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February 17, 2023 124 mins

Tonight we sat down with Computational neurobiologist, pharmacologist, chemist, and author Dr. Andrew Gallimore. We will discuss his new book “Reality Switch Technologies” and all the latest psychedelic research and visionary experiments. We will also discuss DMT Entities and Machine Elves which seems to be a controversial topic of late.


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Transcript

Episode Transcript

Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
(00:07):
Welcome back to Mike and Maurice's might Escape.
Let us help you escape your mind.

(00:41):
All right folks. Welcome back to Mike Maurices
mind Escape. We have episode number 270 for
tonight. We have a special episode.
We are joined by our buddy. Dr. Andrew Gallimore.
His new book is out. It's called reality, switch
Technologies copy right here, just finished reading it about a
month ago and if you haven't checked out as first book, I

(01:03):
highly recommend it alien information Theory.
Nice hard book. These books are Actually not
just well written but they are, they have tons and tons of cool.
You know, there's artwork, there's dialogue your there's a
diagrams, there's all sorts of interesting stuff.

(01:24):
So check them out. I highly recommend it.
You can go to Andrews website atthe bottom alien insect.com and
you can buy the book there, you can go on Amazon but yeah I
highly recommend checking those out.
We have done a few episodes withAndrew previously you can check
Those episodes down below. We've also done a patreon, a

(01:45):
couple patreon segments with Andrews well, so you can check
out our patreon. It's just two dollars a month.
The link tree link is down below.
I want to give a special shout-out to Aubrey who created
us a new logo. As soon as we're done, I will
add the link to his stuff. He is a graphic designer and he
does all sorts of animation and stuff like that.

(02:06):
So show Aubrey some love. And if you need anything done in
that realm, check them out. What else do we have here?
Yeah, Leah's joining us tonight.Check out at Lea Prime on
Twitter. She also has a sub stack and
also check out Andrews sub stack.
I forgot. Please check out.
Andrew sub stack. I have the link down below as
well. Follow Shane on Twitter and all

(02:29):
the links are down below. If you want to support mind,
Escape we have a link tree. Our other podcasts the Roswell
UFO. Symposium, there's a link tree
and yeah, everything's done below.
So, but without further Do welcome back on the show.
Andrew, how are you? Thanks for having me again.
I'm pretty decent. Thank you very much, can't
complain. Yeah, so we were trying to set

(02:54):
this up about a month ago and then the holidays happen and
everything, but glad to have youback on and we're less than a
month away from the release of our documentary, which you are
actually a large part, in which,our documentary is called, as
within. So, without from UFOs, to DMT
the link to the trailers down below.

(03:15):
Oh, it will be premiering at theRoswell, UFO Expo and March, as
well as it will be featured at the Roswell incident film
festival in July. But the reason why I got you
involved with that, is because Iwanted to do something that had
a little bit of a crossover between the whole DMT

(03:35):
psychedelic, entity thing, and aliens and UFOs.
And I think that, obviously, your first book alien
information theory is a Great speculative guide on how we
would make contact with some sort of alien intelligence and
the mechanisms that would lead to that, right?
So but I want to talk about yourfirst or your second book that

(03:59):
just came out reality switch Technologies which I actually
liked even more because it was alittle bit more diverse, you
kind of go into more of the different compounds and the
mechanisms and everything like that was that the goal is to
just expound off of everything you already did with DMT or what
was the Background behind that. Yeah, I think well, I mean I've

(04:22):
read a lot of books on psychedelics over the years as
you can imagine. But and I've also developed, you
know, for myself, at least over the last 20 years, I developed
kind of a deep kind of a deep kind of understanding of what's
going on in the brain. This is kind of important to me

(04:42):
is trying to not just focus on the experience, the
phenomenology, which a lot of people try to just focus on
that. You know what, what actually
happens to you, which of course is amazing.
Right? With with DMT but I'm really
interested in trying to get it get in deep into the brain and
actually work out what's actually going on when this

(05:03):
simply simple molecules interactwith your nervous system.
Stem and they interact with these receptors in the brain.
How does that? That simple molecule protein
interaction, translate and elicit, these remarkable change
in Consciousness. So how do you bridge that gap

(05:25):
between molecule receptor interactions and changes in the
structure and dynamics of your world.
And and can we develop kind of aunified?
I love how that all works in thebrain and I think there's been
so much research over the last really, of the last decade and

(05:48):
built upon research. That's been going on for many
decades before that. But nobody had really put it all
together, so to speak in a way that a non-scientist could
understand. I mean, you can pour over
literature and kind of piece it together yourself.
But it took me, A decade or two to kind of achieve that.

(06:10):
So I wanted a book that I knew there was kind of a gap in the
market. This book didn't exist, you
know, that's why I wrote it. But that you could read and
develop a really deep understanding for what's
actually how these molecules actually work, you know,
everyone knows they interact with the 5-ht to a receptor,
right? But very few, people can tell
you why. When you stimulate that

(06:32):
particular receptor subtype, youget these dramatic changes in.
Structure and dynamics of Your World model of your, of your
consciousness of your experienceof self and of the world, that's
a difficult connection to make. And it involves several levels
of organization. You have to think about the

(06:53):
fundamental interactions going on at the receptor level.
You also need to think about howdoes this affect the way that
neurons behave, right? How the, how does it change the
way that neurons communicate with each other?
The way that they share information, how does that then
relate to the behavior of these large?

(07:14):
Networks of neurons from which your world model, your ex, your
own personal subjective? World is constructed.
So so yeah. So that's basically what I try
to do with the book is look at first of all, develop this
overall model of how your world is constructed.

(07:34):
So taking you through all of thefundamental neuroscience You
need to understand what's going on, just in your normal waking
world. You know, when you're not under
the influence of a psychedelic, and once you've kind of
established, that neurological underpinning, that foundational
level of understanding, then youcan ask questions.
Like, what happens? We perturb this system using

(07:57):
this type of molecule, and this particular pathway, how does
your world mobile change? So this takes us to the classic
psychedelics, for example, you're stimulating your
perturbing Is this systems Worldbuilding machinery as I refer to
it in a particular way and it leads to particular types of
effects and then we can also bring in other molecules like

(08:18):
ketamine or the tropane alkaloids and we can we can
perturb or Salvia noren. Yes!
This world-shattering molecule reality shattering astonishingly
psychedelic powerful World switching agent.
All of these molecules are unified in that they they all.
Perturb, this world building machinery in the brain, but each

(08:41):
in their own distinct way. They approach from a different
mechanism and she's why they have kind of distinct effects.
But we could all we can bring them all together as being kind
of psychedelic, which is a kind of Define as a molecule that
alters the structure and dynamics of your world and self

(09:01):
model if you like. So that's basically the idea of
book is to bring all of that, that whole Together.
So if you read the book, you will I think and read it slowly
it's not an easy read. As I'm sure you're aware but it
is it doesn't require you to be a scientist long.
As you've got kind of high school biology or if you willing

(09:25):
to spend a couple of hours, Googling a few basic fundamental
ideas in biology than you can, you can understand the book and
you will come away from it. I think with a really good deep
satisfying hope. Fully understanding of what
psyckadeli molecules do and why they do what they do and why
we're so fascinated by what theydo.

(09:47):
Yeah. You you said you know, you wrote
it for the average person. I'm just thinking to myself.
There's a I mean it is you know,you can get through it but I
think it took me being interested in like, okay, how
does the 5-ht to a receptors work in this process of
psychedelics and you know, the whole All serotonergic aspect of

(10:10):
it, you know, like it took me a while to get into that because
but once you are in on psychedelics I think if you're a
curious person, I think you do start to gravitate towards, well
what's happening biologically and then also, what what does
this mean in terms of like the nature of reality, right?
So I think that that's the big. The the main thing about your

(10:35):
book is you try and marry those two things together which would
B, I mean you're not you're not out there preaching some Theory
of Everything, But in the book like I said, you try and tie in
together. Okay.
You know, we know these compounds are some of them are
produced in our body. We know how these receptors
work, however, this, you know, this idea of mind and experience

(10:56):
and everything is very weird andbizarre does not align with our
standard model of physics as a material thing.
So yeah, that's probably what I enjoy most about this.
This is also like the diagrams and, you know, I think the new
one you go more into like the, the Gaba opioid and all of those
different receptors you mentioned Salvadoran.

(11:17):
And I think last time you were on, we went into a whole part
about the tro, pains and how youthink tro pains might induce
more of visions of things that aren't there as opposed to a
tryptamine which is almost just plain off of what we already
see. So the tropane thing might be a
little different in the sense you might actually be.

(11:38):
Seeing things that aren't there,which we can talk.
Yeah, propane's, they tend to elicit, what's called true
hallucinations, which are kind of indistinguishable.
So with with sup with trip, to mean induced Visions
hallucinations probably isn't even the right word, they're
normally you're normally very much aware that.
What you're seeing isn't not necessarily not real, but isn't

(12:02):
normal so to speak. You are you have you maintained
in sight? To use psychiatric parlance in
New York, you're fully aware that.
What you're seeing is not what you normally expect to see when
you when you're awake. The the the Visions kind of
announce themselves as no one's going to smoked DMT and think

(12:23):
not realize that they're having a psychedelic experience, right?
But with the tro pains, the tro pains are kind of a little bit
Sinister. They creep up on you, you lose
you lose that Insight, you entera kind of a dream Like State,
that's disconnected from the environment.
In some ways like you're in a waking dreams.

(12:46):
Are you see things? You can actually the Visions are
much more stable and often seemed perfectly lifelike and
perfectly. Real, you can find yourself
partying with 50 people in your bedroom for an hour or two.
And then suddenly, you have a Moment of clarity and awareness
and you realize that none of that ever happened.

(13:07):
Make the distinction of the maybe tryptamines allow you to
see more of like a superpositionstate or just something that's
more like the true nature of reality, versus let's say,
atropine as you're mentioning which could be like the
inspiration for people coming upwith the idea of like gods or

(13:28):
goddesses or metaphysical Realmsand things live.
Like that nature like things that aren't actually there as
opposed to like I said like a trip to be in which is
definitely playing off of what we are.
Like our pattern recognition andeverything like that?
Well, I what I try and do is I try and avoid getting into or
making ontological assertions about real, and not real.

(13:51):
In terms of the experience, I think this is a trap that many
people fall into, is to say that, the normal waking world is
real and anything that diverges from that model of your that,
Version of reality is unreal butthat mistake for a number of

(14:12):
reasons. Firstly, the world that you
experience is, I always say the world.
You experience is always this this model that's being
constructed by your brain. So in a sense, all experienced
world's, whatever their nature, whether they are normal Waking
Life, kind of adaptive models ofthe environment or not, they're

(14:33):
all made of the same stuff, they're all made fundamental.
They are constructed as patternsof neural activity unified
patterns of neural activity which for reasons.
We don't really understand how this quality of subjectivity.
There's something it's like to experience something.
It's like to exist Within These world but these worlds are

(14:55):
always built by the brain. And when you take a psychedelic
what's happening is this world model that's being constructed
by your your cortex is changing.The model is changing.
Being. That doesn't mean that the model
is wrong or is untrue, or is more true or, you know, I always

(15:18):
sidestep questions about whetherwe're seeing true reality.
I don't think we really have access.
We don't really have access to the true nature of the the
external environment or whateverthat might be, whether there
really isn't any external environment in these are all
kind of deep philosophical. Optical questions but I think

(15:39):
you can get. You can tie yourself in knots.
If you try and make a sharp distinction between the real
world or the true world and hallucinatory World,
hallucinations really are a non adaptive perceptions, they are
versions of Your World model that perhaps are not adaptive.

(16:01):
They don't possess immediate survival Advantage whereas the
normal waking world. Does it allows you to navigate
and to survive and to reproduce What, You Know, in whatever that
there is out there? You know, whatever the
environment really is. We don't really know what the
external world is truly. Like all we do is we have this

(16:27):
model that is somehow marked using sensory information to the
environment and it works. It's a functional model.
Yeah I was kind of just I was kind of just referencing almost
like Donald Hoffman's case against reality style, playing
in with the Psychedelic stuff. That's kind of just what I was
going getting. Yeah, I know.

(16:47):
I mean I'm a big fan of going Hoffman, I'm not, I've been
reading, I would say, I knew himbefore he was famous.
So to speak. I am reading is taken or yeah.
So it's kind of annoying. Everyone's everyone's into
Hoffman, never heard of, have you read Donald Hoffman's books?
Yeah, of course, I read his book, you know.
So like decades ago, Go. When he when he was riding

(17:08):
obscure papers when he's kind offermenting these ideas that have
become more mainstream. Now, it really struck me as
being a really powerful way of viewing.
The world in that, the model is not.
The brain has no yardstick by which to measure the measure,

(17:30):
the truth of its model. And it might not even want to
build true models of the environment.
All it wants to do. It can do is build a model that
is functional, that is adaptive.That's the only thing, you know,
this is the select pressure is to build a model that works and
the Brain can never know whetherit's somehow an accurate or
precise model of the environment.

(17:52):
So that's a really powerful way of thinking about psychedelics,
as well. Avoids, you having to really get
into these horrible. Kind of ontological questions of
is it real? Or is it not real?
Because then you have to start asking Well, what do you mean by
real or not? Real.
I mean, the experience is real, you know, when you are, you

(18:16):
know, when you're at the peak ofthe DMT trip, you are
experiencing that, that is as real as it is.
When you're in the normal wakingworld, it's built from the same
stuff. It's an astonishingly different.
Remarkably different kind of experienced world, but it's
built from the same stuff as your normal waking world.

(18:38):
So in, so in the book really, what I try to do is focus on
that model. How is that model?
Constructed house? That model changed?
Whilst avoiding getting into questions about our the machine
elves conscious or do they continue to exist after the trip
ends? Were they there before waiting
for you? He's really cool questions and I

(18:59):
don't have definitive answers tothem.
Unlike some people do. You know, as we have we've
learned in the last two weeks. Some people have very - they're
very - the beef, that how line Bwill get to this, to the beef?
Incredible Andrew. First of all, I'm so delighted
to speak with you, partly, because I've loved and very much

(19:22):
been inspired by your work and also let a reading group.
We just finished alien information Theory at the end of
January. One of the things I'm really
curious to hear your thoughts onand I have read your sub stack
but love to hear them in real time as well.
I'm ketamine. Now obviously ketamine has
gotten an enormous amount of attention recently, particularly

(19:43):
in America where it's increasingly being used and
provided and prescribed for off-label psychiatric use.
This is the idea that it can assist with anxiety PTSD
complex. Trauma, depression, Etc.
I'm very curious to hear your thoughts on the uptick in this
use and then also, if you could talk a little bit about how it

(20:05):
differs from the a classical psychedelics, like psilocybin or
LSD, Yeah, I mean I'm I'm a I'm kind of a big fan of ketamine.
I think it's a very interesting molecule there is, I mean, there
is a queue. Yeah, it's it's complicated and

(20:29):
that's what's kind of beautiful about ketamine is, it's not a
simple molecule. I mean structurally, it's not
that complicated, but I mean, interms of its effect, it has a,
it seems to have these kind of Otto's of effects at low doses,
it tends to be more psychedelic.Like I would call it an atypical

(20:50):
dissociative psychedelic, something like that and maybe
some people don't like to call it.
Psychedelic people complains, it's not a psychedelic.
Well I think it is at low doses.Certainly the, the changes in
neural activity that you that are observed after someone takes
a low dose of ketamine. Women are very similar to what

(21:12):
you see with the classic psychedelics.
So you see this disrupt World model, the world model becomes
more fluid and more Dynamic lesspredictable.
These are the kind of effects wesee with the classic
psychedelics as well but but through an entirely different

(21:34):
mechanism to what you get with the classic psychedelics.
So here you looking so classic psychedelics.
Are these 5-ht to Organist, partial Agonist and they affect
the stimulating, certain deep layers of the cortex.
And this is how they kind of disrupt this world model.
Whereas the the roads ketamine works by acting at the

(21:55):
completely different receptor, type the glutamate nmda
receptor, which he doesn't activate it, actually blocks and
this leads to some quite complexeffects.
These nmda receptors are found In well, most types of neurons
really but they're found in populations of excitatory

(22:19):
neurons. So these are the neurons that
are kind of activating each other and stimulating activity
in the cortex. But they're also found in
inhibitory neurons which are these dense networks of neurons
that sit between the excitatory neurons and kind of rain in
neural activity. So you have this push-pull

(22:39):
effect this balance Brain has tomaintain called the EI balance
the excitation inhibition balance and that's important to
maintain a kind of a good level to maintain control over your
neural activity. And so ketamine is actually
affecting both of these. It's affecting nmda blocking

(22:59):
nmda receptors on both excitatory and inhibitory
neurons now. So, so, so what happens it?
Low doses is it? Mainly affect these inhibitory
interneurons. So it stops these inhibitory
neurons from working properly. So it stops the inhibitory

(23:21):
neurons inhibiting. The excitatory neurons you get
an increase in neural activity. It's like a two negatives
equals. A positive is a good way to
yeah. Your it's disinhibition.
So when you give someone a low dose of ketamine, you see an
increase in neural activity? You see?
See, you see very similar kind of behavior in the brain that

(23:43):
you see. With, with the classic
psychedelics, you get a more flexible and dynamic and less
predictable World model. And you also get an increase in
sensitivity to sensory information can as well.
So this is kind of like psychedelic so I would call it a
kind of a psychedelic. However, what's More complex

(24:07):
about ketamine is when you startto push to the higher doses.
So once you slip past the kind of psychedelic levels, you
actually start to inhibit these excitatory neurons themselves by
inhibiting. The nmda receptors on those
neurons. So then you get this strange

(24:27):
kind of cortical activity, whereyou have the inhibitory neurons
are being inhibited and I took three new being inhibited.
B 2. And you get this strange kind of
emergent activity of the cortex where it it shift kind of
pulses, back and forth between avery inhibited anesthetized

(24:50):
almost state where you are. Basically, from the earth, this
would be what you would call a dissociative state or
dissociative anesthetic state but then it flips back every few
seconds to a very high Activity States High complexity state,

(25:11):
which is similar to a psychedelic state.
So it's kind of you kind of doing this, come forth back and
forth. And then you type of neural
activity, kind of unique patterntype of emergent neural
activity, which is probably responsible for the kind of a
k-hole effect. When you go kind of a little bit

(25:31):
too deep, it seems to be quite anarrow threshold between The
Psychedelic effects and these more dissociative and nice the
ties defect. So so yeah.
So ketamine is it's in many ways.
It's kind of messy in that. It does have these plateaus That
You Don't See with, with the, with the classic psychedelics.

(25:55):
Yeah. Does that answer your question?
Yep, that was a wonderful thorough question.
The second part was more of a personal inquiry into your views
on the uptick in its applicationfor psychiatric purposes. yeah,

(26:15):
I mean, I don't You can occur inmy work, my research, I don't
Focus too much on the clinical side of things but what the good
thing about ketamine is we know that it is, it's fairly short
acting. So you can, it's not like with

(26:36):
if you give somebody psilocybin or LSD where you have to deal
with this for for several hours,has its own benefits and being
being able to go kind of deep with ketamine.
When you have, you have much more control over that, it seems
to be, you know, you can controlthe levels of the experience

(26:57):
much better than you can with with the classic psychedelics.
It's also has a gain similar academic.
There is good evidence for neuroplasticity effects, positive,
neuroplasticity effects, as well.
So it might actually be changingthe fundamental Connections in

(27:19):
Brain with use in terms of the, the antidepressant effects of
ketamine. That's it.
That's definitely real rapid antidepressant, effect, much
quicker than you get with kind of classic, antidepressant
drugs, such as the, the ssris, like Prozac for example, where

(27:41):
you have this delay of, you know, two to three weeks before
you start to or even longer before.
You actually start to see the benefit with ketamine.
It seems to be very fast-acting that I don't think that's
actually well understood and actually to, to the point.
So, ssris, if you if you're taking ssris, people can still

(28:05):
do ketamine therapy because there's no interaction there.
Correct. That's good point.
Yeah. So with with ssris what seems to
be happening? I remember, maybe a few months
ago, there was a paper. A lot of attention about the
serotonin hypothesis of depression, I think?

(28:26):
Yeah. And I think a lot of people
misunderstood or a lot of peoplemisunderstand the serotonin
hypothesis or understand once ssris are actually supposed to
be doing. People thought that the idea was
that they are raising your serotonin levels, right?
That the reason you're depressed, because your
serotonin levels are too low, that is, he's probably not

(28:48):
correct. And if that were the cause of
your depression, then you shouldact reasonably your depression
to be ameliorated and levels of depression reduced, just a few
hours after taking the drug, right as the levels of
Serotonin, actually rise very quickly, but the antidepressant

(29:08):
effect takes longer to materialize.
And that's because it requires achange in that the expression of
certain receptors. So over time by increasing
levels of Serotonin, your brain kind of adjusts and changes, the
expression of various receptors.And that is probably what's

(29:29):
responsible for the antidepressant effects of ssris.
It's not that it's just increasing serotonin.
I mean, I've taken them before for my OCD, they definitely had
a positive effect. It's not like, they don't work,
you know, like there's this idea.
Like you mentioned this myth that's like, oh, just And
abandon that for this or they were wrong the whole time.

(29:51):
Like I don't necessarily think that's the case, but it's like
for like OCD specifically. Yeah, I don't think it's a
chemical imbalance thing. It's more of like a yeah,
thought Loops that get embedded over time that you.
They're just bad. Bad thinking habits.
If you will or or I don't know how to explain it.

(30:11):
I've written, I've written this out before when I had these
moments or like epiphanies and Altered States of what's
actually going on. Of my own head.
But yeah, it seems to be these thought patterns or thought
Loops that become kind of on a, you know, turn around and they
just keep playing over and over and over.
And it's up to you the person who has the OCD or the

(30:32):
compulsive thinking or whatever to break out of that.
It's not it's not about for my understanding.
And like I said doing my own research and looking in my own
mind, I don't believe it's it's a chemical thing and I'm not
saying that impression thing is in But yeah, I think that that
was the myth for a long time. It's like when I remember when I

(30:53):
first found out, I had it in my mid-20s.
So we're talking 15 years ago. Oh, take this, this will make
you feel better and then I endedup taking eight different ssris
and none of them worked. And we're still trying to figure
out like, what's going on. Well, it wasn't about the
medicine, it's about the CBT, the therapy, the ability to get
outside of yourself. So, yeah, I mean, I would, I
would agree with you two on whatyou're saying about the ssris

(31:15):
because they do have a positive effect but I mean to what level?
I don't know. Yeah, I think you know the brain
is very it's a plastic in that it can it can change.
You can certain patterns of neural activity can become
almost like habitual in that they are strength.

(31:36):
The more that certain pathways are used the more the stronger
they become so this applies to learning to play the piano right
eventually over time those neural Pathways that control
these complex muscular Motor patterns become more embedded
in. You can play the piano very
quickly, almost unconsciously and unfortunately, that can also

(32:01):
apply to ways of thinking ways of thinking about yourself
perception. And if you get yourself into a,
this negative thinking these Loops of negative thoughts about
yourself and of your life, and that can become kind of
ingrained if you like I think a ball of yarn is actually a good

(32:22):
analogy. That's what I've written down
before, like a bug, like, it just kidding.
If it gets down towards the middle of that ball of yarn,
that's going to be a tough time,getting that thing, untangled,
you know, exactly. And so, this is what we think.
Anyway, well them kind of the prevailing hypothesis about what
psychedelics are doing, is they're loosening up.
They are kind of the make it's light.
It's like, if you've got a pieceof glass, right?

(32:46):
And it's in a very, very rigid and it's in a particular shape,
but if you heat that That glass up.
It becomes kind of more kind of plastic and fluid.
And then you can kind of readjust it into a new shape and
then as it cools, it will set into that new shape.
So, the idea is you're, you're bringing the brain, the cortex

(33:06):
into this kind of hot state where it's much more fluid and
much more Dynamic, these ingrained patterns of
connectivity become loosened, and you can start to establish
new patterns of more positive patterns of connectivity.
So, this is why. The psychotherapeutic side of it
in the the psychotherapeutic support that comes with the

(33:29):
Psychedelic therapy is, is important.
The allows you to establish morepositive to break out of the old
ways of thinking loosened up by psychedelics and then establish
more positive patterns. And then as the Psychedelic
wears off, hopefully those more positive patterns will become
ingrained. So that's kind of the prevailing
wisdom. Their house have had the class

(33:51):
Asik psychedelics work. Now, with ketamine, I think it's
you can imagine something similar, but there seems to be
much more rapid clinical effect in just with intranasal ketamine
without undergoing. A full-blown psychedelic or
dissociative? And Isa ties experience, you can
get these very rapid antidepressant effects of

(34:12):
ketamine, so there's still a lot, we don't understand, you
know, I'm by far from an expert on the, the etiology of
depression. It's certainly true that there's
a lot, we don't understand aboutthe mechanisms of depression
there. It's almost certainly it's
multifactorial. There's a lot of things going on
in the brain that causes depression and there's certainly

(34:34):
a number of ways that you can you can you can manipulate that
system and kind of break it out of those those negative patterns
and kind of rearrange your brain.
So to speak rearrange, those patterns of thought so I think
yeah ketamine is just another tool alongside.
By the classic psychedelics you know a very safe fast-acting

(34:58):
tool. That doesn't need to be taken
every day for the rest of your life.
Please seems to somehow get at the root cause I think the
problem with a lot of psychiatric medication is that
they are treating the symptoms. They're making, you feel better
than might be. Elevating your mood temporarily,
but whether or not they're actually dealing with the

(35:19):
fundamental issue deep down. Down in those that complex
pattern of neural connectivity is it is a different question
entirely and I think psychedelics are probably the
closest we've got in this or last century really to a tool
that can actually start to deal with the fundamental cause the

(35:43):
fundamental source of depression.
Yeah no I good point actually save my actually my daughter
actually works at a clinic that does ketamine therapy as well to
my wife would murder me if I didn't say that and actually I
had a question to no, go ahead, go ahead.

(36:04):
Okay, I don't know a lot about this stuff.
I'm new to it and it's importantto me because I'm a combat
veteran PTSD. So my question is actually, what
importance do you think ketaminetherapy is for people with like
Trauma related, mental health issues.
Is it disassociation of important?
Part of that? That's a good question but I
can't give you a definitive answer that but you can imagine

(36:27):
with with post-traumatic stress.You've got a similar, it's a
different type of ingrained neural activity.
Right with depression. It's about you know - thinking
about yourself whatever right. Whereas with PTSD can imagine
that as being a different it's directed somewhere else.
It's Due to the trauma, you know, reliving the trauma and,

(36:50):
and experiencing the, the, the, the negative emotional response
to that trauma. But again, you can think about
this is an ingrained pattern. The brain learns things.
Very, very well remembers thingsand attaches emotional effect to
experiences. So, you know, that's obviously

(37:13):
very important in our evolution.Is that we associate I ate the
bad things that happen to us, all good things, but
particularly bad things that happen to us, the brain will
attach emotions to them, which is obviously important in the
future. Then if you encounter that same
kind of situation again, you canremember how bad it was and how

(37:35):
he you need to avoid it. And that's obviously very, very
useful. If you want to avoid Predators
for example, or you want to avoid the same kind of
situations that got you in trouble, a lot Fine, it's good
to attach a negative emotion to that.
Do you think that about ESD though because he was in the
war? Do you think that living every

(37:56):
day through like shellings? And that that that anxiety and
fear every single day you're like creating that - Pathak or
pathway or whatever we're talking about and then when they
come when when veterans come home they're so used to being
that. I'm that alert awareness level,
maybe they're a big tool has gone crazy or maybe something

(38:18):
else but you know something likeyeah, yeah, precisely and I'm
the brain will also there also be kind of adaptive responses to
that that the brain will up, youknow, attempt to reset if you
like or readjust its level, so to speak.
So there's I think there's a lotof very complicated neural

(38:39):
Behavior going on deep in the brain and so trying to get at
that and and deal with it. And kind of reset the brain and
bring it back to a more stable and well-adjusted state.
I think is is very difficult particularly because these
patterns can become so ingrained.

(39:00):
So what's great about psychedelics?
As you can kind of loosen the whole system up, make it much
more plastic and fluid. So, you can actually start to
work with it more. Just like eating a piece of
glass. You can then start to, as I
said, adjust it. So I think there's it's not Not
easy. There's no, it's not.
Like you have a psychedelic experience, you're suddenly

(39:21):
going to be cured from PTSD, or from depression or anxiety or
whatever, but it brings you intoa kind of primed state it,
Prime's your brain for these kind of adjustments, these kind
of resetting mechanisms these valuable in that way.
So you definitely need the the experienced clinicians There as

(39:47):
well. I think to really get the most
of psychedelics. Awesome.
We got a couple questions from people, one from our buddy.
Kevin churko who's also a fan ofyours.
He said he wouldn't be able to check in live but he wanted to
know regarding the audio that you know the obviously of a

(40:09):
visual component of the DMT experience but what about the
audio component? And he's wondering what the
hell's making those. If this is all part of the
visual cortex. What's making all those sounds
and synth sounds and delays. And he wanted to know how can
you download those? Yeah, yeah, I mean this is a so

(40:29):
obviously, with, with things like DMT, it is the visual
aspect that people are most interested in in, right?
But but it definitely, there is particularly at the the
beginning of the trip before youbecome overwhelmed with the
visual, there's often a particular kind of its kind of
can't describe it like the high-pitch, ringing.

(40:51):
Yeah, yeah, that kind of thing. So so obviously whilst the the
visual cortex is primarily affected here.
There you have, your visual cortex has kind of sitting at
the back of your brain, your theauditory cortices are kind of
aside, and then at the top you will you have where a lot of

(41:14):
these Sensations are kind of brought together and unified, so
So it's certainly not the case. That DMT is only affecting the
the the visual cortices. There's no reason why it
wouldn't also affect the orderedrecourse is to some degree.
And in fact a lot of what we don't understand is why why is

(41:39):
the DMT such a visual experiencefor example?
Whereas die, diisopropyl tryptamine, I think it is I
forget what was it? High-profile trip to me, but one
of them but very closely. Remote related molecule, is
primarily auditory. So here you get the kind of a
drop in the, like the your auditory system is drop down an

(42:05):
octave, everything becomes much lower and slower so it's an
auditory hallucination. If you like some hallucinogens,
I think it's maybe mono. Methyl tryptamine This is like
DMT, but with one of those methyl groups on the nitrogen
removed, this is kind of a facial hallucinogen so it's

(42:30):
visual but not in the normal. Not in that, you actually see
Visions. But your perception of space
space is altered and we don't really understand why.
That is the case. People have thought about it
looked at the kind of the neuralactivation signatures and how it

(42:51):
Affects gene expression in different parts of the brain and
that kind of thing. But I don't think there's a
clear answer actually. Yeah.
As to why the visual aspects aremuch much more prominent than
the the auditory aspects and whycertain molecules might actually
flip that and give it give a more auditory experience.

(43:11):
But you know the your experienceof a world is multi-sensory.
You are you obviously experiencewe are primarily visual
Teachers. So, the vision our vision is by
far, our most important sense, but of course, the experience

(43:33):
the subjective World also has anauditory component and this can
be affected by by psychedelics as well, but I think, I guess
with DMT. You're so overwhelmed with the
the visual aspect. I don't think many people focus.
Focus that much on the auditory aspect.

(43:53):
When you read trip reports beginning of the experience,
people often describe the stone but thanks to your into that.
Once you kind of breakthrough and you're into this bizarre
hyperdimensional world. The people don't send tend to
report so much on the auditory aspects.
I think what you need is a really good study that focused

(44:15):
on the auditory aspect and says,forget about what you saw, if
you can and try, Focus on what you hear because that I think
that that would be a. It's a largely unexplored Avenue
of research is what's going on with the auditory and how the
kind of language is that these machine elves might be speaking

(44:37):
and kind of thing, I think it's a cool thing to think about.
I just don't think we have much understanding of the order of
few aspects of the Psychedelic experience to be honest just
Soon we've got another question from fig you or figure who does
your cause us? We grid Theory.

(45:00):
Necessitate a first cause God oran unmoved mover I'm not sure.
I can even pass that first callsgod.
Well, I mean, he's talking aboutwhat did he call it?
What kind of grid did he call it?
Cause us, we sui grid Theory. Okay, is this Latin?

(45:27):
Is it? Sounds like a philosopher.
Yeah. Writing in these Latin terms
here. Well I mean in Alien information
Theory I posit and again this isnot my world view, I don't
believe this to be necessarily the case but I posit the idea of
some Advanced hyper intelligencethat constructed this code from

(45:52):
which our lower dimensional, slice emerged.
So I think it It could go both ways.
I don't think it requires necessarily, I mean, you your
kind of faced with the same problem in explaining the DMT
worlds or with my model, the DMTworlds.

(46:13):
As you are, as any person is trying to make sense of our
existence, it's easy to kind of hand the problem to an
omniscient and omnipotent and omnipresent being that created.
Tool. It's like panspermia you could
say panspermia is where we came from but it doesn't ultimately

(46:34):
answer the question. Where does life right?
You just pushing it back. Yeah, we panspermia pushing it
back to another. So what can we can't solve the
problem of abiogenesis? You know, the construction of
biology or the emergence of biology from non biological
system on Earth. So we'll just say that it came
from somewhere else but then youfaced with the same problem but

(46:54):
you've pushed it away successfully to a different
planet, which might It might that might help you in some
ways. It might help you by might buy
you some time if you don't thinkthat life could have emerged on
this Earth within the time, constraints, when life would
have been, if would have been habitable to living organisms,

(47:14):
that might help them, but it doesn't get you to the root of
the issue of where we're living organisms emerge from in the
first place. And I think it's the same kind
of thing that we're doing here. Is that we could say, okay.
That was some God. We can call it God, we can call
it some alien super intelligencethat existed long before our

(47:37):
universe emerged. But I don't think we're any
happier. Having said that, the, I think
we're still faced with or where did that God come from, and what
is our relationship to that? So I think these are really
fascinating things to think about, I don't rule out the idea
that we might the owl Universe might.

(47:58):
It needs cool think it's also kind of terrifying, right?
The idea that our universe emerged was programmed by some
astonishingly intelligent superpowers very, very old
extremely Advanced beer GPT that's who created.

(48:21):
Well there you go, right? I mean, we're getting hints at a
kind of a kind of intelligence, right.
Role does mid-journey art. Well, that that's kind of it,
you know, Terrance McKenna did say, you know, we are embedded
in some kind of work of art, that's what I quote in Alien
information Theory. And I think you get that sense.

(48:42):
When you, when you use DMT, you you you are confronted with what
appears to be in an undeniable intelligence of unrecognizable
power. That it is.
It's easy to say, okay, this must be God.
I don't think necessarily must be God, but there is a real

(49:03):
sense that you're dealing with something that is so
intelligent. That is so Advanced.
So there's so Way Beyond anything that we could conceive
of existing anything you could have imagined of existing before
you, you smoke the drug before you take them, the medicine.

(49:23):
So to speak that, that in itselfis is why DMT is so horrifying
and appalling is that you are, you're confronted with something
that is that just shakes your fundamental Aunt ontological
foundations, right? That we exist that we are the

(49:46):
highest intelligence at least within our corner of the Milky
Way and that we do sit at the Pinnacle of what intelligence
looks like. And then to be confronted with
an intelligence that is orders of magnitude Way Beyond anything
that our little human brain could ever dream of is, is

(50:07):
horrifying You know what to do with that intelligence?
You could just cast it as a god figure, if you are you can say,
okay, this is the all loving Creator.
Our Lord and savior or whatever that might make you feel better.
But I don't think there's any real reason to believe that.
I think it's just as likely thatwe're taught that we're dealing

(50:30):
with an intelligence that emerged somewhere emerged, in
some other orthogonal dimension in some orthogonal reality in
some other place that has the reasons.
We don't really understand has this deep connection to our
reality that we are this very, very thin slice of this much

(50:54):
larger and much richer, and muchmore complex structure within
which these much older and more advanced intelligences have
emerged. I don't think there's anything
Whoo-wee or mystical or even that far out or wild about that
idea that there are other placeswithin which much high levels of

(51:17):
intelligence could have emerged.I mean, even if it was, who
gives a shit? Because we don't even know why
we're here, right? This is weird.
We're having this conversation through technology.
Who are you? What am I?
You know, like the fact that people don't even think about
that on a day-to-day basis is the most bizarre thing of all to
me is that People go through life is a cog in the machine and

(51:39):
don't even think twice. And yet, you know, there's a
small portion of society like usyou know whether we're nerds or
scientists or whatever. We're all thinking about the
stuff constantly. So I you know to the people that
think that weird or you know wooor whatever.
Who cares back off and what I agree?
I mean yeah I who cares at all and I certainly don't and yes we

(52:03):
are we we become Exist within a little prosaic bubble and assume
that this is what this is what reality is, right?
This is just our little but we everyone knows that we were just
us this small green blue dot in a very very small corner of a
vast universe that in itself makes us not insignificant

(52:28):
necessarily but makes us very very, very very small part of
the full picture. Then if you add on, On the
possibility of other places. Other universe is other
dimensions of reality that we just have.
No, we have no conception of what I described in one of my

(52:48):
lectures recently. It's like if you were a
character within a 1990s, computer game or something,
right? And that reality would be the
way that reality is in laws of physics that we The rule in that
would be the way that you assumed reality was, you would,

(53:12):
you would have no conception of the fact that you were being
programmed with, you know, by you that you are being
programmed by some inconceivableintelligence outside of the
game, that was controlling the physics yet to us, that seems

(53:33):
perfectly. Obvious, right?
Yeah, you write some code and you can control.
You can build the simulated World in 2 hours.
It's kind of a relatively SimpleThing, any particularly Savvy
fifteen-year-old now could probably, you know he's good
with computers probably code. Some kind of simple game control

(53:55):
the physic, you know, some kind of basic physics engine to as
it's not difficult. So if you try and imagine us as
being within that system, We arepart of them, quite a relic.
What we appears to us, to be a kind of a complex game if you
like and we have no idea, we have no way of conceiving what

(54:17):
might be out there. What might actually be
influencing Us in the same way that we might need can change a
line of code and you can alter the fundamental physics of this
little universe that you're running on your laptop.
The the character in the game would have no way.
Way of conceiving, how that could possibly work?

(54:39):
It would be on, it would be beyond their imagination, it
would be on the Stranger than they can suppose, right?
So I think that's the way to think about it is imagine us
being within that, not, I'm not saying that this is a simulation
by the way. I'm not saying that, but it's
that kind of relationship. If you like in that we have we

(55:01):
simply have no idea. It's what is going on.
Side about little prosaic reality and we can't make any
judgments about the relationshipbetween our reality.
And that reality, whether it is a programmer programmed, kind of
relationship or something very different.
We simply don't know, which is why I always say when you are,

(55:22):
when you are, when you're confronted with an apparent and
extensible alien hyper intelligence in the DMT space,
you need to be very careful because they could, well be
exactly who they say they are. They might not be, they might
really just be wild Fabricationsof the cortex, but I think we
have to be very careful about dismissing these things.

(55:45):
As me, a hallucination when theyhave qualities, that would argue
against that, I think we could really be dealing with something
that is truly beyond our, our ability to conceive.
And I think that in itself is a almost That where we might be

(56:06):
able to actually interface with such a profound Advanced and
old, and astonishingly sophisticated intelligence like
that. So I think, yeah, we yeah, yeah,
yeah, yeah, we act. We have, we have to be careful
about just believing those that would say, oh, actually

(56:30):
Neuroscience tells you, it's just a loose ination, your brain
is amazing. It can do amazing things.
Things, you know, this kind of promissory science of, you know,
we can't really explain everything yet, but don't worry.
We will here. And it's like, it's boring to,
like, to to anticipate. That science is just going to
answer everything. At some point, is that's the
bubbles bogus way out. And I hate that, and you'll see

(56:53):
a lot of that in a lot of the humanities.
Because obviously with empiricalscience, you have a better
understanding of the metaphysicsof those fields, you know, No.
But within the humanities it's alot more speculative and there's
a lot less evidence so I know Leah maybe wanted to ask a
question. Go ahead Lee.

(57:14):
Yeah so my next question kind ofrides the coattails of what you
were just talking about around belief and I was wondering if
you could speak a little bit about how your beliefs on DMT
particularly may have changed over time.
I don't have the chance. I think they've matured That

(57:39):
they've matured in that good. I'm Les.
I'm I'm still as confounded by DMT, as I was when I first
smoked it, 20, 20 years ago. Maybe I still don't feel that.
We've gotten to the bottom of it.

(58:00):
I think we're stuck with. We're kind of, we're still
scratching the surface. I think of what DMT means and I
think we're now there's no way yet whilst we understand a lot
more about what's actually goingon in the brain.
That's what I kind of focused onin the last decade or so is was

(58:23):
actually going on in the brain. How is our world model changed
when you when you smoked DMT think that's one Avenue of
thinking. But in terms of the deontology,
These beings really are whether really we really are dealing
with intelligent conscious beings that exist from their own

(58:47):
side, that are just as unable todeny their existence as we are
unable to deny hours. I don't wear in a position to
make any kind of judgment. I try and keep this middle
ground. This agnostic.
No I mean as I said an elf agnostic I think soon as you put
yourself. Whoa.

(59:07):
That's what got me in trouble, bro.
That's what got you in trouble. Okay, agnostic.
Yeah, but with Terrence said, what would times K?
Well, I think Terrence well, despite what?
He might have said. I think he was also an elf
agnostic actually from what he was talking about.
He now it was never made ticular.

(59:29):
Assertions about what he speculated about what we could
be dealing with. But I think as soon as You place
yourself into one camp or another.
You say, okay? This is just a loser nation is
your brain, making it up. Bloody bloody blah or if you go
to the other day this is definitely.
These are definitely demons or these are definitely plant

(59:52):
Spirits or these are definitely Jin's or I don't know, right?
What some of the creature of thenetherworlds.
Once you do that, once you placeyourself in either Camp, then
well, where do you go? From there, you've already made
it your mind, right? You already know the truth.
So what's the point in having a discussion?

(01:00:14):
I always try to tread that middle ground of agnosticism,
where I don't claim that we are dealing with, actual autonomous,
conscious intelligences. And I certainly don't claim the
opposite that we're not. And to me, that seems to be the
most responsible and rational Really position to take bearing

(01:00:40):
in mind, what we actually understand and what we don't
understand and and ultimately I expect it will be the most
productive as well in the end. It might turn out that we can
explain absolutely everything about DMT without having to
invoke autonomous intelligence has a, but it might turn out
that we can't and that we might have to confront the

(01:01:02):
unthinkable. Well, what for many people would
be. Unthinkable, which is that not
only, we not the only intelligence within this
universe, but actually that we might be a very, very early on a
very, very low level compared tointelligences outside of our
thin slice of reality with whom we can communicate, right?

(01:01:23):
I mean, can you imagine anythingmore anything more profound than
that, the good. That would be the greatest
discovery in the history of humankind, right?
Mean, fuck the wheel. I mean, we're talking about, you
know, that the discovery of I love Wheels, by the way,
four-wheel lovers. But, you know, you know, just,

(01:01:48):
you know, the idea that they're not only are their intelligence
is outside of our universe, not just in our universe.
And that would, I think most of us accept is almost a certainty,
but not only are, their intelligence is outside of our
universe or somehow alongside, or our universe.
So, my orthogonal to our universe, not only did they

(01:02:08):
exist that we actually have a very simple means of actually
communicating with them that doesn't require firing pulses of
electromagnetic, radiation across the heavens, waiting for
three-quarters of a million years for a reply.
But some that's a good that's a good point.

(01:02:28):
I mean, this is actually what you're saying is actually very
relevant right now in the u.s. we have, all these balloons or
God God knows what that the other three things were.
People are looking to the skies are looking for the government
to tell him. Yes!
No, Maybe. So when we have this thing that
we all produce in our bodies, but you can also enjoy the

(01:02:50):
Exotic genus version of it, which will put you in
communication with something otherworldly.
Now, whether that comes from within or its external, nobody
knows, but I think it's an important point to point out
her, it's important to point. Out that we're all looking to
the skies, when maybe we should be looking within or looking up,

(01:03:11):
I agree. Yeah.
Yeah. I mean, you know the fact is, is
that if there is intelligence elsewhere in the universe, which
their own certainly is the, the,the vast proportion of that is
likely to be post biological the, the, the proportion of life

(01:03:33):
that exists in this, this Very brief technological wet bodied.
Wet brained phase is likely to be very, very small.
Because, once a, an intelligencereaches, the stage where they
can conceive of becoming, some kind of artificial intelligence

(01:03:54):
is where we are now, right? I mean, everyone's talking about
artificial intelligence recent recently and everyone's familiar
with the idea that we might one day be able to kind of dispense
with our Physical form and instantiate ourselves in some
way in a, some kind of artificial intelligence for
more, some kind of digital form.Once you reach that stage where

(01:04:17):
you can conceive of it, you're probably only a few hundred
years from actually achieving it.
You know, these things tend to happen, they accelerate, right?
So we might be much closer than we imagine.
So, the chances of catching a man in discovering and
intelligence, Since that are that is kind of in the still in

(01:04:38):
the that narrow technological face obviously before, then,
there's no way to communicate with them because they're going
to be trapped on that little planet.
Just like we are they're not going to be if they're in a pre
technological phase. They're not going to be
communicating across the heavens.
Right? So what but then you reach this
technological phase, where we are now which might only last a

(01:05:00):
few hundred years where we can start thinking about
communicating with the heavens. So So that's kind of what the
seti program is looking for. Its looking for those beings
that happened to be within that very brief.
Temporal window when they are when they can be communicated
with once. They transcend the biological

(01:05:21):
form and become post biological,then they're going to be
effectively completely transparent to the normal modes
of communication. You're not going to be
communicating with electromagnetic radiation.
Radiation that is extremely unlikely.
Tell we need to know. We need to Despair and steady
and invest all that money into DM TX that's my purse, right?

(01:05:44):
Exactly. So so the point size is what
lets us? Let's let him finish his thought
and Beyond is likely to be post biological.
And so we need to think about. Well, what's the best way to
communicate with the post? Logical intelligence.

(01:06:07):
And it's my position that psychedelics might be the way of
achieving that somehow gating the flow of information from
these normally transparent and hidden.
And apparently non-existent beings that psychedelics might
be the mode with which we communicate with them and much

(01:06:28):
quicker. Much more efficient than trying
to communicate across the cosmos.
That was my final thought Not yet.
Quantum entanglement or yeah sigh whatever you want to call
it. I'm on board with the especially
since they were going to call Ayahuasca telepathy initially
because and I know our buddies, the dreaming Jaguars

(01:06:51):
participated in that experiment that David Luke was doing with
to see if they could you know connect via.
That's why I find all that or actress T.
I don't know. I never saw the results, we had
them on right after I forgot. I think we were waiting this for
the paper to come out so I'd have to go back and check with
them. But yeah, yeah.
Well I do want to talk about DMTX.

(01:07:14):
So we had we had Daniel McQueen on about a year ago, for his
release of his book, psychedelic, cannabis, which I
highly recommend if you like cannabis and Edibles and things
like that, it's a great guide for that.
But yeah. So so why don't you tell us a
little bit about DMT X. Whereas, It going what's going

(01:07:36):
on with it. That whole thing, Yes, I was a
call with Daniel Quinn just lastweek, actually, and with Chris
Timmerman, who's heading up the,the DMT X program at Imperial
College in London. They've just completed the, the
first trial in humans, DMT X for30 minutes.

(01:08:03):
I think the paper will be published.
I think it's been submitted and accepted maybe so it should be
out. Time this year, hopefully that
will give obviously the kind of the full, the full results.
One, what? Clear from what was originally?
My aim going kind of back to theoriginal idea, back in 2015 and

(01:08:24):
the paper, I wrote with Rick Strassman, the idea was that you
can you can take this brief roller coaster, trip of DMT and
stabilize it. Bring someone in.
Do Buddy into the DMT State, maintain a stable, brain
concentration over time basically hold them within the

(01:08:45):
space with the with the ultimateaim being that the state would
stabilize to some extent over time as your brain adapts to
constructing this altered World model and that that would then
allow you to perform much more extensive.
Exploration and navigation and experimentation within the So

(01:09:09):
you can imagine a whole new field of research would be
opened up by that just like whenwe learned how to deep sea dive
or send those subs down to the bottom of the ocean, that allows
you then to opens up a whole newfield of research with so many
things, new things to explore and test stand and that kind of

(01:09:30):
thing. So that was the idea originally
and from what we know, I haven'tseen all of the results yet.
Yet that seems to have been borne out in that what the
Imperial team were able to do isto bring somebody into the space
and actually maintain a consistent intensity of
experience at several dose levels.

(01:09:53):
So they can bring someone into amore kind of shallow sub,
breakthrough State and hold themthere, or they can push them all
the way through into the full breakthrough, Visionary State
and, and maintain that for about30 minutes.
And there's no evidence that it would, you know, It couldn't be
extended for an hour or two hours or three hours.
So we now have this, this amazing technology.

(01:10:15):
I think that really opens up theDMT space.
Now we can start to think about those those questions about.
Can we establish Tim you two waycommunication with these machine
elves, can we ask them questions?
Can we can we get information from them?
Can be perform experiments in the space.
All this kind of stuff. It's kind of exciting.

(01:10:38):
Do you do you still experiment your side?
I mean obviously you can say what you want or don't but do
you still experiment and when you experiment do you steal?
You try to investigate these worlds still or well I mean
personally I mean I've had many experiences I'll talk about the

(01:11:01):
past rather than the present butI I'm as I'm not a great
psychonaut in that. I haven't discovered some
amazing technique to navigate the space or to explore the

(01:11:23):
space or any any more than anyone else who uses DMT
reasonably frequently or infrequently.
I think there's a lot of what would you call it?
Kind of underground science thatgoes on around, which I think is
quite valuable Beyond side from the kind of the academic stuff,

(01:11:45):
which I was involved in the DMT X stuff.
I think the people are discovering now developing their
own techniques for for exploringthe space.
You know, using these these vapepens, these dab rigs think they
call them or, you know, these e-liquids now which they
dissolve the DMT in and, you know, yeah, I know.

(01:12:07):
No, I've never done it but I know that the DMT pens actually
preserve it. Longer from, from what I
understand. Dick Khan who was a pretty
intense psychonaut gave us the the DL on that.
He said that, I don't know how much longer, but he said a lot
longer. So I guess a yeah, preserves her

(01:12:27):
stuff so, Yeah, yeah. It's I think this is very
effective. I'm all for alternate modes of
administration. I think we need to treat DMT as
the technology that I think it is really and bring our best
technological tools to the tablehere.
I don't think we should get too attached to any particular mode

(01:12:50):
of administration and I know some people have kind of bad
feelings about injection or bringing in electronic
equipment, trying to administer DMT.
I don't see that as a problem atall.
I think we should. It's I see that as being much
more respectful to the, to the DMT experience itself in that we

(01:13:13):
are trying our best to not just kind of burst into their realm
for a few seconds and then you know, for a couple of minutes
and look around wide-eyed. Say what the fuck man?
This is cool and then bugger offagain, but actually to develop
It as a technology and learn to use it.
I think that's all part of the process of developing DMT as a

(01:13:35):
technology. And I think we should embrace
any new techniques that people discover for for navigating and
maintaining our presence within the space for much longer
periods of time. Whether it's using this infusion
technology which is not going tobe accessible for 99% of the
population. But certainly these vape pens

(01:13:57):
are And they're much safer as well and much.
You have much better control, you're not burning it.
You're not you don't have naked Flames to worry about, you can
do it. You know, have this small device
that is very safe. It's not going to blow up if
it's a good quality one and you can you can read do sad
intervals and Main kind of keep yourself within that within that

(01:14:22):
within that level. So, I think, yeah, I'm all for
DMT vape pens but you should make them yourself.
I mean, if I do I think people should be buying them off the
internet. I think.
It's so if anything else, you know, test.
You should if, if you are getting it from.
Yeah, if you're getting it from anything, that's, you know, like
obviously, cannabis mushrooms, if you're well-versed cycle.

(01:14:44):
Now, those are pretty easy to investigate, but when it comes
to powders and things like that,especially given the state of
Fentanyl and people chop it up Fentanyl, and all sorts of
things. Just test your shit.
I've had friends die. I had friends of friends die.
Lots of people. I know my community growing up
so yeah, just chest your shit. But listen, Lee has got a bounce

(01:15:08):
out here. We're going to continue on for a
little bit but I just wanted to let Lee ago gracefully as she
requested. Thank you and thank you so much
Leah for joining us. I know she would have some good
questions for Andrew and I enjoyed being in Leah's book
club where we read alien information Theory.
So check out Leah online at at Lea Prime on Twitter.

(01:15:29):
She is a sub stack and she also does a podcast on YouTube called
The Invisible night school weekly.
Check that out as well thinking like Andrew, thank you so much.
It was a pleasure, thank you, thank you, thank you, always
good to see you. I'm having some back spasms.
So that's why I'm kind of wiggling around your phone, I

(01:15:51):
consider. So, I'm gonna bounce as well as
great to meet you. Thank you for answering that
question. You're welcome.
Thank you. All right, Shane.
You go get your back taken care of.
All right, nerd time no I'm justjoking but I do want to get to.
I do want to get to some of the other stuff that I mentioned

(01:16:12):
earlier. So in terms of the whole machine
of thing so I don't know if you know people follow if everybody
that follows us on Twitter, I'm sure they know I mentioned
something kind of cryptically about it on my own feed but you
somebody put out a video talkingabout machine elves and how
their Just in your head and it'sjust a by-product or you know,

(01:16:36):
who is Nations, you know, or your brain causing these
hallucinations and you interacting with them Bubba.
Bubba blah. You know, we don't have to name
this person or whatever. But so then you responded and
kind of just like a funny goofy way which you do to a lot of
things. You do it to my place.
I've seen you do it, a lot of people's posts.
I just didn't I didn't see any harm in what you posted and all

(01:16:58):
the sudden this dude goes on like a Warpath and starts like
attacking you. You your books, your work
calling your stuff, pseudoscience and your
convincing people that there's these living breathing elves in
these Realms and Bubba. And like, obviously this dude
hasn't read your books now. Yeah, sadly.
No didn't really have a philosophical bone in his body

(01:17:19):
from what I saw. So yeah, I mean I thought you
handled it really well. I mean you weren't mean or
anything, even though he kept attacking you, what do you
think's going on? There is there.
Is there a certain set of Academia?
That's very dogmatic. That these are manifestations in

(01:17:39):
the mind and maybe some of thesepeople are getting irritated
because of some of the more speculative or metaphysical
talks or met you know metaphysics or whatever.
I mean like what's going on there?
Yeah I think the that's certainly an element that I
think people like to be certain types of people any way they
like to be right about things they like like to feel that they

(01:18:06):
have got kind of a handle on thetruth and they don't like anyone
questioning that and certainly when it comes to machine elves,
we know what I mean. Basically, there's a bit of
background, he, he made a video that claimed that the machine
elves are kind of a common argument, which is that they
are, I am a canner affect. The people started seeing elves

(01:18:31):
and elf like In the DMT State because they had heard Terence
McKenna talking about elves. And that in fact, all it is is
just your brain. Your brain, that old tired
argument, that your brain is amazing.
It can you no idea about the potential things that your brain
can create? We don't know half of it.

(01:18:52):
That's where the machine else are, you know, in that little
black box that we don't understand yet.
But don't worry, we will at somepoint in the future, that's not
typically sad. Ice Factory to me.
And I pointed that out that it'snot acceptable or not.
Convincing for me when someone is says.
Oh it's just your, you know, your brain is is more

(01:19:13):
complicated than we can suppose.You know that that gate its ass
make, its throwing all of the things we don't know into this
big box of promissory science that will eventually will kind
of get to explaining so that I've never been Convinced by
that approached, to what we can't explain and odor.

(01:19:36):
And also his assertion that the,it's a McKenna.
Effect mean that's something I've dealt with several times in
the past. You know, I wrote a long essay
that involved a discussion of this back in 2016 or something.
So I'm not new to this argument,you know, only what I found.
I found I found the most interesting thing was he felt

(01:19:58):
like you were attacking his research.
He Said, but in reality, he was just taking a common Trope,
which is that that came from McKenna, calling it as research
and then being offended that youopposed it which was just a
bizarre. It was the whole thing, just
started off as like a miscommunication on bizarre foot
and then you have a couple otherpsychedelic academics chime in

(01:20:21):
like hey I love both of you. Can we just figure this out by
blah blah? Like that's all nice and
wonderful but how about somebodyhaving your fucking back?
Grow a fuck like Jesus like II put out.
Cryptic Twigs. I don't want to drink bring more
attention to it, but I'm just waiting for somebody bigger to
be like, hey, calm down, you know, this is, you know, this is
not how you do this. You have a, you either have a

(01:20:43):
debate or you have. Look, I've seen you disagree
with people. I heard.
I saw you had a disagreement I think on psychedelics today with
Peter sure stat about your firstbook and I don't know.
Yeah, I don't think that that was like, malicious you guys
disagree. I'm sure you still disagree, but
that doesn't change the fact that you could still have a Oil
discussion or debate about it, right?

(01:21:05):
I mean, I don't know why. Yeah, he's a friend of mine and
we he's a comes from the philosophy side of things.
So he has them kids that particular angle and I have a
very different angle so it's where they meet and Clash.
Sometimes. She's kind of cool so we can
have long discussions about thisand I think we both learn from
each other. So yeah, of course, discussions

(01:21:26):
and debate and disagreement is all part of.
No one will certainly Something like DMT know, we're not all
going to agree on on different aspects of it, but when somebody
points out that well, elves havebeen an elf-like beings have
been reported in the the DMT report literature, going back to

(01:21:50):
the 1950s and through to the 1960s and Beyond away before,
you know, when Terrance McKenna was still, a little kid long
before he was talking about machine.
Al's, you know? Sure.
He gave From that cute name thateveryone I mean but there's
mythology to support there's theFED a fairy people little
people. I mean this is a common

(01:22:12):
archetypes and to imagine that those people weren't partaking
is crazy because we know those people were partaking in
psychedelic rituals. So right.
Right. So so you know, these
Lilliputian type little beings, they give them different names.
They might take different forms but they seem to be unified in
that character. You know, these little eyes Lee

(01:22:32):
giggling, mischievous tricks tree, kind of beings.
We're talking about whether you call them machine, of course,
nobody called The Machine elves before McKenna because he gave
them that name, but that's just his cute little name, you called
them Tykes, he called them, you know, and lots of different
little names for them. And I see that though to, I
could see the machine aspect like coloring the experience or

(01:22:56):
putting it in your subconscious.So when you're in that space
you're thinking like, Oh, I thought these were just Colors
and patterns. But now I'm starting to see this
Michelle machine thing. Like I could see something like
that. But yeah.
Again, I just the whole way, it just went down.
Like I said, I think there's a better way to especially coming
from the Psychedelic community and people have used

(01:23:17):
psychedelics, you would imagine that they'd have a better way to
handle these things. I don't know that's why I mean
it happens like just because yousay it Alex doesn't make you a
better person because it does and there's so many assholes in
the Psychedelic Community. You know.
So Yeah, I mean I think he's trying to get feeling is trying
to establish himself as being the voice of the young hip

(01:23:40):
psychedelic crowned and I into Iput a little spanner in the
works. There and questioned question,
hang on this subject and he didn't like it.
I think he took offense also to the way that I Responded to one
of his arguments. He didn't like the way I used a
mixture of lowercase and uppercase.

(01:24:02):
Yeah, I mean, but but, but here's the thing, I had to take
my take on, it was just from looking at what was going on his
video. He's trying to establish himself
on YouTube. He's obviously doing the thing
where you come for the top dog or somebody and you make noise
and you're trying to get more YouTube followers and you knows

(01:24:23):
laughs. I felt like it was a little bit
more of that, like, take a shot at At, you know, one of the old
heads. Yeah.
Kind of a thing, I don't know. Yeah, I don't think I'm one of
the old heads, you know, I don't, I don't consider you
that, but I'm just saying, like,I don't know that that dude seem
kind of young, so I don't know. He sent me younger than me, he's
a piano. Yeah, for sure.

(01:24:43):
So yeah again, I don't know. I don't have any ill will.
I just thought that that whole thing was just bizarre to me
like the whole interaction. It was just like a Miss
understanding and he should havestopped when he people were
telling him that and Whatever, but let's, so let's get to the
meat of this thing are. Do you think these things are
internal or do you think they'reexternal?

(01:25:05):
Now, before you answer that I have never had DMT entity
experiences. I have had entity experiences.
One was hippie flipping. I took a large dose of
psilocybin and MDMA had an entity experience on that
another time, just MDMA, I had these sentient.

(01:25:25):
Fish flowing around like conveying messages and shit very
bizarre. I didn't actually know, MDMA
could do that. I took 300 milligrams which is
kind of a large dose, I think gobut yeah so that I had to leave
a fish fish, a fish, you know concert so I've had a few other
ones I'm not going to mention them but anyways my point being

(01:25:48):
that obviously this is not just subject to DMT.
What do you think's happening there?
Do you think that the DMT Entitything is a very specific version
of The Entity. Or do you think they're all just
kind of the same thing. It's just easier to tap into
that via the deity of DMT. Yeah, I think I mean, certainly

(01:26:08):
with Salvadoran as well, entity experiences are also very common
and with high-dose psilocybin, Ithink what DMT does is it is it
it's very efficient at breaking through into that that state
where empty experiences are common.
But other drugs can get that. But you know, with the mushrooms

(01:26:29):
you need quite high doses to kind of reach that same kind of
level. So I don't think it's, you know,
100% DMT specific. I just think DMT is very good at
getting you into that that space.
Now, in terms of the do I think they're all in your head or do I
think they exist somehow out of your head at the same time?

(01:26:51):
I think the answer is a mixture of the two possibly Because even
if these, even if we are dealingwith an intelligence, that is
from elsewhere that we're smart communicating with or gate,
gaining access to your brain, still has to kind of build a
model of that. Being, there's no reason to

(01:27:13):
think that just because an entity appears as an elf or
appears as a mantis or something, an insectoid creature
that that is there Are kind of True Form or their true nature.
This is just the brain. Using these deeply embedded

(01:27:35):
archetypal structures. You know, we all carry around
this inherited, neural architecture.
That has this propensity this inherent propensity to build
certain kinds of structures. Be it, reptiles snakes.

(01:27:56):
Spiders. Insects, and also, for some
reason, these kind of small Lively, mischievous strict
Street beings as the brain. We all inherit that kind of
archetypal toolbox from which wecan construct images.
And so, I think, but that doesn't mean that they're purely

(01:28:19):
that purely that we all carry have the idea that we all all
have this Collective unconsciouswithin which these beings are
kind of swimming around an existing.
That's not that's not really what?
Going back to Young? What he was really saying that.
It's just that we all we all inherit the same kind of brain.

(01:28:41):
We all have markings of our evolutionary past.
We all carry those, what often term neuro, Gnostic structures
these basic patterns of inherited connectivity.
That allow Was to build the kindof the basic building blocks
from which we construct. Our model of the world.

(01:29:03):
And and these are kind of, theseare ingrained their inherited,
we all have them. And I think what's happening
with DMT, is that your brain is drawing upon these these tools.
It's faced with this, the highlyunusual patterns of information
from wherever, right? It could be from some other

(01:29:24):
reality, it could. It'd be from somehow emerging
within your cortex for other reasons, but your brain is faced
with dealing with these extremely extraordinary patterns
of information. And it is trying to find the

(01:29:45):
best model that fits that that paddle in pattern of
information. And sometimes that elf like
being, you know, is the best wayto do that.
If the information has those kind of qualities, then you
might represent these beings as being elf-like, but they might
differ in their form because archetypes are the basic

(01:30:09):
propensity, the basic potentiality, the build certain
types of images and symbols, butthey also colored by your
experience in your culture and what you learn.
So, if I asked you to draw an elf, you would draw a different
picture than Be in Ireland or something.
You know, they might draw a little green guy with a pointy
hat. You might draw someone that look

(01:30:31):
more like Gollum or something. I don't know, right?
We all the archetypes as they kind of manifest as they're
drawn upon, they become colored and filled in by experience, by
by culture on a very, very kind of individual basis.
So jet, so to just because the elves have very different forms

(01:30:53):
that doesn't necessarily mean that they are.
Kind of different or that they're purely individual.
It just simply means that your brain is kind of, is is building
its own version. If you like of the elf based
upon that lowest level archetypal structure but also
how it's been collared and informed and filled in by the

(01:31:15):
individual level. So so this is really the problem
I think is that you can't get away from even if we are dealing
with And intelligence from elsewhere.
We can't get away from the fact that it's always going to have a
personal aspect. It's always going to be your

(01:31:38):
brain is all your brain is always going to have to draw
upon what it can, what it knows the kind of patterns and models
that it has to kind of, to create an image to create a
model of these beings. And that's, that's why I always
say. It's, it's a combination these
These entities, even if they arepurely external, even if they

(01:31:59):
exist, before you go into the DMT, stay.
And for some reason, you are communicating with some kind of
advanced intelligence. It's all what you actually see,
what you actually experience theform.
The entities take always going to have a personal subjective
component that you can't get away from.

(01:32:22):
So so that's why it's so difficult to make.
Make the draw a line between andclearly kind of differentiate
between a pure hallucination, a pure fabrication of the cortex
and something else. Something more Unthinkable for
something fast Ranger. Yeah, the But the first part of

(01:32:48):
the would be, so like the tough part of answering that is, what
is consciousness? Because you're answering it, as
if though, Consciousness is a byproduct of our biology in
resulting of the function of ourbrain, right?
When I'm not saying that you believe this, by the way.

(01:33:08):
I'm just saying, how you just described in reality.
We know that we don't know what consciousness.
This is It's called The Hard problem of Consciousness for a
reason. But let's just say
hypothetically the brain is likesome sort of receiver and
Consciousness is non-local like maybe we're just a instrument

(01:33:33):
which kind of plays into kind ofwhat we're talking about.
Because when you get into these Realms let's say again it's
non-local our Consciousness and you were interacting with these
things. Well then what does that say
about the nature of reality at that point, right?
Because This is the problem is is the hard problem.

(01:33:57):
Yeah, I think the so what the position I always come from is
that we don't understand what Consciousness is.
We don't understand. Whether it we don't know whether
it is, some it, whether it emerges from neural activity,
whether it's more fundamental weather is you suggest the brain

(01:34:20):
is more like a receiver of Consciousness, we don't know the
answer to that question, what weknow?
Which is what I always focus on.Is that Consciousness that
subjective Consciousness has, ithas content and it has structure
and it's full of information. That's what I focus on.
What is the information content of the experience and how is

(01:34:43):
that patterned and constructed by the cortex.
So I'm not saying that the the subjective nature of the world
is is constructed by the brain, but it's shaped.
The content and structure. The way that the the experience
is patterned and informed is from neural activity.

(01:35:05):
But it could well be that that'sall the brain is doing is it's
shaping receiving certain patterns.
So just like a TV in one of those old TVs had an aerial you,
it's receiving these patterns ofradio waves and then it has to

(01:35:25):
use those the Of construct the image.
You don't say that the TV is that the radio waves are
emerging from the TV. It's quite the opposite.
It's in the other direction and it could be something like that.
But we just, we don't know. Which is why I tend to avoid

(01:35:46):
talking too much about what we don't know are making judgments.
So when people criticize being say that I am an emergentist or
a reductionist or that, I am assuming Zooming that the brain
can the brain is responsible forthe generation of Consciousness.
I'm really not. All I'm doing is taking what we
know about subjective conscious experience, which is that it is

(01:36:09):
full of content its information-rich.
It has structure and that this structure is related to neural
activity. We know that when that the we
can explain at least the information or structure, the
content of your subjective experience from neural activity
that Doesn't mean that neural activity is generating

(01:36:29):
Consciousness itself, that makessense.
Yeah, let me ask you a question here.
So I few years ago, I read a paper that was brought to my
attention was a PubMed paper on the pineal gland and now we know
obviously, DMT is produced in the brain and cerebral spinal
fluid, not just in a specific gland or part of the brain.

(01:36:51):
But in this, it talks about these little crystals that form
within the pineal, grunt gland hexagonal cylindrical.
There's all sorts of different shapes And they produce upon
crushing or whatever, they produce an ultraviolet.
Like a fact I guess my question would be the paper talks about

(01:37:15):
how it could could possibly workin the same way.
That like the small bones in your ear like out of Konya.
I think that's how you pronounceit.
Pick up vibrations. Could that be some sort of
mechanism for the brain? Could there be something in the
brain that's picking up vibrations and Almost like a,
you know, Piezo electric effect or something along those lines.

(01:37:39):
I think you'd have a hard time making that argument because I
mean the pineal gland obviously.It's it's become saturated with
mysticism that you can often lose sight of of what pineal
gland. What we know the pineal gland is
doing mean right. It's a gland obviously it's

(01:38:00):
producing this hormone melatoninis very Very small side size of
the end of your your little finger and it's not the way that
it's connected into your, your brain suggests that it's not the
seat of Consciousness. I would say, it's probably not
big enough to producing large amounts of DMT.

(01:38:22):
It is of course, sensitive to light indirectly in that.
What about in like the books? I know that's what Rick was
studying before. Actually started studying DMT.
We've talked at amount of few times to talk about that.
What if though, this my point was the pineal gland not that
it's causing Consciousness in general.
But what if it has placed some function in like let's say,

(01:38:46):
dreaming, we always wonder like what's dreaming.
What if it's picking up some sort of and in your in a sleep
state or a meditative state thatthat it's picking up something
and what? That's what's causing the dreams
or something like that. Yeah, I know what you mean.
I think again. It's You'd have to think about
what's the mechanism here. So, even if the pineal gland

(01:39:09):
these crystals within the pinealgland were able to pick up
information from some electromagnetic or other source.
How would that then feed into? How would that then, that
information Connect into the rest of the cortex, right?
You know, I don't know. The answer is the question mean

(01:39:30):
it's something you could test? I mean, if someone really Leaves
that then I'm not testing no reason to let me test that I'm
just walking to a lab. Hey I got these tiny little
crystals, right? So I think a lot of it comes
down. That's part of the problem.
I guess is that people are very willing to suggest and people

(01:39:51):
will often assert these things and they will talk about
decalcifying your pineal and make a lot of rather bold claims
about what the pin. We owe a lot of that stuff's we
will. That's yeah, yeah, a lot of
that's nonsense. It's so I think there's nothing
wrong with having kind of wild ideas, but you have to, at some
point, bring them down to earth.So to speak and say, okay, let's

(01:40:14):
think about how it first of all.What's the hypothesis here?
How we going to test it? And then let's test it, let's
see what effect we expect to have.
And, and a lot of people don't don't do that, or don't have the
ability to formulate the kind ofhypothesis or don't have that
basic neuro scientific underpinning, that basic
neuroscience. I think difficult the standing

(01:40:35):
to know what kind of experimentsyou should do with that.
You know, you get the same thingwith people.
Someone once wrote to me and said is it that DMT is affecting
the retina so that you can see other frequencies, right?
That's a often claimed, right? That the DMT is allowing you to
see outside of the narrow frequency range that our eyes

(01:40:58):
can see. And my response to that is,
well, if that's where these entities are, then we can pick
Them up with UV detectors, right?
The you know, other detectors, you know, we have equipped yeah.
Attacked outside the visual rain.
So if these entities or beings or worlds were existing outside
literally, outside of the visualfrequency range, we should be

(01:41:19):
able to detect them using other equipment but we don't you don't
see. Yeah, I mean that's a lot of
that would fall under like Psy research or something that like
Dean radin or somebody like thatstudies because there's really
nobody studying that kind of stuff out there.
I know I mentioned This weird thing that I get when I'm in
meditation and I've talked to other people about it to these
lights, these flow. I don't know, it's hard to

(01:41:41):
explain and I asked Strassman about it.
He said maybe phosphenes or something like that but I don't
know, I don't know, I don't know.
You know, I've talked to a lot of people that experience that's
maybe that is the case. I don't know enough about it.
Yeah, I mean, you know, if you are if you're seeing light, your
brain, doesn't need physical actual light.
Entering the eyes for you to see, like, obviously, when you

(01:42:03):
spoke to you, Mt. It's a very very brightly lit
space. But of course, there's no light
entering the eyes. As but long, as you're
activating, if you're activatingcertain parts of the visual
cortex, then you will be seeing light, you'll be seeing colors,
and it will pee appear to be a very light field experience.

(01:42:24):
You don't need in the brain is in a dark box.
Never has direct access to lightonly as access to those patterns
of electrical. Signals that are entering the
brain from the retina, but so you don't need light to
experience life. You just need to activate those
certain parts of the visual cortex that will give you the

(01:42:45):
experience of light. Another, woo question, what
about this? Sort of like these light
Retreats are not like complete darkness, Retreats where people
are like locking themselves up for six days straight or
whatever. There was some guy Why Montauk

(01:43:05):
Chia? I forget the guys name you was
on? Yeah, that's like I'm claiming
that if you're in darkness long enough your body starts to
naturally produce DMT in these crazy States.
Is the reason why I asked that is, there's many accounts in the
ancient world and esoteric tax of people retreating to a cave.
And then, you know, one specifically I can think of is

(01:43:27):
Leonardo Da Vinci retreating to a cave and coming out some sort
of ascended Master, not necessarily that they're being
Given some special knowledge or whatever, but maybe inducing
some sort of endogenous psychedelic experience and then
coming away with that, you know,I could see that giving you an
upper hand or an advantage over other people back then or

(01:43:48):
something along those lines. Yeah, I don't, I mean I've
spoken before about the possibility that I mean so the
pineal gland we could start there the pineal gland obviously
is activated by darkness in the That your pineal gland starts
producing melatonin to go down, it becomes night, that's its

(01:44:09):
kind of signal. So, if big, if the pineal was
producing DMT, one might argue that extended periods in
complete, darkness would ElevateDMT levels in the brain, but
you'd, I don't think you have tonecessarily invoke the pinney or
there might be other mechanisms.You know, if your brain is in a

(01:44:32):
sensory deprived, A brain doesn't like to be inactive.
The brain is, this is why peopleuse sensory deprivation tanks
and will often have quite Visionary experiences within
them. When your brain is cut off from
sensory information, then it canstill start to construct

(01:44:54):
realities that are not mapped tothe normal waking world or not
map, to the environment and the Norway.
And so I'm I see I'm certainly open to the idea that extended
periods in darkness. Might well, induce Visionary
experiences that you couldn't experience easily.
Certainly if you didn't have access to kind of exogenous

(01:45:15):
molecules one. Can imagine, obviously, it's not
as efficient and takes a long time and to some extent quite
dramatic. But, you know, going into a dark
cave for weeks on end and cutting yourself off from all
sources of light, that would probably And do some kind of
visually experience. And you know you can think about

(01:45:38):
cave art, ancient cave art. You know, I've often thought
about whether the reason they were painted on these.
These completely inaccessible hidden areas of the earth and
not painted on the walls outsidein the open where people can
look at them and see how beautiful they are for some
reason. They were painting them deep
deep down in the earth, and there might be no more

(01:45:59):
explanations for that, you know,and anthropological explanations
that, I don't know about that. It's also So possible that they
were in there because it inducedthis kind of vision restate in
this, in this dark in pure Darkness.
Well, they're telling they tell us in some of them the to seal
as year the be Shaman Terence McKenna's, famous be Shaman from

(01:46:21):
Algeria from food of the Gods and then you have solve a puss.
Koala Spain, 6000 BC roughly slow stubby.
Hispanica clearly. Depicted next to a bowl.
So while you know, they're showing you that they're taking
these mushrooms, it's not necessarily endogenous we know

(01:46:41):
that they're obviously trying totell you something.
Hey, we know about this, you know, we know.
Yeah, yeah, I think that using these molecules in combination
with Darkness can be. Certainly be a very powerful
technique if you want to really enhance and eliminate the
external external sources of visual sensory information, then

(01:47:03):
going into to a dark place and taking mushrooms would be a very
good idea. It's a good way to a very
profound experience, I think butnot recommended for beginning.
Yes, I saw that Aubrey Marcus guy did some sort of Darkness
Retreat and now he's got Aaron Rodgers, the quarterback doing

(01:47:23):
it. Aaron Rodgers said, he's not
going to, he's not going to you know, figure out his future
until he does this, this Darkness Retreat.
So I don't know. We'll see.
We'll see if this dude flips outor what but I remember in high
school actually some weird kid we would to school with told
Maurice. You want to really flip out?

(01:47:45):
He's like your parents go away for the weekend, lock yourself
in the car. He's like you'll really Fleet
freaked out and this kid, parently locked himself in the
car for a weekend and had a totally psychedelic experience.
So, are you guys, hey, there's more than one way to skin a cat.
Before we wrap it up here, I didwant to ask you one more thing,

(01:48:06):
which is if you heard of dr. Stephen Barker, I know this guy,
John Chavez, who runs DMT Quest,channel did that documentary?
The DMT Quest documentary and inthere they're talking about all
the latest, you know, study rat,studies of my studies, from U of
M and how they found DMT in the brain and cerebral spinal fluid,

(01:48:28):
all that kind of stuff. But then there was a study
apparently at LSU by Stephen Barker Which indicates that
maybe DMT is the precursor to all psychedelics and that all
the different psychedelic. Whether it's certain urges, or
whatever playoff of D, or the DMT enzymes, or whatever that

(01:48:49):
that is actually. Let's say, it's psilocybin or
whatever. It's all getting broken down
funneled towards and I'm probably butchering his
hypothesis a little bit here, but the idea that DMT is
actually at the root of all of these compounds.
And experiences, say saying that, when you take psilocybin,
it's converted to DMT. Yeah, tryptamines are all broken

(01:49:11):
down into the same thing. Okay, I mean yeah, it depends on
the metabolic route. I mean, certainly DMT might have
an inactive metabolic product that is that is shared with
psilocybin but that wouldn't necessarily mean that the DMT

(01:49:34):
was responsible for the effects of psilocybin.
However, if psilocybin was converted in Vivo inside the
body to DMT, Then that would potentially be responsible for
some of the effects, but I thinkthe biochemically I'd have to
read the paper. I'm ashamed to say, I have not

(01:49:55):
read that paper so I can't tell you exactly what he was getting
at. I mean, he's an analytical,
chemist Steven Barker, so he's very good with analyzing the
concentrations and teasing apartthe molecular constituents of of
plants. It's and other kind of chemical

(01:50:16):
mixtures. I'm not sure that he's a
neuroscientist that such, but ifyou interest in the kind of the
metabolism of these molecules, he's certainly the one to ask.
Say, he probably know better than I would, but I think
converting psilocin, which is the active component of
mushrooms. So psilocybin is converted
dephosphorylated to see. Listen.
So to get to DMT, then have to remove this oxygen is hydroxyl

(01:50:38):
group from we as Lisa, listen, Saul Sons, one molecule away,
right? All you have to do is As you
just mentioned yes. So say listen to get themselves
into DMT. It's so sillas in is for hydroxy
DMT. So to get from solisten to the
Mt, need to remove that oxygen, which is not actually a normal

(01:50:59):
process in the human body. Normally, what you would do is
attach something else to the hydroxyl and make it more water
soluble. So I'd be surprised very
surprised if soliciting was being converted to DMT in the
body and of Course that could never work with something LSD,
which certainly has a much more complex ring structure.

(01:51:21):
That's certainly not going to beconverted to DMT.
So I don't think we can say thatthe MTA who's responsible for
the effects of LSD and, you know, all the other molecules I
think they all have. Again, I'd have the Oreo.
Yeah, they all work by the same mechanism, broadly in that,
they're all binding to the same kind of receptor sites, but they
all they all work in a slide. All right.

(01:51:46):
Well yeah, let's wrap it up here.
I did want to ask you one more thing and I'm trying to think it
was just a basic. Maybe.
Oh, I know what it was. Have you ever heard of an Osa?
Be era. Grew grew assassins.

(01:52:08):
Origination is maybe. Yeah, I'd also be originated
students. I always love the it's a crazy
word, right? Yeah of course yeah this is so
this is one one of the mushroomsthat contains a very high
concentrations of this origination Someone that people

(01:52:29):
always tell me what it how it's pronounced, I always forget.
But anyway, originated maybe which is this try methylated
version of citizen of psilocybinbut it's probably doesn't get
into the brain. I don't think with those three
methyl group, it has a positive charge on the nitrogen.
Your because the paper I read was talking about how it could

(01:52:50):
be like the CBD to THC, but for the psilocybin realm, where it
could enhance. We have an Entourage effect or
something along those lines. Yeah.
I mean I wrote a post on my sub,stack three-part post articles
on, on the so-called Entourage effect in mushrooms.

(01:53:10):
And origination is it's probablyif there is a CBD type element,
something that's more bodily, something that's more outside.
The brain that has effect on thenervous system, peripheral
nervous system rather than the central nervous system.
I think that originating Would be the molecule there, because
it does seem to me looking at itstructure that it would have a

(01:53:34):
very hard time getting into the brain working in the same way
that soliciting or DMT does. So, yeah, I think I've never
consume that particular variety of mushrooms, so I can't tell
you what it feels like. Yeah, I'm interested.
I want to try for sure. All right, well, let's write one
more question from a fan. We got one person hanging around

(01:53:56):
Donnie Brasco, he said, Let's see here.
Have you heard of the new molecule, they discovered by
adding Freebase DMT to magic mushrooms as they grow.
It says, if you freed psilocybe,mushrooms 5 m e0 DMT, or if you
feed, I'm sorry, if you feed slow speed mushrooms, 5, m, EO,
D Mt, they will convert to 5 h, o5 m EO D Mt.

(01:54:19):
What about that? Yes, this is ya, Goin.
I wrote a Twitter thread on this.
So, this is Siloam with oxen is what they call it.
So it's like it's like the molecular Ian of 5 m e0 with
with solisten. So so 5 m, EO D Mt as a five
methoxy group on the ring is a ring of the methoxy group on the

(01:54:40):
Fly position. Soliciting has a methoxy
hydroxyl group on the 4 position.
Yeah. It's when you put them both
together, you get for hydroxy five, methoxy DMT, which you can
get by feeding this, a DMV feed five neo2, these mushrooms, they
will, Not that hydroxyl group inthat for position, she's what

(01:55:02):
they do, they have the enzymes for that.
So then you get this Silo methoxy molecule which you know
there's like a church of Siloam a fox in that's established
themselves. And apparently they have a very
wonderful experiences with it. I've never tried it.
There is a small possible risk when you have these two oxygen

(01:55:23):
bearing groups at that position on the ring.
We know that. They can be near a toxic.
So the 45 hydroxyl variant is known to be neurotoxic and is
used to actually causes lesions in experimental animals brains.
But there's no evidence that this side of my toxin has the

(01:55:45):
same neurotoxicity because that has this methyl group has
released five methoxy not five hydroxy.
So it's probably fine. But we just don't know.
Whether I'm Keen to try it. I'm not sure.
I mean nature is prevent, oh, you're still.
You're still down to try that cell phone or and be methoxy or

(01:56:07):
methoxy ether whatever that is that extended state of God.
Yeah, yeah, yeah. She's probably right about that.
Might make a post on that. Yeah, that's really cool at last
like, like Salvadoran. But last four The hours that was
because we were talking about that.
The last time you were on we were talking about smoking

(01:56:27):
Salvia versus eater chewing the quids and how you were talking
about how the lingual contact reinitiates the experience as
opposed to smoking at once and flipping out.
So yeah, we'll listen man, always fun.
Having you on your wealth of knowledge.
I love just asking you random questions.

(01:56:48):
I've been wondering about because you actually study this
stuff. So You are of course, welcome on
any time please. Please, please go by reality
switch, Technologies. This thing's thick.
It's juicy. It's it's an amazing.
You know it's an amazing book. If you're curious on all the
mechanisms and all the differentreceptors and the way that you

(01:57:12):
know, these things play off of our own Consciousness and how
they could be used to, you know,Deuce these states, check that
out. Also this one alien In theory,
again, you see all the stuff happening out there with
balloons and UFOs and stuff likethat.
Go make contact tonight folks read this book, you know.

(01:57:33):
So yeah, you can check out all of Andrews.
Links down below at alien insect.com, check out his sub
stack. He's a wonderful follow on
Twitter at a at alien insect. And I, again, I have all the
links down below if you want to support mind Escape.
All you have to do is click the link tree link.
Down below. We have all of our stuff on

(01:57:53):
their merch store. I have a new shirt where we're
going to donate all the proceedsto charity.
Chris Wolford said something theother day said, forget the
balloons. So I put a forget, the balloons
in quotation marks with a flyingsaucer below it.
And yeah, we've got our documentary coming out.
It's going to be premiering at the Roswell, UFO Expo.

(01:58:14):
You can buy tickets currently right now online at UFO
Expo.com. We will Premiere in our The
tenth. I think it's actually on the
11th is one. We're premiering it, which is,
it's Saturday. And Andrew, is actually a big
part of the documentary. Our documentary is called as
within. So, without from UFOs to DMT and

(01:58:35):
he will be a big portion of the DMT part, as well as some of the
crossover because let's face it.There's a lot of weirdness
happening in these Realms so anything else.
Oh yeah, check out our other podcasts.
The Roswell UFO Symposium, I do it with Shane.
Who is on here earlier? And our other buddy Toby who's
currently in the ER he got bit by some sort of weird bug or

(01:58:55):
Scorpions. So hope you're feeling better
out there Toby and yeah I'm justtrying to think if there's
anything else here. Oh new logo, shout out to
Aubrey. Thank you so much for the new
logo. I love it and if anybody needs
any sort of creative work, whether it be a logo or
animation or anything like that.Please.

(01:59:16):
Check out Aubree's links. I will add it down below.
And again, thank you so much Andrew.
Drew. Yeah, I'm really looking forward
to what you put out next. And yeah, let us know if you
need anything. You are always welcome on the
show. Thank you very much, Mike.
I'll see you again. Yeah, maybe Maurice will be back
next time. He's currently editing.

(01:59:37):
I've got them in the worksheet. Talking about elves.
I've got little Maurice in the works Workshop editing or
documentary. So all right I'm gonna play our
documentary trailer as we leave.And again, we love everybody.
Stay safe out there and we'll catch you next time.
Peace. Is it real?

(02:00:05):
Or is it not? That's what you're asking me.
I still to this day can't find any rational explanation for
what I saw. Extremely intelligent
apparently, highly Advanced hyper technological.
Be I think that we just don't look at the perception of

(02:00:27):
reality in the right way. Yet I got very close to the
point that I could see just one big light and then it stopped
and then it shot up in the sky, you know, you know you're not
dreaming but you wonder how realany of it really is?

(02:00:49):
It dawned on me it was real thisthis took place but then I still
didn't do anything with it. Never said anything anyway.
There is some mind-altering aspect to these UFO encounters.
A lot of people get a sense of missing.
Time I noticed that these three stars were kind of in a
formation. It was a triangular formation

(02:01:12):
condensed into entities or beings that you interact with
who are sentient the chemicals which are going into our brain
are making the unconscious archetypes Kamala.
Like how things evolve from pureenergy to matter.

(02:01:34):
Definitely was kind of a paradigm shifting moment.
As we continue to evolve in our own Consciousness, we will
perceive of new modes of interpretation, but that may be
dependent upon how this supposedphenomenon reveals itself to us.

(02:01:55):
And sure why we discredit The Human Experience.
When it's not in alignment with our current belief system, it's
important to consider that one. We don't really understand what
I mines do. Under the influence of
psychedelics, they all attached to the reality of some other

(02:02:17):
realm we call it. The Paranormal, doesn't matter
what you call it, spiritual realm, Supernatural,
metaphysical, doesn't matter. The fact that we're essentially
vibrating energy in a sentence and the when this experience is
over, that, that particular energy transforms and doesn't
buy because it can't buy fills me with a lot of comfort that
there is something else after this so-called here.

(02:02:39):
And now, they show you how much of your reality is subjective
and fragile and capable of beinginfluenced by a psychedelic
drug. It's only from a scientific
background, you come up with some Asians that range from
geomagnetic through atmosphere to something that's physical in

(02:03:02):
nature. There's a lot more out there
that we don't know than we do know.
Is that the entire system the human body is effectively a
stimulation response machine. I think something's here, I
don't know what it is. I don't know where it's from.
It could be extraterrestrial. I'll tell it made a full

(02:03:25):
rotation and then it just hit aninsane speed and just shot up
straight into the atmosphere. I think that there's compelling
evidence that psychedelics have played a significant role in
human evolution over a long period of time the owl view of
reality. The reality we experience on a

(02:03:47):
day-to-day basis, seems to be this very, very thin slice of
something. All of stress and far more
as within. So, without from UFOs to DMT.
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