Can Psychedelics Heal Mental Trauma? With Harvard Professor Michael Pollan

Hi, I am so glad that you all are here with me. Welcome to the Oprah podcast.
They are as controversial as they are fascinating, and I know many of you are really curious as I am. So let's hop right into this question.
Can psychedelic drugs like psilocybin, also known as magic mushrooms, MDMA, also known as ecstasy, and even LSD, can they heal mental trauma or even help people reach a transcendent transformational spiritual experience? Joining me, the man who's an expert on all of this, Michael Pollan. Great to see you again, Michael.
Great to see you too, Oprah. Once again, Michael Pollan is at the forefront of a revelatory national conversation.
For newcomers, what is a psychedelic? Today, there's a new and growing fight to make psychedelics legal again in the United States. Up next on StarTalk, all about psychedelics.
Psychedelics, once demonized as a dangerous counterculture threat, are being re-examined as a possible tool for treatment for anxiety, depression, addiction, PTSD, and for spiritual transcendence. It had been 49 years since the war, and I like to say this, I finally came home.
Michael's best known for his blockbuster books about food, like The Omnivore's Dilemma, and Cooked, but his groundbreaking 2018 work, How to Change Your Mind, created an opening for a new way to think about psychedelics. It's literally like magic.
I was like, how is this possible?

I saw God in everything. I came away just completely transformed.

Before we begin, I just want to say this. This conversation is not intended to offer

medical advice. Psychedelics remain illegal in most states.
So I urge you to consult your

own healthcare professional before considering any kind of treatment. So I read your book back in 2018, How to Change Your Mind.
And when it was first published, it was really, I would have to say, eye-opening.

I was surprised that you, Michael Pollan, who had done all of these wonderful books about food and the omnivore's dilemma and what we should be eating, had now stepped into another realm of the plant world. And I found it eye-opening and challenging for me because I'll admit that I have had and continue to have preconceived notions and judgments around psychedelics.
And at the time, I didn't think our culture or I, for that matter, was ready for this conversation. I thought, whoa, that's really, this is really bold of Michael to do this in 2018, which at the time it was.
But now I've noticed, and I think you are the reason for part of this shift. I've seen, first of all, more articles about it, more stories about it, more people who have engaged with the experience of psychedelics.
And I think something is happening in the culture. Would you agree? Absolutely.
I mean, what's happened since 2018 is I never would have imagined how many studies are going on, how much research is being done, and how many people are seeking psychedelic therapy. And, you know, in one way- Would you say you were part of that change, though? Because when you wrote this book, you know, would you- Yeah, it was pretty fringe.
Yes. And I really didn't think that there was a, you know, large audience for a book on psychedelics.
I was just personally fascinated. But yeah, I mean, I think the book, I hear from, especially from scientists that it became okay to study this after the book came out.

How to Change Your Mind is such a perfect title, too.

Thank you.

I love that.

It's what it's about.

What the new science of psychedelics teaches us about consciousness, dying, addiction, depression, and transcendence.

I thought, well, if it does all that, I'm going to read this book.

It's a big promise.

That's a big promise.

But what got me really interested and making me realize, so I had had very little experience of psychedelics personally. I was afraid of them.
I didn't think I was sturdy enough psychologically to have a big psychedelic trip. And I didn't do it when I was in college.
But I wrote an article about a study where they were giving psychedelics to people who had cancer diagnoses, many of them terminal. Was this Roland Griffith's article? Yes, Roland Griffiths.
Roland Griffiths, who I interviewed, yes, in his last dying days. I know.
That's an amazing interview. Yes.
How do we awaken and stay awake to the wonder of what our existence is. And he was so calm about the experience of dying, yes.
And so you read Roland Griffith's article. So he was doing a study, he hadn't published it yet, giving psychedelics, psilocybin specifically, magic mushrooms in pill form, to people who had cancer diagnoses.
And I interviewed about a dozen of them. And they told me stories of personal...
May I just tell people who he was? He's a renowned researcher of psychedelics at Johns Hopkins. Yes.
He really got what's called the psychedelic renaissance started with his research. Because he wrote this paper on the mystical and spiritual experience of it all, right? In 2006.
And that really launched the whole revival of psychedelic research, which had been a big thing in the 50s and 60s. I didn't realize it.
But in the 50s, LSD was considered a wonder drug. There were six international conferences on LSD alone.
There were- In the 50s. In the 50s, up till 1965, from 50 to, yeah.
And then it just psychedelics- And then it just got banned and also people said- Yeah, the drug war. The drug war.
Yeah. And President Nixon, who starts the drug war, said that the drug war, there's a quote that he gave to John Ehrlichman, his domestic policy advisor, that we're going after LSD to get the hippies and cannabis to get the blacks.
And those were his two enemies. And that's what the drug war was really about.
Yes. And so anyway, there had been all this very promising research.
LSD was being used to treat alcoholism with a lot of success. So I didn't know this whole backstory.
I thought of psychedelics as a 60s thing, but actually it's really a 50s thing. And there was this promising research that gets shut down.
And we lose like 30 years of research that is just now resumed. So some people are drawn, we know, to psychedelics because they are suffering from mental illness or mental trauma.
Not mental illness, mental trauma. Because I think if you're suffering from mental illness, a lot of people shouldn't take it if you are.
Yeah, there are definitely people who shouldn't mess around with these substances. People at any risk of schizophrenia, you know, if you have a relative that has schizophrenia, usually bipolar, they don't want you in the studies.
You need to leave these drugs alone. Yeah.
But people struggling with addiction, anxiety, OCD, obsessive compulsive disorder, trauma. Trauma.
Yeah. Those are mental disorders that...
PTSD. Yeah.
We're going to talk to somebody later. So some are spiritual seekers, some are suffering from mental traumas, and others are just looking for this experience or seem to be doing it for fun.
Yeah, I mean, people, you know, people, the term recreational is regarded as a negative. I mean, to recreate ourselves doesn't seem that bad.
But yeah, there are people who are just doing it for thrills, going to concerts. But in every single instance, isn't it about changing consciousness? Yeah, it does change consciousness.
But the set and setting are very important. So the context in which you do it, you know, if you do it to go to a Grateful Dead concert, it's one thing.
If you do it in a room, the way psychedelic therapy is done is you're lying down, you're on a couch, you're wearing eye shades, you're listening to music. It's a very internal journey.

It's very different. is you're lying down, you're on a couch, you're wearing eye shades, you're listening to music.

It's a very internal journey.

It's very different than kids taking mushrooms

and walking in the woods

where it's all about the sensory thrills.

So if you're using it for therapy,

as a lot of people now are.

It's a completely different experience.

It's a guided experience.

Right, and the guide is really important. So were you reluctant to take, I mean, you were, you know, pretty straight, straightforward guy.
I was terrified. Were you reluctant to take them yourself? Yes.
Yes. I was scared for a lot of reasons.
One was, would I discover some deep, dark secret about myself? Because people do discover traumas that they're not looking for. Yes.
That definitely comes up. I would be afraid of having a psychotic break.
Yeah. I would be afraid of losing my mind.
I was. And not getting it back.
I was. You were.
Yeah. But I also found that doing it with a guide creates this safe envelope, this container in which you can really let go.
Okay. So tell us about the time you tell about experiencing your parents in the trees.
Oh, yeah. So I had...
I said, oh, Michael is really tripping. But the realization that you had seemed pretty solid.
And I am, Michael, I mean, it made me so curious because I'm surrounded by trees. I love trees.
I think I have some, something is going on with me and trees. I don't know what it is.
So your experience, tell, tell everybody what that was. I was doing a dose of LSD.
What does it even look like? It's a very powerful drug. It's measured in micrograms, not milligrams.
And you take a very, very tiny amount. And it's usually on a piece of paper.
So is it a pill or a powder? It's usually on a piece of blotter paper. They just put a little drop and you put the piece of paper on your tongue and that's enough.
And the experience was, you know, I saw my son, I saw my wife, I saw my parents and And it was like a tree house being built layer by layer by layer by layer.

And it was a kind of a life review.

And I emerged from it with this just surge of compassion for these people in my life.

And I had this realization, which like 90% of people on psychedelics seem to have which is the most important thing in the world is love now that's obvious but the thing about psychedelics feel it or experience it in a way that you didn't know before with a conviction that I hadn't had before yeah yes and does that conviction stay with you the experience? Yes, exactly. You really hit on it.
The kinds of insights you have on psychedelics for reasons we don't really understand are really sticky. This isn't just an opinion or an insight.
This is like a revealed truth of the universe. It's a knowing.
It feels like a knowing. Exactly.
It comes through. It's revealed knowledge.
Yeah. Tell us about what I'm specifically asking about the parents.

The father was the tree and the mother was the tree.

And they're both.

They were these two trees.

I know what episode you're talking about.

Yeah.

So I, years ago, I built a little studio where I write and I've written my books.

And there are, it faces two trees.

And one is a very elegant white oak that's kind of leaning and the other is this kind of stolid ash tree and it was and having taken um in this case psilocybin in my garden i had this power i mean you know i love plants and i've been writing about plants for a long time and i'm a gardener and you are too um that the plants were conscious and they were awake. I had this sense that the plants in my garden were kind of like looking at me and there were these two trees and I suddenly realized- So I think that, and I'm not on psilocybin.
I come in the gate and I say hello to all the trees. I go, I'm back, tell everybody, I'm home.
Well, on psilocy so excited they'll say hello back so um and and these two trees i hadn't realized before oh that's my mother and that's my father and and the one that was my father that tree had just had had fallen a giant limb had fallen off and he was sick at the time and i realized that they were both going to go eventually and it was very moving and they were embodied by that because i think i'm not conscious enough to know but i know that there is a oneness there's a connection with all of nature i just well that's a don't know what it is. So the plants aren't speaking to me, but I know that there is life there.
I know that there is something going on that is deeper than what we can see. Yeah.
I think a key word for what psychedelics do is connect you. And for me, it's about connecting to nature.
It connecting to people and the reason that happens i think is that psychedelics soften your ego and the ego is you know ego is a is a walled structure right it's a barrier it's a defensive structure it protects you most people think they are that's right they're they feel they're identical to their ego. But you're not.
You're not. It's just one voice and it can get quiet.
And one of the things that happens on psychedelics, and we understand this neuroscientifically, there's a structure, a network in the brain. You're not the voice.
You're actually the observer. You're the space between the voice and the thoughts.
And when you can separate that, which I can do in meditation and there's an awareness. It's very similar in meditation.
There's a lot in common actually. Yeah, yeah.
But it sounds like psychedelics is a higher level of the deepest of the meditations. Yeah, but having done psychedelics, I became a better meditator because I understood, oh, this is where I'm trying to go.
But this sense of, you know, your ego softening and in one case I had completely disappearing. I had a ego death experience, which I can tell you about.
When the ego goes down, there's nothing between you and nature or you and other people or you and the universe and you feel like the sense of oneness. Yeah.
Eckhart Tolle talks about that in A New Earth a lot. I'm with bestselling author Michael Pollan, and we're about to hear from all kinds of people who are using psychedelics to heal from mental trauma, including a war veteran who suffered for decades from PTSD.
Let's get to it. This episode of The Oprah Podcast is brought to you in part by Quince.
Who doesn't love the good things in life? We all enjoy a little luxury and it's even better when it's affordable. That's how I discovered Quince.
Quince is my go-to for luxury essentials at affordable prices. Quince offers a range of high quality items at prices within reach like 100% Mongolian cashmere sweaters from $50, washable silk tops and dresses, organic cotton sweaters, and 14-karat gold jewelry.
The best part of all, Quince items are priced 50% to 80% less than similar brands. By partnering directly with top factories, Quince cuts out the cost of the middleman and passes the savings on to us.
I just had to try the cashmere sweaters and could not believe the quality, plus the fit and the price. It almost seems too good to be true.
Give yourself the luxury you deserve with Quince. Go to quince.com slash Oprah podcast for free shipping on your order and 365 day returns.
That's quince.com slash Oprah podcast to get free shipping and 365 day returns. quince.com slash Oprah podcast.
Welcome back to the Oprah Podcast. I am here with bestselling author Michael Pollan, who is at the forefront of research and reporting on the benefits and concerns people have about taking psychedelics.
A reminder, this conversation is not intended in any way to be medical advice. You will want to and must talk to your own healthcare provider if you're interested in taking psychedelics.
So, you know, a lot of the new research, y'all, on psychedelics started with treating veterans who were suffering from chronic PTSD. This is where the real breakthroughs are, I think.
And for decades, it seemed that no treatment worked. And then there were a lot of practitioners who started seeing real relief for patients using psychedelics.
And you told my team about this guy named Bob Parsons, who is a Vietnam veteran and a business mogul who founded the internet tech company GoDaddy. Y'all remember GoDaddy? Bob is zooming in.
Bob, welcome to the Oprah podcast. Hi there.
Real pleasure to be here, Oprah. Thank you.
Good to see you. Hey, Bob.
You know, Oprah, there's something I got to tell you before we get started. Tell me.
Over the years, I've done a number of interviews. And every once in a while, I would get asked, they'd say, Bob, if you could share a beer with anybody or have a beer with anybody, who would it be? And my answer was always Oprah Winfrey.
Oh, my goodness. Well, I don't have a beer, but hello, Bob.
Yeah, all right. Well, thank you, because I'm so interested in knowing what was your PTSD like for you before you had a psychedelic experience? Tell us how you were tormented by it.
Well, you know, like so many of us, particularly you, I grew up tough. And, you know, I probably carried some PTSD from that.
When I was 17, I joined the Marine Corps. And this was back in 1968.
And I was, well, I was in Vietnam six months later carrying a rifle. I was in combat for a month.
And I was wounded. And the guy who went there was different from the guy who came home.
The guy that went there was pretty happy-go-lucky, was easygoing, loved being out and about. The guy that came home was none of that.
The guy that came home had a flash temper, suffered from depression, didn't like socializing too much. And I just want to say this was at a time where nobody was talking about this.
Nobody was saying, oh, you know, you're probably suffering from depression or PTSD. You just had to figure it out yourself.
And your family and everybody around you is like, what has happened to this guy? Exactly. Well, they would call it shell shock.
Yes, yes. So anyhow, you know, this went on.
It cost me two marriages. Both my wives, which were wonderful women, you know, they tolerated me as much as they could.
Then they gave me, you know, my walking papers. And eventually I was married to my third wife, Renee, and I read Michael's book when it first came out.
What made you read it? Well, the title, How to Change Your Mind. I thought it would be very helpful because I knew I needed to do something different.
And back then, the dialogue for PTSD had started. Could you feel that there was something wrong with you, Bob? bob could you feel that whatever this is it's not normal or not right absolutely had you tried other therapy yeah well you know you know a little bit of talk therapy which i don't i don't think works too well and um you know it's the only things that would ever help would be if i connected with the guys i served with in during the war yeah and um you know spent time with them i would come away just feeling just wonderful yeah but that that would only last for a while yeah because you'd be validated in the experience what i did was when uh i after i read michael's book and i learned about uh psychedelics uh from that you know before that i had never taken anything like that you know you know i i've like most people thought that you know if you took psychedelics you had to worry about jumping off a building right or something right you know michael dispels that pretty quickly in his book book.
And so reading the book was like reading a novel, Oprah. I mean, this thing just reads so quick and it just pulled me right through it.
So I told my wife, I'd like to try it. She had me hooked up with two guides within two weeks.
And I met with them in Hawaii. And I did three different types of psychedelics over four or five days.
And after I was done, my wife could not believe the change in me. She was the first to notice it.
Man, now I was happier. I liked going out in the bow.
My temper was far less. And I was a better guy.
From four experiences. So what happened during the experience? Did you see yourself differently? Did you experience the trauma? Did you relive the experience?

What actually happened? did you see yourself differently did you experience the trauma did you relive the

experience what happened what actually happened can you tell us all that all that oh i um you know there's a you know i the first day i took ayahuasca uh-huh uh and and and a lot of tears a lot of reliving and a lot of, you know, seeing it.

And then I took the second day, I took psilocybin. And when I did psilocybin, the guy fixed the teapot.
And he says, you know, this teapot holds three cups. And I made it strong, so you're only going to need one cup.
Well, Oprah, I swear this is true. I drank all three cups and I ate the tea bags.
Whoa. So I was righteously stoned.
I flashed back. I actually seen things that happened.
Righteously stoned. The next day, we took off.
And my wife and i went and played golf and when when i was out on the golf course it was like to get back to your earlier conversation it was like the trees knew i was there the plants knew i was there and you know i could i could feel like a kinship there yeah when i when i caught it on on on the grains, you know, it was like the grass said, hit it here, Bobby. And I didn't want to break it up.
So, so, so Bob, can I ask you this? One of the, one of the things Michael shared with us is that, and one of his experiences, he came away with this feeling that love is everything. Did it open you up to experience love loving being loved differently.
Yeah, yeah, 100%.

And... everything, did it open you up to experience love, loving, being loved differently? Yeah, yeah, 100%.
And, you know, and it's not finding love. It's knowing how to be loved.
Oh. Because when you suffer from PTSD, man, that's a, you know, that's, you don't feel that way at all.
Yeah. And so that was big.
So you and your wife, Renee, now have donated millions, I understand, to research, even funding a center on psychedelic healing at Mount Sinai in New York. What are you hoping for? I am hoping that, you know, we're going to see this gradually made legal everywhere and becoming a normal treatment.
Because when we do, I think it will be a renaissance in the country. I mean, we could have people in jail getting out better than they went in if they're treated with psychedelics, because it'll get at the root causes, whatever

all the ugly stuff that is causing them to be like they are. So, Bob, can I ask you, do you continue to try various forms of psychedelics or other drugs or was that experience that four days enough for you? well you know i i have have went through the process another time with two guys that I served in Vietnam with, the squad leader and the machine gunner.
And so I went through it again, which reinforced what I did the first time. And, you know, I'm happy to tell you that, you know, when I did my, had my psychedelic experience, It had been 49 years since the war, and I like to say this, I finally came home.
And, you know, I'm going to tell you that when I went through it with the machine gunner and the squad leader, they both came home. And I'm aware of a number of others who have went through it that I had nothing to do with.
And, you know, totally different people afterwards.

Yeah. That's why you and Renee have created the center.

Oh, absolutely.

I cannot think of a better gift to give the United States or the world than to fund this stuff.

Thank you, Bob, for joining us and sharing that story.

And maybe one day we'll have that beer. Maybe we'll have a shot of beer, Oprah.
A shot of beer. Okay.
Thank you so much. Thank you, Bob.
The best to you and Renee. The brilliant Michael Pollan is here with me on the Oprah podcast.
And we're about to meet a father and daughter who've used psychedelics for different reasons to help unlock childhood trauma and to help ease symptoms of OCD, anxiety, and depression. We're going to hear their experience next.
This episode of the Oprah podcast is brought to you in part by BetterHelp. How many times a day do you compare yourself to others or wish your life looked like someone else's? We all do it sometimes because it's easy to envy friends' lives on social media when you only see the good parts.
But you know what they say? Comparison is the thief of joy and in reality, nobody has it all together. Online therapy can help you focus on what you want instead of what others have.
Like that career goal you've set your sights on or that relationship you want to grow or that daily habit you want to get into because your best life is always better than the idea of someone else's. BetterHelp makes therapy more accessible and less overwhelming with affordable online sessions that you can do anytime, anywhere.
That's why over 5 million people have used it for mental health support. So stop comparing and start living with BetterHelp.
Visit betterhelp.com slash Oprah podcast today to get 10% off your first month. That's betterhelp, H-E-L-P dot com slash O-P-R-A-H-P-O-D-C-A-S-T.
You may be hearing a lot these days about the use of psychedelics to help heal mental trauma. And that's why I thought this would be a very interesting conversation for the Oprah podcast.
We heard from viewers and listeners who have questions for bestselling author Michael Pollan, who's with us today, who wrote one of the definitive books on this topic. Let's meet Dave and his daughter, Reagan.
They are Zooming in from Utah. Dave, you say psychedelics help you unlock childhood trauma and even is giving you a greater sense of purpose.
Tell us, how is that so? That is so interesting. Thank you.
It's great to meet you, Oprah. It's such an honor.
And just want to thank you for all that you've done and do for humanity. And Michael, it's so great to meet you.
I'm a huge fan. But yeah, so I kind of found myself as I was transitioning from my late 40s into my 50s, I had a pretty big basket of existential questions and also these personal questions that were really burdening me from some childhood traumas.

And so I received some advice from a trusted person in my life.

And he said, you know, you should try psychedelics and specifically psilocybin. I think it would be a really great experience for you.
And I thought about that. And actually in the past, when I was about 17 years old, I had a recreational experience with psilocybin.
And it was great. I was with all of my dear friends and we were up in the mountains, my favorite place to be.
Did the trees talk? Everything talked. Okay.
It was really incredible. I saw grids.
It was great. It was really, really great.
But anyway, the memory of that experience and being so positive, I thought, wow, I never thought that that could be a modality to really focus on getting some answers. And I had this very intentional set of questions and I had such an incredible and specific experience, One that, I mean, I can put myself back there at any moment and it just, it resets my life.
So can I ask you this? Can I ask you this? Because I don't know anybody who, or maybe I do know somebody who's done it, but I'd never asked this question. Are you, you're able to ask questions and people can ask you questions while you're doing it.
You're, you're conscious enough to be able to do that. Absolutely.
You can hear what other people are saying. So I always thought it was like, you're off into your own world and you're having your trip.
And then you're not a part of whatever this world is. I had a combination experience where you can be out and in communication with your guide.
I recommend a guide. I agree, Michael, 100% and be very thoughtful through that process.
That the setting and the setting is so important. Yeah.
I mean, we want to control ourselves and our environment. And if we're not completely, if we don't feel completely safe, we're not going to let our minds travel.

And the guide is looking out for your body.

Roland Griffith used to say, you're going out to outer space.

Don't worry.

We're right here.

We're mission control.

We'll keep an eye on your body.

Yeah.

So your mind can travel.

Reagan, you're nodding.

Did you have a similar experience? I heard you tried just for fun and then it turned out to be more than that. Yeah.
So my experience was actually quite different. I actually had watched Michael, your documentary on Netflix, and it completely changed my view on just psychedelics.
And then I had also spoke to my dad about his experience. So abroad during college in Amsterdam, I was like, you know what? This is a great time.
I'm on vacation. Let me just do a little bit, see what it does.
And just a little bit of background. I have struggled with OCD, anxiety, some depression symptoms, kind of my whole life.
And at first when I took the substance, I didn't really notice anything. And I thought, okay, maybe I didn't take enough.
What was the substance? Was it? It was mushrooms. Yeah.
And then as the day went on, I realized it was the first time in my life that my intrusive thoughts and my racing thoughts and all of them completely went away. It was the first time in my life I was able to be grounded and in the moment and just enjoy my own company and not be scared of what's going to pop in my mind.
And it really opened my mind to going and experiencing it with a guide and kind of using it as a replacement for some other methods that I have tried in the past. Any questions you have for Michael? Here's your chance.
Yes. So do you think that we're approaching a new frontier in medicine regarding these experiments?

And is it a way that we could potentially help individuals like myself who struggle with anxiety?

Yeah, I'm very hopeful that that is happening.

We have a lot of research.

We need more.

But all the treatments we have, SSRIs, et cetera, really only deal with symptoms. They don't deal with causes.
We have no drugs that deal with causes of mental illness and actually provide cures. And this, at least in these initial studies, and these are trials with a couple hundred people, they're not huge yet.
We're seeing positive and lasting results. You asked about OCD, obsessive compulsive disorder.
There was a trial at Yale using psilocybin and people had permanent relief. And, you know, one of the questions that I had myself is, wait a minute, this is a little suspicious.
This one substance works on OCD and anxiety and depression and addiction and anorexia. This seems a little too good to be true.
And I posed this question to a very well-known psychiatrist who'd been head of the National Institute of Mental Health. And I said, is this a panacea? Is this for real? And he said, well,

how do you, how do you, why do you think all those different things are different illnesses? They may be different manifestations of the same kind of brain, a brain that is stuck in patterns of behavior and thought that it can't get out of. And maybe what the psychedelics are doing, doing right it was like the light bulb went off that's a light bulb moment right there we are and we are victims of our habits it's the same thing it may be they may just be different symptoms rather than different disorders um so that that i understood because all stemming from the same thing.
Yeah, from a rigidity of thought.

And what psychedelics do in adults. I saw, Regan, you had that aha moment too, right? Yeah.
Definitely. And it's, I mean, I've done talk therapy and a bunch of other therapies, but I think coming out of the experience, I realized, oh my gosh, it's your point, Michael.
It's all a manifestation of this one quote-unquote disorder that i have and this drug it's literally like magic i was like how how is this possible i know it does feel like magic yes but um so i think that what psychedelics seem to do is make the brain more plastic able to learn there's a beautiful beautiful metaphor that a scientist gave me once. Think of your mind as a snow-covered hill and your thoughts as sleds going down that hill.
And over time, the grooves get deeper and deeper. And you can't go down the hill without falling into one of those grooves.
The psychedelics are like a fresh snowfall that fills all the grooves. You can take a new path down the hill.
I love that metaphor. Dave, did you have a question? So Michael, your book and your research, it gets into the tradition and history of these drugs so well.
And I just wondered, how do we integrate psychedelics into the mainstream mental health treatments? How do we preserve the spiritual aspects while we're kind of trying to segue it into mainstream medical? That's been a big question. That's a great question, Dave.
It is a wonderful question. And there's a lot of kind of suspicion and hostility among scientists and medical professionals at the word spiritual.
Yet you can make a case that many things we call mental disorders are spiritual diseases. I mean, addiction is a spiritual disease.
And what is at the root of a lot of these disorders is a lack of connection, a sense of isolation, separation, you know, you're encased in your ego. And and so it's i think we have to educate medical professionals that that spiritual approaches have medical value and that's not the way they think and i think the word spiritual always hangs people up too i mean i got so much criticism back in the 80s and 90s and early aughts by talking just using the word spirit word spirit on broadcast television.
I think the word consciousness is a better word. I think consciousness, the altering- Sounds more scientific.
Yeah, sounds more scientific. And that is actually what is happening in the spiritual experience.
You're elevating, enhancing, opening your consciousness to experience life and yourself differently. That's what I think.
And there's one other difficulty about incorporating this in our medical system. And that is that psychedelic therapy is not just about taking a psychedelic.
It really should be called, and often is, psychedelic-assisted psychotherapy because the support of the guide or the therapist yes is critical to its success and the fda which regulates drugs in our country does not drug only regulates drugs they don't regulate therapy so how are they going to deal with this thing it's a square peg in a round hole and that's going to be a challenge um i work through it. That's why I don't think we're here yet.
We're certainly not here yet. Because like everything, once people start using it, it's just like the anti-obesity drugs.
Then people create their own pharmacies for making the anti-obesity drugs. And people are doing it and it's not, you know, authorized and stuff.
And I think it's dangerous for people to have these kind of explorations without a guide. Yeah.
I mean, I think if you're going to use a high dose of psychedelics, you need to use a guide. I mean, people can take a couple of mushrooms and wander in the woods and they'll be fine.
But at a high dose, there are risks. I mean, we should be realistic about it.
Some people do have serious psychological problems, bad trips that last a very long time. Guides can help you work through that.
They give you very specific advice when things get very dark. Because I think we should not underplay the fact that these experiences can be very challenging, frightening.
And that can be productive. But in the process, you can encounter demons.
You need somebody who knows what they're doing to help you. Yes.
Especially if you're a person who has demons. Yeah.
Yeah. And you're taking it because you know you have demons.
That's right. Yeah.
And the guides know exactly what to tell you to get through that. I mean, they're very specific.
They call them flight instructions. And they'll tell you, if you see a monster, don't turn and run away.
Go right up to it and say, what do you have to teach me? Why are you in my mind? And you will pass through that dark into a lighter place. That is my favorite phrase on earth.
I want to cry right now because anytime there is a challenge in my life, that is the first question that I ask is, what are you here to teach me? What is this for? Or if I'm in the middle of a bad dream, I'll say, okay, what are you here to teach me? And that attitude of curiosity rather than fear and anxiety changes everything. Yeah.
It's not even just curiosity. It's like, I want to know what it is so I can get out of it.
Yeah. Right.
In and through is the other thing guides are always saying. In and through.
Well, thank you all. You are sharing here today has really been informative for all of us.
Thank you so much. Yeah.
Wonderful to meet you. Wonderful to meet you, Dave and Reagan.
Thank you. Good luck.
So you hear a lot about micro dosing. If the Oprah show was still on, we'd be doing shows, I think on micro dosing moms and parents.
There are a lot of them. Micro dosing parents in the suburbs having shroom parties.
What is your take on that? What is that microdosing? So microdosing is a very different approach to using psychedelics. It's not guided.
It's a very tiny dose. It's like a 10% of a normal dose.
And people do it, not every single day, they'll do it a couple of days and then a day off because you build up a tolerance. And many people report relief from depression from it.
There is not a lot of science yet on it. It's very hard to study because no university institutional review board is going to let you give any amount of LSD to somebody and let them them drive off in their car it's a it's a it's an it's a dose that you don't even feel it's sub perceptual where is everybody getting this stuff anyway well that's a good question i don't know i don't know that okay um but uh it's around and people are selling uh gummies with psilocybin even though it's not legal.
They're around, they're on the internet. So microdosing may be a placebo effect.
It may be, and the placebo effect is real. Make no mistake, people get better.
If you have back trouble and I hand you a sugar pill, you will feel better. It's a very powerful effect.
And it multiplies when you are microdosing something like LSD, which already has this magic aura about it. So it may be that, but we don't know yet.
The science is not in yet. Natalie's joining us from California.
Natalie, I hear you turn to psychedelics to cope with grief. How did that go for you? How did that work out for you? Oh, Oprah and Michael.
It is an honor to be here. And Michael, I have to say that when my son and daughter-in-law heard that I was going to be on the show, they're big fans of yours on the podcast.
And they literally squealed when they thought that I was going to meet you and Oprah. And Oprah, I just have to tell you that you have been a guiding light on my path to purpose and a being of service for eight.
And I just want to thank you. Oh, thank you for that, Natalie.
Thank you. Thank you.
So I hear you. What's your question? My question is, Michael, what is your advice for someone going further with this experience legally? So my experience was I knew I was aware about the use of psychedelics for mental wellness, but never seriously considered it for myself until I experienced my life's greatest fear.
And that was losing my father back in 2018. And he was my rock, my solid place.
And initially when he passed, I felt his presence all the time. He was right there with me and it was amazing.
And then gradually that presence started to dissipate. And I went into a deeper level of grief and just couldn't really seem to get out of it.
I tried other things. I tried going to a float tank, which was kind of like a sensory deprivation experience, which made it actually worse.
And my son suggested psilocybin and I went for it and it was out in nature. And it was out in nature.

And it was an incredible experience. It strengthened my level of faith.

The colors in nature were brighter.

I saw God in everything.

And I just had this incredible heart opening. I love that.
And similar to you, Michael, where you mentioned doing psilocybin to deal with the grief of your father. Who passed in 2018, in fact.
Same for me is I'm a mother. I have three adult children, two adorable grandkids, and a wonderful husband.
And they all came up. It was just so much gratitude, so much peace.
And I came away with it just completely transformed. And the way that I could say that that transformation occurred is that there was a stark contrast between the truth of who i really am which is love as well and um my ego the ego yeah i think i think i think one of the things that michael emphasizes in the book is that the ego I think one of the things that Michael emphasizes in the book is that the ego and who you believe yourself to be are not identical they're not that is the biggest thing that happens with most people and it's such a valuable lesson because you don't it teaches you I'm not identical to my ego so I don't have to listen to that voice in my head.
It's like, all right, that's that voice. Yeah.
Disregard. Yeah.
Yeah. And so your question is, is, was about what is the advice for going deeper in the journey? Is that the question? Yeah.
Okay. In the journey and further into the journey.
Legally. Legally.
Legally. Well, there is a way to do it legally.
Well, there are two ways. One is there are many, many trials going on around this country, universities and other institutions.
And you can go on trials.gov and search psilocybin or MDMA, and you may find a trial that you qualify for um the other way is to go to oregon or colorado these are two states that have made uh a guided psilocybin experiences i can't say legal because it's still a federal crime but it's state legal and fairly safe from a legal point of view.

And there are people there who have to get licenses as guides. The growers are licensed.
The facilities where they're administered is licensed. So you could search both those states and those would be places where you could have a legal guided experience.
Thank you, Natalie. Yeah, thank you, Natalie.
Thank you. And thanks to your kids who squilled when they heard you were talking to Michael.
I have not heard that before. Give them my best.
Thank you. One of my favorite questions to ask on this podcast is coming up.
We're going to talk to Michael Pollan about what it means for him to live a well-lived life. He always makes you see things in a new way.
You'll want to hear his answer next. Thank you for listening to us today, to the Oprah podcast.
Welcome back to our conversation on psychedelics with Michael Pollan. In the book, you write that you had, you quote, you say, some kind of spiritual experience.
Do you think that there, obviously, I'm just asking the question, but I already know the answer. There is a difference between a religious spiritual experience and one induced by a drug's chemical impact on the brain.
And that's the first question. And does the spiritual experience depend upon what your religious belief is or is not? You know, I always saw myself as not a spiritual person.
And I also had a misunderstanding of what spiritual meant. I was going to say, how could you be that when you're so connected to plants? I know.
Well, because I thought to be spiritual meant believing in the supernatural. And I was, you know, not.
I was very grounded, you know. Well, because I thought spirit to be spiritual meant believing in the supernatural.
And I was, you know, not, I was a very grounded, you know, I had a very material view of reality, but I realized that was wrong, that you can be spiritual without believing in the supernatural. And that the essence of spiritual is connection, deep, profound connection with something other than yourself.
And so when I redefine it that way, yeah, these were powerful spiritual experiences. And I came to understand the opposite of spiritual is not material or materialistic.
The opposite of spiritual is egotistical. So darn true.
That is so darn true. It is the ego that stands in the way of our spiritual development.
And I think we have to explain what ego is because until 2008, I always thought that ego was, you know, you were being arrogant or you were, you know, overly self-assured. Now I know it's that voice in the head that is constantly going, we all have it.
It's constantly, it's a, you know, a gajillion thoughts today. Judging, it's measuring.
Judging, it's measuring, and it's, yeah. It's that part of you that is separate from the real you.
And it's important to us. There's a reason we evolved these egos.
You know, it gets books written, it gets TV shows produced, but it also gets in the way of connecting to others. Do you think it's possible that we can reach these same levels of revelations and consciousness and understandings about our connection to the universe, to ourselves and to each other without psychedelics? Yeah.
I think people do it through meditation. Yeah.
I think psychedelics in some way are a shortcut. A lot of people have trouble meditating.
They're not sure they're doing it right. They can't.
They can't. And if you've got anxiety, you can't even sit still long enough to do it.
That's right. Or if you have OCD, you're going to have intrusive thoughts when you're meditating.
So I think it kind of breaks people through to a place where they can meditate successfully, but without question. And people have had these mystical spiritual experiences without drugs.
Experiences of nature can do it. Experiences of art can do it.
The mystical experience, which is what this technically is called in the literature, can be approached from a lot of different doors. Psychedelics are just one of them.
You know, I'm really grateful to be able to talk to you today because, first of all, you're so smart, and you've written so many books about what our society is collectively wrestling with. And I'm wondering,

actually I was at a seminar this summer

and the head of Stanford was talking about a class

that they were going to start there.

And the class was going to be called,

what does it mean to have a well-lived life?

And I thought, wow, I would love to teach that class.

I'd love to teach that class and be a part of that class.

And so I love that. a well-lived life.
And I thought, wow, I would love to teach that class.

I'd love to teach that class and be a part of that class.

And so I love that as a question.

What do you, when you, with all the things that you now know as you sit here about to enter a new decade,

come on in, the water's fine.

It's going to be all right.

Yeah.

What to you defines a well-lived life? I think being present for it. Yeah.
We spend so much of our time worrying, thinking about the future, thinking about the past, that we let the present go by. and for me, that's one of the, not to say I've mastered this at all,

but my psychedelic experience, which has been followed by a meditation practice. That's kind of, like psychedelics are not a practice.
You're not going to do it that many times, but you need a practice to reinforce it. And for some people, it seems to be the tool that helps you open the door exactly exactly but after the door is open you want to keep this this way of thinking and these memories alive one of the things i meditate about very often are psychedelic experiences i've had they're um they're they're they're the stories of you and And they're endlessly, you can replay them endlessly.

One of the interesting things about psychedelic experience is it's not like dreams, which are hard to remember.

You remember these.

These experiences are indelible.

I can summon images from my experiences on psychedelics.

You see your parents as the trees.

Yeah.

Listen, you wrote that so vividly, I see your parents as the trees, okay? Well, thank you. Michael's book, How to Change Your Mind, as well as all of his other thought-provoking books are available wherever you buy your books.
So thank you to all of our guests for zooming in here with us with your own fascinating experiences on psychedelics. I think the fact that Bob lived for 49 years.
And I love that line, Bob, when you said, and I finally came home. I finally came home.
I thank you all for listening. And it's my hope that these conversations help to inform and enhance your life in some way.
You know, I've always tried to go through life with a curious, open mind. So I thank you all for taking the time to spend your time with us here.
And be sure, if you can, to subscribe to the Oprah podcast on YouTube. That is, if you don't want to miss an episode.
And follow us on Spotify or Apple Apple podcasts or wherever you get your podcasts, go well. Bye for now.
How to change your mind.

You can subscribe to the Oprah podcast on YouTube and follow us on Spotify,

Apple podcasts, or wherever you listen. I'll see you next week.
Thanks everybody. Thank you.