Joe Rogan Experience Review podcast - 516 JRE Review of Michael Pollan

Episode Date: March 24, 2026

Michael Pollan joins Joe Rogan for a wide-ranging conversation on psychedelics, plant intelligence, and the evolving relationship between humans and the natural world. Known for his work on food, consciousness, and the hidden systems shaping our lives, Pollan explores how substances like psilocybin are being used in therapeutic settings to treat depression, addiction, and trauma. The discussion dives into the science and experience of altered states, what happens to the brain during psychedelic journeys, and why these compounds may help people break out of rigid patterns of thinking. Pollan also shares insights into plant behavior and intelligence, challenging the idea that plants are passive organisms and highlighting their complex communication and survival strategies. This episode blends neuroscience, philosophy, and personal exploration, raising deeper questions about consciousness, healing, and the role psychedelics may play in the future of mental health. If you're curious about the mind, the power of nature, and the frontier of psychedelic therapy, this is a conversation worth exploring. Thanks to this weeks sponsors: Head to Chime.com/JRER Fee-free and smarter banking built for YOU Go to brooklynbedding.com and use my promo code JRER at checkout to get 30% off sitewide.  Go to HIMS dot com slash JRER for your personalized ED treatment options! For more Rogan exclusives support us on Patreon patreon.com/JREReview www.JREreview.com For all marketing questions and inquiries: [e-mail] Please email us here with any suggestions, comments and questions for future shows.. [e-mail]  

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Hey, guys, and welcome to another episode of the Joe Rogan Experience Review. This week, we are reviewing. the Michael Pollan episode. He is the best-selling author and journalist known for exploring food systems, human behavior and psychedelics, which he talks about a ton in this episode. His major works include How to Change Your Mind, The Omnivores Dilemma, and This Is Your Mind on Plants. He sits at the intersection of science, culture, and philosophy, often translating complex topics, into practical insights. Join today with my good buddy Peter.

What did you think of Michael? He's an interesting fellow, isn't he? Yeah, he seems like an easy guy to talk to, that's for sure. Smart. He's done a lot of stuff in his life. Lots of knowledge. Author. Tons of adventures.

He's pretty brave. He'll pop some acid or mushrooms or whatever. He's exploring. Change his mind view or... His paradigm shift. Yeah. He's definitely searching for something. He's searching long and far and wide.

In the depths of his mind. Yeah. Really trying to understand himself and others and all the rest of it. I like he takes a clinical approach where he tries to figure out solutions to consciousness or what it is to be conscious or human. And he goes about it from a sciencey way. Sure. Yeah.

It's very interesting, for sure. I mean, he kind of talks about psychedelics and the therapeutic renaissance, almost. We're in there right now, I guess, huh? Yeah. It's fancy terms. Yeah, that is quite fancy. Yeah. Very kind of poetic as well.

I mean, pollen revisits the resurgence of psychedelics in clinical settings. They're able now to do a lot more re-or, even, any research into psychedelics. It was with the MRI and there's other sensing techniques. Watch the brain as they take these drugs or medicine. I think he has probably how he would call them. Sure. And you can see the brain do things while we take these.

Yeah. Regrowing synapses. Like repairing itself. That was an interesting thing he said that our brain is unlike anything. We always try to compare things to the brain. Like, oh, this computer system is like a brain. But that's all. Our hardware and software are one.

While we learn new things, our brain changes at the same time. So every day our brain is connecting or snapping little tiny pieces of itself to make memories. Sure. And relearn. Right. Yeah. And he kind of emphasizes, you know, how depression, PTSD, and addiction treatment is, like, tied in with this. new learning of kind of the therapeutic side of psychedelics.

And that's really fascinating as the clinical end is being researched more and sought after because, you know, they're finding just more and more benefits to effective treatments in those directions. And it's important because some people are really stuck in those cycles. You know, regular treatments just don't work for certain people suffering from real chronic depression and PTSD and, you know, severe addictive patterns that just don't seem to be able to be broken any other way. So we doesn't, he's mentioned that it doesn't change, the medicine itself doesn't change the brain. it allows us to be open to solutions to change our own brain.

Like it opens our scope and lets us drop some trauma that maybe is keeping us in that cycle. Do you think that's a guess? How would he know that? Or how does anyone know that? I think with this stuff is a lot of guessing. Right. Because it's... Sounds nice.

He said the phrase a few times like... I guess they can see, though, right? They can see the brain is like, oh, the brain is the same afterwards. And the results speak from themselves in some cases. something has happened. Yeah, well, this guy now doesn't, he's not addicted to alcohol or other drugs because of this search he did in his own mind. Sure.

Well, they do talk a lot about a reset after, you know, that comes up a lot with psilocybin. Like, after those sorts of sessions, therapeutic-wise, the big sessions, they often refer to as like the hero dose or whatever. it's like you get the reset right the dissolving the ego then there's this reset and it's almost like you lose your grip on whatever was holding you the addiction the depression maybe the PTSD and it's like then in that reset you have the space to kind of maybe possibly reevaluate and it's in that time that potentially Eventually, you grab a hold of it again or not. You just have some space to kind of make a different choice. It's like almost stepping outside of our own mind and looking down on ourselves with a new perspective. Yeah.

It's like, well, I don't have to do that. I can do whatever I want. Mm-hmm. It just doesn't have that same grip over you anymore. What a strange thing that it can do? It's so interesting. I think they actually do stress the need for a hero's dose as well. So don't just go try this stuff.

the hero's dose is a lot of substance and often guided by somebody who's really knowledgeable about this medicine oh that's definitely advisable yeah yeah you don't want to just give that a shot jump into it right yeah i definitely don't recommend it well you know that's the difference between underground use versus like regulated therapy yeah and is there a big overlap now with the drugs and and How do you mean? Like is this a pretty common occurrence to people seeking this new avenue and it being open and accepted and practiced by people in the clinical settings or therapy settings? There's much larger availability to the therapeutic setting of that, yeah.

I mean, way more available than it used to be. Like you'd have to go to Peru for some of this stuff? Before and now many places have it available, even in the U.S. Any old burning man? Is that you're telling me? You probably don't have to go that far nowadays. I wouldn't imagine. Don't take any back alley, DMT, everybody.

There we go. Yeah, you can find places and people are doing it. And, you know, more to your point, it's like becoming more accepted. There's better training for it. and you know clinicians are getting on board professional kind of medical training as well and standards are coming in there's just a lot of elements to it that are getting standardized almost which you know some people push back on as well because they think that you know I've talked to some practitioners that prefer kind of the old way of doing it,

the more shamanistic way. Oh, okay. And they're thinking that it's kind of almost becoming commercialized, but in the same way, it's like, ultimately you want it available to more people. Right, in their comfortability delivery method. Sure. And you do hopefully want it to not be illegal

because then again, people aren't getting in trouble. I wouldn't. And again, there's more access. to it. So there has to be a compromise in there somewhere. Like if there's rules involved or the governments involved, they're always going to have rules, laws. They have to. And some standards that they put on it, which is going to take away from some practice. The primal nature of it. Yeah. But it's kind of cool to see that happening. I sometimes wonder like what impact Joe's podcast is made on the whole world of mushrooms alone becoming more and more legal with the amount

of people that he's had on his podcast that have done work in that area and with all the publicity that he's put in this kind of field over how long has he done his podcast now like 17 years. It's a long time, almost 17 years. I know he's changed popular opinion about it, because, you know, maybe 10 years ago you really started to notice a lot of... This podcast is brought to you by Brooklyn Bedding. I love a good origin story, and Brooklyn Bedding has one of my favorites. John, the founder, literally built this company from the ground up in Arizona without a college degree. Just pure grit and intentional craftsmanship. You can actually feel that pride in every stitch of their mattresses. Brooklyn Bedding, hang crafts, every

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Overlap between the like manly side of, you know, the gym crew and the hunters are now also the mushroom guys. He must be alerted to mushroom talk. Uh-huh. No, you're right. I mean, you know, there's like gym bros that have always listened to Rogan and are now way more open to the idea of like a psychedelic conversation. The tech guys are all about the psychedelics.

They might have been the first kind of overlap. They probably always kind of were. That I noticed, yeah. I mean, you know, Steve Jobs was doing LSD and inventing Apple products back in the day. Was he? Man. Pretty sure, yeah.

Can't wear a turtleneck like that. Well, those guys are major creatives. That's true. You can't not wear a turtleneck and do LSD. Is that a fanny pack and a turtleneck combo? That's part of it. I love that look. Getting real artsy.

Where's your beret? Yeah, we realize it. But yeah, it's like the crossover of all these different, the melding. So it's like these different archetypes. Leveraging plants and their capabilities to help our minds. Yeah. Oh, and talking about plants, they got into that in a big way. All the hidden senses.

What did you make of all that? I found that pretty fascinating. It's not news to me. I knew this stuff. I mean, people have been kind of talking about it, but the way that he put it all together was really interesting. It was like a deep discussion on how plants perceive and interact in the world. And, you know, like plants don't have brains, like as we know it,

but they process information and they do respond intelligently. So then what is a brain? Does a brain have to be centralized? Isn't any intelligence a reflection of a brain? because isn't intelligence from a brain? Can intelligence come from anything that's not a brain?

A system of cells in a plant constituting its thought processes, I would say... Can we say that a cell is intelligent because it does complicated things? Or is that just an automatic system? Yeah, that's a... I think you're splitting definitions.

Like, it's obviously alive and it obviously wants to live. How else? Do you, you know, how do you... Well, just because something's alive, I don't think that it necessarily has to be intelligent. So let's figure out what intelligence is. Like, what about a jellyfish? The ones that don't have any centralized brain structure.

Right. So in many ways, they're like a plan. But do they have some intelligence? That's a good question. And what is intelligence? Is intelligence just reacting to external stimuli of some kind? I mean, don't cells on their own do that? in some way yeah they must do right I mean if a cell is like getting dehydrated they

do something to stop losing fluid isn't that an intelligent response in itself depends on the looker and the definer right if you went to like a Native American today and said oh yeah it's we're finding out that almost all things have potentially can have consciousness in some way like this tree or that rock they would say of course it of course we knew this already so it's kind of he's describing how

the new science is backing up the old thoughts about these religions that we all share evolving we've all been animistic meaning everything has a spirit and a right to life in a way

yeah but we're not saying rocks do he's saying that potential there's there's what is and it goes back to what is intelligence what is consciousness this is interesting podcast he he speculates that maybe there is could be i mean you know why are we all that

much different than anything else in the universe we're just made of pieces of it yeah we're just just the six just break it out bring us just like we notice ourselves clearly and we can talk to other versions of things like ourselves and we notice it and a chair or a rock doesn't seem to yeah but that's only because we don't communicate with it. We don't really know what it's doing. It's just a rock. It's very interesting. So yeah, what are their intelligent?

They have chemical communication. So plants release compounds to warn nearby plants of threats, like insects. Yeah, if you start biting on a leaf as a caterpillar, that plant sends poisonous chemicals to that area to make it taste bad. and then in turn of course insects adapt to that and then some of them use that poison to make themselves inedible to birds

so yeah you can like play sounds of like certain caterpillars munching on leaves near plants or trees and the trees will start releasing

chemicals out of the leaves to make their leaves taste nastier. That's incredible. And the bugs aren't even there is just the sound. So it means that they have

ability to hear. They can sense that vibration or something. And that blows my mind. That goes back to where is the brain here? Do all these cells act together as a brain? Right.

So smelling and tasting, Roots detect nutrients, toxins, and other organisms in the soil. That kind of makes sense. It's a root. Right. Like, what did we think it did? Just stick into the ground and then hope stuff was there. It's like, it doesn't just randomly spread out.

That would be the laziest evolution ever. You would imagine that it's going in some direction. Down generally. Right. Well, we know it goes down. And then when it goes out, it's like, going to go, you know, in some direction that's slightly tastier than another direction. And maybe the mushroom connection down there has something to do with that.

Yeah. They tap into those enzymes. What is that the myosilium? Yeah. The mycelium might mean. Mycelium. Well, that's important because that is where all the nitrogen comes from, right? They fix it into the ground?

I think so. That makes sense. It breaks it down, and that's how the trees get it, or the plants or whatever. We're learning more and more that plants are not just... Dumb. Inactive, dumb things on the plate on this earth. They're part of this. And then we mow them all down.

Get out of the way. We need the good old flat garden here. I want a nice dusty field, please. That's my dad's way, method. They're light sensing. Plants can detect direction, intensity, and even light wave shifts. Well, that makes a ton of sense because they... Makes light.

They're all about light. Yeah. They're photosynthetic. Like, that one is the most obvious one. They're green for a reason. That's the middle of the light spectrum for... It's why they're that color. Makes sense.

Or are they that color? Well, yeah, they are that color. They're that color because it's right. The green is right in the middle. Chlorophyll. Of the thing. Is it they're able to accept the light and make it into food?

Yeah. It's the best. Yeah. Otherwise, all the trees would be like blue or different colors. But it's green because it's the right. the middle. Falls, uh, the death of trees, but it's the prettiest time for trees, I think.

But yeah. And they turn orange. Uh-huh. Well, they're not photosynthetic then. The lack of chlorophy. It's because it's all dead. So, yeah. And then touch sensitivity, vines and climbing plants feel their environment and adapt growth patterns.

Didn't they say something about, I thought he did say something about they could see as well. Well, that might the light thing, sunlight, they can see a sunlight. I guess the light sensing, but all it said here is it would just move in direction and intensity. But I thought I had a note on that. I guess I don't, it didn't write it down. But I'm pretty sure that he did say something like that. And sound and vibration sensitivity. Yeah, that one is just hearing.

and then memory like behavior that one's interesting plants can remember stress events and adapt future responses that kind of proves that there is some ability to remember yeah he talks about shaking a plant in a study and the leaves will close to prevent being eaten and you can shake it repeatedly and then the plant says oh i being shaking it and my leaves are not being eaten so that's response becomes deadened and they don't close anymore so that's a bit of memory right there right it kind of proves it all this stuff has been tested by somebody and he's he's referencing research yeah well you know you've heard of people talking about how you know trees or plants are under stress they're stressed and then they die it's like it's an actual emotion poor little guys

I know. Therapy for plants. You got to play music. They like classical music. I do know that they actually do. And if you play bird songs, they grow better. Chime is changing the way people bank. Chime isn't just another banking app.

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services and the secured Chime Visa credit card are provided by the Bank or Stride Bank NA. Optional services and products may have fees or charges. See chime.com slash fees info. Terms apply. Limited time only. Must open the new account and complete qualifying activities to earn rewards. Advertised annual percentage yield with chime plus status only. Otherwise, 1% APY applies. No minimum balance required. Chime card on time payment history may have a positive impact on your credit score. Results may be based. See chime.com for details on applicable terms. If you play Gubbered songs during the sunrise, they grow better. And that was demonstrated by people like maybe 50 years ago. Is that true? Yes. I don't know.

Oh, are you going to look it out? Google it. I'm going to Google this? Let's look it up. Look it up. You waffling. I think that that is... I think that's a stretch.

Let's just check it out. Let's take a look. We got a minute here. We're going to take a look. We're going to find out. Yeah. Research suggests plants can grow better with bird song, which acts as a form of acoustic fertilizer.

High frequency sounds typical of bird song, especially at sunrise. Vibrate leaf stomata. causing them to open wider and absorb more water and nutrients. That's interesting. And that was an old one. Wow. Huh.

Yeah, maybe it just means, you know, tells them they're in a healthier environment. Like if birds are around, then it probably means that there's other resources and nutrients that they're going to need because otherwise the birds wouldn't be there. Well, and the birds are often their fertilizer or their seed disbursement method. Right. They'll eat the little fruits. So if it's a tree that requires. birds for dispersal for the seeds. Then they're like, we're in good shape, guys.

We got birds over here. We got birds. Time to grow. Do our thing. That is fascinating. The world is an intricate place and it's, we just got to, the more we got to keep doing those experiments, find out more and more of like what's up. And then, like, how fascinating would it be once we start getting AI on that and really

hammering down, like, ways to, communicate back with like see what else it can communicate like okay they can communicate these like very basic things like react to these different stimuli but maybe there's more communication going on there maybe it's like I don't know maybe there's even a language in there somewhere magic magic trees that's we can just call it magic yeah come up eventually coming back around We'll see eventually. Back to the psychedelics.

The big area that he went into is the set and setting and kind of like why the context matters, right? So, you know, the guidelines around that and like the psychology of it. And what's your take on that with experience? And I mean, you've done this, recreationally. You've seen it done recreationally. You know, people walking around a park together

or however it is. And it's, and everyone knows, you want to do this with friends. Good friends. And in a good place. No weirdos. Yeah, do you? No screamers. Would I rather, would I rather be rolling around on a forest in Peru, in the, on the, on the dirt? Or would I rather be in a hospital bed with a, intravenous drip.

It's, I guess, depends on my, on what we're doing, but sometimes I think I'd rather be in a hospital bed being administered by a doctor than in the woods with jaguars and...

I don't think that like, when people say like you're down in Peru, I don't know if it's like quite the vision that people think, though. Surely you're not just like deep in the woods and it's all dark

and you're around a fire and there's just animals I don't know howling I don't know about that one maybe there's probably some elements of that

especially in the old like a little in the days before I'd like to think that they've like cleared out of space and there's some huts I know I'd be scampering around

and getting dirty it's yeah I'm sure they've made it calming. That's why they do those things. I want a nice gal to jab me with a needle and say everything's going to be okay. This is nuts. And I'll lay down. In a big white room. They know I'm going to be going through something and it's clean. Is this like the Western white person's version of? I am what I am. Okay. All right. That's, do you feel like in a safe space in a hospital? No. I feel like you're going to be made better? No, no, no. I like, I like, I, like,

Hospital maybe is a clinic. It's something small. Okay. Like in a... But honestly, I think I associate those things. Yeah, you're getting fixed. Like, if I was going to be somewhere and I thought I was dying, I would want that to be a hospital. If I was like, I am dying.

Yeah. You know, you're either bleeding or just, like, in some psychedelic trip that is, like, absolutely way too much to deal with. Like, one of those places in your... panic zone of like this could result in a death of me. Existential crisis. Yeah. Whether it's physical or just in your mind, I think that the safest place that I could imagine being is like, yeah, kind of in a hospital.

We go there for fixes. So if you're getting fixed with some psychedelics, why not get fixed? Yeah, we're kind of trained to understand that from like little kid. Doctors fix you. It's a part of the setting. Uh-huh. And so if someone else wants to go do the woods one, which is probably how I would have been into it when I was younger. But I would probably prefer a little more of a controlled environment now.

If it is just being out in the woods with a shaman and some Jaguars. Well, the Rick Strassman DMT experiments that they did in New Mexico, where they were doing the IV drips of DMT that was like very good. clinical. I think they did that at maybe one of the UNM hospitals there. Probably. That was like super clinical. That sounded like a really pretty safe way of doing the most hallucinogenic drug on the planet. I mean, if you're going to delve in that deep in that kind of way, I mean, that drug is in and out of your system very quickly, right?

by all accounts. Right. And if you do IVs, I guess they can hold you there much longer. You're like in for a long time, which I assume is quite unnatural. Because unless you have the IV, there's like no other way of doing that

because your body is good at cleaning that out of a system. Well, I think you can, there are ways to prolong your DMT trips. Like ayahuasca? Yeah. But that's a different experience. Gotcha.

Because even though they have the inhibitor in there, like not as intense because it just is processing different in your system. It's a different thing I guess. Yeah, supposedly. I haven't done that one but yeah, it's not as completely trippy as a DMT. But the IV is, it's like you're gone. You're in space and time. I'm automatically nervous by that possibility of having

intravenous hallucinogens. That sounds, that's incredible. I think I'd steer clear that one personally. Yeah, where the results were interesting. I mean, a lot of people talked about seeing very similar things, which really freaked him out because that shouldn't be possible. And then it was kind of a mixed bag. Some people were like, yeah, I would do that again. And others were like, no, don't think that I cared to do that. But it didn't seem like anybody walked away from it with any permanent trauma style freak out stuff. I wonder how that affected their lives going forward. I think there has been some follow-ups.

I'm curious about. I haven't heard any major negative results from it. I'm sure he would have talked about it. He's been on Rogan quite a few times. Oh, he has. Oh, yeah. I've listened to his before. I don't think that he would hide that type of data.

but yeah, I'm not really sure. Yeah, I don't really know. I guess it's like right now we're in a place where we're collecting more and more data, more people are undergoing this type of therapy. We're seeing positive results from it. You know, we're seeing positive results from people with head injuries

and trauma to the brain. with the regrowth of kind of neurons and synapse improvements, which is quite positive. And over the next, however many years, decades, we're going to start to get quite a lot of data coming back in. And, you know, we move forward from there and see, okay, what do we have now? You know, where do we go from here?

but in terms of therapeutics and how this is added to people's just kind of general journeys and their experience in existence, do you think this is going to become like an integral part of people's lives? You think that this would be pretty accepted? It's going to become an integral part of medicine if it's let, if it flourishes, if it's allowed to flourish because it has so many positive implications for the mind and recovery and opening your mind yeah so I think if it's allowed to flourish it's going to be a part of our our handbook for medicine have you seen that guy that billionaire guy that's just trying to stay young forever I have right Brian Johnson that's it and he was recently on Theo's podcast

And it wasn't a bad interview at all. Like, he's, he's kind of awkward guy, but he's doing, he's doing his best to, like, seem normal. He's a Zuckerberg type. He's trying to do a Zuckerberg 2.0 version, like wearing cool T-shirts and a hoodie on. Yeah, he's like, look at me. I'm young, cool, and hip now. He's got a skateboard in his backpack. He's doing his best. He's doing his best. And he was trying to be funny with Theo.

But he did talk about adding psilocybin to his protocol, which is an interesting spin because he's all about data. And he's literally only about following data that is positive results, that he can back up. And if it doesn't show any positive results, if it doesn't add something in some metric that is clearly perceivable, he won't add it to his routine. And he said that it was remarkable what psilocybin added.

It was like almost a massive reset for his, I think it was his like glucose levels or something. So it had other effects on your body. It like reset a bunch of stuff. And I can't remember all the pieces that he said. I'll put the clip in the bio. But yeah, it was kind of remarkable what it was able to do. So now he's like, yeah, I'm going to add this to my total protocol every so many months.

And it was like a 99% reset. He said he hasn't been able to reset that any other way. Whatever he's talking about, his glucose? Yeah, it was like... So he said his blood glucose variability. improved significantly, he described it as a kind of metabolic reset. So his glucose control move from worst percentile to nearly optimal range based on his own tracking data.

So blood test, he took a test. Yeah. So massively surprising. I wonder if he just has a lab in his house. Oh, dude, he spends like millions of dollars a year. Yeah. Like 10 million a year, like collecting. this data. And in fact, what's

very interesting about it is he makes it available to everybody. He's like collected like some of the biggest sample groups of data, you know? I mean, it's not biggest sample groups because it's actually a small

sample group. It's mainly him. But it's... Maybe his son. But it's a lot of data on a lot of different individual testing

that is just done through him. Right? So he's finding all the best things that work for him in particular. You can use it if you want to. Hey, maybe let's incorporate some of his stuff into our regiment. Let's get on some methylin blue or whatever he does.

People do. You can buy his supplements and he has all sorts of things. But he's also super rich. So I don't think he's necessarily doing it to make tons of money. I'm sure he wants to make some money, but pay for outsource some of his millions of dollars that he's spending. That teenager blood ain't free?

Well, he's turned back as like metabolic age by like 20 years. That'd be cool. I'd like to do that. Pretty impressive. Pretty impressive stuff. But I don't know. At the end of the day, look, these psychedelics are not for everybody. I mean, you've got to look at your family history.

They did talk about psychosis and instants. ability. You know, if you're in a place where you've suffered from pretty severe types of anxieties, I mean, you've got to be cautious about this sorts of stuff. You know, it is connected to like reducing anxieties and depression, but you've got to know kind of when to use it or what the doses are. And this is when the knowledge about how to use it. comes in and you know this is why it can't just be like self-administered and you can't guess yeah because that's that's where it gets a bit squirly and you can make things worse for yourself because you can scare the shit out of yourself with this stuff too yeah and if you take too much and you're in a bad spot you can get trapped in a bad way for a long time it can be hours it'll be a day it'll be your day that's at least which may feel like 100 years. Exactly. Because time

gets squirly. Yeah, it's a lot of there's pretty common feelings when you do psychedelics and being uncomfortable is a very common feeling when you're doing these.

So it's not it's a medicine, not a drug. Sure. And you definitely don't want to replace that with your drug of choice because then you're just jumping from one thing to the other. Right. Yeah. Well, but it doesn't tend to have people develop like addictive patents with it. You know, it's unlikely that people want to jump in and be like, oh, I got to do mushrooms every day now. Like, that's a bit exhausting.

I think that there are people that do that, though. I believe it's true. I'm not sure if you've been in a lot of communities where that's common. but I've seen some people that have gone out to lunch from acid in particular. Yeah, people can do a lot of acid every day. I know that one, but mushrooms seems like a lot of work. I think the effects diminish if you take it day by day. If you don't give yourself a cooling off period that doesn't have the same amount of hallucinogenic properties,

but you're still on mushrooms and it's still, you know, you're still googly-eyed and not all there yeah you want to spread it out but i mean you compare it to marijuana or alcohol people can get into cycles of wanting to do that every especially alcohol alcohol is an easy one to get in a um a daily rotation of oh yeah and then you you know you can kind to get yourself trapped and then it just cycles. But, you know, it's, the mushrooms are often used to kind of break addiction. Right. I think they're used to.

And other psychedelics. They're used in the Native American church, mushrooms and peyote, to treat their members that have some serious addictions that can't kick. Hmm. Oh, peyote works well for that too? Yeah. Huh. That's interesting.

Does peyote have similar effects to... I think it's mescaline. Okay. It's masculine. And it has some similar properties. It's different in some ways, as far as the experience. But the first thing about all these cures are you've got to want to be cured. There has to be some sort of desire.

Impetus to change. Sure. I think that's the bit of the difference with that one that has been really picking up a lot of steam. called Ibergain. Is that the Toads? I believe, maybe. But Ibergain is just very powerful

and as far as I understand and don't call me on it, but it's like whether you want to or not, it's taking you on a journey and there's kind of no coming back from it. It's very uncomfortable. It's like a good days worth

and there's a good chance that it kicks whatever you took in with you away. It'll take away your... It does a lot of work. It's a massive reset. Yeah, it just cleans it out. It's quite powerful.

It's from a tree, a plant. The Tabernati Iboga plant. Ooh, Aboga. That sounds healing. It does. Dream inducing, Central African in origin. Interesting.

Hmm. Yeah, it's good at treating addiction, particularly opioid, cocaine, and alcohol dependency. That's what you're saying. Yeah. And it's just supposed to be super uncomfortable. I know a bunch of military guys, well, they're retired now, but they suffer from PTSD.

They're in a group, and an organization is paying for them to go down somewhere, I believe, in Mexico and go through an experience. So they had to apply for it. and there's protocols that they have to follow before they get there, certain types of kind of food and cleansing, eating that they have to do before they get there. And then they go through like a weekend, clean out, and then they do the Ibergain. And yeah, and one of them I'm going to interview when they get back. Oh, that's awesome.

So I've got to figure out a time. Like, I don't want to do it right away because I want to give them time to just kind of integrate it. chill and just let it like take effect because I also want to get as part of that interview just some of the results if it's too soon it's like what are the results just what that you think they might be because often people get back and they're like man you won't even believe it I'm totally changed I'm a different person it's all different now I'm completely I'm so spiritual and then three weeks from then they're the same person and they're just procrastinating in the same way and doing all the same shit. I'd rather give them two months or three months and see what they're doing different.

How are their behaviors different? What has changed? And then reflect on it and see, but it's, you know, it's pretty interesting. And what a, what a cool experience. And hopefully he can get, while he's down there, you know, connect with some of the other guys that go. And then while afterwards, when he's back, get some stories from them as well, you know, connect with some. well, bring that into the interview and just kind of compare notes, see what it's done for all of these people, because who knows, maybe this is like the new, powerful way for many people to kind of cleanse themselves out. There's a new documentary on Netflix about a bunch of special forces guys that have gone through this, and it stopped a bunch of them from this pattern of suicide

that many of them have been, you know, stuck in because of what they've all been through and how difficult it is to process their experiences. And there's some... It gives them hope and gets them going again. Anecdotal stories about people of all, like Vikings, Native Americans, using hallucinogens to come back from war.

Also, to do war with, like the Vikings. Oh, the Vikings, yeah. The berserkers. Right. They'd, like, do mushrooms. Go into battle. Pretty nuts. That's nuts.

They couldn't have done too much. Well, you'd be all over the place. You don't want to steer clear when they're on those things. They have a big sword swinging around. They're just hitting a tree. He doesn't like trees. You're like, Bejok. Get over here.

It's the wrong way. So there's all kinds of practical applications for this is what we're saying. Mm-hmm. Yeah. I mean. I'm sure we had honestly a better grasp of what most of these did in most cultures thousands of years ago. I think we probably lost their uses.

I bet like ancient wise men would have looked at us today and be like, you're not using it for this? You know it's for that, right? You're using it for that? You're not even using it for this. You guys, come out. Like a rock in bed. Get it together.

There's a, what about that mushroom in Asia that makes you see dwarfs? That one is interesting. It doesn't even make you trip. It just makes you see dwarves and imps and fairies and stuff. Do you know that they have analyzed it? They don't even know what the... There's no psychedelic compound that they can find in there. They don't even know what the thing is.

There's dwarves out there, man. You just see little people. I'd take that one. That one sounds. Come on, let's do it. But what if when you're done, after that, you just always kind of are thinking that there's... little people around.

Like you kind of peer under a table and his little eyes. It's just like itch. You're like, whoa. Just like, ew. Yeah. It's just PTSD-inducing. I'd risk it. I'd risk it. Tiny little people.

I kind of already think there are those things running around. Gulliver's travels, right? Childhood fears. Yeah, the Lilliputians. Uh-huh. Tie you down. Tiny little folk. That can't be right.

Just sure. I'm not buying it. Yeah. Okay. Do you think they're making it? making that up. Let's give it a shot. I'm not doing it.

All right. I'm not into it. That one's madness. You do it. You get back to it. I'll interview you. Okay. I'm like,

there's one on your shoulder right now. They're all over. That has given you a wet willy. I wonder what the advantage. Is there a therapeutic benefit to that one, do you think? It's just endlessly fascinating to me that you might be able to see some little people running around. Is there any other reported effects of that? Are people giggling or are they scared?

We'll have to get to the bottom of this. Maybe we'll talk about it in a different podcast. Okay. We'll find out. But anyway, what did you think of this one overall? Fascinating, interesting, brilliant. Do you like this guy? I liked it.

I especially liked when he was talking about his Zen experience, like the 80-year-old monk that he went and visited in New Mexico. Oh, yeah. She was, you know, like a Zen master, like any Zen master, didn't have any answers, just the answer is doing it. Right. Forgetting about it.

Yeah, she didn't like analyzing anything, huh? Mm-hmm. She was like, cool. Let's not beat it to death. Let's just live through it. Yeah, let's not even process. Are you better or not? Are you...

Did it do the thing? He would... There you go. Yeah. Maybe that is the only answer you need. So he's on the other side, but he still likes that. Yeah.

He's like a clinical guy. Really, it was just because she was busy and didn't want to listen to her. She had stuff to do it. She's like, listen, I'm old as shit. I don't have time for this. I got a garden the man. I got, I got my beats. I got stuff to do.

She's growing some squash. Yeah. Yeah, maybe she just got to the point where she's like, what's why? What are you doing with this analysis? Where are we going with this? Just be. Yeah, that's another. cyclical

arrival you know we seek it with science and we come back to the ancient philosophies and just like we were seeking outcomes with

psychedelics and we're coming back to old shaman ways of doing it sure sure I mean who knows maybe like at the end of the day you get to some conclusion and it's like

well do you feel that much better that you came to a conclusion Are you that much smarter? Are you going to do anything with this answer? Or did you just waste a bunch of time pondering? This is an ego paper you're working on? Or are you trying to actually get into the bottom of some of your thoughts or feelings?

Exactly. Is it just a bunch of fancy language? Are you trying to get a PhD with this? Or are you trying to be better? I think that's kind of her take on some of that stuff. I like it. She sounds like a cool old lady. I'd be frustrated, but I'd help her garden.

Yeah. Let's hang out with that. Tell me the answers, man. Anyway, she's cool. We like her. Check out of the pod. It was great. And we will talk to you guys next time.

Cheers. Later.