Ep. 5 - Dennis McKenna

This is synchronicity, this is synchronicity, this is synchronicity, this is synchronicity. Podcast intro, podcast intro, podcast intro, podcast intro, podcast intro, podcast intro. Hello and welcome to the fifth episode of Synchronicity. If you've been here from the beginning, a special thank you if you're just coming in. What the fuck is wrong with you? Should have been listening from the beginning and quite frankly I don't even want you here if you're just tuning in. You're Johnny come lately or Sally come lately and I don't want it. No, all kidding aside, really thank you for listening, I've been overwhelmed and I'm extremely appreciative for all the support and the comments that people are leaving, the reviews, all of these things.

Actually, no one, I lied, no one has left a review. You want to know you can help me? Just if you're really interested in doing something like that, go on iTunes and rate and review it and you don't have to give it five stars. You can give it one star and say fuck you, that's what you want to do. I think it still helps that people are actually making comments there so do that, that actually helps me. Also, another note for those of you who have been sending in the intros that I requested on the first episode of Synchronicity, if you don't know what I'm talking about, again, go back and listen to that.

But if you do know what I'm talking about or don't go back and listen and you can send me in you saying this is synchronicity, I'm still weaving those into the intro so if people keep doing it, I will theoretically do that forever. So thank you again for people who have done that. My guest today is Dennis McKenna, incredibly awesome individual. He recently, that recently, I mean like two, three years ago wrote a book called The Brotherhood of the Screaming Abyss, which covers many things. It's an autobiographical book. One of the things it covers is his trip down, Dennis's trip down to South America, the Amazon with Terrence where they had quite the encounter with psilocybin mushroom, hallucinogenic mushrooms.

We get into that in this podcast. We also get into other things like the world of the unconscious, some practical tips and benefits of psychedelics. We go into, I ask a question about microdosing, which he then asked me about since I've done it, which is an interesting thing. It's where you take psychedelics below the threshold of a bona fide psychedelic experience. It's pretty interesting. I'll talk about that some more in a later episode. But yeah, I'm going to keep this intro short and sweet. Again, if you want to rate and review this on iTunes or wherever you rate and review things, that would be awesome.

Outside of that, just sit back and enjoy the show. All right. Bye bye. [MUSIC] We haven't done one of these, right? No. No. We didn't. You're on mind rolling, which is also, my podcast is on that network, MindPod Network, where we have like Ron the Jack Cornfield, all of these kind of spiritual teachers teaching Sharon Salzburg, Joseph Goldstein. But no, we haven't done this. I just started my podcast. My first episode came out a week ago. So this will probably a little bit farther from there from when my first one came out, but still, it's still brand new, basically. Okay. Good. First question to you, just to get people who may not know or be familiar with who you are or your work.

Can you give just a brief overview and then also anything you're up to now currently, since the book came out a little bit ago and some of the interviews you've done are from a little bit ago. So a current up-to-date synopsis and briefing would be awesome. Okay. Well, as you know, my name is Dennis McKenna, and my new wife, Chief, claims to fame is, I'm Terence McKenna's brother. That's the, he's more recognizable than I am to a lot of people, but I guess I'm getting out there, too, especially since I published my book, people are more aware of who I am. But you know, we shared a lot of interest over our lives, especially in psychedelics.

And he sort of took the more, I guess he took the path of being a philosopher and a metaphysician, and I was more of a scientist, I was more inclined toward the science side of it. But you know, there was a lot of overlap. Right. And so in my professional life, you know, which really happened after I got interested in psychedelics, but I say I'm an ethno pharmacologist, and I guess I can legitimately lay claim to that. I've been preoccupied and doing research and personally interested in psychedelics for really 40 years or longer. I mean, my brother and I first went to the Amazon in 1971, you know, which was a long time ago, even where I'm sitting that's a long time ago.

You know, but we, but I went, I came back to the Amazon in 1981 as a graduate student, and that was really the beginning of my, my approach to it scientifically, and in some ways because in 1971, we went down there and we thought we knew what we were doing, but we were quickly, we quickly found out that we had a clue, you know, but we had some very interesting experiences, you know, what you can read about in the book that a lot of people know. But in 1980 when I, I went back with the, with the, as a graduate student, and for me personally, it was kind of a, a personal, you know, redemption, it was a way for me to go back there and say, well, I, you know, I can, I can do science at the Amazon.

I don't have to go crazy. Yeah. You know, I can actually do stuff. And, and so then I sort of continued in that mode for ever since, you know, I'm not, not strictly science. I mean, I'm still, you know, very personally involved with all this, but I, I, you know, my, I did do my, you know, my thesis work was basically looking into the botany and the chemistry and the pharmacology of ayahuasca and some of these other plants. After I did that, I ended up, after I finished my PhD, I ended up at the first of Maryland places, right down the street from you, and I first, and I was studying hallucinogenes.

I was studying serotonin receptors from the neuroscience perspective. And looking at, you know, we had techniques back then, which were pretty, you know, pretty hot techniques, no pun intended, using radioactive compounds to map hallucinogen receptors. Oh, wow. Wow. Right. Wow. Autoradiography. Yeah. So I worked on that. And then I did another postdoc at Stanford, which got me back out to California. And I did that. And I ended up working for shaman pharmaceuticals, which was a startup, a pharmaceutical company, ethno botany driven, basically drug discovery strategy was ethno botany. So that kind of brought my interest in neuroscience and my interest in ethno botany together.

And that was, that was a good gig for you know, when I worked on that, I worked with shaman for, oh, let's see, I joined them in 1990 and I, I left in 19 at the beginning of 1993. I couldn't really, I wasn't really comfortable with their sort of, you know, they represented themselves as being quite respectful of intellectual property and all that and they really worked. Yeah. Yeah. That was, oh, their corporation, you know, right, right, and corporations like to make money. Yes. That is their primary function. Yeah. Yeah. So you don't have to abandon your, your moral compass to do that, but sometimes it gets stretched a little.

Yeah. Yeah. So I ended up leaving there, I was offered a job at Aveda corporation, which is what got me out here in, in a soda was really to take that job. And then that lasted a while and then, you know, when, and then I, I didn't stick around with them that long either, I became a consultant realizing that I can't really work for corporations, but they're money and work as a consultant. Yeah. I get it. Yeah. I get it. So that worked out well, you know, and then, and then at the end of the 90s, my brother got ill with, with brain cancer. And so I basically, you know, stopped everything to, to focus on that, to be with him.

And at the end of that year, which was a pretty rough year, I didn't really, I, all my consulting had dried up, you know, because when you're a consultant, you have to keep pushing, right? Yeah. Yeah. You have to constantly be doing it. Yeah. Yeah. So I got to offer the job with the center for spirituality and healing at the University of Minnesota. They wanted someone to teach ethnobotany. And I, I did. I say, well, I told them, well, how about ethnoformicology and they said, well, what's that? I explained what that is. And they said, yeah, that'll do, you know, I ended up teaching with them and I still do.

I teach my courses online now, but you can't make a living. I mean, I'm one of those adjunct professors that doesn't get paid enough to make a living. Now, I must say they pay better than most, but so I still do that. And I do other things in the research area. You know, when I was at the university, I had a, I applied for a grant. I was actually kind of invited to apply for a grant to look into Amazonian medicines potentially for schizophrenia. Oh, very interesting. Yeah. And I went down there and that, that, that was really good. It was really for schizophrenia as it turned out. I was looking more for plants that were cognition enhancers and so potentially good for dementia too, because it was looking strictly speaking, the grant was to look for new medicines that can address the so-called negative symptoms of schizophrenia, which are cognitive deficits, really.

Right. So there was a lot of overlap. And that was a good grant that got me, what it was useful for me was it gave me a chance to sort of renew all of these connections in Peru that I developed back when I was a graduate student. Right. So all those people are now very much in the loop now, or they were kind of, you know, I, I was in touch with them, but there was nothing going on right now I'm back in touch with them. And, and in the process of doing that, I got to come go to Peru a lot and make some new connections. And so lately, I've been working with this retreat center down there. I think your mom has been there.

Yeah. Phil have been there. Yeah. So I've been working with that outfit and that's what I'm doing. Cool. That's, that's, that's, you did exactly what I asked. You gave a perfect overview and brought us up to date on what you're doing now. Now I want to go into kind of what you've learned over that period of time and some of your perspectives, which I'm sure are unique. So I had a couple different ways to go with this. I was going to start with, you know, what are some of the benefits, maybe some tips or beginners, but I'm going to, I'm going to not go that direction. I'm going to go a little bit deeper right off the bat.

So I, I read in an interview recently that you had done, someone was asking about some of your initial curiosity with psychedelics, I think was particularly related to DMT and when he had gone down to the Amazon originally to study these things. And you mentioned, um, which really tickled by fancy here that one of the motivating factors were, was that you were into Jungian psychology and kind of this alchemy, which I, for me personally is one of the biggest guiding kind of things in my life. I've since the first time I picked up a copy of Man and his symbols when I was like 16, since then it's just been an amazing journey into truthfully what it seems like a not so well understood or graphs kind of world were very familiar with the Freudian concepts, you know, all of the terms that came out of that, but Jungian, the collective unconscious and all of these things.

I bring this up because to me, there's obviously a direct correlation between some of the things that Jung talks about, not the least of which is kind of merging these different symbols or things that appear in things like dreams or unconscious processes, worlds of myths, even bringing in like Joseph Campbell type perspective on it. So my question to you is, what, what do you think the connection is between dreams, all of the Jungian collective unconscious and the psychedelic experience, you can talk about it generally, specifically related to different substance like psilocybin or DMT, but I know there's a connection there.

I have my own theories. I've experienced it. I'm sure a lot of other people have, but speaking as another fan of Jungian perspectives, I'm very curious as to your perspective on this. Okay, well, yeah, we could go on for the whole rest of this, you know, this is a deep subject. And that's okay. If we don't get beyond that, that's still okay. Yeah, I've often wondered what old Carl would think of psychedelics, and he lived a few decades before. He must have known about mesculine. That's what was around in the day. I don't know if he's ever taken it. I would be surprised if he hadn't, but I think he would be delighted, I think because, you know, for Jung, a lot of the way into the unconscious was through dreams.

He took dreams very seriously, but that was the way to penetrate into this material. And as you know, psychedelics can be a lot like dreams. Yeah. Depends on the psychedelic too. I would say that ayahuasca is very much the dream state in a certain way, both in terms of kind of the way the experience is, but also the neurochemistry behind it. You know, the neurochemistry of ayahuasca involves these tryptamines, which are, you know, they're related to things that our own brain makes. They're actually identical. You know, we are brains make DMT. Our brains make data carbolines, right, which are the alkaloids that are needed to orally activate the DMT in the preparation, but you know, the pineal glands specifically makes beta carbolines and DMT.

And it's been speculated that the pineal gland, it does a lot of things, some of which is pretty kind of well understood and others, which are still really very speculately. But one of the things that it's been suggested is that it is a regulator or a modulator of the deep dream states, and it works through the production of endogenous tryptamines. And when you're in deep sleep, when you're in a dream state, the normal functions of the pineal are shifted, because it, how do we explain this in a clear way, in the dark, the pineal hormone melatonin is produced. Right. Right. And it's what really regulates circadian rhythms and sleep and all that.

So when you close your eyes or in the dark, when you're going to sleep, melatonin is produced in the day time, it's quickly degraded at night, it's preserved. And what it can lead to is the production of these endogenous tryptamines like DMT and fibothoxy DMT, at the same time, the pineal produces a beta carbalein, which is called pinoline, which is actually a simple, it's named after the pineal gland, and it is a, both a serotonin uptake inhibitor and an MAL inhibitor. So it is there being secreted and it will protect the DMT and fibothoxy DMT from degradation normally take place. So as you move through the sleep cycles, each cycle is a little deeper.

You get a long story short, you get an accumulation of these tryptamines in the plasma and then it leads to this, this REM state, you know, visionary dreams. Right. Right. This is total speculation, right, but it's also testable and reasonable based on what we know about pineal physiology, and it makes sense to me that that's what's going on. So, you know, that the tryptamine state is a way to induce these dreamlike states, just like it's a way to reliably induce what you, what many have called, what you can call a mystical experience. Right. Right. You know, and Jung was fascinated with all this and you know, when, when Terrence and I were in the app, well, we'd read, we were pretty saturated in Jungian ecology and I don't see it's, it's still a fantastic framework for, you know, making sense of these altered states, right, and these other worlds really, and, and so when we were in the Amazon and having this experience, you know, that, that led to the experiment of luxury and all that.

I mean, two things, the eaching and the Jung's alchemy were the things that we could reach out to in terms of trying to put some kind of a framework right around what was happening. It, it made sense. It helped us make sense out of what was happening to us, even, even if it didn't make sense. Yeah, no, we thought it did at the time, it worked, it worked as a conceptual, as a conceptual tool. Right. So, yeah, I mean, you know, I think that Jungian psychology is, it's, it's, it's, it's much more interesting than any other kind because he talks about the unconscious and he talks about, you know, and it's the unconscious, I mean, what we call conscious consciousness is kind of like the tip of the ice.

Yeah, exactly. The little sliver, right. Small part of it is visible, right, interesting stuff is going down, going in on at these deeper levels. Right. It's like psychedelics give you access to. So that to me is another thing I recently, in the past couple of years, got into a post Jungian, Marie Louise Von Franz, she was one of, you know, his main translator. She was really, really, I mean, she's incredible in her own right and she has a book called Psyche and Matter, which is fascinating and deals with not only with obviously psychic going zones and inner workings, but also the connection between inner workings and going on an external reality, so the name of my podcast is called Synchronicity and one of the instances which Jung called an a causal pattern of orderedness is synchronicity, which is, you know, thinking about someone's going to call you, they call you, you're thinking about something you look up on a bus.

It's there, you know, there's many different answers. You think of you have a dream that someone died and it pre ordains that someone actually died in the night and they link up, but there's no physical, real basis for this. So what I've been fascinated with, and this is how I think it's also the basis of the eaching and even nation and all of these things, right, exactly, exactly. So what I've found and I've had some very, very deep psychedelic experiences, most notably on LSD and psilocybin, I have not done ayahuasca, haven't had the calling yet, but I've had very deep experiences and it seems when you get to a certain point and there's some level of conscious thought and ego getting into this course, but it seems when you delve deep into it, that connection between inner and outer really becomes apparent.

It becomes those little things that as you're describing, the conscious, the conscious part of your brain feels like this big thing and we know everything when you really go a little bit deeper, which I think psychedelics can help do, you realize there's this vast swath of stuff that is going on, we don't have any awareness up. So me, why it's so interesting and one of the uses of psychedelics that I've done in my own very amateurish way is trying to figure out how to provoke or promote external change related to internal change as you're going through some of these experience, which I guess is kind of related to a shamanic experience, right, going through working through inner things to somehow consolidate what you're doing.

So I'm interested, as related to the ayahuasca ceremonies that you've done, what do you think the real function, what are the benefits of that related to going through an experience like that in any capacity related to practical benefits in someone's life? Not just some type of experience, but a practically beneficial thing. Well I think there are multiple benefits or multiple things that can come out of this and everybody's different. Everybody has the, everyone, psychedelic experience is unique to them, right, so you take away from it what you bring to it, to a degree, who you are, what your knowledge is, what your interests are and so on.

I mean, a mathematician is going to get different out of it than say a musician, you know, or something like that. So what you, you know, in traditional societies, these things, especially ayahuasca, but traditionally all of these things are regarded as teachers, their plant teachers, right, and I think that's a really good model for the interaction that you have, but any good teacher-student relationship depends a lot on the student, right, what does the student bring to it? What do you bring, what are your questions, why are you doing this, what is your intention, what do you hope to learn, you know, so that's all important.

And I think that you can take away from or you can, you know, I think there are, there are, you know, certain tangible, very practical down-to-earth benefits of taking some of these things. I'm convinced, for example, that ayahuasca at least, and I think probably these other, these other things, what I call true psychedelics, these 5-HT2A agonists. I think they're really immune system boosters, and they do potentiate the immune system, and there's evidence emerging now to show that they do, in fact, do that. And that could be the basis of a lot of shamanic healing. Yes, yes, yes. You wanted to look for a reductionist explanation, oh yeah, you know, you have a cathartic, emotionally, you know, emotionally very impactful experience, and that affects your immune system.

Right, right, right. You know, so there's an obvious benefit, and you know, if you hang out with ayahuascaeros, and you know, it is remarkable how young they look, even if they're like 80s, 90s, they don't look that old, and they're just healthy, which is what you would hope for. Yeah. Yeah, yeah. Yeah, yeah. Why would you go to want that? You know, looking really sick and bad, yeah. Yeah, but besides the fact that they live, you know, a pretty active life, like most people down there, they eat probably much better than we eat here, you know, but they take ayahuasca, and I think that has a lot to do with help maintaining their health.

So that's a tangible benefit you can get from it. I think that it, you know, it also is helpful to people, you know, in understanding a lot of things, the nature of reality, I think that it's a lens in some ways that lets you look at natural phenomena, let you look at the external world in a way that you're not used to looking at it. Right. So it's a scientific instrument in a certain way. It lets you, you know, the microscope, the telescope, these different instruments give us ways to examine the world in ways that we never have been able to before. I think psychedelics are like that. If you, if you take a psychedelic, I mean, a con clear state, pay attention, ideally out in nature, just pay attention.

Don't close your eyes. Look around you and apprehend what's going on. You will understand things about phenomena that are not apparent. Yeah. I don't know if you know the guy, Simon Powell. Why does that name ring a bell? I wrote a several books. One, the first one is called the psilocybin solution. Then he wrote one called Darwin's Unfinished Business. Okay. I think maybe that's where I'm getting the name from. Yeah. All these great books. And he wrote his latest one was called the magic mushroom explorer. And he's a great writer, very funny, very, very good writer and very, you know, personable guy to be around to.

But he was the one that in his latest book that sort of brought this out, you know, talking about this as a way to look at the world. Yeah. And when I was reading, I thought, yeah, obviously this is, this is one of the things Steven Herod Booner talks about this too. Are you familiar with him? No, no. His, his, he's another wise guy, wise who's written lots of books, but his latest book is a plant intelligence in the imaginal realm. Whoa. That sounds amazing. Yeah, I've been reading it off and on, you know, there are things, but I've been delving into it. And in that book, he talks, he talks about many interesting things that are, you know, it's worth reading that book, but he talks about like sensory gating and that kind of stuff.

And I've often thought that psychedelics, what they do is they affect sensory gating, meaning, you know, we have certain filters, right, what perception does is it filters things out, right? Right. Because you'd be overwhelming. Otherwise, we would not, we would not be able to handle it if it'd be just a blooming buzzing confusion. Yeah. So a lot of what we do is filter things out, and psychedelics can not necessarily totally disrupt that, although they can, you know, why they're overwhelming sometimes, but they can also kind of shift the filter so that it can temporarily change the foreground background relationship, right, your perceptions.

So things that we would normally put in the background are suddenly in your face. Right. And then you're noticing them and you never noticed them in a state of consciousness, do you think? And that, I think that is also a big part of why it's a, why it's a useful tool for looking at phenomena, because things that were genetically programmed and also I'd say culturally program by virtue of things like literacy, you know, which is really a block to a lot of things I mean, your literacy is great, but you become literate at great sacrifice. Absolutely. I mean, I've, I think anyone who delves deeper enough, it's psychedelic experience.

I've had this thought and I've thought it for many times after psychedelic experience, like words are hindrance in so many ways. The con conception of language in a lot of ways really, I mean, if you've ever had an experience that's so internally overwhelming and then you'd go try to communicate to someone, it's like when someone tells you your dream, their dream from the night before, unless there's like very overt symbolism, you're like, okay, but that makes zero sense to me. I'm sure it has an impact on you, but the words you're using to describe the experience are just falling completely short.

Yeah. So I, yeah, I definitely get that literacy is, it can be a, I mean, and so exactly the inadequacy of, of language and it, it is, you know, and I think indigenous people are people in psychedelic states or whatever have a much more gestalt situation for their, you know, for their perception for their apprehension, because it's not being filtered through that linguistic, you know, blender. That's right. So desperately trying to create a narrative, create a story, right? Right. I don't know if you've ever taken DMT, have you ever. No. No, I haven't. I haven't. It's interesting among many things, interesting about DMT, but I have noticed is it, you know, it's very short acting, right?

Very overwhelming. It's very, it's incredibly impactful. And yet it's very fast, very hard to come back with very much just this sense of astonishment. I have had that experience in talking to people who have done DMT. I had friends who've done it for the first time and I'm like, what did you learn? Like, what did you get at? They're like, uh, there were some lights and stuff, but I can't really tell you anything about it, except maybe some sensory experiences at the beginning and then what it felt like when I was done. So I, I definitely know that. Yeah. And when you're, when you're in the state, you can't really, you can't really English it or whatever you describe it.

But when you, as you come down, almost before you're completely down, we're almost compelled. At least I am. And we're almost compelled to start babbling about it. Yeah, exactly. We're trying to explain this thing, which is intrinsically indescribable. We're trying to, we're trying to create a narrative for ourselves, you know, and to make sense of it. So, uh, yeah, I think, I think psychedelics disrupt that for the moment. I mean, you know, the other thing that literacy brings with it, which is, you know, which is a problem in some ways is point of view, right? I mean, Kluhan talked about this.

You have a point of view, which by definition is a separation between you, the observer and what is observed. We know this is an illusion, right? There is no in or out. There is no separation between you and, and the rest of the world. Right. An illusion. That is a, or a delusion, yeah, maybe, yeah, for convenience, you know, to make it easier for us to live in many ways, yeah, deal with stuff as we're putting it, but it, but it requires the sacrifice, it requires that, you know, we, you have to focus and you have to, you know, the, these, these gating mechanisms are, are raised to a high level to things out.

If you hang out with indigenous people, if you go to the jungle with, you know, a shaman or whatever and go through the jungle, you will, you will notice certain things, obviously, but that person with you will notice a lot more. And he'll notice things that you don't even, you know, you don't apprehend because he doesn't, he's in the first place his, his sensory gating is low. It's, it's quite open and what he talks about this and, you know, he just sees the world in a different way. So well, I like what you said, I mean, the lens, how they can give you a different lens and how it's a tool like a microscope or a telescope is, that's, that's an amazing metaphor.

That's, that's great. I, I also have noticed one of the things that psychedelics have helped me with over the years is cultivating many different perspectives on maybe the same situation, which is useful in interpersonal relationships, it's useful for business, it's useful for a lot of things. And I think that kind of fits in real nice, nicely with what you said is that you can kind of get around things and these gates and filters that are up, loosen up and show you different permutations of what's going on, which ultimately I am, I am a firm believer that the more flexible you can be mentally, psychologically, however you want to phrase it emotionally, the more adaptable you are to situations and potentially you can be more comfortable in a variety of different things unpleasant, pleasant, suffering, not suffering.

But that, I have noticed that's been another practical tangible benefit of psychedelics over the years and that's always astounded me even from just the observing and one of the reasons I really like your approach to all this stuff and clearly a lot of it is very technical and a little bit over my head, some of the exact terms, but it's the analytical and the observation role of, of really noting and doing the, putting in the time and the effort to figuring out what's going on here. It's not just to sit through the experience as a recreational tool, like, oh, that was some crazy thing and if people want to do that, that might be their trip, that's fine, but really trying to understand what are these things.

So I have, I don't know, you know Ron Vass, right? Yes. Spiritual. I work with the foundation. I have a lot of friends there and there's a famous story and it's, it's had a very important part of my life even before I really knew who Ron Vass was. When he goes up to meet Maharajin named Karole Baba for the first time and he gives him, it's a famous, famous story. He gives him the psychedelics and, you know, he takes them and he says, he's essentially long story short is like, no, this isn't, I don't feel anything. It's exactly how I see the world as normal. This was a yogi medicine, it used to be around back in the day, you're supposed to take it in cool, dry climates for specific things, it's a tool, it's the aid you.

So I wonder, you know, and especially when you look at psilocybin, what, what are the, what are these things here for, right? Like, what is, we obviously as primates as animals have come across these things for whatever reason and they have this unique perspective, they change us in a certain way. What's going on there? Is that just, what, what is that? I mean, what's your take? You probably are as qualified as anyone to answer this, so, or maybe not, but what is your take on this? Well, I mean, I mean, again, I think nobody is, nobody knows, which means that, you know, we're free to speculate.

Right, right. You could say, well, they're just here and they happen, you know, it's an accident of biochemistry. That plants happen to produce these neurotransmitter-like compounds that, you know, happen to fit into key receptors, right, and this is, this is a reflection of co-evolution, you know, and I think it is, I think the relationship with these psychotropic plants have really, you know, any plant that is useful to us, we'd like to, uh, for relationships with them. Yeah, yeah. Home debated or we, you know, it's useful, so we form relationships with it and that's basically symbiosis, right, and I think that's what these messenger molecules are.

They want to form, I mean, I'm attributing, it's, it's difficult to talk about it accurately because the, the temptation is to attribute, you know, human motivations and human to plants. So when I say they want to form symbiosis with us, well, they do, but not quite in the way that we might have a will and do that, but, you know, there's increasing data is coming out that shows that plants, uh, and I'll include Funch Eye here, call them honorary plants for the purpose of this discussion, even though they're not plants, but, uh, but these things do have behavior and, you know, and it goes beyond chemistry.

I mean, I'm, I'm fond of saying that the recent plants produce this vast array of, of, uh, so-called secondary compounds, you know, they're very good at chemistry, right? Because they have mastered photosynthesis, so it's no problem. They can just spin out a whole bunch of different stuff and this is, uh, this is what they use to, uh, mediate their relationships with everything in their environment, right? They don't use behavior in the way that animals do. Right, right. Flea or fight or they could move around and plants don't do that. So they, they do it through chemistry. And chemistry is these molecules, these small molecules, uh, are what they use to, uh, mediate relationships with everything else in their environment.

Other plants and insects and fungi and bacteria in the soil and, uh, and, you know, and herbivores, right? Mm-hmm. And that includes us, right, a lot of these chemical messengers on that level are, you know, their message is very simple. Stay away from me. Leave me alone. Yeah. Yeah. You're going to get sick and die. Yeah, please don't. Yeah. But, but sometimes it's more complicated than that. Yeah. You know, or, or because, uh, when, when we're dealing with, uh, you know, when we're dealing with, with us, the, the, the problematic primate, I call us, because we have curiosity, right? And we have a big brain and we're not, uh, you know, we tend to probe, uh, our environment a little different way than, than an animal that doesn't have a curiosity does.

And so we might stumble on something, you know, a plant that tastes bitter, for example, you know. Right. Right. Most animals would say, well, it tastes bitter. Yeah. I'm going there, but we might say, well, hmm, last time I ate something bitter, something pretty interesting. Yeah. I just want to do it too, you know, and, and so the, uh, the symbiosis becomes more complex and we, and we actually take these chemical messengers, these molecules and we can sort of purpose them to our own, you know, we can make use of them in ways that are more complex than, than simpler interactions between plants and insects and, and animals.

Although I don't want to presume that they're, those are simple. I'm sure they're right. Right. No. Yeah. But I guess the, I guess where I'm going with this, I think that the plants are, uh, they're trying to, uh, you know, on the evolutionary level, I think they're trying to nudge forward our cognitive evolution. Yeah. They're trying to teach us, they are teacher plants. I think indigenous people have the right idea. These are teacher plants, which you are teaching us and they're trying to teach us mostly as far as I can tell, they're trying to teach us to wake up. Yeah. Yeah. That's what it seems like, right?

Yeah. So what, uh, okay. Would you include cannabis in these, this realm? Of course. Okay. Cool. All right. Just making sure. It's cannabis to me. Yeah. It's to me. It's been truthfully, and I say this in no uncertain terms, the most important teacher plant in my life, I consider it my plant ally, um, you know, I know there has been a stigma that is slowly not holding weight anymore that's getting stripped away, but still there's a stigma attached to, you know, you're a lazy owner, not focused on it. For me, it's been, uh, completely different transformative experience, which is completely in line with what you're saying, which I, I noticed the same thing you do cognitively.

It has these benefits that can work with, it can also not work. Like you see, can someone can smoke and get incredibly paranoid, get fearful. All of their subconscious fears will come to the top. Everything is going to seem terrifying to them, but if you can learn how to work with whatever your plant ally is, if that suits you, you can learn some things that you would not maybe otherwise be able to learn, or you'd have to go a different route to learn. I think these things might be intrinsically inside of us, they, but they maybe chemically promote some of these types of cognitive, uh, things that have come out.

And I obviously, yeah, because an experiment experience is unpleasant, yeah, it doesn't mean it's not valuable, you know, I mean, the best trips are the bad trips. It's not. In some ways. It's not. They don't seek them out, but that should be recognized that this bad trip or, you know, a paranoid state or something, that doesn't mean it's bad, you know, that that's a waste of time. You could learn from that. I mean, I think that applies to every, uh, my life experience lines up with that. Some of the very difficult trying, not fun, like getting your heart broken or, you know, going through a really difficult death, uh, in the family or something, just those can really open you up or rhombos to go back to him again.

He says a very psychedelic experience is being around a dying person. It physically around the change of what's happening. It is a physical thing too. You can palpably feel kind of whatever is going on there. And it's like a psychedelic experience. Those things, they're difficult. They're trying. People would not willingly want to go into those, but you can come out with the most profound insights of your life from those things. So I definitely, that's really valid and a great point that just because something is unpleasant doesn't mean that it doesn't have value. It can mean it has a tremendous amount of value just by being difficult.

Right. And all religions and, I mean, around us, you know, is saying those things because, because he's a wise fellow, right? And he's had his share of, of suffering and issues and all that. And, you know, religious leaders and wise people or millennia have been telling us, you know, you learn through suffering and I think there's a lot to that. Yeah. That's okay. I have a couple more questions because we're almost, I'm going to try to keep it around an hour, but I have a couple more questions. I'm loving this, by the way, this is. We never, there's never enough time. I know. Well, I'll have you on again soon because we'll have to do this again.

Yeah. Yeah. That's pretty awesome. Okay. A couple of questions. I want to get your take on micro dosing. So micro dosing is something I have a little bit of personal experience with, just with psilocybin. I was seeking very like a stem in a cap. We're talking point one point two grams tops. And what I found particularly interesting, well, it wasn't a full blown psychedelic experience at all. I still got to come up each time. There was a threshold that I still experienced, it was much smaller and not as impactful as a, you know, took like three and a half grams or something, but it was still there.

And then after it happened, it leveled off. And then I noticed slightly increased mental in Q and E. I noticed things didn't seem as difficult to work through if they had in the past. And so I wonder, and you know, your brother is famous for the heroic dose, right? I mean, that is, everyone knows that. I am talking about that. Yeah, I personally, you know, heroic doses, I in the past have done them, but I'm becoming increasingly interested in the sub not subperceptual, but these very sub threshold, I guess, experience. What's your experience with that either personally, empirically? What's your take on that?

It doesn't just have to be related to psilocybin. It could be any, any, any stuff. Yeah. Well, personally, I have to say not much, you know, I have not really, you know, consciously decided that I was going to, right, make micro doses. I, I, for a while, I was kind of like my brother. I mean, I thought these people were taking micro doses, you know, they're just kidding themselves. Yeah. Because they're chicken to take a real dose. Yeah. Yeah. But I am not so dismissive now. I've talked to too many people. And really, you know, Jim Fademan is one of the big promoters of the idea. I think, I think, I think, you know, if we grant that these things are cognitive tools, right, they can work at low levels as well.

And maybe they just, and I think if people get a cognitive boost from taking a micro dose or your mind is a little loose, a little looser than it normally is and you can see relationships that would normally escape you, I think it's fine. I mean, I think it's, but I haven't, I can't attest to it. Yeah. No. And I get that. I, I'm still very much, it's also something that like truthfully, I could still function in and I was doing my job and my regular things without issue, but, and I wasn't like a psilocybin trip in general. I don't really get blasted after it. It's not like taking, you know, MDMA or something the next day where like, wow, I just, that was too much.

And now my need to recover, I'm usually good to go. But it would still, you could feel the impact it would have cumulatively, I did it three days in a row. And after the third day, I was like, I couldn't see doing this like as a daily activity. I could maybe see it if I was working on a creative project for a period of time, maybe to see what the effects were there. But I think it's like, I'm interested because it's unknown. And it's something that, you know, you're talking about the micro dose, the micro dose, the micro dose, because it's something that I, I'm still interested in it. And it's something, you know, 10 years, 15 years ago, I would have scoffed at it as well.

I would have said, what is you're missing the point, you're missing a point of these things. And I'm interested to go into the, to the benefit and probably a little bit of me still thinks that. But I do, I'm interested to see where it evolves to. Also the other thing. Well, but you could definitely notice an effect each time. Yo, that, that was the most surprising thing to me is that it was the, the effect of coming up, you know, you can get giggly or like feel a little tense or a little cold, whatever it is. That was very apparent to me. And I repeated it a couple days in a row because I thought it was, could be, you know, psychosomatic.

It could be coming up and it was just me thinking something was going to happen. But regularly it was like for about 30 to 40 minutes, 20 to 45 minutes, I'd feel a come up and then feel the rest of the day. And it didn't feel like I was just kind of manifesting into my imagination. But I, I'm interested because I, you know, I see the research and little reports that come out and I think hopefully over time as I really hope these substances and plants get more generally accepted in culture, we can finally start researching some of these things. And I know these things are moving like down in Johns Hopkins.

They're doing a suicide test on depression and long term meditators and how that impacts like there's, there's a lot of really cool stuff I think on the horizon, which is exciting. And on the same term, and maybe you could speak to this is my last question. Where do you see this stuff going in the next five, 10 years, because we have, like I said, we see all this exciting stuff kind of here and it's on the cusp and it's sort of unimaginable. Even to me, like 10, 20 years ago, it's crazy. But we also know there are people who just by definition of what these things do are terrified that these could be in any way promoted or seen as therapeutic tools, God forbid.

So what do you think the future holds? I don't know. Yeah, well, yeah, again, a complicated question. Yeah, I'm good at this. You know, when we started the Hefter Research Institute, which was 22 years ago now, right? And we had this sort of very naive and idealistic idea, which was, you know, I mean, you know, the Hefter Institute website, yes, basically a bunch of nerds, right? Chemists, psychiatrists, pharmacologists, people like this, we were scientists and we had this very naive idea that if we did rigorous, good science with these substances, especially clinical evaluations, then the FDA and a regulatory framework would just have to accept this, and eventually these things would get integrated into medicine.

What a silly, what a silly thought there was aspirational, it was naive, but we're a lot closer now than we've ever been actually, you know, we have what we envision that we would we would do, we would be a part of when we found it after, that's largely happened. I mean, we've done, we, I haven't done much of it, but my colleagues, you know, my focus has been on ayahuasca, so it's a little different, but that work is being done. The work of Johns Hopkins and New York, you and all those institutions are doing this, this amazing pioneering work under approved FDA protocols. So there's enough data accumulated now that we can say, well, they are definitely useful, you know, for medical applications.

So by definition, a Schedule 1 drug has no medication, right? So if we can show that there's a medical application and we've now shown that, then the regulatory status has got to be changed, and this is, I guess this is where we're at now, the, you know, the data is accumulating enough to show that these things really do have therapeutic applications, and that's the first thing. I mean, they have applications beyond that, but they have therapeutic applications. But now that's kind of smashing in like a, you know, like a high speed train smashing a brick wall or a cement wall against this regulatory edifice of the FDA that say, okay, you've got an interesting medication.

Here's what you have to do to break through to get it approved. You're talking phase one, phase two, phase three, clinical trials, each one is going to cost millions of dollars, and that's just the way the game is rigged, you know. So a lot of people, you know, so, I mean, the short answer is I don't know, we're resisting, we're persisting, and I think eventually, you know, and as we move forward, a lot of, you know, our work is funded through private sources, not government sources. But there are many wealthy people out there whose lives have been greatly affected by these things, and they get it, you know, and they are willing to put up their resources to see this work go forward.

So I think it's a slow process, but I think that it's, we're closer than ever, and I know we want to finish up. No, no, yeah, no. In a nutshell, I would say, I think that within, optimistically, maybe five years, a little more pessimistically, maybe 10 years, but inevitably, it's going to happen. I think there will be places you can go that are basically therapeutic psychedelic therapy centers. They won't look like clinics, they'll look like spas. Right, right, right. Yes, you can go to have a nice weekend with your family and, you know, maybe with your family and enjoy yourself, and renew yourself, do a little yoga, and take the pillocks.

And really, that's the appropriate way that they should be used. Right. Unfortunately, we have the model for that. Yeah. I mean, that's going on in South America now, you know, the place that Phil and Donna went to. So, what we have to do is take that paradigm and transplant it to the States. Yeah. And that's already happening, you know, and I mean, right now, there are a lot of these communities that are mainly focused on ayahuasca. Right. There's no reason why this shouldn't be possible with psilocybin or LSD or any of these other things. Right. And I think that I think that that is where it's evolving, you know, and I'm hopeful.

I also think that, you know, I mean, I mean, there is a rigid regulatory framework and a lot of hoops that you have to jump through. Right. And I do think that one of the things that is important, one of the things that can be done is if you can get people with influence in government and medicine and corporate world and all that to be exposed to these experiences, then they will, they're able to facilitate, you know, bringing these things into the mainstream because they have influence. Yeah. Really important. It is important. And I think what I've noticed saying is, is what you're talking about to where there are people who have risen to various levels of success in society who have been greatly.

I mean, I don't know. I don't want to speak to, to matter of fact, way about this. But I know Silicon Valley, right? We know that psychedelics have been intertwined with that first since Steve Jobs and before. I mean, there's tons of connections there. I think there was just an article about this wasn't it in the New York Times. Yeah. Not very long. Yeah. Yeah, exactly. I read it. And yeah, I mean, there is a, I, there's a lot of funny stories related to that stuff. But I also notice, and I think this is maybe equally as important from the ground level up, right? People like me and people I know and people like you who not from the research side recognize the practical and kind of whatever other benefits that may come with this.

I think that those two things are converging slowly, very slowly, I think as you pointed out. But it does seem that it's different. I mean, if you would have told me 10 years ago, so I was, you know, in college for a couple of years that that we'd even be on the cusp of any type of cannabis legalization. Yeah. It was crazy. I was like, well, okay. Right. Right. I'd, you know, I'd been arrested at one point for getting caught smoking. Like, please, I, I don't think that's going to happen. So, you know, who knows? Who knows what the future holds and sort, but it does seem certainly like it's shifting in the right direction for whatever reason, which is encouraging for me.

Yeah. Absolutely. I mean, the cannabis phenomenon is a good example and, and the ayahuasca phenomenon as well, the way that it's gone from, you know, this totally obscure plant on the Amazon that nobody ever heard of. Yeah. Let alone gave a damn about how it's, it's emerged onto this global state. Yeah. I mean, it really has. So, you know, so it's a good, it's a good reminder to look at that. It's a good phenomenon. I realized that this is part of the co-evolutionary process. Yeah. And it, and it's, it's good to remember what, what ayahuasca always reminds me of, which is you monkeys only think you're running the show.

Yeah. Exactly. Really the plants are running the show. I mean, I think if you look around and realize that if there were no plants, we wouldn't be able to breathe. We wouldn't be here. Exactly. Exactly. And so they're running the show and they're doing so in a, in a way that might be, you know, I mean, they're subtle about what they do, but it might be a lot more conscious than we really like to think I, you know, I. So you remind me of one last thing. This is what I'll say is I, one of my favorite mystics from India is, he was a mystic and scientist is Rabindranath Tagore. And his, he always believed that plants had consciousness as well and that they were functioning around us.

And he really was adamant about that. And I always thought that was really cool that back in like the 1890s or whatever, early 1900s, he was onto that. So I think this stuff lines up, thank you so much for coming on this because I have tons of other questions. I'd love to ask you and I definitely want to have you on again. This has really been a treat for me. So just thank you for coming for me too. I'd be happy to come, come on. Awesome. Yeah. Yeah. Great time. You're a good interviewer. Good. Thank you. No, this has been great. As you were talking about that, I want to mention something that, that people can, you know, this thing about plant intelligence, you know, they know the author Michael Pollum.

Yes. Yes. Yeah. Michael in the New Yorker called the intelligent plant. And if you Google that, it'll come up. It's, it's very interesting. Cool. He's getting very interested in the psychedelics. He's also written one about the mushroom, the psilocybin related research in the New Yorker as well. But yeah, he's, he's great. He's a good articulator about this whole, this whole area of plant human symbiosis. I love it. Really? Who is, who's domesticated? Who? Yeah. Yeah. So he's. What I'll do is I'll, I'll put the links to those on the podcast page when this goes up. So people can click right on those when they're listening.

So of course, most importantly, the link to my book, don't worry. Don't worry. Amazon.com. Don't worry. That'll be taking that. Just getting that. Look. Yeah. All right. Awesome. Thank you. Thank you. Pleasure. [Music] Don't forget to pick up a copy of The Brotherhood of the Screaming Abyss, which is Dennis McKenna's book, a really, really, really good read. If you liked any of the things he spoke about today, you go into that book. So please pick that up and I'll see you next week. The savings are here. Happy birthday, America. It's America's 250th birthday. We're celebrating all month long at Nielsen Nissan by giving you freedom of choice.

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