WTF with Marc Maron Podcast - Episode 1432 - Shane Mauss

Episode Date: May 4, 2023

When comedian Shane Mauss was on the show in 2016, he and Marc talked about the new trajectory in his life that involved psychedelic studies. A year later, he lost his mind doing lots of hands-on experiments in that field of study. As Shane gets his standup act back on its feet, he tells Marc about the Roger Waters concert that landed him in a psych ward, the ways people get mentally exploited by motivational hucksters, and how he’s trying to strike a balance between opening his mind and letting his brain fall out. Sign up here for WTF+ to get the full show archives and weekly bonus material! https://plus.acast.com/s/wtf-with-marc-maron-podcast. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

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To show your true heart is to risk your life. When I die here, you'll never leave Japan alive. FX's Shogun, a new original series streaming February 27th exclusively on Disney+. 18 plus subscription required. T's and C's apply. Lock the gates! all right let's do this how are you what the fuckers what the fuck buddies what the fuck nicks what's happening i'm mark maron this is my podcast wtf welcome to it if you're new. I imagine most of you have been hanging around before. I hope you all processed and integrated that Titus Burgess interview. That was a life changer, that one, talking to that guy. Today, I'm going to have back another guy who's on a different journey. All right. Today I talked to Shane Moss again.

I mean, he's, he's been on a few times, a few live shows back in the day. And then he came on, I think in 2016 was episode 766, where he talked about the new trajectory in his life that involved psychedelics. And I believe he was sucking occasionally on a DMT vape. So he was going in and out of the other world, sort of within conversation. You know, elves on the periphery. Yeah, that's what we started to joke about. I got that from a Daniel Pinchbeck book, or maybe it was Lipsight making fun of Pinchbeck. I can't remember. But elves on the Rogan camp of speculative bullshit with professional

speculators and grifters. And I had a certain amount of respect for that. I don't know if anybody saw it or anyone cared, but I did. And I was wondering what Shane was up to on his psychedelic quest. on his psychedelic quest. So it, you know, it kind of hit a wall, which you'll hear in the conversation, but he's now doing a podcast and a YouTube show called Here We Are, where he interviews scientists. And he just started a Vegas residency at Area 15, a kind of psychedelic spoken word residency. I don't know what it is, but he's out there. All right.

He's out there at Area 15 in Vegas, but he's also a bit out there, but not as much as you'd think. He's grounded in the science, people. Grounded in the science. But if you want to check out the show, you can go to area15.com for tickets, and it's called A Better Trip with Shane Moss. So I don't know, man. I just need to check back in with Shane. He's a sweet guy. He's an engaged guy. And not unlike the rest of us, he was sort of untethered during lockdown, but he added a layer

of untetheredness by doing hardcore psychoactive drugs, but now he's landed, and it was good to talk to him again. Also want to state that I stand in solidarity with my union, one of my unions, the Writers Guild is on strike. I imagine, you know, I'm doing this a couple of days before, but I imagine that they will still be on strike. I have to go see my mommy. But look, you know, this is reasonable requests and demands. People who get in the writing racket and make a living at it kind of rely on residuals just to maintain a living. And because of streaming kind of fucking them, you know, they get denied that because it's sort of a devil's deal. You get paid up front and the back end on streaming, if it exists at all, is far away.

And I think they're also going to be discussing how to define partnerships with robots. I think there's something in there to discuss the future of AI and that somehow there has to be a human component to the script or the package or to the pitch or whatever. That we can't just have these robots running around taking our jobs. But I do stand in solidarity. I am a active member of the WGA and I hope some resolution is on the horizon in a fairly short way, I think, because you can't stop the business. This is our business. Oh, my God. Also, look at this. Bobcat Goldthwait, who's been on the show a lot of times, five. He's directed a special of mine.

He's directed episodes of my TV show. I've known him since I was a young comic. But he's always been a comic, and he's just released a new comedy album, Bobcat Goldthwait, Soldier for Christ. It was recorded live in Chicago, but it also includes some bonus tracks of songs by Bob and Tom Kenny, Bobcat and Tomcat, that they made in high school. Yeah, you can get it on vinyl, digital, and a limited edition 80s party pack, which includes

the album on CD, a trapper keeper, and a CD CD player and more. Huh? There you go. Get it at prettygoodfriends.com. Now listen to me. Listen. Exciting. I got into the Willie show. Me and Kit.

Kit wanted to go. I tried to make it happen. I reached out to the one connection I have that might have been able to pull it off. And he was in Morocco, I'm assuming on vacation. But he had to reach out to the guy who was actually putting the show together, the Hollywood Bowl show for Willie's 90th birthday party. It was two nights. And I went on the second night and we had beautiful seats in a box at the bowl. We brought blankets and a thermos that they made me empty when I got there.

Misleading. You can't really bring, you know, I could bring the thermos in, but empty, no point in that. So I was the guy walking around with a Stanley thermos, but the show started right at six 30 and they were taping it. It was crazy. It was crazy. This show right out of the gate, still light out six 30, Billy strings comes out and plays whiskey river. And then he's, and then he plays stay all night. Now this guy I've grown to love this guy. He's like the real deal, kind of a legacy of country music history, but something hipster about him too. I mean, he's insanely talented in a very specific way of playing.

I'm sure he can play anything. But to hear Bluegrass played well and inspired and taken to another place is something else. The kids got it. And Willie knows it because he comes out and plays with Willie later in the evening. He could just tell Willie was like, you're the guy. You know, I knew the old guys and you're the guy. You're the new guy.

So then Orville Peck comes out with his mask, plays Cowboys Are Frequently Secretly Fond of Each Other. That was very good. Charlie Crockett comes out,ond of Each Other. That was very good. Charlie Crockett comes out, plays Yesterday's Wine. That was good. Dwight Yoakam comes out. Hadn't seen him in a while. He plays me and Paul.

Very good. Margo Price and Waylon Payne come out and play I've Been to Georgia on a Fast Train. Very good. Enjoyed it. The Particle Kid, which is Micah Nah nelson that's one of willie's kids and daniel lemoyne uh come out and do a song that uh the particle kid wrote uh die when i'm high halfway to heaven that he wrote from the point of view of his old man that was touching in a way it

was kind of funny now i'll tell you one of the evening stealers one of the the guys who who just did something amazing was rodney crowell uh he's a songwriter he was part of a i think he might have been part of that laurel canyon crew but he wrote songs for for willie uh he wrote it ain't over yet Yet for Willie And he played it And he was the first to come out with just a guitar And he fucking quieted that entire Hollywood bowl down And I got teared up when he was singing It was powerful

And then Emmylou Harris comes out And they do Till I Gain Control Again Which was beautiful Roseanne cash comes out and does poncho and lefty. Now, you know, these are legacy people. I mean, Roseanne, Johnny cash's daughter and, uh, you know, and Waylon Jennings kid was there shooter who I've talked to, uh, Warren Haynes came out and played Nightlife. What a searing fucking guitar solo on that. Lyle Lovett came out. My heroes have always been cowboys. Hadn't seen him

in a while. Beck came out and did Blue Eyes Crying in the Rain. Lucas Nilsson and Shooter Jennings come out and do Good Hearted Woman, which Willie and Waylon did. And that was kind of beautiful. which willie and waylon did and that was kind of beautiful lucas is the real deal as well i would say lucas nelson and billy strings real fucking deal and lucas sounds a lot like his dad the luminaires uh came out and did pretty paper that was pretty good then nora jones comes out and does um down yonder on her own and then then she goes and gets Chris Christopherson. It was like kind of wild to see him. And they stood there and did Help Me Make It Through the Night. And he did it.

And it was kind of astounding. Got teared up on that one too. It was great to see some of these guys, you know, he was present. He sang the song and he still was the charm the charm stays intact with some of these guys it's kind of amazing these old guys Sheryl Crow uh pulled off crazy pretty well now here's a stunner folks and I hate to admit it you know because I've made jokes about him and I never gave him a fair shake and I don't know if I will ever give him a fair shake, but Dave Matthews came out with just a guitar, his guitar, his acoustic guitar just so sounded better than anyone's acoustic guitar.

I don't know if it was the mix of the guitar or what, but he did funny how time slips away and he owned it. He made that song his own. And again, I got choked up and he played the fuck out of it and he sang the fuck out of it. And I was impressed. All right. I'll, I'll say that. I'll say, okay, you hear me? All right. Emmy Harris came out with Daniel Lanois and did the maker, which is a later Willie song, which I think is often an album that Lanois produced. He was a guest on the show. And then Willie came out and sat down, and people just came up and played with Willie. It was kind of beautiful.

At 90, he did a tune with Booker T, did Stardust with Booker T, he did Far Away Places with Sheryl Crow. He did Will You Remember Mine with Lily Miola, who was great. He did Something You Get Through with Buddy Cannon, his producer. Then Billy Strings came out and did California Sober with him. And that was spectacular because there was just such a weird sense of respect

that Billy Strings is like the history of country music. And it's all coming through him in a way that's very specific, that bluegrass guitar playing and i could tell willie could feel that i'm not projecting either so then after that fucking keith richards comes out and they played we had it all and they played uh all and they played uh live forever as well and keith was sober he was gracious he sounded great and he was not wearing the beanie he was wearing a headband but i was wearing my keith beanie so i don't know how that all works out and it was so great to see Keith and Willie together. It was just, and Lucas was playing on those as well. Don was, was the, was the musical director on bass there. And Ben Montench

was on keys all night. There's a great band. I can't name them all. But after that, Willie did on the road again with the band, with this harmonica player that's been playing with him forever. All of them came out and they did, will the circle be unbroken and I'll fly away, which is one of my favorite songs ever. I'll fly away. And then, uh, Ethan Hawk,

uh, got everyone to sing happy birthday. There was a, a parade of celebrities introducing the musical acts. We're all getting progressively more wasted as the evening went on. Helen Mirren was there. Chelsea Handler was introducing people. Woody Harrelson came out three times.

By the third time, he was clearly fucking wasted. And yeah, it was quite a night, and I was glad to have fucking witnessed it. It was really, really special, man. And I'm so grateful that I got in. Okay, look, I hear you. Okay. I told a story the other day about flushing drugs down the toilet. And I was schooled by many of you who said, do not flush drugs down the toilet. It goes into the drinking water supply because it doesn't break down. There's other ways to dispose of drugs. Apparently you can bring them to some pharmacies, maybe to a police station, or you could, you know, grind them up and, you know, put them in the ground

or something. Just don't flush it down the toilet. I didn't even think about this. I guess it was an oversight. I kind of knew that there were drugs in the drinking water. I did not assume it was from flushing drugs. I just thought it was from people taking drugs and peeing them out. But I stand corrected. And I think it's like, I think it's an old drug muscle. past, when you want to get rid of drugs, the first thing you think is flush them down the toilet, either because the cops are at the door or there's something inside of you that's going to take them. You're either running from the cops at the door to the toilet to flush your drugs, or you're trying to hold down that thing inside of you that wants those drugs, but you know it shouldn't have them. I get it. I stand corrected. There's nothing I can do now. Enjoy the mild, mild, mild, mild infinitesimal buzz you get from the Vicodin I flushed down the toilet. Okay. And also from the Valtrex.

Hopefully, it'll provide some protection against an outbreak of herpes on your lip. Okay? I apologize for that. I stand schooled. Okay, look. Shane Moss, he's doing a residency at Area 15 in Las Vegas. It's happening throughout May.

The show is called A Better Trip with Shane Moss. Go to area15.com for tickets. You can also go to shanemoss.com. That's S-H-A-N-E-M-A-U-S-S.com. Also, get his show, Here We Are, wherever you get podcasts. And watch it on YouTube. And now you can listen to me talk to Shane about drugs and the future and science and a concert that tipped him over the edge. You can get anything you need with Uber Eats.

Well, almost, almost anything. So no, you can't get snowballs on Uber Eats. But meatballs and mozzarella balls, yes, we can deliver that. Uber Eats, get almost, almost anything. Order now. Product availability may vary by region. See app for details.

Death is in our air. This year's most anticipated series, FX's Shogun, only on Disney+. We live and we die. See you at Pretty Tales. You'll never leave Japan alive. FX's Shogun. A new original series streaming February 27th exclusively on Disney+. 18 plus subscription required. T's and C's apply. So you haven't been doing really stand-up? You wouldn't call it stand-up? Or what do you...

I just haven't been touring at all. But you're not going up anywhere? Now I just started, because I have this... I have a Vegas residency coming up. And you've got to get an act together? It's a whole immersive psychedelic comedy show with visuals and all sorts of everything. So where have you been going up?

And so I just started... I just strung together a whole bunch of warm-up shows last minute. I was in Raleigh, and then I just put, like, with two weeks' notice, I just booked a whole bunch of... Where? Like, I did good nights in Raleigh.

Oh, yeah, sure. So that place moved, right? Yeah, yeah, just moved. How's that new space? Fantastic. Really? Yeah, really good. Better than that old, weird place?

Better than the old, weird place. More professional. And, yeah, it's really strong. Better than that old weird place? Better than the old weird place. More professional. And yeah, it's really strong. And then stopped and just like, I didn't know if I would sell tickets. I haven't toured in three years. Did you? Yeah. I went through like Bentonville, Arkansas.

And I was like, Bentonville, Arkansas. I don't even know where that is. I don't know if I've ever done a show in Arkansas. Well, there's some good stuff outside of, I guess it's where Walmart originated from. So that's their claim to fame. So where, where do you, where are you drawing from your psychedelic following? Uh, yeah, I guess so. And I, I just, I, I have a system for kind of targeting the psychedelic audience. Is it a, is audience is it a psychic outreach or is it with your mind there's a lot of there's a lot of like i i do cross-promotional stuff with uh the multidisciplinary association of psychedelic studies what is that the The big, like, legitimized. They are the ones that kind of brought psychedelics back in a legitimate scientific way.

Yeah. Is this guy, Rick Doblin, is the founder of it. So he started. Doblin? Yeah. He was a therapist. Yeah. Who started, he used MDMA for couples therapy back in the 80s.

That was illegal. That's how MDMA started. Before it became ecstasy, before it hit the streets. Couples therapy, was it hands-on? How did that work? They actually have protocols within the studies and within the treatments where you need to have a male and female therapist there just to make sure that nothing gets to... So he found success in this? A lot of people did. That's what brought MDMA into that.

Because it breaks down the boundaries yeah mdma in particular it that's the one that makes you love everything yeah so it it uh it inhibits the amygdala which is your fight flight or fight response sure so you're so it's especially good for people people with ptsd so so they're able to like experience those same memories that they'd normally experience without it triggering the same people with PTSD. So, so they're able to like experience those same memories that they'd normally experienced without it triggering the same, uh, people with, with PTSD have an overactive amygdala, amygdala. So they.

So they re-traumatize themselves all the time. Yeah. Someone bumps into them with a grocery cart at the, at the grocery store and it, and it fires and it's, you know, they're just hypersensitive. Yeah. And so it inhibits that ability to be triggered and then it increases blood flow to the prefrontal cortex, which is where all of this – it's what makes us most human.

It's the frontal lobe where all this fancy language stuff and us having these big ideas and everything comes. So you're able to kind of process these ideas with less fear and more thoughtfulness than normal, theoretically. So that in couples counseling would lead to a more evolved intimacy or expressive. So I actually never liked MDMA because I'd only done it at some parties and stuff. And I don't like things that make me feel good. Like I don't, well, it's not that I don't, I mean, I don't trust things that make me feel good. Like anything that makes me feel good, I'm like, ah, that's a slippery slope. But you prefer what, hallucinogens? Yeah, like psychedelics are.

What's the difference between an MMDA and a psychedelic for you? You don't want to feel still? You just want your brain to jam? Oh, no, I want to feel. With something like, say, mushrooms, It's a more intense experience of like, I don't expect to have a good time. Well, yeah, I mean, it could go either way with humans and mushrooms. Yeah, exactly. Whereas MMDA, you're sort of guaranteed to have a mushy human experience.

Yeah. And that bothers you. No challenge to it. bothers you no challenge to it yeah no challenge to it and it was just like too easy and then um years ago i was in a relationship and it was like we are going through some stuff and we both had mdma together as we are going through some relationship things and i was like this is why it's a relationship like we were able to share honestly like issues that were coming up that was that we shared it in this like kind and loving and patient and how did that stick uh no i mean does anything stick well that's well no but that's a big question like you know like in terms of uh you know psychedelic treatment and even like i have done some of the um emdr treatment which is you, non-drug-oriented sort of rerouting of trauma

neural pathways. So, like, you know, my question is, especially someone who doesn't do drugs anymore and seeing a lot of guys who are sober, you know, engaging in sort of, you know, renegade psychedelic treatments. Yeah. Whereas, like, you know, you get these guys who have been sober forever and they're like, yeah, I'm doing microdosing mushrooms. I'm like, with a doctor?

No, with this guy, Harry. He's got them. It's so wild. For someone that has a psychedelic comedy show, I am less evangelical about psychedelics than a lot of people. Well, my question is really, and I'm not judging, is that— You can judge. Well, my question is really like, and I'm not judging is, is that you can judge. Well, no, I don't really, I don't like, I can understand, you know, what I start to understand is that most of it, despite what anyone thinks is happening psychedelically is relative to your

experience. I mean, I mean, you can, you can tap into whatever frequency you want and, and acknowledge the existence of a, you know, universal vibe. But when you come out of it, you're still you in your head and you're sitting wherever you're sitting. Right. Yeah. I mean, people are using psychedelics for a lot of different, you know, historically it was, you know, the hippies opening up and pre-love and all that. And then, and then there's a lot of, there's the spiritual side of it, which is kind of the validators, people that they, they do psychedelics. Well, I mean, these bougie people that are doing ayahuasca twice or four times a year or too much,

it's like, the question I was heading towards in terms of your research or your experience, does, like, you know, when you look at R. Crum, you know, and his, like, when you talk to those guys that, the artists of the era of the original acid, he can sort of track exactly how it changed his perception, and it became a hook for him, the extended feet and all that stuff. It was a practical thing. He changed the way he saw and was able to draw and create these characters that were uniquely his, original. Yeah. uniquely his, original. So on a psychological level,

does the experience, like in talking about MDA and your girlfriend at the time, so does the shift in neural activity make a chronic impact? I mean, does it last? So let's use two different case studies to answer that. So both psilocybin and ketamine are both used for depression. And in my view, they are both acting on depression in two completely different ways, which will answer your question.

I think the last time I saw you, you had a ketamine vape, didn't you? A DMT vape, it would have been. How's that going? How's that going? Actually, DMT is the only thing that I microdose. And I'm not into the microdosing. There's a new facet of the psychedelic community is the optimizers, the people, the life hackers that have the protocols with things and you microdose every other day.

And then if you like, oh, if you, you know, just kind of the motivational speakery, wellness guru that are like, you got to wake up at exactly this time and you get to a window. And then if you do intermittent blinking and the light gets into your eyes. That kind of shit's been around for you. That's been a, you know, a sort of a supplement racket hustle for a long time. Yeah. The supplement, the supplement stuff. Well,

okay. So, so, so, so, so ketamine, um, ketamine was just a thing.

It was used to sedate. They give it to children and stuff. Doctors love using it. It's, it's safer than you put someone under and their heart can stop. Yeah. And so you don't, this is ketamine is just a disassociative.

And so they pick up on things that like one, kids say the darndest thing after a ketamine experience. But two, people started reporting like, hey, doc, I am less depressed after that surgery. Is that normal? And doctors would be like, actually, no. Usually after a surgery surgery people get depressed because they're recovering right and things and so they then in the early 2000s they started studying it just for depression and people will speculate on what the mechanisms are i haven't seen anything convincing i don't do enough research myself but but um i to me it's so confusing it

just like sort of works as a reset and ketamine doesn't seem to have a lasting effect. So you need regular treatments to work in that way. But if you are depressed and you do ketamine, you can walk out of the office not being depressed. Whereas mushrooms are more of an experiential change. So I would say ketamine is whatever's happening on a neurologic level. It's having that chemical change temporarily and it's a reset. Mushrooms for me are more like I'll get depressed even like you just did a special. Anytime I finish a special or something, I'll find myself depressed afterwards because I'll be like, well, now what?

And there's like. When you do a special or when you watch one? No, when I – usually when I watch one. But after I finish like a big tour or something, I'll have five different directions of where I might want to go. And there's possibilities that depression evolved to kind of pump the brakes before investing a bunch of time going. Well, a lot of times it's like, you know, the energy you put in creatively and, you know, into touring and generating and improvising or telling stories or jokes, you know, when you pull that out, you know, you're left with yourself.

Exactly. And all that juice is gone. Yeah. But what you're saying is that psilocybin is an experiential. It's like shower thoughts on steroids. Well, yeah, I get it. But the impact of psilocybin is a perception changer. A perception changer, yeah. So that can stick. That can stick. It's almost cognitive. A perception change, yeah. So that can stick. That can stick.

It's almost cognitive. It's like cognitive therapy. Like if you choose different options for yourself, even though you're compelled to do something else, if you make a different choice, you can eventually change your behavior. Whereas if your perception is shifted with psilocybin and you hold on to it, you can sort of choose to at least get halfway there.

Yeah. To get all the way there, to get jangly, you're going to have to re-up the shrooms a bit. And one of the things that most people ignore is the integration aspect. I've done enough psychedelic experiences that now if I do mushrooms, like the trip itself is just, now it's just this pain in the ass that I go through. Like, okay, if I see another fractal, I'm going to puke. Yeah, yeah. You're done with fractals? I'm done with puke. Yeah, you're done with fractals. I'm done with fractals.

It doesn't do it for me anymore. Well, how about elves? But the elves are like, they've already said all of the things they're going to say. It's so like, that was the thing with DMT. DMT was always, I would get to the end of an experience and it was like, oh, if I could have just, what was that last thing at the end of an experience it was like oh if i could have just what was that last thing at the end yeah if i could have pulled out that gem that treasure it would have saved the world the purple guy or the blue guy purple lady yeah yeah yeah she's about to say something like you gotta go back yeah and but for for me something like mushrooms or for other people, LSD. LSD doesn't work in the same way for me.

But those days after is just you have a little more neural flexibility. So if it's like, hey, I was thinking about getting back into jogging again. It's just a little easier. I think normally they say a habit takes about six weeks to like fully integrate and become a routine. Oh, yeah. I think it can give you just like a little bit of a jump start. Right. But you don't have to do it every other day.

Oh, no. Yeah. No. So what is, because I, you know, I was watching over the pandemic, you know, your kind of pro-science anti-fascist tweets. Yeah. Which I always enjoyed, you know, because not enough people do it. I don't know what they're afraid of.

But, you know, in terms of your embracing science as being part of your personality, well, how's your experiment going with your mind? Well, I mean, I, shortly after talking to you, I lost it. You did? I was making a documentary, Psychonautics, a Comics Expl to you, I lost it. You did? I was making a documentary, Psychonautics, a Comics Exploration of Psychedelics. When was this?

It was how many years ago? 2017, I was making it. And so this was like probably nine months after I talked to you. Yeah. Yeah. And we had gathered a whole bunch of great interviews with all these different researchers. And we were like, what do we want this documentary to be? yeah i guess i'll just do all these experiences i've had nothing but positive psychedelic experiences for 20 years yeah i'll just i'll just show people that like

you know i can even take like way more than you should like the uh like the supersize me for psychedelics yeah yeah and i did that and i was like to show people that you don't go crazy and i went i went completely fucking insane like on such an epic level i i ended up in a psych ward you did uh-huh so wait so like what what was the like how were you pacing yourself how were you regulating how were you deciding i did you have somebody to watch you? Did you have a professional guide of some kind? No. You just did it like a fucking drug addict? Yeah, I guess.

I had a professional ketamine treatment, and then I was actually going to, in the movie, it's set up like- Did you release this thing? Uh-huh, yeah. It's on Amazon Prime. It's good. But did you lose your mind in the duck?

They didn't film. I was actually going to do, I was going to do ayahuasca to prep for doing ayahuasca on film. Yeah. And I lost my mind then. But how, okay, so. I had been doing mushrooms, malt. So what happened was, is I, like I said, I always used psilocybin for depression. Yeah.

And so I felt a little depressed with with not knowing the direction of this documentary. So I'm like, oh, I'll do mushrooms. Oh, I got some inside. Threw a log on the fire. I threw a log on the fire. And then it snapped me out of my depression. And then I had this thought, Mark. I go, well, what if instead of just stopping depression, what if I could feel good?

Wouldn't that be great? And so I just kept on eating more mushrooms, like two times, three times a week. And then I felt good. And I was like, what if I could feel great? But didn't you have that weird jangly, you know, vibrating clarity every day? It's exhausting, isn't it? Now it is for me. At the time it was, now I like, the reason why I like ketamine now is because it's confusing. There's nothing that I have to

work on in my life afterwards. It's just like, well, whatever the hell that just was, I'm not even going to think about it. I don't have like a purple lady that I'm communicating with that I need to worry about. Right. So, so you're doing mushrooms three days a week. Yeah. Two, three days a week. Okay. And then, and then, and then I started feeling great. And then I was like, what's after great.

Yeah. And don't ever, like, if you're ever feeling great, like leave that alone. Yeah. So I, I became hypomanic. I've always known I was bipolar. And hypomania is... Oh, so you're a bipolar guy for real. Yeah, yeah. You were diagnosed with that, and you knew that before all your...

I was self-diagnosed, and then this is when I became officially diagnosed. When you were locked up. Like, I have scientists. I interview scientists once a week for my show, Here We Are, about a variety of subjects, how the mind works and stuff. And so I knew just from, I had confirmed from talking with them and taking some studies myself that I was bipolar. But had you experienced a mania without drug inducement before? A hypomania. Yeah.

Regularly. So I was bipolar 2 and I didn't know the difference. That's bad. So bipolar 2 is not the same. It's good you never had a lot of money. Yeah. You spent a lot of money. So two is like two months out of the year,

just completely, just a really insane amount of depression. Like it's, people with bipolar, their depression doesn't, it's not as chronic like some people, but it's deeper when it happens. And then there's two weeks out of the year where you're hypomanic and you're like, you don't need to sleep as much. You're very creative. You're inspired. Oh, no.

Yeah. But also you can buy things that break you. You can get involved with weird shit. You can find yourself in weird places. It's good to be broke when you have bipolar 2. When you go into a hypermania, it's good not to have a lot of resources. Yeah, yeah, yeah. And you'll burn out your

friends. But then bipolar 1, ayahuasca launched me into a manic 1 episode. Which is different than a hypomania? Very much different. Worse or better? I didn't know that. Oh, much worse. Really? So bipolar 1 is worse than bipolar 2? Yes much different. Worse or better? I didn't know that. Oh, much worse. Really? So bipolar one's worse than bipolar two? Yes, yes. Yeah, yeah. Why? Yeah. What's the

difference? The difference is like, you know, the difference between feeling like going from being suicidal for a couple months and then being hyper, hyper excited and inspired for a couple of weeks. That is different than being like, oh, all of this world is a simulation in my mind and everything that's happening in it is a product of my own thoughts. And if I don't control my, like, so if. That's a tricky business, you know, when you already have a psychedelic context about perception and reality. You know, you start playing with those mechanisms within your own brain. You start eating yourself. I mean, at some point, people have to, you know, just settle on the idea that, like, there is a reality outside their head.

Oh, yeah. Yeah. Okay, so what happens? So you do the mushrooms and you're going for better than great. And then I did ayahuasca. That's crazy. And I had the most beautiful experience of my life. Really?

So you got beyond great. I just never. I got beyond great. And then just weird things started happening. After the ayahuasca. Yeah. And it was like really unsettling and i couldn't make sense of it um so like during ayahuasca there was like this this thing where it was like it's it was like

showing me this vision of like hey i was going to be called to do this dmt extended state thing this this thing that i had been asked that i'd heard about, um, where, where instead of smoking DMT and having like a five to 10 minute experience, um, they can hook you up to an IV and get you to that level. And you can stay there for, you know, hours as long as they'll let you, as long as they'll let you, as long as you can take whatever. And and then and it was like this whole thing about how i was and afterwards i was like whatever ayahuasca that's just psychedelics for you of course you'll have like weird visions and stuff and i i didn't have phone reception this is just one thing that happened and then i got off of this mountain um where you were doing where i was doing i was

it was in it was like in Golden, Colorado. Oh, yeah. And I had phone reception again. And then the first text that I received was this person. Was from this guy running this DMT extended state thing. And he's like, hey, Shane, I see you're in Colorado. I see her in Colorado. We actually are doing this big announcement tomorrow about this DMT extended state thing

where we're holding this meeting and there's going to be some journalists there and stuff. And we have the main neuroscientists that came up with this idea there. And we want to announce you as the first participant in this study congratulations you win insanity i was like what yeah and i was like but i just had the thing that i was gonna and and then i went to this thing and resist huh

i hear this guy give this lecture about how he thinks, this isn't my perception, but he thinks the reason why people are seeing these entities is because time works different and we're only tapping into certain dimensions. Which entity? The purple lady? Yeah, that sort of thing.

Oh, the elves. Yeah, the elves. The elves on the periphery. I mean, as crazy as elves sound, and I think it's just a product of our own minds, that's my take on it, which most people that smoke DMT don't have that take. They think you're tapping into a different thing altogether. But my take is it's in your head. But you're going to see something. What's going on with that guy who tried to make the big psychedelic cultural movement? Was it Fishback?

Or what's that guy's name? Daniel Pinchback. Pinchback. Yeah. What's up with that guy? He's still writing a lot. He made a lot of claims about the world ending in 2012 or something. We're still here.

Is he making an argument that it did end? It's one of those things that did end and this is a different thing. Oh yeah, of course. Well, what you need if you want to be in the space is like you want a good, we saw this a lot during the pandemic, is you want a good unfalsifiable, like with any religion or whatever, you want a thing that is just impossible to falsify.

You want something that's like, hey, if, like scientists go, if I'm wrong, this is what that would look like. This is how I would lose that bet. And then. Religion goes, I'm not wrong. Just wait. Just keep waiting forever. There's nothing you can ever do to prove me wrong. Yeah.

And if you play by the rules, you'll see the big lights when you go. Exactly. All right. So you get yourself hooked up to the drip? No, I didn't. I just saw this talk about this thing. And then I was like, why was I selected for this thing? I started and I'm like, oh, I'm a man.

Because I saw you as a guy who was willing to do anything. Yeah. Oh, there's logical reasons, for sure. But the timing of it mixed with having just done ayahuasca and being in a thing and all that. And so I started thinking, like, well, why is this happening?

And I started thinking about time travel a lot. And once I started thinking about time travel and how time works and how maybe our subconscious is picking up on time running in a certain way. And it's coming, it's coming through us in this, you know, how like kids say the darn, like kids will say something with all sorts of wisdom, but they don't even know what it means. I started thinking like, that's what, that's what people are doing all of the time without realizing it. Like their subconscious is saying these messages

about how time works that they aren't aware of. So I start reading way too far into anything. Like what? Isn't time sort of like, isn't the idea of measurable time kind of an imposition? I mean, like it was manufactured. I mean, you know, an imposition. I mean, like it was, it's, it's, it's, it was, it was manufactured. I mean, you know, you know, the sun comes up and sun goes down is one thing, but the idea of a

clock and all this other business is that was, you know, a human construction, right? Because like, I've noticed, you know, since the pandemic and since, you know, the lockdowns that, you know, time is operating differently for me personally. I don't quite have a sense of it anymore, but that's also because of the lifestyle we choose. There's nothing like really, I'm not, I don't have to do much. It's all, I mean, a hundred years sounds like a long time to us because that's like our lifespan. If you're a mayfly and, you know, they live for like four days. If you said to that mayfly, like, hey, we'll give you another 20 days to live. They'd be like, what in the world would I, that sounds like a nightmare.

What would I do with all of that time? It'd be like, hey, Mark, do you want to live for 2,000 more years? I don't know. I'd be so tired. I can't, my brain would eventually just wear out. You know what I mean? So, okay, so you So, so, okay. So you started thinking about time travel and then, and then, uh, my girlfriend becomes concerned, uh, about me.

Uh, yeah. What was it that you said that, you know, gave her concern? Well, one that I was going to go on a DMV trip. On the IV drip trip. Yeah. And then, and, yeah. And just that I suddenly was a very different, you know, previously hadn't spent a lot of time talking about time travel and was now obsessively coming up with new forms of math to solve time travel. Oh, yeah? You did some mathematics? Oh, yeah? You did some mathematics? Well, it's funny the stories that you can tell yourself because I was always really good at math as a kid, which equates to like, hey, I got through like geometry or whatever. I'm not some advanced level.

You're using high school geometry to work your time travel problem? Yeah, exactly. You're doing a proof. Well, you're in such a suggestible state and then confirmation. So when you become manic, it's all of the stuff that's already inside of us. Yeah. It's like just exaggerate.

Sure. All the stuff that you saw people doing during a pandemic of confirmation bias, of like thinking things were a simulation. Oh, okay. The pattern making and the like correlation and causation stuff and getting mixed up with that and like 5G towers have something to do with.

That's what you got to see kind of on a global level. You got to see like almost a global manic episode. Seeing some of the more extreme beliefs that happen are just a product of panic. And we evolve to, so you have a smoke alarm there. That smoke alarm is engineered to be overly sensitive. You can't make a perfect smoke alarm. And the cost involved of it going off when a toast burns or something like that is annoying.

But the cost of it not going off when there's an actual fire is much much higher yeah they intentionally bias smoke alarms to be overly sensitive our brains have evolved these same biases and one is that we over perceive patterns so if you miss a valuable pattern as a hunter gatherer for where like resources might be in the future yeah and how how patterns and like herds work that you might hunt or whatever that's that's a bigger cost than then if you see if you perceive a pattern that doesn't exist that's just making you like a little superstitious yeah ocd they've got the same cost involved right so our brains are biased in that way also to assign agency to things to like to to know that something that you're hunting or something that is hunting

you has an a mind and an agenda yeah really valuable sure and so we over perceive minds to so the cost involved of like of like talking to a tree for example is like you know you might be the guy that talks to trees yeah in your in your tribe yeah yeah you know and so so these same, or egocentrism, for example, is something we're all born in the center of our own universes. So when you become manic, or when there's a global pandemic and the world

is under so much duress, you kind of go back to some of those early biases that you're born into and they get exaggerated in this way. And then they can be exploited. And then they can be exploited by people. Yeah, by the great grifters and hucksters and

spiritual con men. So many. And political con men. Interesting. And they might believe it themselves in a lot of ways. Well, that's what you always wonder. That's what you always wonder, right? I'd kind of feel safer if they didn't.

Yeah. But I think a lot of them do believe it. Yeah. Well, certainly something as practical to them as fascism is a belief system. And I think that the ones that are the worst kind of salesmen for it want it. They believe it. They don't give a fuck. Well, if you find yourself on top, then you want it. They believe it. They don't give a fuck. Well, if you find yourself on top,

then you did it because you earned it. That's another cognitive bias. The good things that have come your way are something that you earned. The bad things that have come your way is bad luck. The good things that happen to other people is that's their luck.

Bad things that happen to them, they did something wrong. They deserve that. There's like just world hypothesis, which is like, you don't need to, you don't need to worry about bad things happening as long as you're doing all of the right things. Like you mentioned that with religion. Yeah. And if, if something goes wrong for you, well, it's because you didn't follow this specific regimen. You didn't, you didn't follow my protocols. You didn't follow, like you didn't buy my supplements or You didn't buy my supplements.

Or you didn't do the ice bath in the correct way. And that's why you aren't immortal now. Well, that's like because once you're a mark, once they make you a mark. And it's weird. Some of the biggest sort of proponents or idiots that are free thinkers are the biggest marks. Absolutely. Well, there's an expression in the psychedelic space which is which is uh they're good for opening your mind just be careful your

brain doesn't fall out right yeah well yeah in relation to what you're saying i had a philosophy teacher once uh about uh years ago and i never quite grasped what he was teaching and it was sort of boring and i remember um you know he was getting mad at me because I was being disruptive in the class, and I was smoking a lot of weed at the time, and I was a grown-up. It was an adult studies thing. And I was in the elevator, and he was kind of snarkily asking me, like, are you getting anything out of the class? And I said, well, my head seems to feel pretty full when I leave.

And he said, well, you can fill your head two ways. Either you can put new things in it or you can heat up what's already in there so it expands. And that was the last day I went. I was like, I get it. I'm an expander. Yeah. I mean, there's a lot of, so both the kind of motivational speakery and the spiritual side of things are kind of doing the same thing, which is like it's so there's the manifestors, which are like you are at the center of the universe. Everything will work out if you just keep on imagining that like the reality that you things, which is like, life is going to be tough and you got to get over these challenges.

If you're strong and you grow big muscles, if you break through the things, you can get to the top. If you don't do those things, well, screw you. And if you don't believe the manifestation thing, well, like you're inviting negative things into your. Yeah, but so much, it's so sad because so much of that can be harnessed and that's something so powerfully destructive on a social level. I mean, you know, I mean, we're just, you know, we're really right at the precipice of violent othering in a big way where, you know, large groups of people can justify killing their neighbors because of this perceived difference. Oh, I mean, I talk with, you know, I've been doing a science podcast for nearly nine years. And before COVID, there was not once did I ever get even a comment from someone that was like, this dung beetle researcher doesn't know dung beetles and this and that and suddenly like at the beginning of the pandemic i was like what a fortunate position i find myself in i know like

just the person to reach out to this person models global pandemics theoretically and now they're an applied mathematician because there's a yeah there's a real pandemic and i got a hold of people and i was like oh this is i was told right away i was like this is going to be two years before things will like be anything close to normal again and i was like okay cool well this is good information to get out there hey this isn't a snow day everybody this is going to be like i don't think like these virtual stand up shows it's like are necessarily going to cut it but like you'll need to we'll all need to like figure out ways to innovate or whatever this is going to be a couple years yeah and um and boy like kill the messenger people like i i didn't care about like people coming after me like endlessly sure but

but people what would happen is like virologists and immunologists and stuff just like so i i don't find like best-selling authors or anything i just when i was touring i'd be like i'm in tulsa i'll look up the university oh someone does this yeah sure i'll hear about their cat research or whatever yeah and uh just totally random all the time and so so these random ass like immunologists or whatever would be asked by the local news to be like hey can, can you explain what's going on? And they'd explain a thing that like people had already heard from other, you know, their podcasts or whatever that they listen to is this global plot against them. And, you know, they're going to make us wear slave muzzles.

Who's they? And, you know, them. The Democrats? Yeah, sure. The cabal that's controlling all of them. Yeah. Both sides are the same. And that's some of that stuff

that you were talking about earlier, going awry. Going real awry. Yeah. And so these people, like, people that, like, if you have a question, say you have, like, a pet ferret,

and you're like, I want to know more about ferrets. You could just email a ferret researcher. Sure. They'll be thrilled that you give a shit. No one's ever cared before. They haven't gotten an email of anyone caring before. Yeah, yeah. And so like there's no secret thing.

Like you can email a scientist. They'll give you answers. Yeah, there's no organization amongst these people. They'll give you answers. Yeah. There's no, there's no organization amongst these people. They would love for you to listen. Sure. They would love it. And, and, uh, but suddenly someone would show up on a local news and they'd be getting death threats and everything.

And, and, and the infectious disease is like, uh, there's more females in infectious disease. So there'd be these females and then they'd get threats in the way that females and this isn't like celebrities that were like getting political. These are just people that were like doing a two minute little explanatory thing on their local news station. And like, what do you think is the like, but what is the driving force of the people pushing back in those violent ways? I mean, it's obviously an organized mindset, but they're just making a decision about their particular belief system and how it enforces what they're thinking. Because it doesn't seem like these are individuals with any sense of autonomy. It's a groupthink environment, right?

Yeah. I mean, there's a lot of motivated reason. I started going back through some of the, I really like learning about pandemics from stuff that was written before COVID. Yeah. Because it's like eerie to read. There's books like Pandemic Century, I think is the name of one that came out in like 2019. They all knew it was going to read. There's books like Pandemic Century, I think is the name of one that came out in 2019. They all knew it was going to happen. It's so crazy to read it.

But if you read the history of it, it started the first witch trials started during the Black Plague. It was both males and females. A witch was like being a doctor back then.

Witchcraft was, that was your doctor. Yeah. That's who you would go to. A lot of it was placebo stuff, I'm sure. Sure. But they also probably picked up on a few things. Yeah. Like get some rest, clean your wound, whatever.

Yeah. And then what happened was during a plague, people look for a correlation and causation. So this has happened many times since, including AIDS and now COVID, where people think, oh, it's the hospital. It's the people. It's the doctors doing it. So before the Black Plague, there was nothing but witches. Witches were like, there was just good magic. And then during the plague, there was good and bad magic.

And how you determined if it was good or bad magic was whether the person got better or whether they died. If they died, it was because of bad magic. If they lived, it was because of good magic.

This is how like... So it's just the way the brain, the human brain fucking functions in a world that's kind of untethered. Like, you know, it seems like in tribal communities that there that's kind of untethered. Like, you know, it seems like in, in tribal communities that there was sort of more of a balance. There was probably a little bit of that stuff. No, there's so, so there's, there's like tribal communities that exist to like,

here's a great case study. It's the exact same thing. There's, there's witchcraft that still exists in, I'm going to forget the region. It's, it's, um, I think it's like this place in Africa. I talked to this guy. Anyhow, wherever it is, there is a waterborne virus that they sometimes get and they don't know anything about viruses. And, and so they'll get this virus. And what's really interesting is there's something they're putting, they're putting together some connection.

Yeah. So when they get this virus, their explanation explanation for it is is that the ghost alligator came in through their sink yeah and poisoned them right and and so now they're sick and they got to call the witch doctor and the witch doctor comes in well first off if you got sick it's because you did something wrong and that was like your karma or whatever and so you need to like make some offering to the community, which also increases social support at the time when you need it most because you're like acting out in generosity. So there's all these like weird practices that kind of evolved over time that have some usefulness that can run amok. But then so you do that and then you make this offering to the community, and then it's basically bed rest

and a couple magic potions or whatever. But it's the same sort of thing where they're close to picking up on it, and then someone gets sick, and it's like, well, as long as you behave in this perfect way, nothing bad will happen to you. So when a bad thing happens to someone, they did something wrong. Right.

And then there's also just like there's also the convenience issue of like anything with like, say, lab leak ideas or anything like that is just like and it could very well be a lab leak. It's definitely probably not. But those ideas are really, there's a lot of motivation behind them because you would think the people that are forwarding these ideas would be like, oh, my God, this is like Chernobyl. There's a lab leak. How do we make things safer? Biohazard suits.

Instead, it's like, no, this is, we don't need to do anything. This is someone else's fault. Or let's, yeah, let's like, no, this is, we don't need to do anything. This is someone else's fault. Or let's, yeah, let's bomb China. Or bomb China or whatever else. And there's all these conflicting, like, they invented and created and leaked this also virus that's benign that we don't need to do anything about. But it's also the craziest it's like none of it so is so at the end of the day it's just like do nothing um blame other people and anyone else that gets sick that was their fault they were like too weak or whatever which is like that's not it's we're in a particular time where uh where people are traveling around

the globe viruses are suddenly for the first where people are traveling around the globe. Viruses are suddenly, for the first time in Earth's history, going across the globe. So there's invasive species like crazy. Yeah, it's mobile. They're mobile. Some bat gets a white-nose fungus that wipes out 99% of the population, which happened because a caver from Europe came and caved in New England. And it wiped out an entire species, nearly went and stick. It wasn't because they weren't doing

enough kettlebell squats or they were like eating too much fast food. Yeah. It's because there was a novel pathogen that they had not evolved for. Yeah. It's just the situation that we're in. It's so sad when the novel pathogens win.

They always will. I mean, we're all back to our past. So, okay. So, back to, you know, you and your girlfriend and you're going. Time travel. You're going to do the ketamine. You're time traveling. Yeah, yeah.

Did you get into any, did you do any time traveling? Were you able to? So, then a week later after obsessing about time, I had another. So, I kept on having these unfortunate coincidences happen. Sure. think about i had another so i kept on having these unfortunate coincidences happen sure where i would like arrive at some idea that like confirmation bias would allow me to connecting the dots i think it's called in the psychedelic community exactly and i was connecting a lot of dots it's given me some sympathy for like how those processes happen because i've experienced them on such an exaggerated level but it's made me frustrated at the same time because I'm like, no, no, we got to nip these

thoughts in the butt. I know exactly how far they can go and how wrong they can go. So a week later, I was going to Roger Waters. This is in 2017. And so I was already manic and talking about time travel, but I already had like plans with my friends. So what is the fundamental difference between bipolar one and bipolar two in relation to mania? Um, so mania is, is much more, um, everything becomes like either you are controlling the entire world or universe or it's controlling you and that's different than hypomania which is fleeting mania is just like getting inspired it's just like hypomania is the dream like if you could just stay hypomanic forever like it would be amazing but mania is a total shift in perception total shift a real real delusion yeah okay um so that's

where you're at and and like there's no way out you can't kill yourself mark because i could i could jump off a building and fly but like no but like it would just if i land then i'd realize my consciousness had just been in the sidewalk the whole time waiting for my head to crash into it and now i'm now i'm just a sidewalk there's no escape from this thing that's what it it feels like. It feels like a whole CGI world. That it's suicide proof. That's good. There's the plus.

Reality becomes this manipulatable CGI world and everything, you know, I drive by, everything's self-referential. I drive by a sign that said like road work ahead or whatever. And I get a text from an agent that'd be like, have some new road work for you like gotta read the signs man it's embarrassing i love sharing these things because i know a lot of people i get messages from people that have they're like i understand now what like i had but i had some more thing with cocaine psychosis really yeah i mean you know i you get to a delusional point you're hearing voices you think it's all about you you're seeing things that no one else can see exactly and uh you know you you've got the big wisdom

it's there's something really so there's this there's this idea in the psychedelic um uh research that's psychedelic research is shaky because of the regulatory system it hasn't there's not it's not very robust but um there's this idea of of inhibiting the default mode network you do mushrooms and normally my conscious perception is feeding me priority so me talking to you right now is more important than what's like details on your carpet or something like that. Sure. You shut that down and everything is the exact same priority. And so everything's like the exact same and just as meaningful. And so now you're like, well, how did I walk past that carpet? Like, how did I not see that detail before?

And now the novelty of perceiving that for the first time yeah your brain then latches on to that and makes that must be the important thing that detail in the carpet is the tapestry the tapestry and no one will listen to you don't look at the tapestry and people won't believe you of course course, they don't see it. Yeah. It's wild. So what's the next step? So the next step is, so a week later, so I'm going to Roger Waters. And that day, I come up with this idea of like, well, how would I test these ideas? Say I was going into this DMT state. would tell the entities that like hey when i come out of here hand me have have someone in the lab

hand me a manila envelope that has something in it that is meaningful to me that i i'm not saying it like i'm only telling you this and then i thought about it for a while i'm like i'm sorry i'm going crazy yes that's a dumb idea i had a lot of wild ideas, like a million a second. And you're talking to the elves? This is my girlfriend that I'm talking to. Oh, okay. Okay. Adorable little elf.

And so then we go to Roger Waters and I was, I got free tickets because I know the guy that flies the inflatable pig for Roger Waters. And so, and so it's also like, that doesn't help to have like special things happening to you and have like special connections when you're already like, am I being like led along on this path by this thing? You know? And so I go in this. How do I know the guy who's in charge of the pig? How is that real? That can't happen.

That can't happen. So I go in this like VIP area or whatever before the show and the guy comes in and he looks at my, he's like, hey, how are you? He looks at my tickets and he gets like this weird look on his face and he looks at me and he looks down and then he's like, I'll be right back. And he goes back and he like gets this new set of tickets and then he comes back with this manila. Oh, that's what I told her. I was like, I was like, that's a stupid a stupid idea if time travel were true why wouldn't it just happen to me today why wouldn't someone hand me an envelope today

I'm there and then he comes back and he has this fucking envelope for me and I open it up and it's a signed like a headshot from Roger Waters who's like one of my you know Pink Floyd's my favorite band of all time. Sure.

Like what the fuck is happening right now? Yeah, what'd you make of that? And I had to sit down and then I'd like tried to explain to my friends who are with me because I had like, I knew enough at this point to like, you know, keep a lid on the time travel stuff. Yeah. You know, you've told your girlfriend keep a lid on the time travel stuff. Yeah. You know, you've told your girlfriend that hasn't had the best response. Sure. It seems like this is, like, maybe socially inappropriate. But this time travel would be, like, you know, it's just hours.

What's that? It's not, like, big time travel. You're not, you know, you're just, you're, like, it's like when you have a dream state and, and it foreshadows something in your day. Yeah. Yeah. So it's the time travel you're talking about. It's not like I'm going 20 years ahead. You're like, this may happen tomorrow.

Well, this was my logic was the reason why I was handed this envelope was because months from now I will go into this DMT state. I will go into this DMT state and then I will tell these entities to go back to that day to hand me this envelope. And that's why I'm receiving it. You're playing like, you know, the five-dimensional chess thing. Yeah, yeah. So many dimensional chess when you get to that state. Because, look, there is sort of like, you know, everyone sort of had that weird moment where something in a dream state is prescient. You know, where, you know, like, you dream about somebody, then, like, you see them. Yeah.

But, again, that could be confirmation bias, right? It's not only that, but, well, one, the kind of normal explanation for that is, like, you think about a lot of people in a given day and it just doesn't stick with you until they call and then you go, I was just thinking about it. Well, you were just thinking about a hundred different people. Or even less. So, you know, the buffet of your personal reality

is much smaller than you think, so the possibility of coincidence is higher on a proportional level. And like a more far out there, but like perfectly in my mind, reasoning is like you and I each have a mental representation of each other. Like I think about you once in a while. Sure.

I spring into your, and it's probably like about the same amount of you know like once every six months once a year or something like that oh i wonder how mark's doing right now and so there's probably some sort of calculation going on in the subconscious that's like i have this kind of relationship with this person and i haven't checked in with them right this amount of time it kind of pings you yeah and so the idea that our subconscious would ping each other around-ish the same time, that doesn't seem that far-fetched to me. I guess so, but the subconscious is,

they're not connected. No, no, they're not connected. There's just a timing to it. Yeah, there's just a timing to it. So when do you lose your mind totally? And then I saw the show. Oh, you saw Roger Rogers. The envelope start, and then the show started.

And I swear, like, it starts with basically, like, my Here We Are podcast logo, essentially. And I'm like, what's happening? And then I had this whole thing about time flipping around through space in this Fibonacci thing. Like, I'm drawing all of these symbols and stuff and like making my girlfriend watch these things. You got symbols going? And then I got symbols going. And then the show starts and Roger Waters goes into the show time. And it's this clock flipping around through this Fibonacci's viral.

I'm like, God damn it. I was just showing you like a picture like this like three days ago. And you said that to her? Yeah. Like what's happening right now? And my mind broke. Like, it completely broke. At the show?

Yeah. Like, I was, I mean, I didn't do anything. Right. I just, like, lost orientation with reality completely. I thought, like, at first I was like, what's happening right now? Why am I? Because I was also in Roger Waters' friends and family section. Yeah.

And so he would come over probably to give his friends a nod. Yeah. He'd be like nodding in my dream. I'm like, why? It's me. Sure. What does Roger Waters want from me? He's giving me envelopes? He's given me epilepsy.

He's given me nuts. Man, I wish I knew. I got to talk to that guy. It's all like, am I him? Oh, wow. And he had like a real anti-Trump heavy thing at that time. And so I'm like, oh, is this commentary? Am I Trump?

Like things started going like things completely dissolved so you weren't ego list your ego shattered it was it was completely expanded there was no separation between me and everything else and there's no like if something happened like if i happen to know, when I see that like squirrel run across the street and like, I just moved my arm. And also that cloud took us particular shape. Like all of those things are connected and connected to either. I did that with my arm or the cloud did it and moved my arm.

But like they're not separate events. Yeah. Right. Either I'm in power or I'm, I'm interpreting something. Yeah. Either I'm pulling the strings or the strings are pulling events. Yeah, right. Either I'm in power or I'm interpreting something. Yeah, either I'm pulling the strings or the strings are pulling me. Yeah, but that one's harder because it's like, what does that mean?

Yeah. At least if you think you're a superpower or a superhero, then it's like, watch me do this. But you can't challenge yourself to do this because you won't be able to do it. So you're stuck in between this idea of like, I'm being moved by like, what does that mean? Yeah, yeah. Did I just do that? But did you ever think to try to move things with your i've tried i've tried a few things how'd that how'd that pass out oh boy yeah not not great not great not good no i mean i could share it with you like the craziest thing that i've ever

done in that vein it wasn't gonna so i've had like a couple borderline big manic episodes since that time yeah like not connected to psychedelics and um and my last big one yeah was May of 2020. COVID happened. I'm like, you know, wiped out. You felt it come on? As soon as COVID happened, I became hypomanic. And instead of like two weeks, it was like two months. And I'm like, you know, I'm trying to like connect virologists I know with like different influencers and stuff. And like, you know,'m trying to like connect virologists i know with like

different influencers and stuff and like you know practically trying to like do whatever i can like and um and and it was like it was actually kind of an exciting two months even though i was losing everything um and then i i had this i had had this idea in. This is another one of those awful coincidences that happened that triggered me. So this time travel idea, and it's coming from our subconscious. I had this idea that Christopher Nolan was communicating these ideas through his movies. And I was like, to a couple of my friends, I'm like, you'll see his next movie is going to be about things being sent back through time to influence things and blah blah blah yeah years later it's may 2020 i'm in this fragile state i'm hypomanic i'm like oh christopher nolan has a new movie i play the

play the preview and it's the movie tenant yeah which is like about reverse entropy yeah and and like it it started then i started experiencing all these synchronicities again. I was like, you know, this isn't real. I'm trying to talk myself out of it. You got to reel it in, yeah. And then I turned 40 on May 25th, living in my parents' basement. Really? Having lost everything.

And that was the same day George Floyd died. And this is in Wisconsin. And then the protests happened in Wisconsin and then um and then the protests happened in Minneapolis which was the closest big city to where I where I was yeah and I woke up one morning and I was like this isn't none of this is real this is none of it yeah it's all a dream like I just I just could not tell the difference right whatever tells you when you're not dreaming, it wasn't there. And I decided that the simulation was just like doing these things to like scare me, to keep me invested in this game.

Actually, these fears weren't real and I needed to confront these fears. With me naked confronting police officers. Oh, come on. And explaining to them that they weren't real. And my idea to prove it to them was that I told them that I was going to, like, this is a CGI world and I could manipulate it in any way that I wanted. And I told them that I was going to pick one of them. And I was going to jump up their urethra like Ant-Man and make them explode. Because I had this idea that if you could implant an insane enough idea in someone else's mind, it would happen. And it didn't work, Mark. I think I even like closed my eyes and tried to summon it.

Oh no. It was like if Neil was a comedian or something. I told too many dick jokes. Yeah. And I guess there's a, I guess there's a thing. Did they arrest you? They took me to a psych ward. Again, this is the second time? is the second time yeah so the first time when after the roger waters

concert how how soon after that did you end up in the psych ward there was a couple trips to the hospital that they would like sedate me yeah and then i get rest for the first time in like a very long yeah full hypomania is like shaving a couple hours off of what you need and sleep full-blown mania is like i was sleeping one to two hours a day for uh weeks yeah on end and um and then see it's sweep deprivation so then they're psychotic yeah so then they they'd state me i i would get a good night's sleep and then i'd wake up and i'd be like you know thanks i'm thanks for helping out i'm good i'm good and then i'd leave up and i'd be like you know thanks thanks for helping out i'm good i'm good and then i'd leave and then i'd ramp back up again and that happened three

times before i finally went to how long were you in the psych ward seven days and they you know they put me on some uh and it was the craziest thing too because this is like when you're in a psych ward and you're a manic person and i'm like this is real guys i have i have a deal with universal studios i actually did and i had a meeting in like a week and a half no that i had to get to and i'm like guys you have to let me out of here i have a tv show universal studios are shooting this whole pilot. And everything, and they're like, yeah, yeah.

But you actually did? I really did. Yeah. And that time they put me on something called a Lanzapine. I'm probably not pronouncing that right. And that, it put the fire out.

Yeah. Like the meds actually worked. Did you make the meeting? The meeting? Yeah, oh yeah yeah i did i was still manic though for like weeks afterwards and uh i wasn't my best self for sure did you get the deal no but that's a whole other that was a it was hosting a show about um how psychedelics have influenced people's lives yeah and at the time in 2017 this is like very controversial still like you'd get i we they presented to like showtime yeah they'd be like oh yeah sex drugs and rock and roll that's what we want and then you'd hear like a story of people using mushrooms to like get better at meditating or whatever they're like

well we can't tell people to do these things sure like they want like narcos where like yeah yeah the disclaimer is built into it right like you know hey if someone starts a meth lab that's not on us for making breaking bad right we didn't tell people to start a meth lab it's a little bit of a different thing if you tell people that they uh that they should do mushrooms and then they end up trying to jump up pee holes. Yeah. So those were the two times you were put in the hospital? Those were the two times. And the second time I didn't take meds and I just accepted what was happening.

And then I just watched all of the other crazy people and I just watched all of the errors that they were making. Oh, you were learning like like i knew like i know cognitive biases really well it's one of my favorite topics and so i was like really i was like it was very easy you were curing everybody what's wrong with them no well i wasn't i wasn't intervening i was just like an anthropologist i was like oh here's how they're making this mistake i'm like understanding how perception would get there yeah and then i remembered this is objectivity bias is called which is that it's easier to it we we all think of ourselves as more unbiased and more objective in our thinking than others it's easier to see errors and thinking and other people than yourself

and i remembered that and i was like oh this is this is what i'm doing i'm doing right i just needed to see someone else i needed to see someone else naked and threatening to jump up a p-hole before i recognized what was wrong with it like we can't both have this sure sure yeah so what are you gonna like so tell me like let's kind of focus on what's the big plan for this show? How is it going to work? What is this place? So this is really interesting because I almost got completely away from the psychedelic space.

Not only did I have those episodes myself, but then during the pandemic, I found many of the people in the community to be grifters and conspiracy theorists. It was so discouraging and disheartening. And I just didn't want to be a part of that. I love talking with scientists. I love hearing about bugs and shit. That's what I'm interested in. And psychedelics have been a fun way to lure people into hearing about perception and consciousness. And so I was asked to emcee this psychedelic conference

at this place, Area 15. I'm like, sure. It was the first gig that I took back. I was like, yeah, I'll emcee this conference.ic conference at this place area 15 i'm like sure it was the first gig that i took back i was like yeah i'll emcee this conference and i see the space it's like a four wall the vegas space where they do like the the da vinci or not da vinci um the van go the van the van go exhibit things i'm like this place could benefit from uh emergent emergent psychedelic comedy show yeah and like i'm the only one that i know that would be able to put that all together that's the omega the the omega mart is the main thing within area 15 what's the show uh in terms of you so it's my stand-up okay with a vj that

will be adding um that will be adding visual. So if I'm talking about mushrooms, it will have an aesthetic background that will be a little more mushroomy. If I'm talking about LSD, it will have a more LSD vibe to it. Same with ketamine. And then I have some animators that are making particular things. There's this comedy, Central Tales from the Trip. It's animated psychedelic stories. And the creator of that show is making is adding a ton of animation is that is that the

one that did the uh the cb yeah you saw that yeah yeah yeah yeah what's that drug called uh to cb to cb yeah yeah yeah yeah so so then there's a bunch of animation looped in so it's on loops so that it doesn't need to be perfectly timed. Right. So I'm not going to be a robot up there. So I'll be able to improvise and everything. Yeah, yeah. And they'll be able to improvise visually along with me.

Are people like, but I mean, it's a weird space to hold in that, you know, a lot of people that want to engage in that type of material just want to trip balls. And now they got to listen to you talk. I hope that no one's tripping at my show actually i i'm what i would i mean the the way that i've kind of designed the show philosophically is that you know going to area 15 and omega mart is kind of metaphorically a trip within itself and my show is more of the integration the come down afterwards where you're talking about like the meaning of life and you know these bigger ideas that are inspired by the psychedelic space and so that's what i yeah i don't recommend tripping at my show at like why i mean people do it and i've heard good things but at the same time like why it's not how i would if i'm tripping

and if i'm gonna be indoors I want to watch like David Attenborough documentaries or something oh yeah yeah learn about nature I don't want to hear a person talk for 90 minutes about themselves about themselves but it's it's good for it's meant to be like integrating past experiences or for people that are and to like inspire better ones moving forward in the future and and also just kind of what you can learn from the psychedelic experiences to hopefully make life a little bit better just the same things like set and setting and setting intentions and

stuff like those are all things that you can apply to anything yeah in life that's useful so yeah that's what the show is about and it you're going to do it start in April? April 23rd. Sunday's April 23rd. We have six shows booked, and as long as the first two sell reasonably well at all, they're just going to keep on extending it. Oh, cool. And you're just trying to figure out where you want to live.

Trying to figure out where. So one, I need to make sure that's going to be extended. You don't want to be stuck in Vegas. Might as well start here, no? Yeah, I think it's such a short drive. I have so many friends here. But there's also, I had started doing- We have water again here.

I know, it's amazing. We should celebrate the water for a couple years. But it's so expensive. Oh, yeah. And I mean, I don't like Vegas necessarily, but it's cheaper. And there's also a lot of, I had started getting a lot of corporate, like, you know, doing science-y shows for private events for people. And Vegas is like the conference capital of the world. So there's some potential there for me that I'm exploring. So I'm feeling that out.

So I have an Airbnb for the first 40 days that I'm there. And then i'm and you'll see and decide after that yeah cool man so what's the website shane moss shane moss m-a-u-s-s dot com good senior i'm like i'm only crazy in moments yeah that's the thing about being bipolar it's like you're normal all of the rest of the time but you don't want to medicate in the traditional way? I mean, I'll tell you, I don't, I have an aversion to mushrooms now because they can lead to mania. I pretty much only do ketamine right now because that doesn't trigger manic episodes.

What about, like, you know, lithium? Like, lithium? No. You like it too much. It's, it's, it's, I'm just a cliche. like it too much it's it's it's i'm just a cliche people people that are like um a lot of people with personality disorders um like a borderline personality disorder when they find out that diagnosis often they are receptive to like taking medication and getting treatment for it bipolar people are famously resistant i know i grew up with, my dad was bipolar. Yeah. You'll do anything, but yeah.

Yeah. But take the lithium. Yeah. Well, I'm sorry if I'm triggering. I'm sure. I'm sure it seems like I'm sure anyone listening and I get it. It would be like, Hey, why would you,

why would you allow yourself to ever get to a state like that? Or like, why would you want to ruin that party? Yeah. Standing in front of cops naked. Come on. Yeah, who knows what the next event is going to be. Good seeing you again, man.

Good seeing you. Thanks for having me. Okay, there you go. That was a good story. You can go to Area 15. That's area15.com or shanemoss.com s-h-a-n-e-m-a-u-s-s.com for tickets to his las vegas show a better trip also get his show the podcast here we are wherever you get the podcasts and watch it on youtube and now can you hang out for a minute? Okay.

Hi, it's Terry O'Reilly, host of Under the Influence. Recently, we created an episode on cannabis marketing. With cannabis legalization, it's a brand new challenging marketing category. And I want to let you know we've produced a special bonus podcast episode where I talk to an actual cannabis producer. I wanted to know how a producer becomes licensed, how a cannabis company competes with big corporations, how a cannabis company markets its products in such a highly regulated category, and what the term dignified consumption actually means. I think you'll find the answers interesting and surprising.

Hear it now on Under the Influence with Terry O'Reilly. This bonus episode is brought to you by the Ontario Cannabis Store and ACAS Creative. It's a night for the whole family. Be a part of Kids Night when the toronto rock take on the colorado mammoth at a special 5 p.m start time on saturday march 9th at first ontario center in hamilton the first 5 000 fans in attendance will get a dan dawson bobblehead courtesy of backley construction punch your ticket to kids night on saturday march 9th at 5 p.m in rock city at torontorock.com.

All right. So look, Brendan and I have been doing this for a long time and Brendan and I talk sometimes before the interviews, sometimes after the interviews, we usually have sort of a breakdown of things, especially if I was nervous or I was excited. We'll talk after the interview so I could tell him my thoughts on what happened and what he should look for from my point of view, which moments moved me. He's usually very in tune with that. But sometimes we do a kind of post um, you know, post-show, uh, breakdown on the phone, but this time we did it for you this week on the full Marin. We recorded one of those kinds of sessions, uh, post-interview sessions that, uh, that we did after I talked to ice cube, I opened the door and there's ice Cube. And, you know, there's just like,

people will come over. Like I can kind of sense like, well, I can, you know, kind of engage with this person pretty quickly. I can charm the moment, you know, disarm it pretty quickly. And usually it happens kind of immediately, but I opened the door

and like what I realized right away was like, that's not going to happen here. Oh, what you mean? Ice cube won't find your, your cats charming. And yeah, my house,

buddy. To hear that behind the scenes stuff before the ice cube interview airs next week, sign up for the full Marin, go to the link in the episode description or go to WTF pod.com and click on WTF plus, uh, next week. It's a Rachel vice on Monday and then ice cube on Thursday. All right. I'm going to play the guitar now. guitar solo Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. over our lips monkey and La Fonda

cat angels everywhere