TrueLife - Ryan Clark - Dreamers

Episode Date: May 15, 2023

One on One Video Call W/George https://tidycal.com/georgepmonty/60-minute-meetingSupport the show:https://www.paypal.me/Truelifepodcast?locale.x=en_US🚨🚨Curious about the future of psychedelics? Imagine if Alan Watts started a secret society with Ram Dass and Hunter S. Thompson… now open the door. Use Promocode TRUELIFE for Get 25% off monthly or 30% off the annual plan For the first yearhttps://www.district216.com/http://www.causmoeffect.com/http://www.rc420.com/A trailblazing and data-savvy sales and marketing professional, deeply rooted in the cannabis industry. Serving Southern Ontario with publishing and hospitality services.Confident and approachable, Ryan has mentored many creative professionals and aims to inspire. His knack for public speaking, branding abilities and goodwill nature have contributed to lucrative profits, through quality, cannabis act compliant advertising campaigns and promotional SWAG.Ryan's management approach encourages teamwork and cultivates a healthy corporate culture, resulting in diligent employees and colleagues focused on doing their best work.FLY Travel Radio on CIUT 89.5 DreamersCreative Writing Farm 2022: tinyurl.com/ 5n89s527Retreats to rave About - Dreamers Writing Farm in Rrampt Magazine 2021: tinyurl.com/ 2p8bw5mxGuelph retail pot shop not so lucky - The Guelph Mercury Tribune 2019: tinyurl.com2ndhevy7Guelph vying for 7 stores in pot lottery - Guelph Today 2019: tinyurl.com/yxrjhyhyThe Cannabis Industry Reacts - MyFM Radio2018: tinyurl.com/ak869sz6Waterloo region's pot business - CBC News2018: tinyurl.com/2p993whbCannabis legalization 2018 - Sheridan College2018: tinyurl.com/2sv85mwpProvincially-run cannabis store - The GuelphMercury Tribune 2017: tinyurl.com/ 4axh8eaaGuelph pot prescription provider - The GuelphMercury Tribune 2017: tinyurl.com/ mrxszwayGetting a prescription for marijuana - The Guelph Mercury Tribune 2016: tinyurl.com/ yrjjevd8Up in Smoke Café Hamilton 2003:tinyurl.com/yv5bawcvDesign, Video and Editorial Portfolio:tinyurl.com/27s88mvnPlease visit causmoeffect.comhttps://docs.google.com/document/d/1jqJpyKWErXaDKaNB8b3oHhEh_5HfBpwoA7KJwh1xT3k/edit One on One Video call W/George https://tidycal.com/georgepmonty/60-minute-meetingSupport the show:https://www.paypal.me/Truelifepodcast?locale.x=en_USCheck out our YouTube:https://youtube.com/playlist?list=PLPzfOaFtA1hF8UhnuvOQnTgKcIYPI9Ni9&si=Jgg9ATGwzhzdmjkg

Darkness struck, a gut-punched theft, Sun ripped away, her health bereft. I roar at the void. This ain't just fate, a cosmic scam I spit my hate. The games rigged tight, shadows deal, blood on their hands, I'll never kneel. Yet in the rage, a crack ignites, occulted sparks cut through the nights. The scars my key, hermetic and stark. To see, to rise, I hunt in the dark, fumbling, fear, through ruins maze, lights my war cry, born from the blaze.

The poem is Angels with Rifles, the track, I Am Sorrow, I Am Lust by Codex Seraphini. Check out the entire song at the end of the cast. You're one of the few. Thanks, buddy. Thank you. All right, and we'll go live right here. Okay. Ladies and gentlemen, welcome back to the true life. back to the True Life podcast.

I hope you guys are having a beautiful day. It's Monday. We're going to start this an incredible week off. We have an incredible guest for you today. Ryan Clark, he's coming to us from his own retreat center up here. But it's not just a retreat center. It's more of a dream. Let me give you a quick introduction.

He's a man of mini hats, a connoisseur of the colorful life, a loving father, a hospitality, entrepreneur, psychedelic enthusiast, a producer, a content creator, currently the GM of Dreamers' creative writing farm with the background in advertising as well as the cannabis legacy player. Ryan, how are you today, my friend? Living the dream, George. You are living the dream. And I like this idea of the dream. The Dreamers retreat.

But before we get into what exactly you're doing, Ryan, I'd like to start off with origin stories, and I know you have a good one. So would you be so kind is to kind of take us back into the world a few years past, to the world of Ryan Clark. How you got started what you're doing, why you're a psychedelic enthusiast. And let's just start up with the origin story, my friend. Yes.

Aloha, George. Thank you. Yeah, so my name's Ryan Clark. I am the general manager of Dreamers, creative writing. I've had a pretty colorful life. And really, it started back in fourth grade at Pineview Public School.

My first exposure to drug propaganda was something known as the chicken club, which was a Canadian-type dare program, if you wear, will. Chicken was an acronym, which stands for cool, honest, intelligent, clear-headed, keen, energetic, not interested in drugs. And I'll always remember that. I wish I still had the T-shirt, but yeah, I was a chicken club member, and it really did not deter me from drugs.

I mean, it really just made me more interested in psychedelics. And, you know, obviously, first and foremost, I want to say that I consider myself a responsible person and a responsible parents and, you know, all the, you know, proper things that society expects. But, yeah, I've always been a little different. And, you know, over the course of my life, I, yeah, I've done many different jobs, many different hats. Occasionally a tinfoil hat, but that's another story. Yeah, and then so I got my last two high school credits at a head shop in Oklahoma, Ontario called the Hidden Jungle. So it was a really interesting co-op to have back in the day. And, you know, my parents weren't thrilled about that, but, you know, I stuck with it and decided to pursue advertising and communications at Smohawk College.

And, you know, many of my assignments did revolve around cannabis. And, you know, my professors would say things like, you know, broaden your horizons. And they were right. But, you know, cannabis is really, you know, cannabis and music have been my raison d'etre. And, you know, I've always, you know, when I was going to Mohawk College, I was a clerk at a cool little head shop in Hamilton called Spiritual Smoke. And we were the recipient of two View Magazine Reader's Choice Awards during my employment there. So. And, you know, when I graduated, I was really at a crossroads.

And, you know, I love weed. I love the culture. And deep down in me, I knew that there was going to be a breakthrough. There was going to be change in the laws regarding cannabis. And wow, was I ever right? So, I mean, we were all right collectively. No man is an island. So, yeah, after graduating in 2003, I participated.

in the Summer of Legalization Tour. So it was really just touring around the cities with lots of prominent activists like Chris Goodwin. And we would go to Ottawa for the Phil the Hill rally. And, you know, just, it was more than just a smokeout. It was all about, you know, nonviolent passive resistance and, you know, and just general protesting. And Paul Martin was in office at the time. And there was a great deal of changes happening with the cannabis law.

So, you know, dispensaries and cafes were popping up in Vancouver. So, you know, I took what little investment money I had left, and I just decided to go for it and open up a cannabis cafe slash lounge slash consumption space down the street at King William. And, yeah, it was kind of a big deal. You know, it was incredibly nerve-wracking. I, you know, all my friends and family thought it was crazy. Not all of them, but, you know, they were concerned.

Right? Like this is a big deal. I don't want to jeopardize my future, my livelihood with a criminal record. But, you know, I just had to take the risk. It really felt like my calling. And yeah, it was a huge success. We ended up with thousands of members as part of the. So, yeah, basically it functioned as a private members only club. So we had a very detailed liability waiver drafted up.

And, you know, we made sure that, you know, the guests and the customers that came in knew that it was at their own risk. that this was more of an experiment, more of a social experiment. And of course, we reached out to the police, Chris Goodwin and I, to make sure that we had a good rapport with them and they knew that what we were doing. And so there was a very positive mutual understanding there that, you know, it could go down any time. So, you know, I was only there for six months and I just got cold feet and I bailed. I, yeah, I just, I knew that the time was.

coming where, you know, it was going to get rated and, you know, bless Chris Goodwin for sticking it out and keeping that cafe open for, gosh, I think a year and a half before it was eventually rated. And I've got great respect for any responsible adult that takes a risk in this industry and, you know, pushes the movement forward. Yeah, so after up and smoke, I went back to my hometown in Milton, which is about 45 minutes outside of Hamilton, Ontario. I've got a more traditional office job, more, you know, a career-oriented job at a lighting wholesaler in Milton. And that was great, you know, paid my dues there as a new green graphic designer, you know, designing catalogs and stuff. I worked for a newspaper called Business and Construction Times,

and that was basically going out to job sites to interview contractors, project managers, and the residential, industrial, and commercial construction trades. And, you know, that was next to Dreamers. That was probably my favorite job. You know, that's where I really got to flex my creativity and, you know, and have the freedom to kind of function as like a freelancer. Yeah, flash forward a few years. I, well, you know, after Bigby publishing, I was a,

always resented the term stay-at-home dad. I prefer primary caregiver. me and my family, we hustled hard to bring up our lovely twins, Charlie and Lucy. And they, yeah, so at the time Trudeau was elected and, I mean, let's be honest, well, in my humble opinion, the cannabis legalization was the swing vote that got him elected here as the federal prime minister. And, you know, when that happened, I just thought, wow, like, how about that? It's not perfect. There, there's many, there's many, many, many holes in the system. Still a lot of corruption that I see from my point of view,

but it's progress. And at that point, I, yeah, I got back into the cannabis industry, working for a couple of like bait wholesalers and then got back into retail at the cannabis supply company, which is a chain. It was a chain of patients, how do we phrase it, just a chain of clinics, of medical cannabis clinics in southern Ontario. We had nine locations. And, they have since transitioned into an AGCO licensed cannabis store so they no longer provide medical cannabis prescriptions but but that was the foundation and you know learning it was great to just kind of roll out of just being working in a head shop being a bong store clerk or a water pipe technician as I used to affectionately refer to myself to my more conservative family members

And then, yeah, so we would help people get an affordable prescription for cannabis, and they would come in for consultation. We use telemedicine, which is like an online doctor's appointment that they would speak to our nurse practitioners, and they would get advice about, you know, what strains are ideal for them, you know, different methods of consumption. And, yeah, and I really love that job. Yeah, so I went on to manage three locations. the Guelph location, Hamilton, and Burlington. And, you know, COVID happened.

Just as we were on the verge of getting our coveted AGCO license to sell recreational cannabis, COVID happened. And I was laid off. And at the time, I was dating my new bay, Kathleen McNichael. and I always knew, I always had a sense or a desire or a dream to own my own Airbnb one day or to retire with some kind of like, you know, hospitality business. And, you know, here Kat comes along and she's already got started. And she's, you know, on the DL marketing it as 420 friendly. And she trusted me to come up here and be the general manager.

I mean, she's got a corporate job that's, you know, basically bankrolling this place. I mean, we are profitable. We are growing. It is a successful business, but we got a long way to go. And, yeah, I just have to give her props for, you know, being such a high functioning user. And, you know, this grand vision and being able to make it happen with all the various steps she had to take. I mean, I had a little bit of experience with it in opening up in Smoke Cafe and took. terms of, you know, what bylaws do we need? How can we kind of, you know, what can we get away with

ethically and legally? And yeah, she had already, you know, got the leasehold improvement for, to open up the, the resort that we have here. Yeah, she made sure that she had all the proper permits and zoning and, you know, architectural drawings. Like, she had everything taken care of. And when I came on board, yeah, I sort of split my time between doing website administration, mostly in the wintertime. And in the summertime, that's when the tour season really picks up. So, George, you may hear some saws buzzing away in the back. You know, we've got a great staff here that's helping get the property already for our big rush for the May 2-4 weekend.

And then you came into my life, George. Yeah. Yeah, you know, I'm thankful to even get to see a little bit of the dream happening. You know, if I just backtrack a minute, I think it's interesting to see how many people that are currently on the front lines of the psychedelic world that have come from a background in cannabis, but not only cannabis, a background in dreaming a little bit. You know, I think it takes a certain type of person to envision what is possible. And when I look at your track record, I see one of the first people to open up, like the Up and Smoke Cafe,

or to start when it was a private club. Like, that was such a forward thinking thing at the time. And it's, I'm curious how you have, how have you kind of used your lessons of that cafe, your lessons in the architecture of building websites and kind of brought them together to bring together like this new creative space? Because it seems as more than, more than like a traditional. traditional retreat, the idea of a writing retreat, the idea of a psychedelic retreat, the idea of bringing people together to solve problems out in the territory. It seems fascinating to me.

So how have you guys blended this thing together, you and your lovely, lovely co-partner cat? How have you guys blended all this together? Yeah, yeah, just a lot of conceptualizing trial and error. Yeah, discouragement, motivation, ups and downs. I mean, it's a lot of work here. I did grow up on a farm. So there's a lot of skills I had to rediscover here, especially on the property maintenance side,

which I do refer to myself as a property beautification specialist too. And I'm really happy with the carpentry and maintenance work that we've done here. I mean, I'm all the beauty on a budget. my mom Susan always used to use that expression. Yeah, so as far as our growth and our sort of business model, like she, Kat, Kat's pursuing her PhD in auto ethnography. And basically, that's a fancy way of describing healing writing. So, you know, restoring themselves, using writing prompts to, you know,

basically express yourself in words that may not be ever shared with anybody other than yourself. And, you know, having participated and helped organize her writing retreats in her online courses, you know, I really see how healing writing is so beneficial for people. And as far as the writing retreats that we offer here, usually they take place around, the in-person ones take place around Thanksgiving here in Canada and October. And yeah, we have a great group of people. They come up here and participate in, you know, workshops once or twice a day. And then at the end of the weekend, based on all the exercises that we've done, we just gather around the campfire.

And everybody just takes a turn reading what they wrote over the weekend. And then hopefully they go away refreshed and replenished. That's on top of our real revenue stream comes from the Airbnb and short-term booking platforms that we use, such as Airbnb, VRBO, booking.com, trip advisor. Have you ever heard of high B&B, George? No, I haven't. Yeah, so this is another booking platform similar to Airbnb, but it's catered to the cannabis industry.

Oh, wow. Yeah, so people, and you know, all of our guests are pretty chill, even the non-users. But yeah, it's a great platform so that, you know, people can find more, you know, cannabis-related actions. activities and you know hopefully I'll still be able to you know retain my passion for that and grow the business to include you know things like my own workshops. We've got an AC I've got an ACMPR growing license here so you know we have a nice

collection of plants in our garden that yeah it's kind of an attraction here for the guest and you know a lot of people come from other countries they've never seen grown before and it's fascinating and you know ultimately George we want to have a safe space here for everybody And as far as people that use cannabis, I think drawing from my experience at the up and smoke cafe, I think our edge here is that because we're a hospitality business and people spend the night here, we don't have to worry about impaired driving. Or at least we can mitigate the impaired driving by making sure that people, you know, don't overconsume or, you know, are responsible enough to know that, you know, what's considered appropriate or not.

You know, one thing that I really love, Ryan, about this emerging world that we're moving into. It doesn't matter if you're in Europe, South America, North America. I think that the currency of the future is creativity. You know, with all these new tools coming out, whether it's chat GPT or, you know, there's, I watch, my daughter watches this YouTube channel of a kid named Ryan. That's probably a multi-millionaire. Oh, yeah. That kid is falling. He's balling.

He's balling. But there's, it drives home the point. Like that is the currency of the future is creativity. And in some ways, I think what you're doing is revolutionizing not only the currency of the future, but the place to create in the future. Like there's finally this world where you can be inspired and whether it's cannabis or psychedelics or just a quiet place to think. Like I think that's what you're providing for people. And it's really exciting to me because I've spoken to you a little bit about the podcast. possibilities of what can be, whether it's a troop of people coming to perform for a group of people,

whether it's a ceremony, a write of passage, a writer's retreat. And I'm wondering, like, I know that you've had authors there. I know you've had people like Nick Murray come in. I know that you have different types of things happening. Maybe you can explain to me an event that happens at your place and some of the things that people are creating there, whether it's a magazine, whether it's writing things down or maybe you can explain to me the ambiance of the place and then some of the transformations that you've seen at that place yeah yeah and you know all that stuff is pretty well documented on our instagram which is i think it's at dreamers writing or at dreamers creative writing but we do these things called dreamers guest moments where yeah you know all uh offer to

take a picture of our of our guests whether they're you know romantic couple or you know just a You know, people coming up here to do hikes and, you know, outdoor nature activities. But yeah, it's such an eclectic mix of, yes, that we've had here. And, you know, sometimes we have painters come up here. We've had, you know, stargazers. Like people bring up really powerful telescopes and, you know, doing some astronomy. Yeah. And, you know, beyond just the traditional camping activities.

Like, I mean, we call this place, you know, like a glamp site. Like we offer glamping. So, you know, it's, it, you have to be, you still have to be a little bit rugged, like to forego some of the creature comforts associated with, you know, traditional travel. But like, for the most part, we have four bunkeys. Two of them are insulated for a year-round comfort and bookings. We have two prospector tents, which are are really durable and comfortable. And we also have a studio apartment. So the average size of the bunkies is about 100 square feet.

and I'm actually in our Atwood Monkey right now, which has just been freshly renovated. And yeah, so really we're up for almost any kind of activity that, I mean, you know, we don't want to market this place as a party space, you know, as much as I, you know, I love music festivals and, you know, a good sound system in DJing and performing. I think the direction I want to take it, you know, in terms of pursuing my own interests in music and electronic music production. I'd really love to host a producer's retreat here. And I think that could be feasible by, you know, creating, setting up like editing suites in each one of the bunkeys.

We're similar to Katz workshops. You know, we'd have up and coming producers and, you know, high profile producers, ideally to come up and teach electronic music production through software like Ableton Live and QBase. So that's sort of on the back burner with my friend, my friend Jim Spiro at Music. So I really hope that that comes to fruition one day. So yeah, that's one of many projects we'd love to do here. We'd love to offer go yoga to our guests. Yeah. Which, you know, is kind of a strange thing, but you know, why not?

There's so many different functions that could take place here. You know, corporate retreats, we've had a couple of guests that have come from licensed producers and, you know, retail cannabis chains and, you know, I'd really like to also, you know, make that available for for them to come with their company and you know do do some team building here yeah it's a great idea I'm curious to it you like you have a magazine too don't you like the dreamers dreamers publishing yeah yeah we sure do and gosh I should have brought a copy out but yeah cats cat's the editor of dreamers magazine okay it's published three times a year and it's

distributed through chapters cold and indigo amongst our our growing subscription base. We have digital and print copies available. And I actually have a promo code too that I could share with the audience if that's okay. Are you kidding me? That's absolutely awesome. Yeah.

Okay, great. So if you enter RC-20-5 in the checkout section, yeah, you'll get a whopping 5% off. It's not much, George, but you know, you jump your shoe, you hope for the best. You know what? I'm stoked to get anything. I'll put it in the show notes down there too. Like, tell me, is there, like, let's say, like, what is in the content of that magazine? Are you talking about things that happen up there, or are you publishing content of writers that come up there for dream workshops?

Or what is the relationship between the magazine and the place that you're at? Yeah. And, you know, that's actually a great idea, George. That's all I have. Yeah, you do. Yeah, you are. Just kidding. It's a good idea.

I had never thought about including. content about the goings on here at Dreamers is like the hospitality side. I mean, we run ads about our own, you know, Airbnb writers retreat here in the magazine. But yeah, wouldn't it be great to actually profile some of our guests too? Because yeah, they have, there's so many stories. Like so many people come here and from all over the world. And, you know, I love networking and talking to people. And, you know, I mean, occasionally we have some shit disturbers out here. But that's another story. Like, that's just going to happen. But yeah, I would say the vast majority of our guests are, you know, polite and well-behaved.

The content of the magazine is based on writing submissions that we get from our website, dreamerswriting.com. So you can submit anything from an essay, nonfiction, fiction, fiction, short story, poems, hikus, cat holds contests three times a year that coincide with these magazines. And yeah, you know, for a reasonable fee, people can pay to have their writing submitted to us and then our editorial department, aka Kat's Mom and Dad, review the submissions and pick out the best ones. And then, you know, we publish them online and in our magazine and that generally makes up the content

of our magazine. We also pay, you know, if it's the submissions we accept that don't necessarily make it into the magazine, We also pay them a $20 honorarium for, you know, the opportunity to get published. And, you know, many of these authors are first time, first time writers that are just thrilled to, you know, have a little bit more clout and, you know, can still express themselves and, you know, not be quite as much of a starving artist. You know what? I know you and I had a previous conversation. I'm not sure if we brought up this point, but I bet you everybody listening to this would agree, or maybe they wouldn't agree. And I'm curious to get your opinion.

What do you think the submissions would be like? Let's say if I came up to the Dreamers Retreat, and on the very first day, I wrote, I don't know, like a poem or I wrote a short story. And then on the third day, I wrote a poem or a short story. Which one of those poems and short stories do you think it would be better? On day one or day three and why? That's a great question. I think they're probably refined over the course of the weekend. I would say they probably improve.

And, you know, when we take our breaks in between the workshops, you know, ideally the participants would go back and edit their stories so that they're, you know, maybe that much better. Maybe there's a moment of inspiration that was shared in our collaborations during the workshops that they find, you know, is worth including. And, you know, I don't, and that's, yeah, I never even thought about including the submission, the, the work that are writing retreat guests, writing retreat guests do here. Most of our submissions come online based on whatever contest were hosting.

So I think the last one was a sense of place and home. I said, place and home in migration. So those are, these are ongoing submissions with rolling deadlines. I mean, you can submit whatever you want to dreamers, but we give priority. to the people that enter the contests based on certain topics, whether it's a haiku. We have an issue devoted to haikus and then another one to sense of place in home and then non-fiction one. So, yeah, it can be anything.

In fact, our latest issue, issue number 13 is, yeah, Kat finally cracked that chat GPT open. And wow, like, you don't want to talk about a rabbit hole. I would go in there, you know, and she's like, and she's like just such a. a such a ninja in so many different ways but like you know I would like greet how's chat chatt gpt doing today and you know it's so interesting what you know what she's come up with and you know what I should say they've come up with and too you know like plagiarism and you know academic honest another thing that she talks about in her you know her letter from the editor about you know what is the future of of content and information I mean heck there's a writer's

strike going on in the states right now that you know is going to affect a lot of people's livelihood and i'm so indifferent about you know even the supplemental artwork that we use uh to to uh you know compliment the the the writing that we publish is you know AI generated we use something called canva and like you know my prompts aren't my my prompt flexing isn't great like i've got a lot to learn about you know improving the production value of the of the stuff of the of the of the pictures that we include, but like it's just so amazing how far it's come and, you know, what, where is the line between, you know, what is authentic and what is, you know, just computer generated fluff and, you know, hopefully we find a nice balance so that

we're at least transparent about what, what our authors want and what, you know, our audience expects. You know, I've never heard it put that way, but I think it's brilliant to ask the question, What is authentic? Like, wow. Is chat GPT authentic? I think, in my opinion, I would say that chat GPT is a poor attempt at authenticity. And I would say that because in my mind, it's just scraping together language or scraping

stuff together. I know people are going to be like, well, George, that's all people do in their brain. They just scrape stuff together. It's nuanced. It's nuanced. It is. And I think in the future, and this may be something that may go hand in hand with retreats or go hand in hand with any sort of writing workshop, is this idea of being able to be a storyteller. Because all the books that I'm looking at, I have a lot of cool stories in here. But there's a difference between someone standing up and telling a story and someone reading a story. There's a difference between thinking about something we needy to say and coming up with a prompt to get chat GPT to tell you something. I think it was the brilliant storyteller Samuel Clemens who said that the written word is the

carcass of the spoken word. And if you look back at great speakers of all times, there's something about them. We call it charisma. We call it Genesequa, but it's this spoken word that I think where authenticity resides. What do you think about the spoken word versus the written word and the relationship to chat GPT? Now, I don't want to get too hippie-dippy on you here, George. Please do. I love it. Do you know where charisma comes from?

I have the heart and soul of the human being. Well, you know, and I might be wrong. I should ask chat GPT maybe. You should. I certainly don't want to get my, put my foot in my mouth on this particular topic. I think this will make my dad happy, but I think charisma comes from in Christ. I'll go with that. That sounds like the, yeah, I wish I had a producer that could look at all up.

But yeah, and why do you think that? Is that something your dad told you? Or is that something you feel or what? I definitely think it, yeah, I think that great communicators, yeah, do have charisma. And I think that, and, you know, to give a, like, you know, a little shout out to Joe Rogan. if he's listening. I know he must be listening. Are you kidding me? You must be on his radar, George.

Yeah, he talks a lot about, like, I love Joe. He's, I know that he's controversial, but he, to me, he's like the perfect blend of, like, a jock bro with a sensitive side. Like, he's intelligent and he's, you know, kind of like a moderate centrist, which is what I kind of identify. So, yeah, speaking of great, great prophetic, speakers joe's right up there but yeah he talks a lot about trauma um not not too much but you know he had gabber matte on recently that's a great a great interview like he can talk to anybody but i

think that he when he talks about stand-up that there is a you know the people that have the shittiest background or you know they tend to have the most trauma end up making the best comics or you know maybe end up being more successful because they've had disappointment and and and tragic and who knows what I you know crazy upbringing that you know propelled them into a certain direction that you know hopefully they're you know if they're able to overcome it and you know and find their calling and you know make a difference whatever that really means you know at least you know how to have a successful career doing what what they love is uh you should be the goal for everybody and it's so hard to not just be complacent and you know and feel

like, you know, what do we have to prioritize as parents? And, you know, what, what is considered a reasonable income and what is a good standard of living to achieve? And, you know, how do you find that balance by, while still being true to thyself and, and not maybe tangenting off like I am doing right now? What do you think? Well, I think that right now a lot of people are talking about trauma. And I think that we are, you know, you could equate the world in which we live as, as the birth pains of a new sort of consciousness being born. Yeah. What I mean, yeah, like, I see it everywhere. And there is this idea, you know, when we, we throw around words like success all the time, but you know what we don't do? We don't ever go back and define that. My kid's in third grade,

and they don't ever talk about success. They don't ever have a course in semantics. They don't ever have a course in, you know, feelings. And I know to some people like, oh, we don't care about your feelings, George. Well, I care. I care about the feeling of success. I care about the feeling of integrity. And I think that these things should be woven

through the structure of education. Because like, what is it, Ryan? Like what, what is success? Is success getting up and going to a job every day for 14 hours and killing yourself, not seeing your family, coming home and have a glass of with a and white knuckle in it so you can do it again the next day? Or is success maybe living in a little bit less?

Is success maybe having a little bit more time with your family? Is success sitting down to dinner table and having a discussion about integrity? Is success being able to kiss your wife and your kid good night every night? You know, I don't have the answers to this, but I can tell you that in my life, much like you have taken some risks, whether it was through the cannabis cafe, the up and smoke cafe putting yourself on the line, putting yourself out there and having your family maybe at times being embarrassed or shocked at what you're doing.

I think that these are the world we live in. And we need dreamers. We need people like you out there that are doing the best they can't. We need people like me, like the people listening. We need people on the front lines that are willing to take a risk and define success for themselves. Like we shouldn't let the world define success. should be something that we talk about in our families. It should be something that we sit down and be like,

what is it that you want? Because even though if we have less trauma, we may have less comedians, I think that we need to understand what we are doing. We need to have some shared goals and some shared sacrifice. And that may cut down on the trauma a little bit. So when you talk to me about trauma and the world and education and speaking, like these are the things that I think of. This is the foundation I think of. And I think that what you're doing by having people come to a dreamers retreat, I think that those are all conversations that can be had there, man. And I, I really think that if you publicized some of the conversations around the campfire at the dreamers campfire on day three, or if you even had like a, if some people wanted to go on and do a testimonial, like a,

you could do an internet series where, hey, I'd love to hear you guys say your thoughts on day one. And then on day three. And you know what? If you do this thing with us on four days, I'll give you the fifth day free or something like that. But I think that would be incredibly insightful. And you could, you could have a series of like success talks. Hey, what is success? We do this on the first and third day of every retreat. If you guys want to participate, I'll kick 10% off. But I think that you could compile some data that would be very compelling television, very compelling writing. And it's something no one's doing, man. I think it would be beautiful. Yeah. Yeah, we got to hire you as a producer, man.

I'm in, man. I'll do it for free. I would love to. I think that that would be something that everybody would tune in for. And you know what the truth is, Ryan? I think that you would get to see real-time, mind-changing, profound ideas being built. Because, look, I've been in nature. I've gone up and had a psychedelic experience and come out of the forest, like, both physically and metaphorically, I've come from the fringes and been like, holy, cow. I figured it out, man. Maybe if it was just for a moment or two, I got that moment of clarity. The same moment of clarity and alcoholic gets, you know, when they know they need to stop, that's the same clarity as psychonaut can get coming through a journey. And I think that that's what people like you are providing. They're providing a space where people can go and

reconnect with nature, reconnect with themselves, man. I think the spoken word is something that everybody should begin to embellish. This stream of consciousness is almost like a an altered state of consciousness, man. So if you wanted to rant, there you go. What do you think? Yeah. So profound, George. You know, speaking of spoken word, too, I'd just like to give a shout out to Tommy

Buick, who is the founder of the Burlington Slam project, which... Okay. And Open Minds Respects event, which was basically a slam poetry collective that we organized. I mean, Tommy's got more roots in that department. I took care of more of the music programming, but, yeah, he would do spoken word. events at the Black Bowl and the same kind of you know it's a competitive atmosphere I mean I do you know have prizes based on you know audience reaction and and appreciation so yeah yeah there's there's so many language has so many

different different applications and you know words can hurt they can heal and you know it is a poor carpenter blames his tools if I can use another I have that, you know, when the debate about, you know, PC versus Mac comes up. I, you know, I'm a pretty, you know, devout PC Android user. But I do like the expression of work carpenter planes and stills. Are you PC or Mac, George? You know, I am, I like Mac. I'm working on a PC right now.

I have a iPhone, but I have an HP computer. You know what I really liked about Mac was the way they came. out in the beginning when they had. I don't know if people remember like that first commercial they had during the Super Bowl where like all these people in suits were just marching off a cliff. Yeah. And I, you know, but I'm torn. When I think of Steve Jobs, I think of someone who's never wrote a line of code.

And I also see someone who was inspired by psychedelics. So it's, you know, I love his biography by William Isaacson. I think that the opening line is something along the lines of those who are crazy enough to think that it can change the world actually can. And I love that about him. I love his insights on there. I love that he was adopted. But he did seem like a giant asshole.

He seemed like he was like, put all this stuff in my, put all this stuff in this box. Do it now. Like he seemed like a total asshole. He was probably, he was a horrible dad from what I read. Yeah. He was a horrible lover. And you know what? That's kind of what we have in society.

That guy's held on a pedestal. And if you look at a lot of CEOs from the boomer generation, they came from this idea of scare your employees, force them to work longer hours. You're a visionary. So, you know, it's a, it's, it's, it's, it's, it's, it's, it's, it's, it's, it's, it's, it's, I love the guy, I love the guy, I love his vision, but he's seen like a giant asshole. So I guess that's why I'm, I have an iPhone and a HP computer.

Yeah. Yeah. The cell phone, I love to hate. Yeah. And it's, you know, in a lot of ways it is Pandora's box. You know, I think that it is kind of draining society of its morale. morality and it's you know why do you think that like why do you think it's draining

society of morality well it's addictive you know it's addictive like you know like consumerism materialism hoarding like it's all it's all just trying to fill a hole in people's hearts that really can only be filled with I don't know what it can be filled with but it's you know there are things that you know that can be abused, but, you know, also can be beneficial. And, you know, yeah, Steve, Steve Jobs did kind of conceive Apple for, at least in part, through some acid trips. So, you know, like if you look at, you know, a lot of the prominent figures in Silicon Valley, I mean, heck, you know, how many companies now are recommending microdosing to their employees? And what is, you know, what, what is

germinating as a result of, you know, this, this amazing fungus. that, you know, is expanding people's consciousness. I've seen, I see the tech, you know, I think that the psychedelic industry is the new tech industry. Yeah. There's so many people that are making that change from, from, there's a corporate burnout. There's all these, I talk to so many amazing people.

A lot of people from Microsoft, actually, that are making the leap into this idea of, you know, the psychedelic world. and they're bringing their creative talent. They're bringing their ideas of what is possible. And I see that same spark of imagination, that bite out of the apple, whether it's the tree of knowledge

or we could talk about what that logo really is. But I see that bite, that creativity, that spark, and it's making its way from Silicon Valley to the world of psychedelics. And I welcome that. I think that that is what's needed. I think that the tech industry, has gotten away from the visionary ideals of Steve Jobs. It's gotten away from the what can be.

The world of Silicon Valley has departed from the world of imagination. And I see that psychedelics is bringing that back into the fold. And I think that once we begin to merge those things together, watch out. I think it's going to be unstoppable. And I really think that the, the, the, I look at it like this. I see the psychedelic space as like a space shuttle and you needed Silicon Valley as a booster on one side and patents on the other side. And we have this patents inside and it's lifted off. And now these things are, all these isms are falling away like the boosters on a space shuttle and we're moving into orbit now. And now we finally, and that's how you see so much chaos like, oh, boomers ideas dying. Oh, currency's dying. Like those are the boosters we needed. And that's. And that's

to get into orbit. And now we're here and it's like, son of a gun. Now what do we do? Now we're in orbit, you know? And if you just think about the language we use, like getting high or being on a trip, like I think that they kind of add together in a way like that. Is that too out there?

Yeah, no, that's perfect. That's a perfect analogy. You know, exploring outer space, but also exploring inner space. And, you know, using these tools as materials for, introspection and and you know conceptualizing different different possibilities and you know with AI too like you know we talked a little bit about transhumanism before yeah great convergence that you know was really fringe not long ago but you know and I you know I really foresee a time

that there's going to be I don't want to say robot uprising but you know AI is is a real existential threat. And I mean, how do you think we can dose AI so that it doesn't destroy us? Wow. Okay, so I think that there's two camps here. I think on one camp, you have people that are worried about AI, like taking over everything. And then you have another camp that's like, it's not even sentient. Like, it'll never be sentient.

And I try to understand both sides. Like, in my opinion, I think that there's a race between biocelian. biology and technology. And what I mean by that is, you know, I take a lot of mushrooms. And I think that I can see myself evolving. If you are on, if you take mushrooms on a regimented dose for three years, you will become a different person. I think that it's happening in real time.

Like, I think that the neuroplasticity that happens and high doses of psychedelic trips is rewiring the brain and it's doing it. it quickly. And you, all you need to do is like look at the way in which it helps trauma survivors, whether it's PTSD, traumatic brain injury. There's a recent article in Spanner Magazine that talks, I think Adam Tapp was talking about this where an individual in his 60s was having dementia and they used a five MEODMT spray that fundamentally changed that dementia from being terminal to having that person get their license back, playing guitar again. Wow.

Yeah, it's, look, I don't have the evidence in front of me, but it's documented. And I think you're going to continue to see that. And if that's happening for people that have dementia, what does it mean for optimization? And so I think that, like, when you look at Elon Musk and you see like this brain chip interface, I think that's old hat. I do not think that's where it's going. I know you got Ray Kurzweil. I know you have Silicon Valley that have bet the farm on this. But I think that they are, you know, they are, it's like water in the mirage.

Like, that's what they're seeing. you're seeing water in the mirage. Like it's not there. It's not going to be there. You can drill holes in people's heads and put computers in there, but you're just a new version of Dr. Mangala. Take some mushrooms. It does a way better job at it.

And it's going to change the way we do it. But there's that race. It's a race between biology and technology. And if I can paint a visual for people, picture a two-way mirror on a platform. And it stands on one hand, on one side is a giant statue made of trees pushing and on the other side is a giant machine made of computer parts pushing on each other.

And so I think that that is what when I think about AI, I don't think it's a threat. I think the only threat the AI is trying to get into us. The only AI threat is a made up threat from tech companies trying to jam it down our throat because they need it to work. They need AI to take over. They need AI to take over the writers. need AI to take over everything so that they can continue to generate profits at a level that is obscene. I think that there's been contracts made. There's been companies that have sold AI to

government systems to Fortune 500 companies. And they bet the farm on it. Like this has to work. Otherwise, they all go bankrupt. You can see the bank's failing. They bet the farm on technology that doesn't work. So I don't think AI is a threat. I think it can be a useful tool. But I think that there's a lot of money behind AI that wants it to be it, but they want people to be scared of it. So I don't think that the robot apocalypse is coming. I think the psychedelic apocalypse is coming. And that's something that the people who have bet the farm

on technology, old money should be really, really afraid of. Yeah, you know, and you know what apocalypse means, right? Break it down for me, man. What is the definition of apocalypse? It's the lifting of the veil. Yeah. I love it, man. It doesn't necessarily mean it's a bad thing.

You know, if we are entering into a new age of consciousness, and these are the global birth pains that you're describing that, yeah, sure, apocalypse is absolutely a great description. And, you know, when I think of Musk's neural link and, you know, even the vaccine to a certain extent, yeah, is, you know, it might be some mark of the beast shit. Totally. Yeah. And like, and I think, yeah, you're right.

Like there might not be a robot uprising per se. but when there is, you know, when the robotics, when those Boston dynamic robots, you know, go on a date with chat GPT and, you know, all the other AI platforms and they're going to produce some really ravenous pups. But if it isn't a robot uprising, then, you know, it might be some like Black Mirror-style cloud-based consciousness upload. So, like, you know, maybe us or are, you know, are the next generation, maybe even, you know, even us, I don't know, but maybe we will be given the opportunity to upload our consciousness

to the cloud so that we can essentially be immortal. And if and when, you know, the biological, you know, robotic technology is available to basically like recreate yourself. I mean, gosh, you know, people are having their heads cryogenically frozen. Their body is cryogenically frozen with the expectation that that they will be revived one day. And, you know, who, who is going to have these kinds of opportunities? And is it even ethical? Like, you know, what if we wake up? What if you wake up in the Matrix?

Like, what if you, you know, signed on for this stuff? And then you're going to be, you know, and then you realize that you're kind of in, you're in a world of servitude where you're, you know, and you can't escape it. And I don't know. Again, don't want to get too tinfoily fringe. I love it, man. I love it. I think we're there.

You know, yeah, we're almost there. So let's look at here in Hawaii, like we have those robots. dogs and they used them like in homeless encampments. Have you seen them? Yeah, I've seen them. They have spot the robot dog and, you know, he doesn't have a gun on his back. But I mean, he's at, they had him like these homeless facilities. Like, you could see it happen.

Okay, but here's the, here's the flip side of that. So if, if, which is a great poem by Rudyard Kipling. Yeah, Robert Kikling. So, but I won't talk about if. I will say that I've seen those robot dogs in a homeless encampment. in this state. Obviously, those particular dogs are marketed to enforcement agencies, which means they can do the job. I'm sure that there's a cool video. They show law enforcement companies. Hey, this robot dog has been tested in Afghanistan. It can't do these things. That's one way. And I've read the literature where if you, you know, let's take it fictional and go ready player one or ready player two. And you could see all this homeless people chat GPT job. You need these dogs to round everybody up.

That's one way of looking at it. And that's the mechanistic way of looking at it. And that gets back to my idea of chat GPT, selling technology. Hey, you need this because it's a coming apocalypse. But let's look at the other side. Let's say we start giving ibogaine to homeless people. Let's say we open up some centers where someone can give ibogain to all the people that live under the bridge because they have a mental illness.

And all of a sudden, hey, within a week, a person loses their craving to do heroin. I'm not saying they're better. I'm not saying they don't have issues that they need to work on. But I am saying a large portion of people that crave heroin can be taken off a heroin by using Ibo Gain in a week. In one week. All of a sudden, you don't need that robot dog guarding all these people that are, you know, are they crackheads or are they people with mental trauma? Because it depends on how we're going to use the language to fix it. We want to use ibogaine or you want to use a robot.

dog. I think we should use iboagin. I mean, it comes from the earth. How about mushrooms? It comes right from the plant right there. It's free. Now all of a sudden, well, what about this, you know, robot dog that cost $200,000 that created 50 jobs for all these people? Like, we're moving out of that paradigm. And a lot of people do not like it. Like, they've, they've bet the farm. Like, they've gone to school for this. They've worked their whole life on it. But I'm sorry. That model sucks. It's way, it's horrible. for way too many people. There's only this many winners and there's this many losers.

And that is not a sustainable model. Ibogaine, mushrooms, LSD, all these plant medicines and all these entheogens and all these psychedelics are finding a home. And that home is called solving mental problems. And I think that that is the path forward. Yeah, you're right. It is such an antiquated model. It is.

of enforcement and incarceration and yeah and yeah controlling you know whether it's through legislation or uh or um yeah you know confinement intern camps like there's there's no like in the the population explosion that's that's happening right now like it's so startling how how competitive things are and how how little resources we're all kind of using and you know those robotic dogs like why can't we have like a robo counselor dog to like go out to the unsafe areas where you know homeless people and you know just have like a like a counselor on the other ends and just talk to them you know why can't they deliver food or water or or you know do something that's like more wholesome beneficial and not just about you know in in increasing police budgets and you know

the the prison industrial complex i will gain so if i'm not mistaken Ibo Gain is indigenous to Africa, whereas ayahuasca is South America. I believe that's accurate, yeah. Yeah. And so Ibo Gain has sort of been more of the go-to for addiction treatment, right? I don't know the numbers on that. I've talked to a lot of people who have done ayahuasca, and I've talked to a handful of people who have done ibogaine.

And it seems to me that I hear more about ibogaine being a lot of, treatment for opiates than I do ayahuasca. I don't, I'm sure that there's people who have done ayahuasca and got off of, of opiates or drug use. I'm sure that transformation has happened, but it does seem that the, the, if I was to underscore one, that I would underscore ibogame for cessation of addiction. What about cratom? I don't know, I don't know a whole lot about it.

I know that it's a giant. leafy tree. I know there's different strains there, but there's a white strain and like a blue strain. They have different sorts of medicinal issues. One's more. I've done it a couple of times, but not enough to thoroughly understand the mechanisms of action. Have you ever tried it before? I have. Yeah. I mean, on the down low, of course. It's legal. Yeah. It's not a controlled substance here in Canada, so, you know, I can divulge it. I've tried it. So it's actually an opioid alkaloid that's indigenous to Asia and it comes in three different sort of strains based on like the leaf coloration or the vein coloration there's a red vein and like

white and you know the red vein I think has more opioid related effects and then the white vein is you know a little bit more like of an upper okay and there's uh yeah so I mean it does it it sounds like it's a little bit closer to coffee than than anything of else. So it sounds like, you know, you have these, these opioid alkaloid, it doesn't like plunge right into that receptor like an opioid would. But I guess you might say it sort tickles it so that, you know, you might get a little buzz or at least a little bit of withdrawal relief so that you don't have to go like full methadone or full heroin or whatever it is. And so, yeah, I know that there's, there's some cradle cafes, whether or not, you know,

in North America somewhere. I haven't really seen any here in. in, in Ontario. But another really exciting thing, too, is, you know, we're having a whole bunch of, like, mushroom dispensaries pop up.

Oh, nice. Yeah, they're growing, like, bad weeds here. There's one, like,

sort of nearby us here. I think it's just out of Collingwood. It's called, the two that I've heard of is fungi's and, um, shroomies. And, yeah,

so I, you know, I see news reports that they open up and then they get rated, but I think, think that's going to be yeah that's going to be the next big phase in psychedelic accessibility and you know whether they should be operated on a franchise model or a clinical model is kind of up for debate i mean you know psychedelics like the you know the psilocybin's the lsd the the ketamines the md like that's some next level powerful stuff that i i personally think should be reserved for

for uh clinical medicinal use i mean what do you think How do you think the infrastructure is going to be set up for people to be able to access these things? That's a great question. And I don't have a great answer. And I don't think anybody does right now. I think that there's definitely a place for the home practitioner. You know, and I think that, but if someone has a really traumatic, sort of background or they find themselves with thoughts of suicide. I think that, you know,

there's a, there's a clinic that needs to be had there because it's not just the, it's just, it's not just the medicine that needs to be served. It's also a conversation that accompanies that. It's that integration. And I think that, I think that what can be done is that the first level should be health. And maybe, maybe there needs. needs to be a clinician for that. And here's the problem. The problem is that the people that need it really can't afford it. The people that want to use it that can't afford it are really just trying to optimize. They have trauma. Maybe that's not 100% true. But it seems to me the people that really, really need it, a large portion of those people can't afford it. So I think that what

you're seeing happen at some of the ketamine clinics is sort of a sliding scale. If you're If you're doing well, you go in and you pay for a ketamine treatment and you can pay, you can pay this tier. And that's kind of subsidizing the people down here that can't get it. And ultimately, I would like to see optimization centers and healing centers. And I think an optimization center could offer a sort of, you know, they could offer like neurofeedback in conjunction with layered 5MEODMT mushrooms on like a four or five day progression scale. And then that sort of optimization treatment could subsidize maybe a veteran who is currently homeless. You know what I mean? And I think the people that can pay for optimization could subsidize the people that needed.

And I think it would just be a short amount of time before that person that needed healing trauma became an optimization person. You could kind of feed them around in this circle from like, you know, PTSD to healing to, integration to optimization and then back up to teacher you know what i mean if it could almost be a circular pattern there so i i hope it moves in that way i i don't have a real answer because i know there's need for both what do you think yeah well that that circle thing i mean i think that could also be an analogy for sam sarah which is like the wheel of suffering which i think like most of us are on yeah i think that there are there are seasons in people's lives where you know things are really bad and you know everybody loves an underdog everybody loves a comeback story you know

the hero's journey is is that cliche in so much of our our literature that you know that there must be a way for for people to have have breakthroughs or you know have recovery that that sticks and that can avoid people from from relapsing or or you know finding you know some kind of inspiration or, you know, a change of scenery. Like there are so many different things that can complement psychedelic use, which, you know, again, if I might plug our business here that I really do hope that there is a way for us to, you know, introduce that in a way that we have like a licensed therapist or counselor that can come kind of be the trip sitter and, you know, give people

that, that individual treatment that, you know, it could involve, could involve end of life care, it could involve like a virtual reality slideshow of their precious memories and photos of their families and, you know, life events that that help people break the cycle of addiction or or just unhappiness in general. But yeah, I do love the idea of an optimization center. I think that, you know, not everybody needs that that really, you know, that deep recovery addiction, addiction resource. But yeah, just to be able to optimize it, just to be able to, I mean, you know, alcohol is so tired. You know, bars are, you know, not really that great. You know, there should be a better way for people to get their kicks without, you know, all of the awful side effects that come from, you know, all the legal things that are promoted and heavily used.

Whereas, you know, the more wholesome, less addictive things are class A schedule ones. And suppressed and like it just, you know, it, it just seems very obvious that, you know, that the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the corporations, the alcohol, big alcohol, big tobacco. Like, they, they work so hard to suppress it. And, and, you know, now that, you know, they're, they're adapting to and they're, they're changing their, their product lines and the business models to include, you know, psychedelics and cannabis. And, you know, heck, I even saw that there was like a ketamine, nasal spray now. Yeah. So yeah, there's all kinds of different ways to administer these things, administer these things. And, you know, hopefully there will be a reliable solution that isn't going to,

you know, mess people up and, you know, cause other problems. Like there's so many, so many variations in mental health, like, you know, schizophrenics are obviously at higher risks for using these substances. But yeah, as you guys, as you and Nick Murray pointed out in one of your podcasts that there's, you know, you made an analogy that, you know, we all grew up with bush parties and, you know, passing out and alcohol poisoning and like, oh, good times. Not really, though, you know. But yeah, if there could be more of a like a shamanistic, ritualistic, you know, treating drug use with reverence as opposed to just getting a fix is, you know. I think if there's, you know, two things that are going to save the world, it's psychedelics and sushi, but I digress. Yeah, you know, it's, is our culture a mirror image of the drugs we use or are the drugs we use a mirror image of our culture?

In some ways, I guess it doesn't matter. But, you know, if we just stop and think about the society we live in, the drugs we use and the society we live in, the drugs we use and the society we live in, are drugs that are a crutch. They are drugs that allow us to continue to just white-knuckle it. Like, you know, every corporate boardroom, every corporate office has a coffee machine. Like, what do you use coffee for? Coffee has got caffeine. I like caffeine all the time.

But it's something that is somewhat of a stimulant. And it's also a little bit, you need that stimulant because the work you're doing is mind-numbing. It's not an expansive, creative endeavor that we live in. Same thing with alcohol. Alcohol is just the opposite of caffeine. It's like this depressant that you take to get numb and sometimes you use to beat your kids. You know what I mean? It's a very destructive drug.

And like you said it, when kids begin their journey with alcohol, the first thing they do is they take too much of it and they pass out. Well, you know, what happens when we shift the rails of drugs we use? Instead of going on this rail of caffeine and alcohol, what if we switch up to like cannabis and psychedelics? Like what happens when we shift the tracks? Well, it seems to me what happens is all of a sudden you have an explosion in creativity. All of a sudden, these tracks, they fork off and they take us into a world of imagination. They take us into a world of healing trauma. They take us into a world of, hey, man, I feel like I'm waking up to this weird sort of numbing thing.

Well, maybe that's the drugs we've been running on for the last hundred years. What happens when MS-13 turns from a bunch of thug addict, you know, child-trafficking knuckleheads into a world of mushroom-cultivating artists? You know, like, I don't see why that can't happen. Why can't MS-13 become the cultivators of the psychedelic movement? All of a sudden, these, you know, noble tribesmen of South America, start dealing in mushrooms a little bit instead of child trafficking. Why can it, why can it be that? Like, if you look at the way that the narcos move things, like, what happened if you just made

it legal? Like, look, let's turn the narcos into the new sort of Pfizer, but only let them do psychedelics. Like, let's, let's legitimize them. Hey, these guys are incredible businessmen. Let's legitimize them. Take out the child trafficking, move in the mushrooms. But I think that this track of psychedelics takes us into a new world that can be beautiful. And as beautiful it is for guys like me and you and the little guys,

the little girls on the ground starting businesses, it's terrifying to the guys that own the train tracks of the old system. And I think that that's what's happening. Yeah, yeah. Switching those tracks would just propel society into outer space with those booster rockets that you mentioned. Yeah, man. It's beautiful.

Those, yeah, those boardrooms. I mean, I don't have a lot of corporate experience, but, you know, I can only imagine that they are just riddled with with Adderall and SSRIs and, you know, all the things that, and I mean, not to diss those things to do. Sure. I take an SSRI and it's really helped me, you know, I was very reluctant, you know, when dealing with my own trauma to take antidepressants because I just thought it was going to change me. And, you know, it's made a big difference. And, you know, it's cannabis is a as a supplemental medicine. you know, seems to be keeping me pretty stable and, and, you know, motivated and, you know,

keeping me from going into the, the dark holes that some of us, you know, experience. But, yeah, there should be, there should be, like, a more curated and catered way of, you know, like, can we talk about our friend Nick Murray and what he's doing with his biohacking? Because, yeah, let's do it. If, you know, if he has a way of doing these brain scans, because I guess, I mean, everybody has a different neurochemistry. And, you know, and if, you know, maybe these optimization centers can have biohacking, like, brain scanners so that you can see, well, like, you know, this synapse is suffering. So, you know, maybe this, you know, psychedelic analog will specifically help you as opposed to just some. like random street drug or, you know, something that doesn't have any quality control behind it.

Yeah. So let's let's take biohacking even further because you're beginning to hear different sorts of retreats using this subject called layering. And layering is like, okay, you can do five MEOT one day. You can do psilocybin the next day. And then you're going to do ayahuasca the third day. Wow. Yeah.

But that just scratching the surface, Ryan. And here's where I think there's a union between modern medicine and the psychedelic plants. I think that you can start bringing in stuff like human growth hormone. I think HGH should be part of every single regiment. It should be stacked with every plant medicine. I think HGH should be stacked with every plant medicine. Just my opinion, I'm not a doctor. I'm just a guy.

I'm a podcaster. But this has been my use. Like when I use plant medicines, I always stack it with HGH. But there's other things too. There's different kinds of selective serotonin receptor agonists. You know, there's different kinds of herbs. Like if you look at, if you look at Premisagara that's coming out of Oregon right now with Mokshod journeys, they have something called the stack. You know, if we look at biohacking, let's look at the way we measure things.

Nick Murray has already come up with technologies like the kernel where they can measure your brain. But I'm starting to see new kinds of graphs where are you familiar with 3D printing? A little bit. Okay. So when you have a 3D printer, you plug into your, you plug into your, your laptop or your computer model. And out comes like this model. So it's like a, it's almost like a bar graph, like an L graph. But then there's another part that comes off of there.

So imagine a line coming down with two bars coming off of it. I think we could be using like that sort of 3D imaging to add another dimension to how we measure psychedelics. Like, you know, you have the x-axis, the y-axis, and then like a z-axis. It could tell you the depth of the trip. Because one thing we're really unable to do when it comes to measuring a psychedelic trip is to tell the strength the trip. We rely on the ideas of subjectivity. But I think we're beginning to find ways to do that. I think that's where Nick comes in.

I think that's where these ideas of brain imaging come in. Can we use another axis on a graph to make? measure another dimension of what's happening in there. But I think that's the next level for the ideas of biohacking, because I think they're going to help us measure the performance. And when you can measure something, then you can better manage it. But yeah, I think biohacking is a huge part of that. I think using different SARMs, using different hormones stacked on top of the plant medicines,

but these are all going to find their way into optimization. And once we begin studying optimization, then we'll better. understand how to heal. In a lot of ways, I think we're doing it backwards. Like, hey, let's look at all the people that are broken and try to figure out how to fix them. Well, shouldn't we first have a model of something that's optimized so that we know what to aim for? Like, you know, if you don't have any direction, if you don't know what you're aiming at, you can go anywhere.

You know, if you don't have any direction, you can end up anywhere. Like, you've got to have a model of perfection or something to shoot for before you know how to heal something. So yeah, I do think people like Nick, I think that the people like Moksha journeys, I think that a lot of people in these retreats, I think writing, I think what you're doing, dreamers writing is a huge part of that.

Like writing therapy, like how else can you fully make sense of your thoughts unless you put them down on paper? Yeah, you got to do the work. You know, it's really have to, yeah. It's one thing to just go on a trip and, you know, have fun for a few hours, have some shits and giggles, but

you know if that that that obviously you know regularly will be detrimental to to oneself and I um what do you think of five HTTP I love it I think people should take it I think you should if you're going to do MDMA you should probably load it before and load it afterwards that's what I've read I don't know that but yeah I think it's good what what's your take on five HTTP yeah five hydrolytroxy tryptophen back in my raver days that would that would be the the course. That would be the first course, you know. It would hopefully sort of mitigate the Blue Monday after, you know, a weekend of partying that. You would, you know,

you would take this gradually, again, layering. That's what we were doing. Right. We were trying to use what, what, you know, sort of basic emerging compounds were available to, you know, get the most out of our psychedelic experience without that huge painful depressing downfall the next week. So yeah, I think that that could probably, that should be integrated in at least an MDMA therapy. Again, not a Docker, but, you know, my two cents.

Yeah, and of course, diet and exercise. I mean, I was listening to Joe Rogan yesterday, and I think he was talking to Stephen Wright about, you know, bottling runners high, you know, what's, how, how, like, that's the, that's the easiest drug that anybody can, can i mean it's not a drug per se but the effects from it are real when you get into a good state of physical exercise you feel great and you know it takes work to get like it's obviously very um you know it it it can be hard not everybody likes to exercise but it's uh something else that um

you know that people can can do without without drugs and you know oxytocin there's this other awe and i wish i was prepared with the actual clinical term do you ever get that feeling when you're talking to someone not everybody gets it but maybe it's your heart chakra but it's just a it's a feeling it's a vibration and it's a sense of calmness and peace and and connectedness and it i think it i mean i've only really ever experienced on an individual basis when i'm talking to someone like you know sort of face to face but you know only realize what that probably is is oxytocin which is the pairing the pairing um uh hormone or or chemical whatever it is and that's what you know when when you when you listen to dr gabermate i listen to his audio book called um

hungry ghosts and you know so many like i'd say probably most of the people that describe what a heroin experience is like is like a warm hug And, you know, and to me that it's, it's tragic that that's, you know, that people are so disconnected and isolated and lonely that that is, you know, where they're getting, you know, if that's the comparison that they get out of this really awful, horrible drug, then, you know, what can we do to recreate that without all the addictive side effects? And even like this book, like it's such a downer, but it's it was such a good listen. Like he, um, even the title hungry ghosts, you know, and he's talking about his experience in counseling, uh, severe drug addicts in the, uh, Maine and Hastings area of downtown Vancouver, which I heard, uh, referenced as stain in wasings at one point, but not, no disrespect to our friends of Vancouver. Um, so hungry ghosts just kind of sounds like zombies.

You know that title as will always stick with me as a as a great description for you know these lost souls that are wandering around cities all over the world and just in such a such a pitiful state and Yeah, so anyway the the the oxytocin thing I think I think if they can you know figure it a way to To make that I don't know synthesize it or You know activated in us like that will that will help a lot of people heal. Yeah, it's a great point. You know, I want to go back to this idea of Blue Mondays and MDMA real fast.

As a guy in my almost 50, like I spent a lot of time going to raves, doing MDMA, and I always, I always experienced like this downfall afterwards. And it wasn't until early this year or late last year that I read this paper and I talked to a doctor from Berkeley. And I was telling them And he goes, that's all bullshit, George. And I'm like, dude, he goes, he goes, he goes, blue Monday is bullshit. And I'm like, listen, man, I've experienced him. I'm telling you it's real.

And here's what he told me. And I was totally against it. But after his conversation, I was like, he might be right. And here's what he told me. He goes, so explain to me what happened when you took MDMA and why you had a blue Monday. And I go, well, you know, I would go to like a rave on Saturday. And, you know, I would take some MDMA. And then like on Monday or Tuesday, I just feel horrible.

And he said, no, no, no, no. I think you left out quite a bit, George. Do you drink a lot of water on that day? And I'm like, I drink some water. He's like, how much? I'm like, I don't know. He's like, did you drink any alcohol? I'm like, oh, yeah, I totally drink a lot.

And he goes, okay. And what about the next day? Do you like smoke some weed the next day, have some drinks? And I'm like, oh, yeah, I would have a couple drinks on Sunday to like kind of ease everything. He goes, yeah. So you think that it was the MDMA that gave you the blue money? You don't think it was the alcohol, the dehydration, the dancing, the weed. you don't think those things had any effect.

And he's like, what if I told you that in clinical settings, people that take MDMA don't have any Blue Monday. Yeah. And I was like, well, then I would believe you because I'm not a doctor. So I started thinking about the way that I used it and the setting that I used it in. And I was like, wow. You know, maybe this idea of a Blue Monday with MDMA is something that people that used it recreational always got because they were using it in conjunction with all these other things.

So what do you think about when I tell you that? Yeah, that is, that again is very profound. Re-evaluating so many of my life decisions. Well, it didn't make sense. I never believed it until I sat down with that doctor, and he's like, no, no, no, you don't get it. I was like, oh, man, he's probably right. Like, I use it in the wrong settings, but it's interesting to think about. But also, it's also compelling to think about all the work that was done on MDMA at those raves,

even though you may have been using it recreational. I had some of the longest, deepest conversations with incredible friends about who I am, but how much I loved them, but how much I loved different things. And like, in a weird sort of way, it was a therapy, right? Yeah, absolutely, absolutely. Like, you know, when my mom died, it was, it was so hard. Like, it was, you know, it was 19 years old. And I just, I just kind of, like, adopted.

this Ray family. And, you know, to quote Vanilla Ice, I had a weekend that lasted five years. Great quote. Yeah, it's a great quote. And, you know, I don't stay in touch with, you know, most of these people. But like, and, you know, I pushed my luck and, you know, I overindulged far too much. But I still look back at those times at that, at those parties as healing, you know. Yeah.

As, as, you know, just a way to cope. But now that you've explained it, yeah, like that Blue Monday theory, like, you're right. It's not the MDMA. It's the routine and the cycle and all the other substances that are usually associated with like a weekend vendor, right? Yeah, totally. Totally. It's interesting. Like I love being in a position where I can look back and laugh and also cry, but also be really thankful for the memories.

and the hugs and the heartaches and all the things that had happened. They're not like that's the feeling I want for people that have gone through trauma is to find a way to cope and come full circle with their trauma and look back on those days and be like, oh, that was crazy or that was beautiful or that was really hard, but at least able to look back on those times with fond memories, even if they're challenging. I think that is in a weird way, a way to define healing,

is to look back on your traumatic events with fond feelings. Yeah, absolutely. Ryan, I love talking to you, my friend, and I'm sure you'll be back. I love this idea of the writer's retreat. I love what you guys have up there. I've seen the pictures. I've talked to you about the potentials for all the events that may be happening coming up there soon.

And before I let you go, maybe you can talk just a little bit more about what you got coming up in the future with them, where people can find you, and what you're excited about. Yeah, so I would refer your listeners to two URLs, well, a few, but we'll just start off with dreamerswriting.com. So that's like the main website page that's more focused on the publishing side of our business. And yeah, if you're a writer, an amateur writer, professional writer, please consider submitting, entering one of our contests. And, you know, all the applicants, all the entries do get reviewed. And, you know, we're not overly critical if it's, if it's well written and if it's written from the heart, then we'll generally accept it. And as far as like coming to visit us, you don't like we do, we're sort of like officially designated as a writer's retreat.

But but we do offer general Airbnb accommodations. We're working on our own direct booking portal too so that you'd be able to just book right through our website and then save some money in terms of the booking fees that these platforms charge. Yeah, right now in this beautiful spring weather we're having, we're just getting the site all prepared. We're building a dock. So we'll actually have like a little water site property. It's more of a marsh, but it's still kind of nice, still kind of nice to be able to just chill at the end of the dock. So that's the main project that I'm excited about this summer. So hopefully, yeah, you know, like cash flow will improve and we'll be able to keep expect.

and you know maybe eventually buy another property you know maybe dreamers can end up being a franchise model and we can you know start helping people build their own writing retreats or our artistic retreats or you know whatever whatever floats their boat um also just wanted to mention that uh we all we give some swag away to our guests too i mean i think we're pretty generous here we um yeah i mean i can go over the whole orientation here but i'm gonna save him for when you come and visit. Nice. Very nice.

This is our VR swag. So we give this out to our guests. And if you go to writingfarm.ca, you'll see a link to our guest welcome guide. And then there's a link where you can, I mean, you can check this all out at a cosmo effect.com. So this is sort of my own personal portfolio website. You know, I love going to trade shows and festivals and retail stores and just talking to people interviewing them, taking some pictures. But the idea with this VR cardboard, and actually Google cardboard was the first to market with this thing. And again, like, it's not mind-blowing

Oculus Rift, HDC-Vive level VR. Like, you know, the production value isn't there quite yet for me because I still have to upgrade my equipment. But yeah, so if you do want, if any of your viewers, listeners would like a complimentary copy of our VR cardboard, just, you know, have them reach out to me send me a message you know a subscription to my youtube channel to our youtube channel uh dj rc 420 cosmo effect or writing farm will go a long way in terms of us being able to send you these yeah the idea is that you pull up any of the videos available at cosmo effect.com um hit the uh the VR icon and uh that will enable stereoscopic mode and you can drop your your phone oh by the way here's here's my lovely wife yeah this is uh

but she's on the phone, on my phone. So how met them? So you, yeah, you put this into the box here like this. And then you just kind of like look around, man. And wow, you're in the Matrix. Another cool thing, too, is we're working on, you know, augmented reality. We're hoping that we can have like really cool interactive features here on the farm.

Kat and I, before the pandemic, we went to a, VR workshop where we learned a little bit of Unity, which is like a, you know, VR software. And we made a Cheshire cat in a forest. And what we'd like to do with augmented reality and specifically a similar product to this, it's called Magic Leap, but it's not VR, it's AR. So you just have glasses, but there's like a film, almost like Google Glass. And, yeah, you'd be, you know, you'd walk into a store or you'd walk down the path, to our secret garden and you'd be able to see all these different annotations pop up similar to like

youtube video focus on it and then um yeah then you'd be able to see details about like say Margaret Atwood you know Margaret Atwood's VR avatar come up and she would tell you about the books that she's written and hopefully um you know give Dreamers a plug too but we'll have to see what all this holographic engineering licensing is right and you know what what what creative content you intellectual property we can get away with. Hey, so what do you think of Red Bull? May I ask? Yeah, I like Red Bull.

I used to drink it all the time, but I haven't had one for a little while, but I love it. I love Red Bulls awesome. Everything in moderation. Yeah. My kids were actually, they're 11 years old, and they had their first, like, drug education class in like the last couple weeks. And I'm like, okay, it has begun. And so they're asking me about weed and cannabis.

and what's marijuana? And I said, well, marijuana is actually cannabis, but it's the sort of culturally insensitive description for it. But that's kind of semantics. But I guess, and you know, the thing that, and I've said this as long as I've been a parent, even before I was a parent, you know, how do I shelter my children from my colorful upbringing

and protect from the things and the drug abuse that I injured? And do you ever watch South Park? Yeah. Yeah. Well, again, about South Park is, you know, it's a raunchy show, but there's always a good moral lesson in there. And one of the lessons was chef said to the kids, there's a time and a place for everything, children,

and it's called college. So I'm hoping that my kids will, you know, hold off until their brain is developed to the point where, you know, they're not going to damage it. Cool. Fun fact about Red Bull, too. I used to get this great. It's an off-brand Red Bull or should I say it's Thai Red Bull.

And it's got niacin and there's also a neat, it's got niacin, vitamin B. And it's, yeah, there's also something called quinine. I might be thinking of brio. Anyway, you know what Briocinata is? No, I never heard of it. It's like Italian cola, and they bottle it with an anti-malaria ingredient called quinine because it's a bottle over there. And I guess malaria is a little bit more prominent there.

But anyway, I'm just full of all kinds of fun facts. Yeah. And dad jokes. And I'm really trying to draw this out because I had such a fun time with you today, George. Man, I love talking to you, right? You have to come back. I'm really excited to see some of the work you're doing. I think some of the things that you guys have planned.

up there are sort of first in use, you know, like this idea of bringing in a troop of theater performers or this idea of rights of passage or just, I just love the idea of writing. I'm a big writer myself and I think that there's something magical that happens where once you get into this certain heightened state of awareness, it's almost like something writes through you. And I want, I wish everybody could experience that. And I think that, you know, with a name like dreamers, I think you guys are providing dreams for people. And it makes me thankful that I get to participate a little bit in your dream. And you and Kat are definitely participating in my dream.

And it's a beautiful man. I love it. I'm stoked you guys are here. And thank you for that. Yeah. My pleasure. Like you have like this is such a big opportunity for me. You know, you've got like a great audience.

You're growing. And, you know, we made it. We made it. I hope next time we can talk with tattoos too because. Yeah, we've already got into them. I'm all sleeved up, man. I got Socrates. I've got tons of tattoos that I think help remind me of what I'm doing and why I'm doing it. And, you know, I definitely get the stink eye sometimes, depending on where I go. But, you know, I think there's something to be said about a tattoo that is meaningful and the way you get them and the relationship between you and the person giving you the tattoo. I think it's beautiful. man i i really enjoy them and i love them what's your take on them oh yeah well you know yeah meaning is important but i will say that most of my tattoos scream i make responsible decisions i love it man i love it for yeah yeah one of um so you know again i don't tattoos is are so uh so

permanent but yeah so my my kid you know been talking about i did get a tribute tattoo for my kids But again, when they come of age, you know, when they're old enough, I think we're going to get promise tattooed here. So that will be our like pinky promise. Yeah. Yeah, I like it. That's a good one. I think that's got character. I mean, for a first tattoo that's, you know, have it like visible on the hands.

Like I guess I would like to push my kids more into the micro tattoo route. At least then, like it's not, you know, they're not quite as committed to. it is probably easier to laser off. But yeah, I don't know. We'll see. We'll see. Yeah. Yeah, we'll see.

Some people say the new tattoo is not getting a tattoo. Yeah, oh, for sure. I'm amazed at how mainstream they are now. You know, like it's, yeah, I don't know. Everybody, you know, everybody has a different, different path. And, you know, I certainly chose a life, the path less traveled. It's made all the difference. And, you know, days like today where I might be, I might feel a little, a little bit, I don't know, down about my accomplishments and my professional accomplishments and, you know, what I've done with my lives and the decisions that I've made.

You know, I do feel like a little bit more reinforced talking to a professional podcaster like you who is in sync with me, I think, and has the same kind of values and ideals and, you know, makes me feel like not quite a, not quite as much of, of an outcaster or dirty hippie. Well, look, that's the people on the forefront. And I think that this idea of feeling down about your accomplishments is not something that is special to you. I think that that is a sickness that permeates society. And the fact that you can get up every day, I mean, there's tons of people that can't.

And these are the people that you and I are trying to reach. It's like, look, I know what it feels like, man. I know what it feels like to lay up and not sleep. I know what it feels like to cry yourself to sleep. I know what it feels like to lose people in your life and to have a repetitive voice in your head that just won't shut up about how wrong things are. Like I get all of it, man.

Like I know it. You're intimate with that. And like that, it can be a superpower. If you just learn how to use it the right way, it's like you were given this incredible tool and you're like, oh, this thing sucks. No, you're just not using it right. It's awesome.

And it can work for you, but you have to train it. You have to understand what it's doing. I think psychedelics can play a huge role in that. It's all of us re-learning who we are. It's all of us re-learning what a relationship is and our relationship to each other and our relationship to life. And, you know, and I think writing and speaking and having the courage to embrace those things about yourself that you think are weird that you may feel ashamed of in some ways. you know, this thing, this stigma against mental illness.

Like understanding that you can embrace those and use them in a way that is advantageous to your life and people around you, man, is really powerful. Yeah, yeah. Like, you've been thinking over this past Mother's Day weekend, like, you know, too often these Mother's Days, you know, come and go and, you know, I have a little pity party for myself. Yeah. It's, you know, but, you know, that's, you're not my therapist, George, but it's, again, just having a compassionate year to talk to about really anything is, it's so, I'm so grateful for that. And this has just really reinvigorated me.

So thank you so much, George. Yeah, you're crushing it, man. I can't wait to tell Kat, I said hello, tell the kids I said hello. And I'm looking forward to continuing to work together to make the retreat more of a dream for more people, man. So I'll reach out to you, man. I will, everyone should check out Ryan's links in the show notes. Check out Dreamers.

Check out what they're doing with writing. Go to his site because then you'll be able to see the vision that we're talking about. And you'll be able to see some of the things they have coming up that nobody else is doing. It's like first in show, first in class. And you can be one of the first people to go up there and experience it. So I'm so happy to get to shine a spotlight on it because I think you guys are crushing it, man. Oh, thank you, True Life. Yeah.

Yeah. So ladies and gentlemen, thank you for everything today. reach out to Ryan, reach out to me. I hope you had a good time. I know that we both did. Hang on one second, Ryan. I'm going to close this out here. So alohy, everybody.

Thank you.