Psychedelics: The scientific renaissance of mind-altering drugs | Sam Harris, Michael Pollan & more
2,266,892
Published 2020-12-11
Watch the newest video from Big Think: bigth.ink/NewVideo
Learn skills from the world's top minds at Big Think Edge: bigth.ink/Edge
----------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Having been repressed in the 1960s for their ties to the counterculture, psychedelics are currently experiencing a scientific resurgence. In this video, Michael Pollan, Sam Harris, Jason Silva and Ben Goertzel discuss the history of psychedelics like LSD and psilocybin, acknowledge key figures including Timothy Leary and Albert Hoffman, share what the experience of therapeutic tripping can entail, and explain why these substances are important to the future of mental health.
There is a stigma surrounding psychedelic drugs that some scientists and researchers argue is undeserved. Several experiments over the past decades have shown that, when used correctly, drugs like psilocybin and LSD can have positive effects on the lives of those take them. How they work is not completely understood, but the empirical evidence shows promise in the fields of curbing depression, anxiety, obsession, and even addiction to other substances.
"There's a tremendous amount of insight that can be plumbed using these various substances. There's also a lot of risks there, as with most valuable things," says artificial intelligence researcher Ben Goertzel. He and others believe that by making psychedelics illegal, modern governments are getting in the way of meaningful research and the development of "cultural institutions to guide people in really productive use of these substances."
Read Michael Pollen's book "How to Change Your Mind: What the New Science of Psychedelics Teaches Us About Consciousness, Dying, Addiction, Depression, and Transcendence" at amzn.to/2IBvjS6
----------------------------------------------------------------------------------
TRANSCRIPT:
MICHAEL POLLAN: How do these psychedelics work? Well, the honest answer is we don't entirely know, but we know a few things. One is they fit a certain receptor site: the serotonin 5-HT2A receptor. And they look a lot like serotonin if you look at the molecular models of them and, in fact, LSD fits that receptor site even better than serotonin does and it stays there longer. And that's why the LSD trip can last 12 hours. What happens after that we don't really know. It's an agonist to that receptor. So it increases its activity. And this, you know the neuroscientists say lead to a cascade of effects which is shorthand for don't really know what happens next. But one thing we do know, or we think we know, is that it appears that one particular brain network is deactivated or quieted. And that is the default mode network. This was discovered not very long ago by a researcher in England named Robin Carhart-Harris who was dosing people with psilocybin and LSD and then sliding them into an MRI machine, to take an FMRI a functional magnetic resonance image. The expectation I think was that people would see an excitation of many different networks in the brain. You know, that's what the kind of mental fireworks sort of foretold, but he was very surprised to discover that one particular network was down-regulated and that was this default mode network.
So what is that? Well, it's a tightly linked set of structures connecting the prefrontal cortex to the posterior cingulate cortex, to the deeper older centers of emotion and memory. It appears to be involved in things like self-reflection, theory of mind, the ability to impute mental states to others, mental time travel, the ability to project forward in time and back, which is central to creating an identity, right? You don't have an identity without a memory and the so-called autobiographical memory, the function by which we construct the story of who we are by taking the things that happened to us and folding them into that narrative. And that appears to take place in the posterior cingulate cortex. So, you know, to the extent the ego can be said to have a location in the brain it appears to be this, the default mode network. It's active when you're doing nothing. When your mind is wandering. It can be very self-critical, it's where self-talk takes place. And that goes quiet. And when that goes quiet, the brain is sort of as one of the neuroscientists put it, let off the leash, because those ego functions, that self idea is a regulator of all mental activity and kind of, you know, the brain is a hierarchical system and the default mode network appears to be at the top. It's kind of the orchestra conductor or corporate executive. And you take that out of the picture, and suddenly you have this uprising from other parts of the brain and you have networks that don't ordinarily communicate with one another suddenly striking up...
To read the full transcript, please go to bigthink.com/videos/how-do-psychedelics-work
All Comments (21)
-
Would you try therapeutic psychedelics?
-
Psilocybin mushrooms saved my life honestly. They helped me see the pure beauty in life, and made me realize how dumb it would be to take myself out.
-
Psychedelics have the ability to induce profound altered states of consciousness.
-
Mushrooms saved my life. After Afghanistan I was diagnosed 100% disabled with PTSD and a traumatic brain injury. I had a very spiritual shift and saw life in a meaningful way again.
-
I started drinking alcohol since my teenage. Spent my whole life fighting alcohol addiction. Also suffered severe depression and mental disorder. Not until my wife recommended me to psilocybin mushrooms treatment. Psilocybin treatment saved my life honestly. 8 years totally clean. Never thought I would be saying this about mushrooms.
-
Psychedelic mushrooms really healed me years back. Totally got rid of depression, anxiety and illicit pill addiction. I’ve been looking to try some recently but I can’t find anywhere to source.
-
I can’t imagine being stuck in an MRI while tripping off shrooms
-
shrooms truly helped me realize that i’m simply loved by the universe. it felt like i was being taught such an important lesson by a parent/mentor. before doing shrooms, it was so hard for me to see that i always had people around me that cared. after two trips i started to actually clean my room and keep it clean for the first time in 4 years. this was a huge step for me thanks to psychedelics.
-
Phsychedelics helped me quit illicit pills addiction, I was messed up I was depressed and a danger to myself. Good videos and help like this should be seen always.
-
did acid once. has been much easier to see the beauty inherent in nature ever since.
-
Psychedelics saved me from years of uncontrollable depression, anxiety and illicit pill addiction. Imagine carrying heavy chains for over a decade and then all of a sudden that burden is gone. Believe it or not in a couple years they'll be all over for treatment of mental health related issues.
-
I've always had alcohol addiction until I came across psychedelics, it’s been life changing
-
Psilocybin mushrooms healed me . I can't explain it but my experience has been spiritual and eye opening . I also started micro dosing . It really helped me get rid of depression and anxiety . 0:05
-
After you take psychedelics you realize that you haven't been really living your life before that moment
-
The people I know of who use psychedelics are nicer and more open-minded people than the people who have never used psychedelics. Those who use the damaging alcohol drug are usually the ones who are close-minded and supercilious, and they tend to laugh at and ridicule those who moderately use magic mushrooms, LSD, DMT, and cannabis.
-
Despite promising research, there's no realistic timeline for when, or if, psilocybin will be approved by FDA.
-
1 Psilocybin containing mushroom saved my life. They drastically reduced my benzodiazepine withdrawal allowing me to quite illicit pill addiction after three years of heavy daily use before it would had become medically dangerous to quit. It has also helped me survive depression.
-
Microdosing has been exposing all the feelings that I been suppressing for years and years. It’s a bit overwhelming but I’m finally becoming more emotionally intelligent .
-
Psychedelic are the reason why I didn't take my life when I was at my end.i was stripped of my ego and saw the beauty of life and interconnectivity
-
If you are looking to treat symptoms of a mental health condition I'd recommend psychedelics.
