September 17, 2019 • 45 mins
In this episode we talk with stand up comedian Shane Mauss about his podcast Here We Are, his stand up tour Stand Up Science and his documentary Psychonautics: A Comic's Exploration of Psychedelics
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Dave (00:23):
welcome to the psychedelic suitcase.
I'm Dave McNee.
This is the first episode, firstfull episode anyway, we had a
preview a couple of weeks ago,but this is the first full
episode and I just want to saythank you very much for checking
it out.
A new show will be out every twoweeks and it's conversations we
have with people who areinvolved one way or another in
the world of psychedelics.
(00:44):
Now that can be, it's a fairlybroad term, psychedelics meaning
sort of mind expanding doesn'tnecessarily mean mind altering,
but, a lot of times it does, butmore mind expanding.
So it could be anything frommusic, art, literature,
meditation, anything yourconsciousness is raised a bit
by, in today's episode we talkwith Shane Moss.
(01:05):
He's a standup comedian who hasbeen doing standup for quite
some time and he's, he's been onConan O'Brien five times.
He's had his own comedy centralspecial Jimmy Kimmel, the Joe
Rogan podcast he's been onrecently, but we're going to
talk to him about hisdocumentary.
It's called the psychonauticscomics exploration of
psychedelics.
Sort of follows him as he's setsout to prove how harmless
psychedelics are and decides totake all over them.
The results, I'll let him tellyou himself, but the results
aren't really exactly what hewas expecting.
Anyway.
We also talk about his sciencethemed podcast called, here we
are and he's current stand uptour, stand up science.
And without further ado, here'smy conversation with Shane Moss.
Welcome to the show.
Thanks for coming on.
Shane (01:12):
Thank you for having me.
Dave (01:53):
so you've been traveling around, doing your standup tour.
Stand up science.
I wouldn't mind actuallystarting there if that's o kay.
I want to talk about the moviefor sure.
But u h, I'm really sort ofcurious about the format of the
standup tour that you're doing.
Shane (02:10):
Yeah, so I have, basically I kind of have these
two lives, a full time stand upcomedian.
And then I also have a sciencepodcast.
So, u m, in my, in my comedy,sometimes I sprinkle in a little
science and then my science podcast, sometimes I sprinkle in
a little comedy and I wanted tocreate a platform where I could
(02:33):
have kind of 50, 50 a nd h aveboth a nd m ix my two worlds
together.
So I came up with t his showcalled standup science, which is
basically combining comedy witht he science talks.
So t here's a ll t hese sciencetalks popping up in different
cities everywhere and Ted talksand everything else are becoming
popular.
And so I wanted to combine thatwith comedy.
(02:56):
So basically I, I host the show,I get to local scientists in
every city, do about threedifferent cities a week.
And so I host, I warm up thecrowd with a bunch of science
material.
Then I have a scientist givelike a, you know, 12 minute long
kind of Ted talk sort of thing.
And then I use that to improvisea little bit afterwards and then
(03:17):
bring up a local comic as wellto do a set and then a, a second
scientist after them to doanother kind of 12 minute talk.
And, and then we get all fourpeople on stage and do a Q and a
with the audience afterwards.
And it's a lot of fun.
it's all different because it'sall different guests.
I'm the only constant on theshow.
(03:38):
And so it's all different guestseach time.
So it's all different subjectmatter and it, and it allows me
to do some of my more elevatedcontent and explore some bigger
ideas.
so yeah, that's, that's, Istarted doing, I did a test run
of it, um, about a year ago andit went really well.
(03:59):
And, um, and it's really fittingfor my audience.
You know, I've, I've been...
Dave (04:06):
for people who listen to your podcast for example, it'd
be be a perfect match for that.
Right.
Shane (04:13):
Yeah.
Yeah.
Dave (04:15):
Is it hard to, have you ever struggled finding the local
scientists?
Shane (04:20):
Yeah, I've got a book about six to eight different
scientists a week.
U m, and that's a tremendousamount of work.
I haven't, u h, I have anassistant that's been taking
over a little bit of that andhelping me out now that I kind
of have laid the groundwork ondoing that.
(04:40):
But I've, I've basically h adfigured I do everything myself.
Now I have my assistant doing, Ib ooked venues, I, I f igured
out the routing.
Um, I do all the marketing andthe podcast.
I have a PR person as well, but,um, but yeah, I, uh, I basically
figured out how to do all ofthat, which was not natural for
(05:05):
me.
I spent the most of my careerkind of was just, I had an agent
that would book me at a comedyclub.
I'd go and fly into a comedyclub and do five nights in
Toledo, Ohio or whatever, andthen fly back home and then do
the same thing the next week.
So I kind of just had to figureout how to do all that on my
own.
And now I have a, I have nowhave my assistant moving to full
(05:28):
time and taking over all ofthose responsibilities so I can
focus on the actual stuff that Ishould be doing, which is all
the creative stuff as I'mresearching for podcasts and
stuff is as interesting process.
I'm figuring out how to do allof that.
I'm not a naturally organized orconscientious person.
And so, um, yeah, fine.
(05:50):
Finding eight different guests aweek is, um, kind of a
nightmare.
Dave (05:55):
So where did, uh, I know that people have asked you about
your sort of history withpsychedelics and stuff, but
what's your history withscience?
So how did that, was in schoolthat you sort of fell in love
with science or?
Shane (06:04):
is it a just, well, I mean, the story changes
depending on how long I have tosay it.
Um, and, and how, how detailedyou want it to be.
I've always enjoyed thinkingabout consciousness and, and,
um, the mind and, and memory andwhy we behave the way that we
do.
(06:25):
And so, so right now and tryingto tell an autobiographical
story of my life, you'd feel,you'll notice that, um, that
when you go to do that, you getlike these flashes of little
memories throughout your life.
And so, so my brain, mysubconscious has been given a
task to create a, uh, narrativethat kind of sums up how I got
(06:47):
to be.
And in this particular, and thisis just like the career side and
narrative and, and so, um, andthen it's dependent on like, do
we have an hour to talk aboutthis?
Do we have one minute to talkabout this?
That, that determines how, howmany of these little highlights,
right.
Choosing to provide yourconsciousness and, and, um, and
(07:09):
so these are the things I likethinking about just naturally
and, and what, why it choosesthe, um, the moments that it
does.
Like it seems to be choosing,um, the most pivotal kind of
moments that shaped where youare right now and what makes
something pivotal or shaping.
(07:31):
I think that's, yeah.
Dave (07:33):
And can you trust those members do, that's the o ther
thing.
Shane (07:36):
Well, exactly.
So, you know, I think that, thatthe brain's kind of looking at
like, well, here's where I amright now.
And then here's a differentversion of where, where I
imagine myself on kind of thisparallel universe of had, had
that moment not happened.
I would be a very differentperson right now in the, in the
more different you imagineyourself being than where you
(07:59):
are right now is what makessomething very pivotal.
But then like you said, yourview of that, so let's say that
pivotal moment was getting firedfrom a job, your view of that
pivotal moment is subjectivebased on where you are right
now.
So if you're doing really wellright now, that pivotal moment
is, is like, Oh, who knewgetting fired was gonna open up
(08:20):
all those doors and, and uh, butif you're doing really poorly
right now, you're going to belike, well, but getting fired
was the nail in the coffin thatreally screwed me over and I
never recovered from that andscrew those guys.
So that same incident, how youperceive it is dependent on all
these other variables.
(08:40):
So this is the stuff that I'vealways just loved thinking
about.
And I remember ever since I wasa kid, I was just, I spent a lot
of time in my head.
So, so I was a rebellious youngman.
I didn't fit into the classicalnarrative of, of my strict
religious upbringing.
I started questioning religionfrom an early age, decided when
I was like nine or 10 that Ididn't believe in religion.
(09:03):
And, um, and uh, everyone elseseemed to kind of thought I was
crazy.
As I, as I got older, I kind ofstarted resenting, um, that I
felt like I had been lied to, if, if not directly by, um, you
know, the people around me thenand by the Authority figures
that lied to them, which madethem tell me these stories.
(09:25):
And, and, um, and I also wasvery, like, counterculture
wanted to do anything differentthan anyone else was doing.
When I was 10 years old, I had a, I had a friend say that I
should be a standup comedian.
And I was like, yeah, thatsounds different than what other
people are doing.
So it was like right at the sametime, those kinds of things
(09:47):
happen.
And um, I became a really uniquekid.
I was very introspective and,and shy.
I never felt like I fit in andeverything else and, and um, and
then became like a very angryatheist in my teenage years.
And so I finally worked up thenerve to start comedy in my
(10:08):
early twenties, and I was just aregular kind of a joke.
Her did the traditional path of,you know, I was very fortunate
and able to catch some breaks toget me on like late night
television and a comedy centralhalf hour special.
And then, uh, you know, who thenext step is, especial a an hour
special and blah, blah blah.
And so that was the traditionalpath when I started in, um, in
(10:32):
2003 or 2004.
And then podcasting startedcoming along and then I started
doing international stuff wherepeople were doing these themed
shows that there's a lot of likefestivals like the ember fringe
festival where it's a month longthing of just all these comics
doing these like solo shows.
So, yeah, it's, I mean, um,there's a comedy special Nanette
(10:54):
on Netflix that, that caught alot of, um, attention.
And really that's kind of thesame thing that people have been
doing internationally for, for along time.
It's just different than whatwas going on in America where,
where like, you know, it's notas Joe Kevvy and there's like,
you know, you know, they'resharing their personal story and
(11:14):
there's always this big endingof like, and that is why I don't
eat crackers anymore.
Um, and, and I was like, well,that's interesting and I want to
do more international stuff.
So what would my, the thingbeing, and because I was such a,
um, such a angry, um, atheist inmy teens and early twenties, it
(11:38):
got me into learning aboutphysics and evolution just so I
could argue with people better.
Right.
And so then, but then that gotme naturally curious in science.
I was always interested in thetime I was interested in
technology and I'm wanting to bea and upload my consciousness
into the computer and that wholething.
I'm less interested in thatstuff than I used to be, but,
(12:00):
but, um, so I, I, I wasn't ahuge reader, but when I did
read, I was always readingscience stuff.
I didn't read anything else.
So I just started exploring mynatural interest in science.
I started, um, I was watching, Iwent through a phase when I was
watching, I was in a newrelationship writing a lot of
relationship jokes and I wasalso smoking a bunch of weed and
(12:21):
watching the animal planet quitea bit at the time.
And I was writing a lot ofanimal jokes and then I started
seeing like these like, youknow, you see like animal mating
behavior and you're like, ah,that's kind of funny.
And then after I was like, wait,I'm seeing a few parallels there
who ever, right.
My wife and I just kind ofstarted looking into a lot more
of that.
That got me really intoevolutionary psychology and
(12:43):
biology.
And that just changed my, um,you know, we're going to talk
about psychedelics in a minuteby which I, um, Aye did start
and when I was 16.
Um, and that, that wastransformative in terms of how I
viewed life and the world and myappreciation for nature and my
interest in how the mind works.
(13:06):
And, um, and really it was formost people do their first
psychedelic experience thatthey're like, whoa, this is so
crazy.
And for me it was more like, ah,I knew life was crazy and this
is verification.
Um, and, and then I had allthese, um, did it swing your, uh
(13:26):
, atheism at all?
No.
Later on in life.
I mean, I've had experiencesthat I have a hard time
explaining kind of spiritualtake on things.
Does, you know, it does seem tofit into some of what people
have to say about that, but, but, uh, those, so those were the
two things that changed myperspective the most was
(13:49):
psychedelics early on in life.
And then later on in life, um,learning more about evolution in
particular, how evolution hasshaped our, our minds and our,
our behavior in our modernworld.
And then I started reaching outto scientists, got to know a
bunch of scientists, had theseamazing, interesting
conversations, started myscience podcast.
(14:10):
Here we are.
And then that took over my lifeand became my biggest passion.
And I loved doing that more thananything else, more than standup
comedy or anything else.
And so I've just been furtheringscience communication ever since
and have kind of lost interestin, in doing traditional comedy.
(14:32):
And so, so yeah, that was a,that was the two minutes
stretched a five minute version,which you gotta that's what
happens when you ask a comicabout themselves.
They'll go, no shortage ofthings to say.
Dave (14:46):
Well, I've got a few more.
that's cool.
So the clip I saw of the standupscience tour that you're doing
was, it was the sort of, um,panel discussions people were
asking questions from theaudience.
has the panel been stumped yetby an audience question,
Shane (15:02):
usually they ask a, you know, really smart questions
and, and it's, uh, you know,it's catered to a demographic
of, tends to be people a littlemore toward the intellectual
side.
Right.
And, um, and Ah, also I have, Ihave, you know, have a lot of
fans in the psychedelic spaceand you know, a lot of the
psychedelic community is notonly smart, but they're also a
(15:24):
little bit out there.
And my favorite thing aboutscience is scientists, uh, love
saying, I don't know.
They, they, they, you know, youreally have to press a scientist
to speculate a lot of the times.
Some, some scientists have noproblem speculating and, and,
um, you know, going off on moreof a philosophical bent.
(15:47):
But scientists are prettycareful and saying what they
know about things.
And, and it's one of my favoritethings about Sa, the biggest
difference between a scientistand your average person is just
their willingness to say, Idon't know.
Most people will, most peopleare happy to give you an answer
about just about, you can asksomeone the meaning of life and
(16:10):
they'll just pop it right off.
Like, Oh yeah, here's my take onthis.
And there's all sorts of stufflike the, um, it's say
interesting subject called theillusion of explanatory depth,
which has people over estimatehow much they know about things,
um, all of the time.
And um, and then there's thedunning Kruger effect, which is
(16:31):
the less you know aboutsomething, the more you think
you're an expert on it.
Whereas people that are actuallyexperts on things realize how
much there is to know and how
Dave (16:43):
Yeah, no, it seems like people who think they have all
the answers really haven't askedall the questions yet, but yeah.
Is this going to culminate insomething, this tour or is it
going to just be something thatyou kind of keep on doing?
Or are you going to maybe filmit or at some point or
documented some way?
Shane (17:00):
yeah.
Um, so, you know, tossing arounda lot of ideas of, right.
Right now I'm in in kind of aone step at a, at a time phase
of, like I said, it's atremendous undertaking putting
this together as, as myassistants taking over all the
behind the scenes stuff.
I mean, I s I still need to, Istill need to show up at Benny's
(17:24):
two hours early and set up aprojector and do all this other
stuff, but, and do a lot ofresearch and everything, but the
tourist meant to be indefinite.
Finding the cities where itworks the best in and, and kind
of looping back and going, um,over and over again to those, to
those cities because, um, youknow, it's a different show
(17:45):
every single time.
It's all different, right?
Scientists, different Comedians,all different subject matter.
I do new material each time,right?
And so the plan is to do it forthe foreseeable future and the
plan is to also, um, you know,get better at it.
This is, this is also new for meand out of my comfort zone and
(18:06):
um, doing stand up and is verydifferent than say moderating a
panel and improvising andriffing off things.
And so I'm kind of buildingthose muscles and kind of want
something that's really, um, I wI want to have like a bunch of
structure in my life first andthen I'm going to think about
maybe, um, you know, at the veryleast, um, having, having uh,
(18:30):
you know, uh, professional, um,come around and record the shows
to maybe put the um, the Q and ais, um, on an ad and maybe start
editing together short segmentsof it.
I haven't done that yet becauseone that, uh, there's a few
things.
One, I, I don't like the idea ofpeople being like, oh, I'll just
(18:55):
wait and watch it on youtube.
Right.
That's why vibe live shows aregetting harder and harder for
people.
Dave (19:01):
Yeah.
I was going to ask you aboutthat.
How you do, how do you sort ofkeep it fresh when you know
somebody in the audience with acell phone can sort of leak your
whole act with this is a bitdifferent cause it is a lot of
Improv, but yeah.
Shane (19:12):
Yeah.
We deter people from using cellphones and, and stuff.
Um, you know, we, we do a prettygood, that hasn't really popped
up.
I mean[inaudible] I have somebig fans and everything, but I'm
not some like big household nameor anything like that.
So, so I, I, I fortunately don'thave to deal with as many people
(19:35):
wanting to, but yeah, the, thecell phone thing can be a
nuisance.
Um, but mostly I just think thatfor people's own good, they need
to go out and see more liveevents and it's just random vibe
of being in a, being in anaudience like that,
Dave (19:53):
isn't it?
Uh, like the Jack White orsomething.
Now I think you put your phonein a bag or something and they
zips up during the show so youcan't have it during the show,
which, so yeah, I mean it's,it's sad that we have to take
those steps, but uh, yeah, it's,it, it ruins the whole
experience I find.
I mean, going to concerts andseeing just a sea of phones is a
(20:14):
little distracting.
Shane (20:15):
Yeah, it really is.
We'll see.
And we might start recordingsome stuff just to, so at least
people can see some highlightsand[inaudible] and stuff, so, so
there might be more, more stufflike that.
And, and you know, I, I willeventually be, um, potentially
pitching something similar as aTV show.
(20:36):
Um, I don't like television andI'm not terribly interested in
it, but I do like money, so, um,so, you know, it might be a good
way for me to kind of promote myself and get more people out to
the live shows and everything ifI should, if I get some sort of
a, a show.
So, so we'll see that that'skind of another pain in the ass
(21:01):
for it.
I mean, a lot of comics, that'stheir dream, um, is to like have
a TV show or whatever.
And for me that's more of a painin the ass thing that I would, I
would need to do just to, um,get the word out there for my
live shows.
Cause, um, I'm, I'm all aboutthe live for performance and
that's why I'm in a new cityevery two days.
And most comics hate the idea ofbeing on the road as much as I
(21:21):
am.
I think I'm on the road morethan more than any comic out
there.
But, um, I just, I like that.
Dave (21:27):
Psychonautics I've watched it a couple times.
It's a documentary about a yourself and as you said, you
wanted to prove or de mystify or make psychedelics less scary.
So yo u d ecided to try all ofthem.
Shane (21:39):
That was the plan.
Dave (21:40):
That was the plan.
Shane (21:41):
I didn't get there.
its w hat happened along theway.
Dave (21:45):
Yeah.
And I think I've, I've heard youtalk about it since and one of
the issues was just doing all ofthem in a relatively short
period of time without any sortof integration afterwards.
Right?
Shane (21:56):
Yeah, we had a low budget.
And so that, that ended up, uh,leading to me trying to pack way
too much and, and a short amountof time.
And usually I'm, I'm, I mean, Iwouldn't say I'm the, I'm, I'm
the most responsible, um, uh,psychedelic user in the world.
I actually, um, for myself, Ibelieve in being a little
(22:19):
reckless and adventurous, um,sometimes, but what I was doing
during that time was, was waybeyond what I would normally
ever or be doing.
So.
So, yeah.
And then, and then I found, Ifound the edge, so it worked out
that I was able to report backto people what that experience
(22:40):
is like and why it's importantto try to avoid that.
Dave (22:45):
Well, it's funny when I was watching the movie, you sort
of explain how things started.
You know, you started thinkingeverything was sort of talking
to you.
You started seeing signs andthings that weren't really,
really there and it just sort ofbuilt and built and built and
half, half way through that, uh,sort of monologue about you
discussing, uh, things goingover the edge.
(23:06):
Um, I was like, what?
Yeah.
I, I've, I've, I've been there,I've been there, I've been there
and then the last couple, I'mlike, okay, good.
At least I have a few more stepsto go.
I think I was with you halfway,halfway through like, oh yeah, I
can see, you know, things doseem some song.
I see faces and everything, youknow, it just, uh, yeah, but uh,
yeah, luckily there was still afew more steps where I said,
(23:27):
well, he got a bit crazy there.
Shane (23:29):
Yeah.
I mean, you know, it reallywasn't even, there was nothing
within that that was, you know,that crazy up an experience had
it been contained within, youknow, the, the experience of
like a four hour mushroom tripor something like that.
It's, that's, you know, that'san inappropriate context to
think you're talking with timetravelers or whatever.
(23:52):
But, but once the drugs wear offthat those ideas are supposed to
wear off as well.
And those ideas weren't wearingoff for me.
And that's what, that's whatkind of got me into trouble.
And, and really, um, you know, I, I had, I've had bouts of mania
before that, but nothing that,that kept me from sleeping for
(24:13):
such a extended period of time.
So if you go for a few weekswithout sleeping, you're going
to get, start getting confusedand your judgment is going to go
out the window and, and, uh,everything else.
So it's going to come along withsome psychosis.
Dave (24:27):
for sure.
So lets go through some of thestuff that you did in the d
ocumentary,
Shane (24:33):
there's actually, you know what I, what I think might
be even more interesting forpeople to know if, if people are
checking out the, the film isthat, um, what the film shows to
me doing and what I was doing orare two different things.
Because, you know, the film aretelling, we're telling a
narrative and, and structuringthings in in a certain way.
(24:57):
I was actually doing way, way,way more psychedelics than what
we're showing and that him,because I was trying to tap into
that, that kind of head spaceand figuring out new ways of
articulating it.
And I was kind of, so I wasdoing like a lot of mushrooms
and thinking about like, okay,how do you, how do you create
the visuals for this?
(25:18):
That, uh, and, and how do youarticulate that?
How do you, um, how does thisfeel like resonated a ton on an
emotional level and then how doyou translate this to film to
kind of draw people into theexperience?
And these experiences arenotoriously hard to, um, to
(25:39):
translate to, you know, you getout of the, you get done with
your trip and you try to tellyour buddies or, uh, about it or
whatever.
And there, you know, it's liketalking about a dream or
something like that.
Just no one wants to hear it.
It doesn't, uh, it doesn'trelate.
Yeah.
That's really hard to capture.
And sell.
I was, I was just, I was doingmushrooms like three times a
(26:00):
week or so, which was just like,you know, that's right.
That's pretty, it's prettyasinine amount of mushrooms to
speed doing.
And, um, and so that's what kindof, I think, started that early
onset of the, and then I, youknow, I was doing LSD and
ketamine and DMT along the wayand I had a weird DMT experience
(26:24):
that led to a much weirderayahuasca experience, which was
kind of the straw that broke thecamel's back.
I, another thing that they don'tshow in the documentary is I did
mushrooms one more time afterI'd already kind of started
going crazy from, fromayahuasca.
I did mushrooms at the RogerWaters concert that they
mentioned in the film, andthat's when things went
(26:46):
absolutely bananas or where Ithought I was like living in a
simulation or I didn't, I didn'tknow.
Um, I didn't know how to explainthe things that have happened to
me.
Dave (26:59):
So the DMT, was it the just the nn DMT or the five Meo
dmt?
Shane (27:04):
yeah, yeah.
I've actually never done five onMeo because I was, I was waiting
to do it during thisdocumentary, I was hoping to
film my first experience withboth of those on the
documentary.
So I actually s till, a nd Iended up losing my mind.
And so to this day, I haven'tdone either o f those, which I'm
(27:25):
very interested in, but, u m,
Dave (27:27):
yes.
Yeah.
I haven't done the NN DMT, butI've done five Meo, three times.
And yeah, it's life changing ina lot of ways.
And I'm like you, I didn'tbelieve in much before these
experiences and not that I donow, but I feel th ere's a
(27:48):
connection there.
There's something that's goingon.
And so in your, after talkingwith experts after your own
experiences, where do you, wheredo you think it takes you?
Wha t, w hat do you think isactually going on there?
Like, do you have any sort ofidea of,
Shane (28:06):
Yeah.
I mean, I, so I, I have a littlebit more of a different take
than a lot of the people in thepsychedelic community that might
be talking about, say, likeuniversal consciousness or
talking with, u m, y ou k now,entities and like parallel
universes or outside time andspace or whatever.
That's a lot of the commonnarrative of trying to explain i
(28:28):
t.
I mean, I think we're all kindof grasping at straws trying to
explain these experiences thatare really intense and very
different than our regularreality.
And I do a different take and I,and I will say that when I, u m,
share my different take, I, Idon't necessarily think that
it's true.
I'm, I'm, you know, I, I likehaving different takes on things
(28:49):
than other people.
And, and I m ay b e biased to,to providing a more novel take
than, than is necessary.
And, and also I've hadexperiences that don't fit very
well, that my own take andperception on things doesn't do
very well to explain.
Um, but my take on it justsimply that I believe that we
have a, um, uh, this consciousexperience that we have is one
(29:15):
of, um, of many, many, many, um,uh, perceptual experiences that
exist within the mind.
And, and I think that there iskind of a multiverse of
perception and inside of ourminds that that is, that is, I
think that there's kind of likethe movie inside out.
(29:36):
Um, if you've seen it as a funlittle children's representation
of the brain where she hasthese, her emotional states
embodied by these characters inthere.
And then there's like a dreamarea where these things are
constructing the behind thescenes of the dream and here's
where memories are stored andhere's how you select a memory
and provide it to her.
And, and, um, and I think thereis a lot of that going on.
(29:59):
And I, and so, um, uh, I, Ithink that normally we don't see
those, those levels and of, ofperception that are kind of like
the early, um, you know, just tobe listening to this right now
or seeing this, there's a lot oflevels of perception that that
go into putting[inaudible],constructing our conscious
perception.
(30:19):
And, and to me that's why,that's why these, you know, you,
you do DMT and you see like allthese fractals and tunnels and
everything else and it's reallydifferent than all of this and
really like mind blowing thefirst couple times you see it.
But you know, artists are ableto represent these, these worlds
quite nicely, just using somepretty simple, um, programs that
(30:43):
are just using kind of theserecursive patterns to put
together these fractals andeverything's like very
symmetrical and everything else.
And to me that, that would seemlike a nice way of setting up
the foundation of ourperception.
And I think that say you, you'retrying to figure out like, okay,
that's one reality and then thisperception is another reality.
(31:03):
How do you know which one iswhich?
And I would say, well, which onehas the most computational, um,
um, complexity.
And I would say that thisperception, all, all of the
flaws in this swirled all thewrinkles in our face.
The, the, the, the, uh, coresymmetry, the, um, the flaws
(31:25):
would take a lot moreprogramming and complexity,
complexity and processing power.
And not that it's not possiblethat we're living in a
simulation.
We probably are, but I thinkthat you're running into these
different roles inside of yourhead of the many different hats
that we live on and in life that, you know, I'm a different
person talking to you right nowthan right at the grocery store
(31:48):
around my family atThanksgiving.
And so I think those differentroles are actually stored in
representations in our mind thatare kind of running through
simulations of future events allof the time.
We're always doing these mentalrehearsals of like, Oh, here's
the line.
I'm going to use it at a girl ina bar next time I write it.
Or next time I'm arguing with mybuddy, here's this political
(32:11):
point I'm gonna make.
And boy, yeah, I'm sure I'mgoing to show him.
And you know, we're, we'realways doing these mental
rehearsals and, and recruitingthese, these representations of
others and stuff and runningthese simulations in our mind.
And I think that we actuallyaren't seeing a lot of the, um,
a lot of the details of thosesimulations of okay.
(32:33):
Of those processes because itwould just be too confusing to
our consciousness to see allthat.
And so I think you smoke DMT andyou see some of those worlds
processing it and insert yourconsciousness into those worlds.
And those worlds are trying tomake sense of that experience.
And I think that that when youthink you're like meeting a god
in there, it's maybe just aversion of you.
(32:54):
I think it could be yourneighbor bill that is just like,
that's his memory of him stored.
And you know, we have to do thisto have a dream at night.
You have to, um, you know, Imight have a dream where, where
your there, um, tonight and alsolike my mom's there and my
(33:15):
fourth grade math teacher there,there, there are these perfect
representations of you, which isamazing.
Like I'm, I just met you, webeen talking for a few minutes
and, and we could have a perfectdream of one another that's like
a perfect representation.
Looks just like us.
Sounds just like us.
We'll be writing the script with[inaudible] believable content
(33:38):
for that person.
And the brain's doing this soeasily that we don't, we're
literally doing it in our sleepfirst of all.
And um, and we don't evenrealize that we're doing it.
We think that it's happening tous and these representations
need to be stored some more.
I'm being worked somewhere inthe mind and, and I think that
potentially that's what you're,that's what you're seeing.
(34:00):
And, and I think if someone hadnever had a dream in their
entire life and then had theirfirst dream when they were like
30 years old, they would comeout ranting and raving and being
like, you don't understand.
There's like this world wherethere was a clown there and, and
it was like under the sea.
And like, no, I'm telling you,it was real.
(34:22):
This is all bullshit, right?
The clown underwater world isthe real world.
Um, you know, and[inaudible] andso, uh,[inaudible], you know, a
lot of these psychedelicexperiences are very, there's
something that most people areonly doing a few times in their
life.
Um, and so the brain reallylikes attaching to stuff like
(34:42):
that.
And, and that's really novel andsalient.
And so I think that's, I thinkthat explains a lot of the
psychedelic experience.
I don't think that it explainseverything, um, that, and, and
it certainly doesn't explainevery experience that, that I've
had.
And, and I've definitely had alot of, um, you know, telepathic
(35:03):
seeming things I've had.
I've had a lot of, um, uh, youknow, there's a lot of
prophecies and stuff like that.
Sometimes times come true, butthere's confirmation bias, you
know, we're all trying tovalidate our own shit all the
time.
Dave (35:18):
So, also I was going to ask you about just, how does
that square with the whole sortof idea of sort of manifesting
your own destiny and, uh, peopleare into these to sort of find a
path and maybe if control, uh,the direction in that path?
Shane (35:36):
Well, consciousness is a, you know, a very malleable and
really flexible thing and mostof us are set in these patterns
of these kind of dailymonotonous lives.
And we're kind of used to, youknow, we walked by the same
things every day withoutnoticing them.
And then, and then all of asudden you have a experience
that changes the way that yousee things and you're having to
(35:58):
re make sense of the world.
And all of a sudden you startnoticing things that you'd
walked by every day withoutnoticing.
Just, just like we have, um, youknow, blind spots because you
have, uh, you have these conesin your eyes that inhibit your
ability to see something at a,at a certain angle that's in
your blind spot.
But if you, um, you know, you'dgo to merge and traffic and then
(36:21):
you hear a hunk, right?
You know, your consciousness hadfilled in the gap and created
what looked like a blank road,right?
Because it was filling in thatgap with a narrative as in this
case, a visual narrative.
And then you turn, you hear thehonk, you look and then just
like that your perception cancompletely change.
You know, you didn't manifestthat car there.
(36:43):
Um, it, it your, yourconsciousness instead of
responded to new stimulus.
And then there's this kind ofBasie and processing that it
seems to use where, um, youknow, your, your conscious
construction is, is using thebest information that it has
available at the time.
And then, um, you know, in, inan ideal world, what the brain
(37:04):
does is allow itself theopportunity to update as new
information comes in.
And that becomes hard for us todo as we live our lives and we
get stuck in habits androutines.
And so I think a lot of thesepsychedelic experiences rattle
that and, and perceptions ableto change really, really
quickly.
So there's things like learnedhelplessness in a, in a rat
(37:28):
where a rat can, um, you cantrain a rat that like a light
comes on and it moves to thisside of the stage and it avoids
getting shocked or finds areward or whatever.
But if you just create like areally cool, chaotic environment
where the, where the ratsgetting shocked out of nowhere
and it has no control over itand no way of predicting when it
(37:49):
learns that the world is full ofshocks and, and um, and that
there's nothing you can do aboutit.
If you then put that right andthe cage, um, where, where it
can learn and it has anopportunity to control and to
predict things.
Yeah, it won't learn.
A new rat will be able to learn.
But the rat that has learnedthis learned helplessness, they
(38:12):
call it, will not look for thesigns in the environment that
allow it to, um, make changesand control its narrative.
And I think a lot of thepsychedelic experience creates
this reset that allows you to belike, oh wait, oh, when that
light comes on I can just moveover to this side and I no
longer get shocked anymore.
(38:33):
And it seems like this, youknow, and this is an incredibly
life changing thing.
So if you're doing theseexperiences regularly and
shaking up your perceptionregularly, it's allowing you to
reorient your er, your goals.
And when you are setting newgoals, you are shifting your
(38:53):
conscious attention.
Two where those goals are justlike if I, if, if a listener
right now is, um, it thinksabout something orange, um, and
wants to look out in theirperceptual world for orange
things like I'm now lookingaround, um, the environment that
I'm in and I can see littleorange things everywhere.
(39:18):
Even though 0.0, zero, zero 1%of my visual experience right
now has orange tint.
But my consciousness is nowfilled with all of the orange
things.
It's what it's, it's what it'sfocusing on because it's, it's
been, it's been given that, thatgoal.
And so this is a lot of whatsetting intentions is doing and
(39:39):
a lot of what integration isdoing.
So.
So I, I'm not saying that, that,um, I'm completely dismissing
the idea of manifesting thingsand what not, but no matter
what, what we know for a fact isthat confirmation bias, Israel
consciousness, um, is veryflexible and, and seemingly
responding to the environment.
(39:59):
And so, so that's how I wouldgive us more scientific
explanation.
Dave (40:04):
I wish I could remember, where I heard this, but somebody
explained it to me in this wayonce where they, they talk about
the mind to being, um, a skihill, a snow hill filled with
snow.
And as a child you can get, youcan go anywhere you want and as
you get older you startdeveloping these, going down the
same path and getting into rutsand what these psychedelics seem
(40:24):
to do for a lot of people, itseems to be a fresh snowfall
where now they can go anywhereagain.
It's or just even like imagininga shaking a Snow Globe and, uh,
it's just resetting everything,right?
Shane (40:37):
Yeah.
Yeah.
It seems, so this is thisgrowing field of, of
neuroplasticity and what we cando to introduce a little more of
that childlike creativity intoour adult lives.
You know, and it's an importantto remember for people that, um,
that shaking up the snow globeisn't always the, um, the best
thing.
I mean, some of these patternsare, are really useful.
(40:59):
I know to associate the colorred with stopping.
So when I'm driving and a cars,red lights go on in front of me.
I, without having to sit thereand be like, Hey, what does that
mean?
What should I do in thissituation?
I have reflexes that quicklystop my car without having to
(41:20):
involve my consciousness in, inthe experience.
And, and so there's, there'sreasons why we developed these
patterns over time.
It's just that a lot of thesepatterns, um, you know, helped
us along at one, um, in, in ourlife and now we just, and
they're not necessarilybenefiting us anymore.
(41:43):
Um, like say smoking cigaretteswhen I was a teenager was, it
was cool and way over battleagainst my parents and I'd catch
a buzz.
And, and then, but then as anadult, you're no longer getting
that buzz.
You no longer give a shit aboutthe rebelling against your
parents.
And, and it's, it's not, notquite as cool looking as it used
(42:05):
to be.
And, uh, you know, so this is,this is, uh, you know, something
that that was arguably a, um, um, potentially positive strategy
at one point that kind of thengot hijacked by it.
Bye.
Um, these drugs and addictionand, and then becomes this, um,
(42:27):
this negative pattern in yourlife.
And so, so that, that's, that'sthe ability to identify what
patterns are worth holding ontoand, and what patterns, um, you
want to let go of.
And, and psychedelics may begiving just a little bit of, it
takes a long time to form a newhabit.
It's like, um, six weeks orsomething like that to have
(42:49):
something fully ingrained.
I think it's like, I think it'sthree weeks to break a habit or,
or something like that in sixweeks before.
It's like a new part of yourlifestyle.
And psychedelics seem for manypeople to really speed along
that process.
And so if you implement change,um, after the psychedelic
(43:11):
experience and focus a lot of[inaudible] integration, those,
those new patterns can, um, canhopefully form faster would be
the idea.
Dave (43:21):
Yeah, I find it all fascinating.
It's also seems that, uh, it'san ordeal going through some of
these, um, like ayahuasca is notthe most fun experience.
Both.and it seems like the workyou put in sort of does pay off
in the end that it's almost likeyou have to go through something
and work towards it, but it doesseem to be cutting down the time
(43:43):
in which people are having tosuffer through withdrawals or
it's a, seems to be, I mean, nowresearchers now are starting up
with John Hopkins and they'vealready been doing the MDMA for
PTSD.
It seems like they're takingnotice of what these substances
can do nowadays, which isawesome.
I was gonna ask you, after themovie came out, what was the
(44:03):
reaction?
Are people coming out to you nowas far as their psychedelic use
or are people coming up to youand sort of talking to you more
about it?
They did before or,
Shane (44:12):
yeah, I mean the, the, you know, all the reviews have
been fairly positive.
Um, you know, I think it haslike a, um, 80%, five, five star
rating on Amazon and one out ofnine people hate it or one out
of 10 people hate it.
But just like, uh, I think thatthis sign up doing something
(44:33):
good in different and, um, and Iget, I get emails from people
all the time, all the timehaving had kind of shared
experiences and um, you know,people have been coming out to
shows more and more, especiallysince it, you know, at first you
had to rent it and now it'savailable for free on Amazon
prime.
And so since that's happenedit's, it's um, open things up a
(44:55):
lot.
Dave (44:56):
I will let you go.
I know you have to run, but,thanks for being on the show and
to hope we can catch up againsooner.
It's been great talking to you,Shane.
Thank you.
Alright, awesome.
Thanks, And that was myconversation with Shane Mauss.
To find out more about Shane, goto Shanemauss.com to find out
about the documentary we talkedabout, his podcast.
Here we are, and his standuptour stand up science, the
(45:18):
psychedelic suitcases producedby Carolyn Myers and myself,
your host, Dave McNee.
So please join us every twoweeks where we unpack more of
the psychedelic suitcase.
Safe travels
welcome to the psychedelic suitcase.
I'm Dave McNee.
This is the first episode, firstfull episode anyway, we had a
preview a couple of weeks ago,but this is the first full
episode and I just want to saythank you very much for checking
it out.
A new show will be out every twoweeks and it's conversations we
have with people who areinvolved one way or another in
the world of psychedelics.
(00:44):
Now that can be, it's a fairlybroad term, psychedelics meaning
sort of mind expanding doesn'tnecessarily mean mind altering,
but, a lot of times it does, butmore mind expanding.
So it could be anything frommusic, art, literature,
meditation, anything yourconsciousness is raised a bit
by, in today's episode we talkwith Shane Moss.
(01:05):
He's a standup comedian who hasbeen doing standup for quite
some time and he's, he's been onConan O'Brien five times.
He's had his own comedy centralspecial Jimmy Kimmel, the Joe
Rogan podcast he's been onrecently, but we're going to
talk to him about hisdocumentary.
It's called the psychonauticscomics exploration of
psychedelics.
Sort of follows him as he's setsout to prove how harmless
psychedelics are and decides totake all over them.
The results, I'll let him tellyou himself, but the results
aren't really exactly what hewas expecting.
Anyway.
We also talk about his sciencethemed podcast called, here we
are and he's current stand uptour, stand up science.
And without further ado, here'smy conversation with Shane Moss.
Welcome to the show.
Thanks for coming on.
Shane (01:12):
Thank you for having me.
Dave (01:53):
so you've been traveling around, doing your standup tour.
Stand up science.
I wouldn't mind actuallystarting there if that's o kay.
I want to talk about the moviefor sure.
But u h, I'm really sort ofcurious about the format of the
standup tour that you're doing.
Shane (02:10):
Yeah, so I have, basically I kind of have these
two lives, a full time stand upcomedian.
And then I also have a sciencepodcast.
So, u m, in my, in my comedy,sometimes I sprinkle in a little
science and then my science podcast, sometimes I sprinkle in
a little comedy and I wanted tocreate a platform where I could
(02:33):
have kind of 50, 50 a nd h aveboth a nd m ix my two worlds
together.
So I came up with t his showcalled standup science, which is
basically combining comedy witht he science talks.
So t here's a ll t hese sciencetalks popping up in different
cities everywhere and Ted talksand everything else are becoming
popular.
And so I wanted to combine thatwith comedy.
(02:56):
So basically I, I host the show,I get to local scientists in
every city, do about threedifferent cities a week.
And so I host, I warm up thecrowd with a bunch of science
material.
Then I have a scientist givelike a, you know, 12 minute long
kind of Ted talk sort of thing.
And then I use that to improvisea little bit afterwards and then
(03:17):
bring up a local comic as wellto do a set and then a, a second
scientist after them to doanother kind of 12 minute talk.
And, and then we get all fourpeople on stage and do a Q and a
with the audience afterwards.
And it's a lot of fun.
it's all different because it'sall different guests.
I'm the only constant on theshow.
(03:38):
And so it's all different guestseach time.
So it's all different subjectmatter and it, and it allows me
to do some of my more elevatedcontent and explore some bigger
ideas.
so yeah, that's, that's, Istarted doing, I did a test run
of it, um, about a year ago andit went really well.
(03:59):
And, um, and it's really fittingfor my audience.
You know, I've, I've been...
Dave (04:06):
for people who listen to your podcast for example, it'd
be be a perfect match for that.
Right.
Shane (04:13):
Yeah.
Yeah.
Dave (04:15):
Is it hard to, have you ever struggled finding the local
scientists?
Shane (04:20):
Yeah, I've got a book about six to eight different
scientists a week.
U m, and that's a tremendousamount of work.
I haven't, u h, I have anassistant that's been taking
over a little bit of that andhelping me out now that I kind
of have laid the groundwork ondoing that.
(04:40):
But I've, I've basically h adfigured I do everything myself.
Now I have my assistant doing, Ib ooked venues, I, I f igured
out the routing.
Um, I do all the marketing andthe podcast.
I have a PR person as well, but,um, but yeah, I, uh, I basically
figured out how to do all ofthat, which was not natural for
(05:05):
me.
I spent the most of my careerkind of was just, I had an agent
that would book me at a comedyclub.
I'd go and fly into a comedyclub and do five nights in
Toledo, Ohio or whatever, andthen fly back home and then do
the same thing the next week.
So I kind of just had to figureout how to do all that on my
own.
And now I have a, I have nowhave my assistant moving to full
(05:28):
time and taking over all ofthose responsibilities so I can
focus on the actual stuff that Ishould be doing, which is all
the creative stuff as I'mresearching for podcasts and
stuff is as interesting process.
I'm figuring out how to do allof that.
I'm not a naturally organized orconscientious person.
And so, um, yeah, fine.
(05:50):
Finding eight different guests aweek is, um, kind of a
nightmare.
Dave (05:55):
So where did, uh, I know that people have asked you about
your sort of history withpsychedelics and stuff, but
what's your history withscience?
So how did that, was in schoolthat you sort of fell in love
with science or?
Shane (06:04):
is it a just, well, I mean, the story changes
depending on how long I have tosay it.
Um, and, and how, how detailedyou want it to be.
I've always enjoyed thinkingabout consciousness and, and,
um, the mind and, and memory andwhy we behave the way that we
do.
(06:25):
And so, so right now and tryingto tell an autobiographical
story of my life, you'd feel,you'll notice that, um, that
when you go to do that, you getlike these flashes of little
memories throughout your life.
And so, so my brain, mysubconscious has been given a
task to create a, uh, narrativethat kind of sums up how I got
(06:47):
to be.
And in this particular, and thisis just like the career side and
narrative and, and so, um, andthen it's dependent on like, do
we have an hour to talk aboutthis?
Do we have one minute to talkabout this?
That, that determines how, howmany of these little highlights,
right.
Choosing to provide yourconsciousness and, and, um, and
(07:09):
so these are the things I likethinking about just naturally
and, and what, why it choosesthe, um, the moments that it
does.
Like it seems to be choosing,um, the most pivotal kind of
moments that shaped where youare right now and what makes
something pivotal or shaping.
(07:31):
I think that's, yeah.
Dave (07:33):
And can you trust those members do, that's the o ther
thing.
Shane (07:36):
Well, exactly.
So, you know, I think that, thatthe brain's kind of looking at
like, well, here's where I amright now.
And then here's a differentversion of where, where I
imagine myself on kind of thisparallel universe of had, had
that moment not happened.
I would be a very differentperson right now in the, in the
more different you imagineyourself being than where you
(07:59):
are right now is what makessomething very pivotal.
But then like you said, yourview of that, so let's say that
pivotal moment was getting firedfrom a job, your view of that
pivotal moment is subjectivebased on where you are right
now.
So if you're doing really wellright now, that pivotal moment
is, is like, Oh, who knewgetting fired was gonna open up
(08:20):
all those doors and, and uh, butif you're doing really poorly
right now, you're going to belike, well, but getting fired
was the nail in the coffin thatreally screwed me over and I
never recovered from that andscrew those guys.
So that same incident, how youperceive it is dependent on all
these other variables.
(08:40):
So this is the stuff that I'vealways just loved thinking
about.
And I remember ever since I wasa kid, I was just, I spent a lot
of time in my head.
So, so I was a rebellious youngman.
I didn't fit into the classicalnarrative of, of my strict
religious upbringing.
I started questioning religionfrom an early age, decided when
I was like nine or 10 that Ididn't believe in religion.
(09:03):
And, um, and uh, everyone elseseemed to kind of thought I was
crazy.
As I, as I got older, I kind ofstarted resenting, um, that I
felt like I had been lied to, if, if not directly by, um, you
know, the people around me thenand by the Authority figures
that lied to them, which madethem tell me these stories.
(09:25):
And, and, um, and I also wasvery, like, counterculture
wanted to do anything differentthan anyone else was doing.
When I was 10 years old, I had a, I had a friend say that I
should be a standup comedian.
And I was like, yeah, thatsounds different than what other
people are doing.
So it was like right at the sametime, those kinds of things
(09:47):
happen.
And um, I became a really uniquekid.
I was very introspective and,and shy.
I never felt like I fit in andeverything else and, and um, and
then became like a very angryatheist in my teenage years.
And so I finally worked up thenerve to start comedy in my
(10:08):
early twenties, and I was just aregular kind of a joke.
Her did the traditional path of,you know, I was very fortunate
and able to catch some breaks toget me on like late night
television and a comedy centralhalf hour special.
And then, uh, you know, who thenext step is, especial a an hour
special and blah, blah blah.
And so that was the traditionalpath when I started in, um, in
(10:32):
2003 or 2004.
And then podcasting startedcoming along and then I started
doing international stuff wherepeople were doing these themed
shows that there's a lot of likefestivals like the ember fringe
festival where it's a month longthing of just all these comics
doing these like solo shows.
So, yeah, it's, I mean, um,there's a comedy special Nanette
(10:54):
on Netflix that, that caught alot of, um, attention.
And really that's kind of thesame thing that people have been
doing internationally for, for along time.
It's just different than whatwas going on in America where,
where like, you know, it's notas Joe Kevvy and there's like,
you know, you know, they'resharing their personal story and
(11:14):
there's always this big endingof like, and that is why I don't
eat crackers anymore.
Um, and, and I was like, well,that's interesting and I want to
do more international stuff.
So what would my, the thingbeing, and because I was such a,
um, such a angry, um, atheist inmy teens and early twenties, it
(11:38):
got me into learning aboutphysics and evolution just so I
could argue with people better.
Right.
And so then, but then that gotme naturally curious in science.
I was always interested in thetime I was interested in
technology and I'm wanting to bea and upload my consciousness
into the computer and that wholething.
I'm less interested in thatstuff than I used to be, but,
(12:00):
but, um, so I, I, I wasn't ahuge reader, but when I did
read, I was always readingscience stuff.
I didn't read anything else.
So I just started exploring mynatural interest in science.
I started, um, I was watching, Iwent through a phase when I was
watching, I was in a newrelationship writing a lot of
relationship jokes and I wasalso smoking a bunch of weed and
(12:21):
watching the animal planet quitea bit at the time.
And I was writing a lot ofanimal jokes and then I started
seeing like these like, youknow, you see like animal mating
behavior and you're like, ah,that's kind of funny.
And then after I was like, wait,I'm seeing a few parallels there
who ever, right.
My wife and I just kind ofstarted looking into a lot more
of that.
That got me really intoevolutionary psychology and
(12:43):
biology.
And that just changed my, um,you know, we're going to talk
about psychedelics in a minuteby which I, um, Aye did start
and when I was 16.
Um, and that, that wastransformative in terms of how I
viewed life and the world and myappreciation for nature and my
interest in how the mind works.
(13:06):
And, um, and really it was formost people do their first
psychedelic experience thatthey're like, whoa, this is so
crazy.
And for me it was more like, ah,I knew life was crazy and this
is verification.
Um, and, and then I had allthese, um, did it swing your, uh
(13:26):
, atheism at all?
No.
Later on in life.
I mean, I've had experiencesthat I have a hard time
explaining kind of spiritualtake on things.
Does, you know, it does seem tofit into some of what people
have to say about that, but, but, uh, those, so those were the
two things that changed myperspective the most was
(13:49):
psychedelics early on in life.
And then later on in life, um,learning more about evolution in
particular, how evolution hasshaped our, our minds and our,
our behavior in our modernworld.
And then I started reaching outto scientists, got to know a
bunch of scientists, had theseamazing, interesting
conversations, started myscience podcast.
(14:10):
Here we are.
And then that took over my lifeand became my biggest passion.
And I loved doing that more thananything else, more than standup
comedy or anything else.
And so I've just been furtheringscience communication ever since
and have kind of lost interestin, in doing traditional comedy.
(14:32):
And so, so yeah, that was a,that was the two minutes
stretched a five minute version,which you gotta that's what
happens when you ask a comicabout themselves.
They'll go, no shortage ofthings to say.
Dave (14:46):
Well, I've got a few more.
that's cool.
So the clip I saw of the standupscience tour that you're doing
was, it was the sort of, um,panel discussions people were
asking questions from theaudience.
has the panel been stumped yetby an audience question,
Shane (15:02):
usually they ask a, you know, really smart questions
and, and it's, uh, you know,it's catered to a demographic
of, tends to be people a littlemore toward the intellectual
side.
Right.
And, um, and Ah, also I have, Ihave, you know, have a lot of
fans in the psychedelic spaceand you know, a lot of the
psychedelic community is notonly smart, but they're also a
(15:24):
little bit out there.
And my favorite thing aboutscience is scientists, uh, love
saying, I don't know.
They, they, they, you know, youreally have to press a scientist
to speculate a lot of the times.
Some, some scientists have noproblem speculating and, and,
um, you know, going off on moreof a philosophical bent.
(15:47):
But scientists are prettycareful and saying what they
know about things.
And, and it's one of my favoritethings about Sa, the biggest
difference between a scientistand your average person is just
their willingness to say, Idon't know.
Most people will, most peopleare happy to give you an answer
about just about, you can asksomeone the meaning of life and
(16:10):
they'll just pop it right off.
Like, Oh yeah, here's my take onthis.
And there's all sorts of stufflike the, um, it's say
interesting subject called theillusion of explanatory depth,
which has people over estimatehow much they know about things,
um, all of the time.
And um, and then there's thedunning Kruger effect, which is
(16:31):
the less you know aboutsomething, the more you think
you're an expert on it.
Whereas people that are actuallyexperts on things realize how
much there is to know and how
Dave (16:43):
Yeah, no, it seems like people who think they have all
the answers really haven't askedall the questions yet, but yeah.
Is this going to culminate insomething, this tour or is it
going to just be something thatyou kind of keep on doing?
Or are you going to maybe filmit or at some point or
documented some way?
Shane (17:00):
yeah.
Um, so, you know, tossing arounda lot of ideas of, right.
Right now I'm in in kind of aone step at a, at a time phase
of, like I said, it's atremendous undertaking putting
this together as, as myassistants taking over all the
behind the scenes stuff.
I mean, I s I still need to, Istill need to show up at Benny's
(17:24):
two hours early and set up aprojector and do all this other
stuff, but, and do a lot ofresearch and everything, but the
tourist meant to be indefinite.
Finding the cities where itworks the best in and, and kind
of looping back and going, um,over and over again to those, to
those cities because, um, youknow, it's a different show
(17:45):
every single time.
It's all different, right?
Scientists, different Comedians,all different subject matter.
I do new material each time,right?
And so the plan is to do it forthe foreseeable future and the
plan is to also, um, you know,get better at it.
This is, this is also new for meand out of my comfort zone and
(18:06):
um, doing stand up and is verydifferent than say moderating a
panel and improvising andriffing off things.
And so I'm kind of buildingthose muscles and kind of want
something that's really, um, I wI want to have like a bunch of
structure in my life first andthen I'm going to think about
maybe, um, you know, at the veryleast, um, having, having uh,
(18:30):
you know, uh, professional, um,come around and record the shows
to maybe put the um, the Q and ais, um, on an ad and maybe start
editing together short segmentsof it.
I haven't done that yet becauseone that, uh, there's a few
things.
One, I, I don't like the idea ofpeople being like, oh, I'll just
(18:55):
wait and watch it on youtube.
Right.
That's why vibe live shows aregetting harder and harder for
people.
Dave (19:01):
Yeah.
I was going to ask you aboutthat.
How you do, how do you sort ofkeep it fresh when you know
somebody in the audience with acell phone can sort of leak your
whole act with this is a bitdifferent cause it is a lot of
Improv, but yeah.
Shane (19:12):
Yeah.
We deter people from using cellphones and, and stuff.
Um, you know, we, we do a prettygood, that hasn't really popped
up.
I mean[inaudible] I have somebig fans and everything, but I'm
not some like big household nameor anything like that.
So, so I, I, I fortunately don'thave to deal with as many people
(19:35):
wanting to, but yeah, the, thecell phone thing can be a
nuisance.
Um, but mostly I just think thatfor people's own good, they need
to go out and see more liveevents and it's just random vibe
of being in a, being in anaudience like that,
Dave (19:53):
isn't it?
Uh, like the Jack White orsomething.
Now I think you put your phonein a bag or something and they
zips up during the show so youcan't have it during the show,
which, so yeah, I mean it's,it's sad that we have to take
those steps, but uh, yeah, it's,it, it ruins the whole
experience I find.
I mean, going to concerts andseeing just a sea of phones is a
(20:14):
little distracting.
Shane (20:15):
Yeah, it really is.
We'll see.
And we might start recordingsome stuff just to, so at least
people can see some highlightsand[inaudible] and stuff, so, so
there might be more, more stufflike that.
And, and you know, I, I willeventually be, um, potentially
pitching something similar as aTV show.
(20:36):
Um, I don't like television andI'm not terribly interested in
it, but I do like money, so, um,so, you know, it might be a good
way for me to kind of promote myself and get more people out to
the live shows and everything ifI should, if I get some sort of
a, a show.
So, so we'll see that that'skind of another pain in the ass
(21:01):
for it.
I mean, a lot of comics, that'stheir dream, um, is to like have
a TV show or whatever.
And for me that's more of a painin the ass thing that I would, I
would need to do just to, um,get the word out there for my
live shows.
Cause, um, I'm, I'm all aboutthe live for performance and
that's why I'm in a new cityevery two days.
And most comics hate the idea ofbeing on the road as much as I
(21:21):
am.
I think I'm on the road morethan more than any comic out
there.
But, um, I just, I like that.
Dave (21:27):
Psychonautics I've watched it a couple times.
It's a documentary about a yourself and as you said, you
wanted to prove or de mystify or make psychedelics less scary.
So yo u d ecided to try all ofthem.
Shane (21:39):
That was the plan.
Dave (21:40):
That was the plan.
Shane (21:41):
I didn't get there.
its w hat happened along theway.
Dave (21:45):
Yeah.
And I think I've, I've heard youtalk about it since and one of
the issues was just doing all ofthem in a relatively short
period of time without any sortof integration afterwards.
Right?
Shane (21:56):
Yeah, we had a low budget.
And so that, that ended up, uh,leading to me trying to pack way
too much and, and a short amountof time.
And usually I'm, I'm, I mean, Iwouldn't say I'm the, I'm, I'm
the most responsible, um, uh,psychedelic user in the world.
I actually, um, for myself, Ibelieve in being a little
(22:19):
reckless and adventurous, um,sometimes, but what I was doing
during that time was, was waybeyond what I would normally
ever or be doing.
So.
So, yeah.
And then, and then I found, Ifound the edge, so it worked out
that I was able to report backto people what that experience
(22:40):
is like and why it's importantto try to avoid that.
Dave (22:45):
Well, it's funny when I was watching the movie, you sort
of explain how things started.
You know, you started thinkingeverything was sort of talking
to you.
You started seeing signs andthings that weren't really,
really there and it just sort ofbuilt and built and built and
half, half way through that, uh,sort of monologue about you
discussing, uh, things goingover the edge.
(23:06):
Um, I was like, what?
Yeah.
I, I've, I've, I've been there,I've been there, I've been there
and then the last couple, I'mlike, okay, good.
At least I have a few more stepsto go.
I think I was with you halfway,halfway through like, oh yeah, I
can see, you know, things doseem some song.
I see faces and everything, youknow, it just, uh, yeah, but uh,
yeah, luckily there was still afew more steps where I said,
(23:27):
well, he got a bit crazy there.
Shane (23:29):
Yeah.
I mean, you know, it reallywasn't even, there was nothing
within that that was, you know,that crazy up an experience had
it been contained within, youknow, the, the experience of
like a four hour mushroom tripor something like that.
It's, that's, you know, that'san inappropriate context to
think you're talking with timetravelers or whatever.
(23:52):
But, but once the drugs wear offthat those ideas are supposed to
wear off as well.
And those ideas weren't wearingoff for me.
And that's what, that's whatkind of got me into trouble.
And, and really, um, you know, I, I had, I've had bouts of mania
before that, but nothing that,that kept me from sleeping for
(24:13):
such a extended period of time.
So if you go for a few weekswithout sleeping, you're going
to get, start getting confusedand your judgment is going to go
out the window and, and, uh,everything else.
So it's going to come along withsome psychosis.
Dave (24:27):
for sure.
So lets go through some of thestuff that you did in the d
ocumentary,
Shane (24:33):
there's actually, you know what I, what I think might
be even more interesting forpeople to know if, if people are
checking out the, the film isthat, um, what the film shows to
me doing and what I was doing orare two different things.
Because, you know, the film aretelling, we're telling a
narrative and, and structuringthings in in a certain way.
(24:57):
I was actually doing way, way,way more psychedelics than what
we're showing and that him,because I was trying to tap into
that, that kind of head spaceand figuring out new ways of
articulating it.
And I was kind of, so I wasdoing like a lot of mushrooms
and thinking about like, okay,how do you, how do you create
the visuals for this?
(25:18):
That, uh, and, and how do youarticulate that?
How do you, um, how does thisfeel like resonated a ton on an
emotional level and then how doyou translate this to film to
kind of draw people into theexperience?
And these experiences arenotoriously hard to, um, to
(25:39):
translate to, you know, you getout of the, you get done with
your trip and you try to tellyour buddies or, uh, about it or
whatever.
And there, you know, it's liketalking about a dream or
something like that.
Just no one wants to hear it.
It doesn't, uh, it doesn'trelate.
Yeah.
That's really hard to capture.
And sell.
I was, I was just, I was doingmushrooms like three times a
(26:00):
week or so, which was just like,you know, that's right.
That's pretty, it's prettyasinine amount of mushrooms to
speed doing.
And, um, and so that's what kindof, I think, started that early
onset of the, and then I, youknow, I was doing LSD and
ketamine and DMT along the wayand I had a weird DMT experience
(26:24):
that led to a much weirderayahuasca experience, which was
kind of the straw that broke thecamel's back.
I, another thing that they don'tshow in the documentary is I did
mushrooms one more time afterI'd already kind of started
going crazy from, fromayahuasca.
I did mushrooms at the RogerWaters concert that they
mentioned in the film, andthat's when things went
(26:46):
absolutely bananas or where Ithought I was like living in a
simulation or I didn't, I didn'tknow.
Um, I didn't know how to explainthe things that have happened to
me.
Dave (26:59):
So the DMT, was it the just the nn DMT or the five Meo
dmt?
Shane (27:04):
yeah, yeah.
I've actually never done five onMeo because I was, I was waiting
to do it during thisdocumentary, I was hoping to
film my first experience withboth of those on the
documentary.
So I actually s till, a nd Iended up losing my mind.
And so to this day, I haven'tdone either o f those, which I'm
(27:25):
very interested in, but, u m,
Dave (27:27):
yes.
Yeah.
I haven't done the NN DMT, butI've done five Meo, three times.
And yeah, it's life changing ina lot of ways.
And I'm like you, I didn'tbelieve in much before these
experiences and not that I donow, but I feel th ere's a
(27:48):
connection there.
There's something that's goingon.
And so in your, after talkingwith experts after your own
experiences, where do you, wheredo you think it takes you?
Wha t, w hat do you think isactually going on there?
Like, do you have any sort ofidea of,
Shane (28:06):
Yeah.
I mean, I, so I, I have a littlebit more of a different take
than a lot of the people in thepsychedelic community that might
be talking about, say, likeuniversal consciousness or
talking with, u m, y ou k now,entities and like parallel
universes or outside time andspace or whatever.
That's a lot of the commonnarrative of trying to explain i
(28:28):
t.
I mean, I think we're all kindof grasping at straws trying to
explain these experiences thatare really intense and very
different than our regularreality.
And I do a different take and I,and I will say that when I, u m,
share my different take, I, Idon't necessarily think that
it's true.
I'm, I'm, you know, I, I likehaving different takes on things
(28:49):
than other people.
And, and I m ay b e biased to,to providing a more novel take
than, than is necessary.
And, and also I've hadexperiences that don't fit very
well, that my own take andperception on things doesn't do
very well to explain.
Um, but my take on it justsimply that I believe that we
have a, um, uh, this consciousexperience that we have is one
(29:15):
of, um, of many, many, many, um,uh, perceptual experiences that
exist within the mind.
And, and I think that there iskind of a multiverse of
perception and inside of ourminds that that is, that is, I
think that there's kind of likethe movie inside out.
(29:36):
Um, if you've seen it as a funlittle children's representation
of the brain where she hasthese, her emotional states
embodied by these characters inthere.
And then there's like a dreamarea where these things are
constructing the behind thescenes of the dream and here's
where memories are stored andhere's how you select a memory
and provide it to her.
And, and, um, and I think thereis a lot of that going on.
(29:59):
And I, and so, um, uh, I, Ithink that normally we don't see
those, those levels and of, ofperception that are kind of like
the early, um, you know, just tobe listening to this right now
or seeing this, there's a lot oflevels of perception that that
go into putting[inaudible],constructing our conscious
perception.
(30:19):
And, and to me that's why,that's why these, you know, you,
you do DMT and you see like allthese fractals and tunnels and
everything else and it's reallydifferent than all of this and
really like mind blowing thefirst couple times you see it.
But you know, artists are ableto represent these, these worlds
quite nicely, just using somepretty simple, um, programs that
(30:43):
are just using kind of theserecursive patterns to put
together these fractals andeverything's like very
symmetrical and everything else.
And to me that, that would seemlike a nice way of setting up
the foundation of ourperception.
And I think that say you, you'retrying to figure out like, okay,
that's one reality and then thisperception is another reality.
(31:03):
How do you know which one iswhich?
And I would say, well, which onehas the most computational, um,
um, complexity.
And I would say that thisperception, all, all of the
flaws in this swirled all thewrinkles in our face.
The, the, the, the, uh, coresymmetry, the, um, the flaws
(31:25):
would take a lot moreprogramming and complexity,
complexity and processing power.
And not that it's not possiblethat we're living in a
simulation.
We probably are, but I thinkthat you're running into these
different roles inside of yourhead of the many different hats
that we live on and in life that, you know, I'm a different
person talking to you right nowthan right at the grocery store
(31:48):
around my family atThanksgiving.
And so I think those differentroles are actually stored in
representations in our mind thatare kind of running through
simulations of future events allof the time.
We're always doing these mentalrehearsals of like, Oh, here's
the line.
I'm going to use it at a girl ina bar next time I write it.
Or next time I'm arguing with mybuddy, here's this political
(32:11):
point I'm gonna make.
And boy, yeah, I'm sure I'mgoing to show him.
And you know, we're, we'realways doing these mental
rehearsals and, and recruitingthese, these representations of
others and stuff and runningthese simulations in our mind.
And I think that we actuallyaren't seeing a lot of the, um,
a lot of the details of thosesimulations of okay.
(32:33):
Of those processes because itwould just be too confusing to
our consciousness to see allthat.
And so I think you smoke DMT andyou see some of those worlds
processing it and insert yourconsciousness into those worlds.
And those worlds are trying tomake sense of that experience.
And I think that that when youthink you're like meeting a god
in there, it's maybe just aversion of you.
(32:54):
I think it could be yourneighbor bill that is just like,
that's his memory of him stored.
And you know, we have to do thisto have a dream at night.
You have to, um, you know, Imight have a dream where, where
your there, um, tonight and alsolike my mom's there and my
(33:15):
fourth grade math teacher there,there, there are these perfect
representations of you, which isamazing.
Like I'm, I just met you, webeen talking for a few minutes
and, and we could have a perfectdream of one another that's like
a perfect representation.
Looks just like us.
Sounds just like us.
We'll be writing the script with[inaudible] believable content
(33:38):
for that person.
And the brain's doing this soeasily that we don't, we're
literally doing it in our sleepfirst of all.
And um, and we don't evenrealize that we're doing it.
We think that it's happening tous and these representations
need to be stored some more.
I'm being worked somewhere inthe mind and, and I think that
potentially that's what you're,that's what you're seeing.
(34:00):
And, and I think if someone hadnever had a dream in their
entire life and then had theirfirst dream when they were like
30 years old, they would comeout ranting and raving and being
like, you don't understand.
There's like this world wherethere was a clown there and, and
it was like under the sea.
And like, no, I'm telling you,it was real.
(34:22):
This is all bullshit, right?
The clown underwater world isthe real world.
Um, you know, and[inaudible] andso, uh,[inaudible], you know, a
lot of these psychedelicexperiences are very, there's
something that most people areonly doing a few times in their
life.
Um, and so the brain reallylikes attaching to stuff like
(34:42):
that.
And, and that's really novel andsalient.
And so I think that's, I thinkthat explains a lot of the
psychedelic experience.
I don't think that it explainseverything, um, that, and, and
it certainly doesn't explainevery experience that, that I've
had.
And, and I've definitely had alot of, um, you know, telepathic
(35:03):
seeming things I've had.
I've had a lot of, um, uh, youknow, there's a lot of
prophecies and stuff like that.
Sometimes times come true, butthere's confirmation bias, you
know, we're all trying tovalidate our own shit all the
time.
Dave (35:18):
So, also I was going to ask you about just, how does
that square with the whole sortof idea of sort of manifesting
your own destiny and, uh, peopleare into these to sort of find a
path and maybe if control, uh,the direction in that path?
Shane (35:36):
Well, consciousness is a, you know, a very malleable and
really flexible thing and mostof us are set in these patterns
of these kind of dailymonotonous lives.
And we're kind of used to, youknow, we walked by the same
things every day withoutnoticing them.
And then, and then all of asudden you have a experience
that changes the way that yousee things and you're having to
(35:58):
re make sense of the world.
And all of a sudden you startnoticing things that you'd
walked by every day withoutnoticing.
Just, just like we have, um, youknow, blind spots because you
have, uh, you have these conesin your eyes that inhibit your
ability to see something at a,at a certain angle that's in
your blind spot.
But if you, um, you know, you'dgo to merge and traffic and then
(36:21):
you hear a hunk, right?
You know, your consciousness hadfilled in the gap and created
what looked like a blank road,right?
Because it was filling in thatgap with a narrative as in this
case, a visual narrative.
And then you turn, you hear thehonk, you look and then just
like that your perception cancompletely change.
You know, you didn't manifestthat car there.
(36:43):
Um, it, it your, yourconsciousness instead of
responded to new stimulus.
And then there's this kind ofBasie and processing that it
seems to use where, um, youknow, your, your conscious
construction is, is using thebest information that it has
available at the time.
And then, um, you know, in, inan ideal world, what the brain
(37:04):
does is allow itself theopportunity to update as new
information comes in.
And that becomes hard for us todo as we live our lives and we
get stuck in habits androutines.
And so I think a lot of thesepsychedelic experiences rattle
that and, and perceptions ableto change really, really
quickly.
So there's things like learnedhelplessness in a, in a rat
(37:28):
where a rat can, um, you cantrain a rat that like a light
comes on and it moves to thisside of the stage and it avoids
getting shocked or finds areward or whatever.
But if you just create like areally cool, chaotic environment
where the, where the ratsgetting shocked out of nowhere
and it has no control over itand no way of predicting when it
(37:49):
learns that the world is full ofshocks and, and um, and that
there's nothing you can do aboutit.
If you then put that right andthe cage, um, where, where it
can learn and it has anopportunity to control and to
predict things.
Yeah, it won't learn.
A new rat will be able to learn.
But the rat that has learnedthis learned helplessness, they
(38:12):
call it, will not look for thesigns in the environment that
allow it to, um, make changesand control its narrative.
And I think a lot of thepsychedelic experience creates
this reset that allows you to belike, oh wait, oh, when that
light comes on I can just moveover to this side and I no
longer get shocked anymore.
(38:33):
And it seems like this, youknow, and this is an incredibly
life changing thing.
So if you're doing theseexperiences regularly and
shaking up your perceptionregularly, it's allowing you to
reorient your er, your goals.
And when you are setting newgoals, you are shifting your
(38:53):
conscious attention.
Two where those goals are justlike if I, if, if a listener
right now is, um, it thinksabout something orange, um, and
wants to look out in theirperceptual world for orange
things like I'm now lookingaround, um, the environment that
I'm in and I can see littleorange things everywhere.
(39:18):
Even though 0.0, zero, zero 1%of my visual experience right
now has orange tint.
But my consciousness is nowfilled with all of the orange
things.
It's what it's, it's what it'sfocusing on because it's, it's
been, it's been given that, thatgoal.
And so this is a lot of whatsetting intentions is doing and
(39:39):
a lot of what integration isdoing.
So.
So I, I'm not saying that, that,um, I'm completely dismissing
the idea of manifesting thingsand what not, but no matter
what, what we know for a fact isthat confirmation bias, Israel
consciousness, um, is veryflexible and, and seemingly
responding to the environment.
(39:59):
And so, so that's how I wouldgive us more scientific
explanation.
Dave (40:04):
I wish I could remember, where I heard this, but somebody
explained it to me in this wayonce where they, they talk about
the mind to being, um, a skihill, a snow hill filled with
snow.
And as a child you can get, youcan go anywhere you want and as
you get older you startdeveloping these, going down the
same path and getting into rutsand what these psychedelics seem
(40:24):
to do for a lot of people, itseems to be a fresh snowfall
where now they can go anywhereagain.
It's or just even like imagininga shaking a Snow Globe and, uh,
it's just resetting everything,right?
Shane (40:37):
Yeah.
Yeah.
It seems, so this is thisgrowing field of, of
neuroplasticity and what we cando to introduce a little more of
that childlike creativity intoour adult lives.
You know, and it's an importantto remember for people that, um,
that shaking up the snow globeisn't always the, um, the best
thing.
I mean, some of these patternsare, are really useful.
(40:59):
I know to associate the colorred with stopping.
So when I'm driving and a cars,red lights go on in front of me.
I, without having to sit thereand be like, Hey, what does that
mean?
What should I do in thissituation?
I have reflexes that quicklystop my car without having to
(41:20):
involve my consciousness in, inthe experience.
And, and so there's, there'sreasons why we developed these
patterns over time.
It's just that a lot of thesepatterns, um, you know, helped
us along at one, um, in, in ourlife and now we just, and
they're not necessarilybenefiting us anymore.
(41:43):
Um, like say smoking cigaretteswhen I was a teenager was, it
was cool and way over battleagainst my parents and I'd catch
a buzz.
And, and then, but then as anadult, you're no longer getting
that buzz.
You no longer give a shit aboutthe rebelling against your
parents.
And, and it's, it's not, notquite as cool looking as it used
(42:05):
to be.
And, uh, you know, so this is,this is, uh, you know, something
that that was arguably a, um, um, potentially positive strategy
at one point that kind of thengot hijacked by it.
Bye.
Um, these drugs and addictionand, and then becomes this, um,
(42:27):
this negative pattern in yourlife.
And so, so that, that's, that'sthe ability to identify what
patterns are worth holding ontoand, and what patterns, um, you
want to let go of.
And, and psychedelics may begiving just a little bit of, it
takes a long time to form a newhabit.
It's like, um, six weeks orsomething like that to have
(42:49):
something fully ingrained.
I think it's like, I think it'sthree weeks to break a habit or,
or something like that in sixweeks before.
It's like a new part of yourlifestyle.
And psychedelics seem for manypeople to really speed along
that process.
And so if you implement change,um, after the psychedelic
(43:11):
experience and focus a lot of[inaudible] integration, those,
those new patterns can, um, canhopefully form faster would be
the idea.
Dave (43:21):
Yeah, I find it all fascinating.
It's also seems that, uh, it'san ordeal going through some of
these, um, like ayahuasca is notthe most fun experience.
Both.and it seems like the workyou put in sort of does pay off
in the end that it's almost likeyou have to go through something
and work towards it, but it doesseem to be cutting down the time
(43:43):
in which people are having tosuffer through withdrawals or
it's a, seems to be, I mean, nowresearchers now are starting up
with John Hopkins and they'vealready been doing the MDMA for
PTSD.
It seems like they're takingnotice of what these substances
can do nowadays, which isawesome.
I was gonna ask you, after themovie came out, what was the
(44:03):
reaction?
Are people coming out to you nowas far as their psychedelic use
or are people coming up to youand sort of talking to you more
about it?
They did before or,
Shane (44:12):
yeah, I mean the, the, you know, all the reviews have
been fairly positive.
Um, you know, I think it haslike a, um, 80%, five, five star
rating on Amazon and one out ofnine people hate it or one out
of 10 people hate it.
But just like, uh, I think thatthis sign up doing something
(44:33):
good in different and, um, and Iget, I get emails from people
all the time, all the timehaving had kind of shared
experiences and um, you know,people have been coming out to
shows more and more, especiallysince it, you know, at first you
had to rent it and now it'savailable for free on Amazon
prime.
And so since that's happenedit's, it's um, open things up a
(44:55):
lot.
Dave (44:56):
I will let you go.
I know you have to run, but,thanks for being on the show and
to hope we can catch up againsooner.
It's been great talking to you,Shane.
Thank you.
Alright, awesome.
Thanks, And that was myconversation with Shane Mauss.
To find out more about Shane, goto Shanemauss.com to find out
about the documentary we talkedabout, his podcast.
Here we are, and his standuptour stand up science, the
(45:18):
psychedelic suitcases producedby Carolyn Myers and myself,
your host, Dave McNee.
So please join us every twoweeks where we unpack more of
the psychedelic suitcase.
Safe travels
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