
Michael Pollan reluctantly embraces the 'new science' of psychedelics - atomical
https://www.npr.org/sections/health-shots/2018/05/15/611225541/reluctant-psychonaut-michael-pollan-embraces-the-new-science-of-psychedelics
======
Jedi72
Im a stable, sane, not depressed or anything person. I once took LSD (mixed
with other things aswell...) and had a trip during which I spoke to God, Satan
and various other imaginary beings. It was not a fun experience - I'm a man of
science, but the feeling/perception was so real, my entire world view was
shattered. It stuck with me for months after. I've gone from someone who 100%
believed in evolution and a material universe, to someone who deep down thinks
there may be a God, and I may actually have to face some kind of hell for some
kind of sins I may unknowingly commit in this life. I don't consider this a
spiritual awakening or something profound - it's more like I put a crack in my
sanity that I can never completely fix.

These drugs are extremely powerful. They can potentially destroy healthy
minds. I support more research and even, in time, legalisation - but I am
sharing the story so others may take away the point that when you start
hacking with your brains firmware, you should be EXTREMELY careful you dont
accidentally brick it.

EDIT: For clarity purposes, this wasn't my first time doing LSD and it wasn't
a huge dose. Nobody understands exactly how these drugs work, maybe this was a
1/1000 event. But it happened - and I don't do drugs any more.

~~~
taneq
I find this very interesting because I had precisely the opposite reaction
once when I tried psylocibin. Despite being pretty solidly materialist and
agnostic, I'd always held a bit of a soft spot for Cartesian duelism and a bit
of a "but it'd be cool if..."

What I didn't expect was that the effects wouldn't just "feel real" or "be
convincing", they _were_ real. Subjectively, it wasn't inside my head, it was
the actual world that changed. The fact that a small amount of psychoactive
substance could fundamentally alter my perceived reality put the final nail in
the coffin for any possibility that my mind was generated by something outside
my own skull.

~~~
Lewton
LSD made me go from your run of the mill nihilist to being convinced that even
consciousness is a complete illusion and all philosophy is built on this
ridiculous lie.

It's like solipsism taken one step further, no I'm not the only thing that
exists because -I- don't really exist in any meaningful way either.

We're all just P-zombies.

Qualia is nonsense

If you thought relating to normal people as a nihilist was hard.....

~~~
alexmat
Post-solopsism? Fck me dude, I mean say want you will about nihilism, at least
it doesn't attempt to invalidate the experience of qualia.

~~~
Lewton
It's just materialism taken to its logical conclusion. We're just a bunch of
atoms bumping into each other in a way that fools ourselves into believing
that we're a cohesive entity.

Ever been tired and run on autopilot? Our experience of ourselves vary in
strength all the time. If I'm really really honest with myself, I don't
actually have the experience of qualia all the time

~~~
sireat
What's your solution to finding medium term (5-10 years) motivation?

The more I read on cognitive science (Strange Loop was the first and then you
understand what was behind GEB) the more I concur with your view. It is
depressing though.

For short term daily tasks, one can depend on routines.

For longer planning the implications are horrifying if there is no qualia in
the sense that we think of it.

It's just like with nihilism, it might be "true" but it is not very
productive.

At best it leads to Vito Corleone type of ethics, ie tribalism, I'll take care
of my family/village, but woe to the outside world.

At worst it leads to Michael Corleone actions, ie screw everyone besides
yourself.

Where do you get joy in life if Dennett turns out to be right?

~~~
alexmat
I can only speak for myself, but I find joy in living vicariously through
others who don't contemplate existential issues. Sometimes I can spend a day
just hanging out with my cat watching him do random things with sincerity.
Sometimes I envy him.

As far as medium term motivation, guilt, fear and debt seems to work for most
people regardless of philosophical disposition.

------
toomanybeersies
Aldous Huxley, dying of terminal cancer, took LSD on his deathbed, and died
while on his final trip (it was planned that way), although a relatively low
dose of 100ug.

It seems to me like it would be a good way to go, a good way to conquer the
fear of the unknown after you die.

In a related experience, once when I was on a bender, I took 3 tabs of lsd,
along with a whole plethora of other substances. I actually thought I was dead
for a while, and strangely enough, I felt OK about it. I saw some pretty weird
shit on that trip, it was the most mindblowing experience of my life, and not
one I'm about to repeat in a hurry, it honestly wasn't that fun. Fear and
Loathing in Las Vegas is not an instruction manual.

But then I sobered up. I really think that Hunter S Thompson was right: it's
all bullshit. You're not connecting to another plane of existence or getting
in touch with your ancestors. You're just fucked on drugs. Nothing wrong with
that, but it's not spiritual.

He really nailed it in Fear and Loathing:

> All those pathetically eager acid freaks who thought they could buy Peace
> and Understanding for three bucks a hit. But their loss and failure is ours,
> too. What Leary took down with him was the central illusion of a whole life-
> style that he helped to create...a generation of permanent cripples, failed
> seekers, who never understood the essential old mystic fallacy of the Acid
> Culture: the desperate assumption that somebody-or at least some force-is
> tending the Light at the end of the tunnel.

~~~
KozmoNau7
In short, you're not experiencing the universe. You're experiencing your own
mind.

~~~
toomanybeersies
Absolutely. I do think that everyone should try psychedelics at least once, in
a comfortable, controlled environment with friends.

You may not unlock the secrets to the universe, but I do think it teaches you
an important lesson that your reality and experiences are subjective. I don't
mean that reality itself is subjective, but our perceptions of it are. LSD
will mess with your perceptions in really weird ways that can't really be
described with words. Things like your perception of depth and age get thrown
off completely.

~~~
KozmoNau7
I was offered some shrooms a couple of years ago at a metal festival. I was
actually a little bit tempted, but I figured the combination of drunkenness
and the presence of thousands of strangers meant it would not be a good time
nor place to give it a go for the first time.

------
empath75
When he talks about the default mode network that sort of matches with my
intuitive understanding of what the experience of taking psychedelics is like.

People do things in loops— they go to work every day, come back home every
day, hang out with the same people, engage in the same hobbies, think the same
thoughts.

It’s just our natural mode of being to repeat ourselves, and psychedelics seem
to just shut all of that down. You’re no longer a person who does these things
or has those habits. You’re barely a person at all— just purely living in the
moment, without any feeling of separation from the rest of the world.

And as you come back from that, you engage in the reconstruction of your
personality— and if you’re careful about how you do it, you can change it — in
both positive and negative ways.

~~~
oceanghost
I have used drugs extensively-- good ones and bad. I'd be happy to answer any
questions, but you're on the right track here except for the ineffable.

Drugs distort the pattern matching systems in your brain. You see patterns
that are there, patterns that aren't, patterns of patterns, patterns of
patterns of patterns. You make connections that you should and shouldn't. If I
could describe my phsycelidc experinces--of which I've had dozens--It would
be--"psychadelics break your brain intro a thousand pieces, hand you thebroken
shard and say, "have fun putting this back together."

Genericaly, amphetmainish things tie you to the real world. Disscocitiaves the
spiritual world. Psychadelics-- the self reflective at moderate doses and at
high doses the "other side" (if that makes any sense at all).

I would not trade my expereinces for ANYTHING, but I wouldn't recommend it
either. The spiritual experiences I've had on drugs have been profound enough
to change me from an stone cold atheist to, well a guy who believes in what
he's seen himself. I've floated through space and time, I've received
vissions, advice, knowledge of the future. I've been shown some of the secrets
of the universe... but the most improtant message of all was simply "learn as
much as you can and be as kind as you can to others."

There are some things that are indescribable-- ineffiable. Any description of
the religious experneices ive had would be, inadequate. You've either had one,
or they're complete fucking nonsense.

What im saying is--the world of faith is beyond that of experience. It may, or
may not be real, but it sure as hell feels like it is.

~~~
fsloth
"Any description of the religious experneices ive had would be, inadequate.
You've either had one, or they're complete fucking nonsense."

I've never used drugs, but based on my experience I totally understand the
statement that the purely analytic mode of thought does not encompass the
whole of human experience.

I had a deeply profound sense of being one with the universe as a teenager
after a regular session of meditation.

I would not say it did anything for my atheism. I believe humans are complex
and deep creatures with enormous hidden potential, and these mystical
experiences just bring it to the surface.

Drugs are not the only way to access mystical experiences, but I certainly
don't begrudge their use.

~~~
gerbilly
>I've never used drugs, but based on my experience I totally understand the
statement that the purely analytic mode of thought does not encompass the
whole of human experience.

That's for sure.

It's impossible to explain to someone something as mundane how you know how to
ride a bike using analytical thought.[1]

[1] Witness the endless counter-steering threads on HN.

~~~
chillwaves
I want to understand counter steering so badly... I think I do on an intuitive
level, as I have ridden a motorcycle for years but I just can't wrap my head
around the concept.

------
orasis
This is the playlist from Johns Hopkins for a blindfold + headphones session.

[https://open.spotify.com/user/phillysblunt/playlist/5KWf8H2p...](https://open.spotify.com/user/phillysblunt/playlist/5KWf8H2pM0tlVd7niMtqeU)

An experienced sitter is required.

~~~
ethagnawl
Compiled by _phillysblunt_? Seems legit.

------
tiisetso
Podcast: Pollan's interview on the Tim Ferriss show for additional thoughts.
Ferriss is committing a million USD over the next few years to support the
scientific study of psychedelic compounds.

Audio link just a slight scroll in. [https://tim.blog/2018/05/06/michael-
pollan-how-to-change-you...](https://tim.blog/2018/05/06/michael-pollan-how-
to-change-your-mind/)

~~~
motdiem
I found the conversation very interesting- made me want to read the book.

As an aside, I liked how when they weee discussing mental health, pollan put
forward that the classifications that we use today (say differentiating
between depression and anxiety) are more rooted in legacy and institutions and
less in what the current science sees of what’s happening in the brain.
Thought this was an interesting way to frame things.

------
sev
Psychedelics should be treated with respect. I often speak to people who have
no clue what dosage they take or took. Due to the potency, it’s not as easy as
other substances to know whether you’ve had too much, and that’s why they
require extra care.

You could die if you drink too much water, or if it is contaminated; that
doesn’t mean water isn’t good for you.

------
eip
"When I said we may be our programs, nothing more, nothing less, I meant the
substrate, the basic substratum under all else, of our metaprograms is our
programs. All we are as humans is what is builtin and what has been acquired,
and what we make of both of these. So we are one more result of the program
substrate-the selfmetaprogrammer.

As out of several hundreds of thousands of the substrate programs comes an
adaptable changing set of thousands of metaprograms, so out of the
metaprograms as substrate comes something else-the controller, the steersman,
the programmer in the biocomputer, the selfmetaprogrammer. In a well organized
biocomputer, there is at least one such critical control metaprogram labeled I
for acting on other metaprograms and labeled me when acted upon by other
metaprograms. I say at least one advisedly. Most of us have several
controllers, selves, selfmetaprograms which divide control among them, either
in time parallel or in time series in sequences of control. As I will give in
detail later, one path for selfdevelopment is to centralize control of one's
biocomputer in one selfmetaprogrammer, making the others into conscious
executives subordinate to the single administrator, the single superconscient
selfmetaprogrammer. With appropriate methods, this centralizing of control,
the elementary unification operation, is a realizable state for many, if not
all biocomputers."

\--John C Lilly
[https://pictures.abebooks.com/isbn/9780015308735-es.jpg](https://pictures.abebooks.com/isbn/9780015308735-es.jpg)

------
giarc
Great podcast this week on Recode/Decode.

[https://www.recode.net/2018/5/16/17358484/michael-pollan-
how...](https://www.recode.net/2018/5/16/17358484/michael-pollan-how-to-
change-your-mind-book-drugs-engelbart-kara-swisher-podcast)

------
tgamba
DMT trip reports point to a use of psychedelics beyond therapy. Since so many
users describe the same thing -- points of contact with other beings-- we can
hypothesize that DMT gives us access to other dimensions or aspects of space
and time. But how we move from subjective reporting to a scientific theory on
this, I have no idea. (I have never tried DMT, it sounds terrifying)

------
mathattack
He is making the rounds. He appeared with Kara Swisher on Recode, which may be
accessible to this audience.

[https://www.recode.net/2018/5/16/17358484/michael-pollan-
how...](https://www.recode.net/2018/5/16/17358484/michael-pollan-how-to-
change-your-mind-book-drugs-engelbart-kara-swisher-podcast)

------
newnewpdro
The world would be a better place if everyone ate magic mushrooms in the
wilderness on a camping trip as part of outdoor ed. in school.

If you've never experienced it, you probably won't understand.

~~~
gepi79
I wish people would stop the unhealthy and irresponsible and dangerous life-
destroying hype and promotion of psychedelics including cannabis.

All medical experts warn against the use of drugs and psychedelics except as
medical tools of medical experts.

Drugs and psychedelics can trigger all kinds of long term mental disorders
that even the best experts might not be able to heal.

Medical science and psychology are still very limited and primitive with
regard to addictions and mental disorders and understanding and (healthy)
manipulation of the (unhealthy) brain.

If "you" do not believe me, check the internet for reports of people suffering
from addiction or mental disorders and their sad quest for help.

Even bad diets and lack of sports and lack of dental care are unsolved health
problems in societies in 2018.

~~~
lobster_johnson
It's pretty clear from your comment that you don't know anything about magic
mushrooms.

I could understand your response if the parent were speaking about LSD or bath
salts or something else that have been known to give people bad, destructive
trips. But shrooms?

Psilocybin is known as the gentlest and most enjoyable psychedelic there is.
Adverse reactions are rare, and as far as I know nobody has ever come out of a
shroom trip with their brains scrambled. Personally, I find that the
experience isn't so much a "trip", but rather a gentle, beautiful and
interesting set of visual effects. I don't hallucinate people or supernatural
beings, but I do see colours around the edges of things, and repeating fractal
patterns everywhere, and enjoy a strangely improved acuity of vision.

Shrooms are also a type of drug where you can derive a psychological benefit
from very small doses (or microdoses) that essentially provides no "trip" at
all. There's promising research showing benefits for depression and PTSD. Not
to mention that psilocybin is not addictive.

~~~
bfuller
>as I know nobody has ever come out of a shroom trip with their brains
scrambled.

you would be wrong. if you are predisposed to psychosis shrooms can trigger
that.

I get it that you prefer mushrooms. But most people actually handle LSD better
than mushrooms. So the fact you trashed LSD is a little silly.

~~~
lobster_johnson
"Brains scrambled" implies permanent negative effects. I have never
encountered any evidence that psilocybin has contributed to psychological
damage, unlike LSD and its famed/apparent tendency to provoke flashbacks years
later.

On the other hand, there are increasing numbers of recent studies that refute
the idea that psilocybin is as dangerous as some people have claimed in the
past [1] [2]:

> We failed to find any associations between lifetime use of psychedelics and
> past year serious psychological distress, receiving or needing mental health
> treatment, depression, anxiety, or suicidal thoughts or behavior in the past
> year. Rather, lifetime use of psychedelics was associated with decreased
> inpatient psychiatric treatment.

I'm unable to find any studies showing a link between psilocybin and the
triggering of latent mental illness. There's some debate about whether age is
possibly not coincidental, in the sense that the heaviest users of "hard"
psychedelics like LSD tend to start at an age which coincides with the
emergence of latent disorders such as schizophrenia, implying that there isn't
necessarily a cause and effect.

Nobody is obviously promoting _irresponsible_ use of psychedelics. That said,
everything in life has risk. The risks involved with psilocybin seem
infinitesimally small compared to those of, say, alcohol or smoking.

[1] [http://www.emmasofia.org/wp-
content/uploads/2015/02/Psychede...](http://www.emmasofia.org/wp-
content/uploads/2015/02/Psychedelics-not-linked-to-mental-health-problems-or-
suicidal-behavior.pdf?115a76)

[2]
[https://cogumelosmagicos.org/comunidade/attachments/j-psycho...](https://cogumelosmagicos.org/comunidade/attachments/j-psychopharmacol-2015-hendricks-0269881114565653-pdf.76931/)

~~~
bfuller
You talk about evidence when it concerns your beloved shrooms, and then in the
exact same sentence repeat an asinine wives tale like the lsd flashbacks
bullshit,which has no evidence behind it at all. Your bias is clear.

And I've seen people have psychosis manifest on mushrooms that was life
altering, lasted for months, and they were never the same.

------
asciimo
Ha. I had this open in another tab all day but I didn't realize it was Michael
Pollan. Time to read.

------
40acres
Okay, but where can I get it?

~~~
jes5199
darknet markets

------
koverstreet
> The way [psilocybin is] being used is in a very controlled or guided
> setting. ... They don't just give you a pill and send you home; you're in a
> room. You're with two guides, one male, one female. You're lying down on a
> comfortable couch. You're wearing headphones listening to a really carefully
> curated playlist of music — instrumental compositions for the most part —
> and you're wearing eyeshades, all of which is to encourage a very inward
> journey.

Erg, having people trip this way who are already are struggling with
depression strikes me as downright dangerous. Bad trips are a real thing, and
leaving someone alone with their thoughts, without a lot of sensory input, is
a good way to do it. I hope they know what they're doing...

It's really much, much better and safer to be outside, in nature.

~~~
stryk
Laying around on a couch sounds like a waste of a good shroom buzz. Shrooms
are much more fun if you're with a medium-to-large sized group of people who
all know and are comfortable around each other, all of whom are on around the
same dose. They're so much more of a body buzz and less of a mindfuck than
LSD/DMT. Then there's PCP... which is less of a mindfuck and more of a
fuckyou.

~~~
ozzmotik
i personally think arylcyclohexamines and really just NMDA antagonists in
general have a large amount of untapped therapeutic benefit, especially for
individuals suffering from depression otherwise resistant to other forms of
treatment. perhaps it's slightly anecdotal but in my experience, a daily to
semidaily 150mg dose of memantine combined with cannabis prn as an anxiolytic
is pretty much the most effective dosing strategy I have found to control my
depression, anxiety, and lapses in attention. however i certainly don't
recommend it for others, at least with that high of a memantine dosage because
with its insane metabolic half life (60+ hours) it really conpojnds heavily.
not to mention a therapeutic dose of memantine for what it's prescribed for
(controlling dementia symptoms) is generally like 5-10mg. but I will say if
you have the fortitude for it, it's a wonderful experience. you just have to
be willing to essentially exist in a 24/7 state of moderate to heavy
dissociation and not be too predisposed to panic because ive certainly seen
heavy dissociative experiences to be quite anxiogenic for those who don't
really get down with that. but I'd certainly suggest regular memantine usage
over my old practice of constant high doses of dxm :V

~~~
stryk
Have you tried ketamine? Not just for recreation, but as a possible treatment.
It definitely is not going to last 60+ hours, more like .75-1.25hr, but it may
be useful for acute symptoms. But if you approach an anesthetic dose it is
quite enjoyable and calming, especially if you're already accustomed to
psychedelic/narcotic experiences and the like.

~~~
ozzmotik
i have tried it intranasally and it was certainly not the worst experience I
ever had but I believe what I had to be of not the best quality as I went
through 500mg in about 3-4 hours and didn't feel much other than a minor
alteration. i think if it were still possible to find the original formulation
of it, methoxetamine would be highly preferable, that was a very powerful
experience when I got to try that out.

~~~
igravious
Translation: I snorted a very large amount over a very short space of time but
didn't get much of a buzz out of it.

[https://erowid.org/chemicals/ketamine/ketamine_dose.shtml](https://erowid.org/chemicals/ketamine/ketamine_dose.shtml)
says that 100-250mg produces "the K hole" (depends on body weight) so 500mg
over a fairly short period sounds like quite the dosage. That you felt only a
mild alteration suggests that either you have quite the tolerance for
substances or that what you tried was not in fact ketamine. Also, it appears
to me that you're deploying clinical language to mask recreational drug use
which could be for our benefit or yours, I can't tell which.

~~~
ozzmotik
i wouldn't be inclined to say that my choice of verbiage is to have any intent
of masking the action or the nature of it. that's just how I generally talk
about things. i feel like it leaves less up to interpretation and sort of
solidifies the message I'm trying to communicate. which it did as your summary
of what I had to say confirms.

also: i can't confirm if it was or wasn't actually ketamine. but i know that I
experienced something, just nothing significant. I believe many dissociatives
present a cross tolerance with each other and I was heavily tolerant to dxm at
the time from heavy usage, so that may possibly have contributed to my
tolerance, along with a certain level of inherent tolerance that my mind and
physiology express when it comes to mind altering substances. which, and
forgive me for sort of changing the topic, but that just sucks

------
jammi95
Be n

------
senatorobama
Someone identify what Soma was.

------
ilackarms
ibogaine: the only psychedelic people need to know about. and they need to
know.

~~~
ozzmotik
i highly agree that more people should know about ibogaine but at the same
time it is important to note that unless you really know what you're doing or
you have an experienced professional administering it, you really shouldn't
mess around with it. stuff is serious business and not unknown to be fatal.

also, i really wouldn't classify it as a psychedelic, as to my understanding
it's more of a dissociative, which while quite similar in concept, any
experienced psychonaut can confirm that dissos and psys are extremely
different in practice and in mechanism of action.

personaly I'd say that ayahuasca would be better for the lay person since a
traditional brew isn't as dangerous as ibogaine, but certainly as powerful in
terms of self growth and discovery. however, they both address different
aspects of the self; I would say that in general, psys are very internally
directed whereas dissociatives tend to invert that and pierce the outward
veil, as it were

~~~
fapjacks
Your post is great and I agree with everything in it, except for suggesting
ayahuasca to regular people. Over perhaps the last ten or twelve years I have
made ayahuasca for people and sat with them during their trip. I _strongly_
recommend people have experience with another psychedelic before trying DMT
(or a brew in which DMT is a component, like ayahuasca). I actually generally
won't let someone drink ayahuasca unless they've experienced other
psychedelics beforehand. I will usually take them on a mushroom trip first.
Only one time did I let someone drink ayahuasca without any experience with
psychedelics first, and it was the wife of an experienced tripper friend and
who also had experience with other substances. That went totally fine, but it
is just such an intense hallucinogen (and/or dissociative depending) and it
lasts for so long, I just couldn't do that to someone that didn't have a taste
of what to expect beforehand.

~~~
ssijak
On every ceremony that I went, at least 1/3 of participants never tried
psychedelic before, and there are at least 1-2 persons which never tried
anything before, not even marijuana. For some reason, people get drawn to
ayahuasca and don't look at it like they look at other substances. Maybe
because of the stigma that governments produced against other substances and
maybe because ayahuasca ceremony involves shamans.

Anyhow, I have never witnessed problems after the ceremony ended. Yes, it can
be really hard and heavy during the ceremony, but after the ceremony ends,
everybody feels like they are new and like they never felt that good before.
And in after effects of the next several weeks, everybody reports positive and
lasting effects.

