches, but also the outcomes 00:43:42.449 --> 00:43:46.110 in that we see similar things emerging from people 00:43:46.110 --> 00:43:48.909 who have near -death experiences as we do from 00:43:48.909 --> 00:43:52.190 good or successful psychedelic experiences like 00:43:52.190 --> 00:43:55.769 a change in worldview, often a spiritual reorientation. 00:43:56.039 --> 00:44:01.179 enhanced kind of empathy and re -evaluation of 00:44:01.179 --> 00:44:04.039 one's moral compass, deeper connection to nature, 00:44:04.400 --> 00:44:07.300 all of these kinds of things. So in a way, near 00:44:07.300 --> 00:44:11.820 -death experiences are a kind of prototype spontaneous 00:44:11.820 --> 00:44:16.519 phenomena that psychedelic experiences and psychedelic 00:44:16.519 --> 00:44:19.059 -assisted psychotherapy kind of emulate in a 00:44:19.059 --> 00:44:21.699 way. They are spontaneous. spiritual mystical 00:44:21.699 --> 00:44:24.900 like experiences, which have typically profound 00:44:24.900 --> 00:44:27.980 and positive outcomes, but maybe quite challenging, 00:44:28.179 --> 00:44:30.739 not least because you have to usually come very 00:44:30.739 --> 00:44:34.599 close to death to have one. There's also some 00:44:34.599 --> 00:44:37.940 mismatches. Not an easy prerequisite. No, no, 00:44:37.960 --> 00:44:40.840 don't try this one at home. In many ways, like 00:44:40.840 --> 00:44:43.880 having a profound psychedelic experience is like 00:44:43.880 --> 00:44:46.760 you can go to the brink of death and at least 00:44:46.760 --> 00:44:49.500 psychologically and come back without any genuine 00:44:49.500 --> 00:44:52.099 risk of death or a very minimal risk of death. 00:44:52.239 --> 00:44:54.639 You know, ayahuasca translates as the vine of 00:44:54.639 --> 00:44:57.219 the dead. It's like you can have an experience 00:44:57.219 --> 00:44:59.989 of dying without actually dying. in a metaphorical 00:44:59.989 --> 00:45:03.070 way, right? And in some sense, you may be having 00:45:03.070 --> 00:45:06.250 a kind of mini death, like an ego death experience, 00:45:06.250 --> 00:45:09.369 if we can use that term quite loosely, because 00:45:09.369 --> 00:45:11.650 it's not well defined what we mean by ego death. 00:45:11.989 --> 00:45:14.210 But there are matches and mismatches. Like when 00:45:14.210 --> 00:45:16.829 we drill down into the phenomenology on the surface 00:45:16.829 --> 00:45:20.090 of it, yes, DMT experiences look very similar 00:45:20.090 --> 00:45:22.449 to near death experiences. And if you give people 00:45:22.449 --> 00:45:25.610 having high dose DMT, the near death experience 00:45:25.610 --> 00:45:28.070 scale, which is a psychometric measure to, you 00:45:28.070 --> 00:45:31.449 know, try and identify or log the kind of near 00:45:31.449 --> 00:45:33.949 -death experience, you find that they tend to 00:45:33.949 --> 00:45:37.289 score in a way which looks fairly identical with 00:45:37.289 --> 00:45:40.050 people having cardiac arrest induced near death 00:45:40.050 --> 00:45:42.309 experiences, right? But then they're also mismatched. 00:45:42.510 --> 00:45:45.469 That's just on a kind of on paper kind of inspection. 00:45:45.929 --> 00:45:48.610 So myself and Pascal and my other colleague, 00:45:48.610 --> 00:45:51.630 Oliver, looked at this more in depth of the phenomenology, 00:45:51.849 --> 00:45:55.489 right? And you'll see that, okay, so on DMT, 00:45:55.809 --> 00:45:58.050 you'll have lots of geometric patterns and top 00:45:58.050 --> 00:46:00.010 ticks, this kind of stuff, which are very rare 00:46:00.010 --> 00:46:02.730 in near death experiences. You'll also have encounter 00:46:02.730 --> 00:46:04.929 experiences, which people have in near death. 00:46:05.199 --> 00:46:08.260 But the encounters may be far weirder with DMT, 00:46:08.559 --> 00:46:11.059 like, you know, self -transforming machine elves 00:46:11.059 --> 00:46:14.480 and jesters and octopoids, which don't tend to 00:46:14.480 --> 00:46:16.900 pop up in near -death experiences, ideally always 00:46:16.900 --> 00:46:20.519 kind of like deceased loved ones or kind of religious 00:46:20.519 --> 00:46:23.400 figures, which also pop up in DMT experiences, 00:46:23.400 --> 00:46:26.079 but not as often as they do with near -death 00:46:26.079 --> 00:46:28.880 experiences. So there's some matches and mismatches, 00:46:28.880 --> 00:46:32.059 you know, and so like, what can we conclude from 00:46:32.059 --> 00:46:35.800 that? Well, that DMT is in endogenous. So it 00:46:35.800 --> 00:46:38.300 could be triggered or part of the near death 00:46:38.300 --> 00:46:41.920 experience, but we don't think it fully explains 00:46:41.920 --> 00:46:45.079 the near death experience because there are certainly 00:46:45.079 --> 00:46:48.179 other things going on and also neurochemically 00:46:48.179 --> 00:46:52.179 as well. DMT may be released in the human brain 00:46:52.179 --> 00:46:55.539 at the point of death or in a near death experience, 00:46:55.739 --> 00:46:57.760 but it's not the only thing. There's a whole 00:46:57.760 --> 00:47:02.489 near death experience cocktail. of really high 00:47:02.489 --> 00:47:05.610 levels of monoamine neurotransmitters, which 00:47:05.610 --> 00:47:08.909 are flooding the human brain, we think, in these 00:47:08.909 --> 00:47:12.349 experiences. So it can help us model the near 00:47:12.349 --> 00:47:14.849 -death experience and perhaps understand it a 00:47:14.849 --> 00:47:17.969 little bit more and vice versa, the psychedelic 00:47:17.969 --> 00:47:21.250 experience, but it's not a one -to -one relationship, 00:47:21.349 --> 00:47:23.969 we don't think. Yeah, it's interesting how people 00:47:23.969 --> 00:47:27.409 seem to want to say psychedelics can model so 00:47:27.409 --> 00:47:30.590 many different things. One minute they're modeling 00:47:30.590 --> 00:47:34.289 mystical experiences or provoking them or provoking 00:47:34.289 --> 00:47:37.289 near -death experiences. Another researcher might 00:47:37.289 --> 00:47:41.489 be like, it's psychosis -like. So it's quite 00:47:41.489 --> 00:47:44.130 strange to me the range of phenomena that people 00:47:44.130 --> 00:47:47.250 claim are possible with psychedelics. If you 00:47:47.250 --> 00:47:50.230 think of them as kind of neural amplifiers, right? 00:47:50.349 --> 00:47:56.150 in a way that is feasible, that they accentuate 00:47:56.150 --> 00:47:59.429 all kind of elements of the human experience, 00:48:00.010 --> 00:48:03.190 then yeah, in a way they can model psychotic 00:48:03.190 --> 00:48:05.550 experience, but in a limited way or near -death 00:48:05.550 --> 00:48:07.710 experience, you know, all models are ultimately 00:48:07.710 --> 00:48:11.610 wrong, but some are useful, right? And that degree 00:48:11.610 --> 00:48:14.889 of usefulness has its limitations, of course. 00:48:15.610 --> 00:48:18.090 Yeah, I mean, it's great because they're never 00:48:18.090 --> 00:48:21.440 not weird. I think is one thing I really enjoy 00:48:21.440 --> 00:48:25.400 studying psychedelics. You can have a very controlled 00:48:25.400 --> 00:48:27.980 clinical trial and people are still going to 00:48:27.980 --> 00:48:32.559 be having odd experiences in some way. Well, 00:48:33.219 --> 00:48:35.659 I think that's everything I have for you today. 00:48:35.880 --> 00:48:38.219 Are there any other things that you think might 00:48:38.219 --> 00:48:41.900 be interesting to mention? I don't know, especially 00:48:41.900 --> 00:48:44.619 weird experiences that you've had or something. 00:48:44.960 --> 00:48:48.519 I mean, I could probably be here all day if I 00:48:48.519 --> 00:48:50.900 was to talk about my own weird experiences. But 00:48:50.900 --> 00:48:54.400 what I will say is that having had my own weird 00:48:54.400 --> 00:48:58.659 experiences, it gives me a useful lens in which 00:48:58.659 --> 00:49:02.159 to frame the research and vice versa, you know, 00:49:02.280 --> 00:49:05.420 that the research also helps me frame my own 00:49:05.420 --> 00:49:08.840 weird experiences. So in the journey of studying 00:49:08.840 --> 00:49:11.539 this phenomenon of exceptional experiences, there's 00:49:11.539 --> 00:49:15.840 an old adage that in studying the transpersonal 00:49:15.840 --> 00:49:19.460 one has to be prepared to be transformed themselves 00:49:19.460 --> 00:49:22.780 in the process of doing that work. And that I 00:49:22.780 --> 00:49:26.599 think it urges us to be reflexive and experiential 00:49:26.599 --> 00:49:29.119 and a bit more authentic and honest in our approach 00:49:29.119 --> 00:49:32.679 to studying these things in that we are also, 00:49:32.920 --> 00:49:35.639 our research is driven by our own personal proclivities. 00:49:35.949 --> 00:49:39.510 and reflects it and vice versa. So yeah, I'd 00:49:39.510 --> 00:49:44.849 like to say that. Just a shout out for the experiential 00:49:44.849 --> 00:49:48.909 strand in all of this work. It shouldn't be downplayed 00:49:48.909 --> 00:49:52.570 or undervalued. It's definitely tricky in this 00:49:52.570 --> 00:49:55.269 field because I feel like a lot of people, if 00:49:55.269 --> 00:49:58.750 you mention your personal experiences, then they 00:49:58.750 --> 00:50:02.460 view everything as you being a bit biased. and 00:50:02.460 --> 00:50:06.000 maybe even fanatical, like you're, I don't know, 00:50:06.199 --> 00:50:09.139 a psychedelic evangelicalist or something like 00:50:09.139 --> 00:50:12.820 that. But I do think it can definitely inform 00:50:12.820 --> 00:50:15.860 interpreting other people's lived experiences. 00:50:16.119 --> 00:50:20.460 I feel like it has influenced some of my interpretations 00:50:20.460 --> 00:50:24.159 with qualitative work that I've done. So yeah, 00:50:24.599 --> 00:50:26.440 I agree with you there. I'm delighted to hear 00:50:26.440 --> 00:50:28.969 that, Haley. Thank you. I really enjoyed our 00:50:28.969 --> 00:50:33.050 chat and happy to talk some more anytime. So 00:50:33.050 --> 00:50:34.989 I enjoyed that. Thanks so much. All right. Well, 00:50:35.010 --> 00:50:39.409 thank you. Alrighty. That's it for today's episode. 00:50:39.789 --> 00:50:42.309 If you enjoyed it, please consider sharing it 00:50:42.309 --> 00:50:45.650 with somebody who you think might also find it 00:50:45.650 --> 00:50:49.630 fascinating. And just remember to keep going 00:50:49.630 --> 00:50:53.949 further. Until next time, hope to see you tuning 00:50:53.949 --> 00:50:57.780 in and turning on. to the next episode of the 00:50:57.780 --> 00:50:58.699 further optics.