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Joe Rogan Experience #1854 - Rick Strassman

Rick Strassman is a Clinical Associate Professor of Psychiatry at the University of New Mexico School of Medicine. He is the author of numerous scientific papers and books, among them "DMT: The Spirit Molecule." His most recent, "The Psychedelic Handbook: A Practical Guide to Psilocybin, LSD, Ketamine, MDMA, and Ayahuasca," is available now. www.rickstrassman.com

Joe RoganhostRick Strassmanguest
Jun 27, 20243h 30mWatch on YouTube ↗

EVERY SPOKEN WORD

  1. 0:00 – 1:36

    Reconnecting after years: Strassman’s early research legacy and why it mattered

    1. NA

      (drumbeats) Joe Rogan podcast, check it out. The Joe Rogan Experience.

    2. JR

      Train by day, Joe Rogan podcast by night. All day. (rock music plays) Here we go. Here we go. What's up, Rick? How are you?

    3. RS

      Uh, good. It's great seeing you.

    4. JR

      It's great seeing you too. It's been a long time.

    5. RS

      Well, you know, we str-

    6. JR

      Try to keep this, uh, like, uh, fist from your face. That's probably the-

    7. RS

      Oh, okay.

    8. JR

      ... best way to do it. Yeah.

    9. RS

      Yeah.

    10. JR

      There we go.

    11. RS

      Yeah. I think we first met, uh ... Some random person, uh, sent me an email, probably 2005, 2006.

    12. JR

      Wow.

    13. RS

      And he said, "Oh, you know, Joe Rogan is, uh, talking about your book." And I (laughs) hadn't heard of you.

    14. JR

      This is before I did a podcast.

    15. RS

      I think it was before the podcast time.

    16. JR

      Yeah.

    17. RS

      I think you were still doing standup.

    18. JR

      Yeah.

    19. RS

      Yeah. And he gave me your number, I think, and I called you, and you were at the airport.

    20. JR

      (laughs)

    21. RS

      And you said, "Hey, man, I'm reading your book. I love it."

    22. JR

      (laughs)

    23. RS

      (laughs)

    24. JR

      Yeah. The book was fascinating because your book was ... You need to adjust? Cameras? Good? Your book was fascinating to me because it was, um ... I mean, correct me if I'm wrong, but it was the first time that they ever, that the FDA ever allowed real studies to be done on Schedule I drugs.

    25. RS

      It was the first new American study in 20 years.

    26. JR

      On psychedelics?

    27. RS

      Yeah. Yeah.

    28. JR

      Yeah.

    29. RS

      On any human psychedelic research.

    30. JR

      And how did you ... First of all, why did you want to do it, and how did you get the permission to do it?

  2. 1:36 – 7:21

    First altered states: hash, shared hallucinations, and a chemistry mind getting hooked

    1. RS

      Well, um, I wanted to do it because, uh, of my interest in chemistry and my interest in altered states, um, you know, my own altered states. Like, the first time I smoked marijuana, I was 18 years old, and it was a fully psychedelic experience. There were purple clouds coming out of the speakers. I was flying over this, you know, the college, you know, town I was living in at the time. And my friend was too. It was a shared hallucination on very strong hash.

    2. JR

      So you felt like you were out of body?

    3. RS

      Uh, no. I was, uh ... We were on a carpet.

    4. JR

      And you felt like you could, you were ... So you both saw, like-

    5. RS

      Yeah.

    6. JR

      ... a city below you?

    7. RS

      Yeah. The floor disappeared.

    8. JR

      (laughs)

    9. RS

      Yeah. It was the first time I smoked marijuana.

    10. JR

      (laughs)

    11. RS

      And I thought, "Wow. This is interesting."

    12. JR

      And now hash is ... The way they create hash is they take the w- what is it called? The crystals off of THC? Is that how they do it?

    13. RS

      Uh, they shake out the resin, uh, from the flower.

    14. JR

      Just sh- just shake it? That's how they do it?

    15. RS

      W- um, well, there's different ways to do it. Like, in the old country, y- you get really sweaty, and you just agitate a lot of pot. And it ... And, uh, the resin accumulates on your skin, and you scrape it off.

    16. JR

      Really? And that's how they make hash?

    17. RS

      Well, you know, in-

    18. JR

      That's so funky. You're getting someone's funk along with the hash. (laughs)

    19. RS

      Yeah, yeah. That's called pre-industrial hash.

    20. JR

      (laughs)

    21. RS

      (laughs)

    22. JR

      I was watching, uh, or was looking at something online the other day, where, um, they were talking about repurpose ... It was in Morocco. They were rep- it was Steve D'Angelo. He was talking about they were, how they were repurposing, uh, machines in Morocco to make hash. About how they've been doing it this way and making hash in this part of the world for, you know, who knows how many years.

    23. RS

      Yeah.

    24. JR

      Is this it here?

    25. RS

      I wonder what the machines are.

    26. JR

      Yeah. This is Steve D'Angelo. (clears throat) Steve D'Angelo's a hemp activist, cannabis activist. So they're ... It looks some kind of a press or something like that. I don't know what that thing is.

    27. RS

      Yeah.

    28. JR

      But-

    29. RS

      Interesting.

    30. JR

      I think it's, like, it has something to do with, uh, automobiles. Here. He's going to say it right here.

  3. 7:21 – 13:41

    Psychedelics and mental stability: vulnerability, psychosis, and ‘thin veneer of normality’

    1. JR

      I've known more than one person that has lost their marbles from, from doing too many psychedelics.

    2. RS

      I started getting unraveled.

    3. JR

      It's not-

    4. RS

      Yeah.

    5. JR

      ... uncommon.

    6. RS

      Yeah.

    7. JR

      Right? Don't w- Do you know people that have kind of, like, blown fuse?

    8. RS

      Oh, yeah. Yeah.

    9. JR

      Yeah.

    10. RS

      Well, I get the occasional email from people who have really gone around the bend smoking too much DMT.

    11. JR

      There's people, I think, that have a tendency towards a type of, uh, paranoid schizophrenia, that maybe they kind of have it under control or maybe it's mild. You know, they just have some weird paranoias about certain things. I've seen a few people do too many psychedelics and then (snaps fingers) now they're in fantasy land.

    12. RS

      Yeah. I kind of wonder about the risk of increased accessibility.

    13. JR

      I do.

    14. RS

      Yeah. Because y- you know, you could prepare, you can screen, and still people have adverse effects. And in, in, in the wild, in the field, I think we're just gonna have a revisiting of the problems in the '60s with all of those hospitalizations and things.

    15. JR

      I, I don't think there's any doubt. The real question is w- how many of those people were on that path already? Like, what is that whole process of someone becoming mentally ill? Because I've seen it happen, but I'm, I'm not exactly sure what's causing it, wh- what makes people... I've seen people go down, and they just, they just become different people.

    16. RS

      Well, I think it's a case of people being vulnerable. You know, they've got a susceptibility, uh-

    17. JR

      Yeah.

    18. RS

      ... of... In their genes. And they just may also be susceptible because of their lives. They may be doing other drugs, you know, drinking a lot, in really unstable relationships.

    19. JR

      Mm-hmm.

    20. RS

      Or they... Uh, you know, and they also, you know, might have a, you know, tendency genetically. Uh, you know, let's say one of their parents was bipolar or schizophrenic. You know, so it's a major trauma. I mean, it's a psychological, you know, trauma to have a huge trip, right?

    21. JR

      Yeah.

    22. RS

      You know, good trauma, bad trauma, but it's really a shift. And, uh, if you're not equipped, uh, I think it could, yeah, it could, uh, kind of fracture, uh, a thin veneer of normality.

    23. JR

      Yeah, it's almost like they're interfacing at the wrong p- They're not, like, quite getting... L- Like, there's a reality port and then there's, like, a neighboring port where they're getting... It's like they can pay their taxes, they can drive their cars, they can answer emails, but they think that there's some crazy mind control experiment at the head of... You know? It's just one of those weird ones where people just, like, the- just start believing that the w- whole world's out to get them, and the government's trying to track them down, and y- y- there's a chip in my brain. L- Like, accelerates.

    24. RS

      R- Yeah. Yeah. It's, it's extreme.

    25. JR

      The chip is the weird one. I've heard multiple people tell me they have a chip in their brain.

    26. RS

      Mm-hmm.

    27. JR

      Or at least say it to people, like that, "I'm communicating to them through a chip in their brain."

    28. RS

      Mm-hmm. Well, you know, schizophrenics are like that.

    29. JR

      Yeah.

    30. RS

      It's, uh, you know, paranoid schizophrenics. Yeah, you know, back in the day, it was, uh, you know, radio waves or x-rays that were-

  4. 13:41 – 17:15

    When the trip doesn’t end: McKenna’s story and the ‘portal that stayed open’ model

    1. JR

      You've heard, uh, Dennis McKenna's story-

    2. RS

      Yeah. Uh-

    3. JR

      ... about being, uh, with Terrence?

    4. RS

      Mm-hmm, the experiment at Lancho Huerra.

    5. JR

      Yeah, yeah. Exactly.

    6. RS

      Yeah.

    7. JR

      If you, can you explain what happened? Because they, they ate too many mushrooms.

    8. RS

      Hm, apparently.

    9. JR

      Yeah. Can you explain, like, pharmacologically w- what ... or psychologically, what could have happened?

    10. RS

      Uh, well, I mean, it, it depends on your model, right?

    11. JR

      Please tell people what happened. Like, tell people the story.

    12. RS

      Yeah, I don't know the story-

    13. JR

      You don't know it exactly?

    14. RS

      ... that, that well.

    15. JR

      What I believe is they found a bunch of fresh mushrooms in the Amazon and they just started chowing and they went crazy. And I think he was gone for about two weeks.

    16. RS

      Yeah.

    17. JR

      Might have been longer than that. Might be two months. Do you remember, Jamie?

    18. NA

      I ... I, I don't know. I'll check with see what, uh ... (laughs)

    19. JR

      'Cause he was on, he told the story on the podcast.

    20. RS

      Yeah.

    21. JR

      He, he went into detail about, like, what it was like.

    22. RS

      Mm-hmm.

    23. JR

      The way he was processing real- reality.

    24. RS

      It was a long stretch.

    25. JR

      It was a long time-

    26. RS

      Yeah.

    27. JR

      ... where he was gone.

    28. RS

      Yeah.

    29. JR

      It wasn't, like, two hours, huh? (laughs)

    30. RS

      No. No, they had to, well, uh, you know, to the extent that he could communicate, he wanted people to leave him alone.

  5. 17:15 – 20:55

    Is the DMT realm an objective ‘place’? Experiments, VR transcendence, and near-death parallels

    1. RS

      Well, it could be. I mean, it could be another dimension. And-

    2. JR

      It could be. Yeah.

    3. RS

      Yeah, well, I, I think you need to design experiments, you know, to, uh, to test if it is another dimension or not.

    4. JR

      How could you do that?

    5. RS

      Um, well, I think, uh ... Well, if you, you know, consider, you know, the location of the DMT world to be outside of us-

    6. JR

      Mm-hmm.

    7. RS

      ... uh, in objective reality, you'd need to, you know, call upon, you know, physics, advanced, uh, you know, physics, dark matter, dark energy, parallel universes. So I think if you could, you know, get into those spaces, uh, with machines, let's say imaging machines or cameras-

    8. JR

      How would you do that?

    9. RS

      Pfft. I don't know.

    10. JR

      (laughs) Could you get a computer high? (laughs)

    11. RS

      (laughs) It's one of those ideas I've had, yeah.

    12. JR

      Well, have you seen some of the new, um ... There, there was, uh, some new article that was written about virtual reality-... being able to, um, give people transcendent experiences, that it's similar to the effects achieved on psychedelics.

    13. RS

      Right. That's interesting, isn't it?

    14. JR

      McKenah talked about that a long time ago. He said he thinks that one day they'll get to a point where they can create something visually and it'll bring you into that place, that they'll be able to recreate it with sufficient technology. Here's... "VR is as good as psych- at (clears throat) as psychedelics at helping people reach transcendence. On key metrics, a VR experience elicited a response indistinguishable from subject who took medium doses of LSD or magic mushrooms." That's wild.

    15. RS

      Yeah. Well-

    16. JR

      If they got... If they just keep getting better at it, that's... Like, if you can get someone who's been there and knows what it looks like-

    17. RS

      Mm-hmm.

    18. JR

      ... and then is a good artist who can recreate it. Because I've seen some DMT art before that's so close. It's like, "Oh, wow, that's so close."

    19. RS

      Right. Right.

    20. JR

      You know? It seems like it... Of, of course, Alex Grey. Like, Alex Grey stuff is like... Some of it is so tryptamine-like, you know?

    21. RS

      Um, well, it's important to note that they talk about medium doses of LSD or psilocybin.

    22. JR

      Right. So you get a good feeling, but you're not hallucinating.

    23. RS

      Yeah. You may not really be fully tripping out.

    24. JR

      Well, then what they're doing, what, what kind of, uh, VR experience it would be like? What is the images they're showing you? What is the sound they're playing for you that's allowing you to get to these states?

    25. NA

      (clears throat) The guy that made this one did it after he had a, a near-death experience.

    26. JR

      Wow.

    27. NA

      Uh, here, right here. He says he fell off there. Read that.

    28. JR

      Okay. He says, uh, "'I knew that the intensity of the light was related to the extent to which I inhabited my body,' he recalls. Yet watching it dim didn't frighten him from his new vantage point." Glo- Glowwa- Glowaki? Glowaki? Glowaki could see that the light wasn't disappearing, it was transforming, leaking out of his body into the environment around him. This realization, which he took to signify that his awareness could outlast and transcend his physical form, block- bought- brought Glowaki- Glowaki a sublime sense of peace. So, he approached what he thought was death with curiosity, what might come next. So, since his accident, an artist and computational molecular physicist, his work to recapture that transcendence." Okay. So, he had some wild near-death experience, and he's trying to recreate that with VR. So, that's interesting because that's not even a, um... He's not even talking about a drug experience.

    29. RS

      Um, so he could be. Um-

    30. JR

      Right.

  6. 20:55 – 24:43

    Endogenous DMT in the brain: pineal controversies, death spikes, and a possible neurotransmitter system

    1. RS

      Yeah. You know, we've been studying, or there's a group at University of Michigan that's been looking at endogenous DMT-

    2. JR

      Yeah.

    3. RS

      ... that's, that's made in the mammalian brain, and it increases during death, and especially it increases in the visual part of the brain, you know? So it could be-

    4. JR

      So, they know that for a fact now?

    5. RS

      Yeah, they know that for a fact. It's a 2019 study.

    6. JR

      When I first met you, there wasn't nearly as much data. And I remember you were talking about how much anecdotal data that points to the idea of the pineal gland being the source of DMT, but there wasn't-

    7. RS

      Mm-hmm.

    8. JR

      ... a mammal model.

    9. RS

      Yeah. Yeah. The pineal DMT story, it sounds pretty obscure, but it's pretty controversial. I mean, there are, uh, you know, some data supporting the view that the pineal makes DMT and other data don't. Um, I think you and I met at Starbucks on Ventura-

    10. JR

      (laughs)

    11. RS

      ... in, I think 2009. I was out there for my high school reunion, and, um, we met at Starbucks on Ventura. I think it was in Encino. And, uh, yeah, we were talking about DMT.

    12. JR

      Do you think... Yeah, I remember that. Do you think that DMT is produced in, like, all over the body? Like, they've found it in the lungs. They've found it in the liver, right? Do you think it's just something that the body produces everywhere?

    13. RS

      Um, you know, when they first discovered DMT in mammals, uh, peop- people were focusing on the lung. And, uh, you know, they were also interested in DMT being involved in psychosis. And-

    14. JR

      Hmm.

    15. RS

      ... you know, there is a, you know, joke or... I don't know if you call it a joke, but an idea that schizophrenia was a lung disease, uh, because you were producing, you know, too much DMT. And they were doing studies to inhibit DMT in schizophrenics or increase it or...

    16. JR

      Oh, wow. That makes sense.

    17. RS

      Yeah, it does make sense. Uh-

    18. JR

      That completely makes sense.

    19. RS

      Yeah, yeah.

    20. JR

      That could be what's wrong with them.

    21. RS

      It could be. And if you could block DMT naturally or with a vaccine or something, you might have a-

    22. JR

      Wow. That completely makes sense because pe- I've seen people on it that, like, fight it and panic, and imagine if that was like a constant state-

    23. RS

      Mm-hmm.

    24. JR

      ... you were involved, that would look totally similar to someone being schizophrenic.

    25. RS

      If, if, if it was a constant state, you'd have to come up with some ideas about what was going on. And I think that possibly would then, you know, lead to the delusions, the crazy ideas about what's going on-

    26. JR

      Yeah, that makes sense.

    27. RS

      ... to explain.

    28. JR

      Wow.

    29. RS

      Well, so we found, you know, DMT in the rodent pineal in 2013, the group at the University of Michigan. You know, so it, it, uh, proved or established the validity of that idea that the pineal makes DMT. But this study in 2019 that I was mentioning where DMT goes up after death in the visual cortex, you know, they looked again for pineal DMT, and they couldn't find any. And what they believe is that the original paper described the DMT in the brain which was snagged on the way in and out of-

    30. JR

      Hmm.

  7. 24:43 – 53:38

    Pineal mystique and dark detours: ancient reverence, Aztec stories, prion disease, and eating brains

    1. JR

      Why do you think, uh, ancient cultures were so fascinated by it? Like, why did they have this... Why did they attribute this sort of, uh, s- almost like godlike significance to it, right?

    2. RS

      Yeah, yeah. I mean, there still, there still is a certain pineal kind of reverence out there. If you look at Amazon and enter pineal, there's all kinds of esoteric things that are still being published on the pineal gland.

    3. JR

      Hmm.

    4. RS

      Um, well, it's an unpaired organ. It's the only unpaired organ in the brain. Uh, everything else is paired. You have a left and right hemisphere. Uh, but there's just one pineal in the, uh, in the middle of your brain. It's, it's, it's location, I think, has attri- or has contributed, you know, to the reverence. Uh, it's just under the fontanelle, and certain kinds of spiritual experiences are also felt there. And so, it was the, you know, the, uh, you know, physical corresponding position of the subjective experience, so people thought it must be occurring in the pineal gland.

    5. JR

      Hmm.

    6. RS

      You know, I've a friend who's, uh, really into Aztec, you know, savagery, you know, history, and, uh, he told me... This is kind of grim, but, uh, he told me that the Aztecs used to burn people when they were alive to really, like, freak them out, and then take their brains out and eat their brains because of all of the hormones and all of the-

    7. JR

      (sighs)

    8. RS

      ... things that were going on.

    9. JR

      Whoa. (laughs)

    10. RS

      You know, so their pineal gland-

    11. JR

      That is heavy.

    12. RS

      That's heavy, I know.

    13. JR

      That is so-

    14. RS

      (laughs)

    15. JR

      ... heavy.

    16. RS

      Yeah. You know, but they found it gave them, you know, whatever superhuman strength or r- religious e- ecstasy.

    17. JR

      Isn't it fascinating that that also will kill you? Like, that's, that's where people get prion diseases. They get it from eating brain and spinal tissue, right?

    18. RS

      Right, right.

    19. JR

      Like, cannibals, when they get that Jakob Creutzfeld-

    20. RS

      Jakob Creutzfeld, yeah.

    21. JR

      Yeah.

    22. RS

      Yeah.

    23. JR

      Thank you for pronouncing that better. (laughs)

    24. RS

      Well, when I was a medical student, you know, we were always on the hunt for Jakob Creutzfeld patients because, you know, they were rare and very interesting.

    25. JR

      How many did you discover?

    26. RS

      Maybe just two or three.

    27. JR

      And how did they come into contact with it?

    28. RS

      How did they come into contact with it? Uh, I think, you know, they were, uh, like, from Africa. Y-

    29. JR

      And they ate maybe some bushmeat or something, or some primate meat?

    30. RS

      Sh- sh- sheep meat or monkey meat. Yeah.

  8. 53:38 – 1:22:33

    Modern life, tech avoidance, and social anxiety: flip phones, small towns, Monkeypox, and hope

    1. JR

      Is someone's phone ringing? You hear that? Yeah, I think you accidentally dialed someone.

    2. RS

      Oh, really? Oh, yeah, Tristan.

    3. JR

      (laughs)

    4. RS

      That keeps happening. It's just Tristan.

    5. JR

      (laughs) Just put the phone, put the phone on the table.

    6. RS

      Yeah, sorry.

    7. JR

      It's ... 'Cause I didn't know how you pocket call with a flip phone. Did you know that you could do that, Jamie?

    8. NA

      It's been a while.

    9. JR

      It was the, the way it was ringing. I'm like, "That's not his ring."

    10. NA

      Yeah, I heard a noise, but I didn't know what it was either.

    11. JR

      Oh. But it wasn't his ring. You know, your ring is like, "Brring." Right, right.

    12. RS

      Yeah, I apologize.

    13. JR

      Was an outgoing- That was, like, a outgoing ring.

    14. NA

      Huh?

    15. JR

      Yeah.

    16. RS

      Yeah, yeah, I'm sorry.

    17. JR

      No, no, it's okay. I just didn't want someone else listening to our entire conversation.

    18. NA

      (laughs)

    19. RS

      Yeah, yeah, that's Tristan.

    20. JR

      (laughs) Well, but you wouldn't be ... I didn't know that it was a flip phone. You wouldn't even be able to pick up without opening it up.

    21. RS

      Uh, true.

    22. JR

      That's so old school of you. I love the fact that you have a flip phone. I think we were all happier back then.

    23. RS

      Oh, y- ... Well, this flip phone is, you know, 4G, and I had to upgrade from my 3G flip phone. This-

    24. JR

      Oh, they made you, these bastards.

    25. RS

      They stopped serving. Yeah, the, uh ...

    26. JR

      (laughs)

    27. RS

      Yeah, yeah, Verizon, they-

    28. JR

      (coughs)

    29. RS

      They texted me or something and said-

    30. JR

      Cut you off, son. It's over.

  9. 1:08:41 – 1:12:04

    Funding from unexpected places: NIDA, the War on Drugs framing, and the Scottish Rite/Masons grant

    1. RS

      20 years-

    2. JR

      20 years.

    3. RS

      ... pretty much. Yeah.

    4. JR

      That seems insane, doesn't it, that they wouldn't want to study one of the most profound experiences that's available to human beings?

    5. RS

      Well, it's important to think of some context, you know, too. You- you know, things were just going crazy with kids taking way too much LSD in the wrong set of circumstances without any preparation. Y- and it was a public health emergency. Emergency rooms and psychiatric units were being filled up. You know, so the government had to do something, you know, from the public health point of view at the very least, which was to make it harder for kids to get their hands on psychedelics. I think that notion that there was a desire to quash understanding what the drugs were doing to people, like in a scientific manner, I- I don't think, you know, that was ever the case. I think it was more that nobody really wanted to, you know, challenge, you know, the government and submit a really good study that you can back up with safety mechanisms built into place. Y- you know, once I got my funding and my- my permits, which was a long process, it took two years, y- you know, the government was super keen on my studies. They were very interested in what we were doing, w- what, uh, that we were finding.

    6. JR

      When you say the government, like what branch of the government?

    7. RS

      Um, mostly the National Institute on, uh, o- o- among Drug Abuse, NIDA, uh, one of the divisions of the National Institutes of Health. You know, they were funding me. Oh, oh, this is cool too. The first grant I got was from the Scottish Rite Foundation for Schizophrenia Research. It's a-

    8. JR

      Ooh.

    9. RS

      ... it's a branch of the Masons.

    10. JR

      Wow.

    11. RS

      Very interesting. And, you know, the Masons have a lot of iconography with a pineal-

    12. JR

      Mm-hmm.

    13. RS

      ... and pinecones. So, I mean, that was pretty creepy.

    14. JR

      That is creepy.

    15. RS

      (laughs)

    16. JR

      People get freaked out by Masons. They just... The... I mean, without knowing much about it, you hear that someone's a Mason, you're like, "Oh, boy."

    17. RS

      Well-

    18. JR

      What does that mean?

    19. RS

      Well, and they were the first funders of my research, which I thought was, you know-

    20. JR

      See, all the Illuminati people are gonna go crazy now.

    21. RS

      ... e-

    22. JR

      All the- the real conspiracy theory people, "Oh-"

    23. RS

      I- i- i-

    24. JR

      "... he's captured by the government."

    25. RS

      I- it was a strange coincidence.

    26. JR

      That doesn't sound like a strange coincidence.

    27. RS

      Um, well, there's a more mundane explanation.

    28. JR

      Okay.

    29. RS

      Um, one of my mentors... Well, maybe, you know, it doesn't help clarify things, it may make it more complex, but-

    30. JR

      (laughs)

  10. 1:12:04 – 1:18:10

    Religion and legality: UDV & Santo Daime exemptions, Oregon’s psilocybin model, and policy tradeoffs

    1. JR

      That's wild. There's a... This is another subject that I wanted to talk to you about. Um, there's certain religions that had an exemption for using, uh, DMT, and there's Christian religions in America, right? There's- there's, like, two different sects of Christianity that are allowed to take, like, an ayahuasca-

    2. RS

      Oh.

    3. JR

      ... drink.

    4. RS

      Yeah, yeah. There's a-

    5. JR

      How did that happen?

    6. RS

      There's a group called the UDV, and one called the Santo Daime. They're both based from Brazil. They both originated there.

    7. JR

      And so these folks, they went and they got religious exemption? How did- how did that go down?

    8. RS

      Um, well, the... Well, let me s- let- let me think this through. Um, y- well, in the early '90s, when I had just got my DMT study off the ground, I met the leader of the UDV, uh, a Anglo fellow, Jeff Free, uh, and Bronfman from Santa Fe was, uh, the n- uh, North American, you know, representative of the UDV. And he asked me about what their strategy ought to be to, uh, be able to drink ayahuasca. So I advised-... you know, taking care of all your permits, you know, kind of the way I did it. Just, you know, fill out the forms and, you know, talk to their regulators. And after a while, you know, if you stick with it, chances are good they'll give you permission. Or you could wait to be caught and then, you know, take it to court. Um, in which case you would at least be, you know, getting the experiences underway. The church would be established. You would have a track record of safety. Yeah.

    9. JR

      Yeah. But that sounds like a terrible idea. I would definitely say try to get the opinions in.

    10. RS

      Right.

    11. JR

      Or, uh, r- rather permissions in.

    12. RS

      Mm-hmm. Well, and, well, so that's what happened is, you know, they got s- uh, you know, they were discovered importing ayahuasca, which they had been, you know, doing for, I don't know, three, four years or so. Y- yeah. And f- you know, so they took it to court.

    13. JR

      So they got caught with it?

    14. RS

      Th- they got caught with it. Uh, you know, you have to, you know, think about it though because it may have taken them years to do.

    15. JR

      Right. I get it. That makes sense.

    16. RS

      And they may never have gotten approval.

    17. JR

      So is it possible for them to grow the stuff they need to make ayahuasca here?

    18. RS

      Y-

    19. JR

      D- do, do those things have to be grown in other climates or can they be grown here?

    20. RS

      Uh, you can grow the plants in either Hawaii or Florida.

    21. JR

      Right. I knew people grew them in Hawaii. I didn't know Florida. Interesting. So, if Florida opened it up, they could have ayahuasca plantations.

    22. RS

      Yeah. Yeah.

    23. JR

      And just, I mean, that tropical environment down there.

    24. RS

      Well, I mean, you'd have to work out, you know, the regulatory and the organizational structure, kind of like they're doing in Oregon, which it seems like it's kind of halting. Are you familiar with what's, what they're doing in Oregon?

    25. JR

      In Oregon, they seem to be decriminalizing basically everything.

    26. RS

      Right. Uh, well, they've legalized, uh, you know, psilocybin, which means that the state's getting involved in a board and s- you know, certifying-

    27. JR

      Really?

    28. RS

      ... locations.

    29. JR

      So, they legalized it for recreational use or medicinal use?

    30. RS

      Uh-

  11. 1:18:10 – 1:30:03

    5-MeO-DMT, lingering ‘slippery reality,’ and the need for integration support

    1. JR

      Yeah. Look, I had one DMT trip that was, it was... I think we did it three times in an, in an, in an afternoon. And I had, uh, the last one was really, really, really powerful. And I had like a very slippery grip on reality for like two weeks after that.

    2. RS

      Th- that can happen.

    3. JR

      Yeah, that's how I describe it, as like slippery. Like, uh, I was doing everything normal, I was driving to work normal. I was doing it, but everything felt slippery, like everything can go wrong at any second.

    4. RS

      Slippery is a good term. Well, y- you know, that happened to me after my first, you know, 5-methoxy-DMT experience.

    5. JR

      Yeah.

    6. RS

      F- for about, you know, three days, I just didn't really feel like I was in my body, that I was really kind of interacting with things in a coherent manner.

    7. JR

      That stuff is interesting. I'm in- in... I really want to know your thoughts on that stuff 'cause that's a weird, um, experience in that it, it seems like you just go away.

    8. RS

      Yeah. Yeah. You do go away. And even though people seem to be talking it up, I'm not sure if going away is that good a thing.

    9. JR

      I want to explain that to, to people who don't know what we're talking about. When I mean go away, I mean it feels like you're dying and then it also feels like you don't exist anymore. So you don't have any thoughts while you're over there. It's we- it's the weirdest experience. It's all white.

    10. RS

      It's, uh, just this White Out.

    11. JR

      Yeah, it's like this full White Out, but-... it's somehow cleansing. Like, you come out of there, like, lighter.

    12. RS

      Oh, it's- it's like being in the center of the sun.

    13. JR

      Yeah. There's something about when you come back, you feel like everything's gonna be fine.

    14. RS

      (laughs) Oh.

    15. JR

      You know? Like, it's so wild in the beginning and so terrifying when you first enter into it.

    16. RS

      Mm-hmm.

    17. JR

      But then when you come out of it, you're so happy you did it.

    18. RS

      Well, I think that's a concern, is that you feel so good after you've come through and you want to replicate that.

    19. JR

      Right.

    20. RS

      I've seen people use 5-Methoxy addictively, you know, habitually. They just wanna get back to that state over and over, and you don't really see that very often with DMT. DMT itself has so much information.

    21. JR

      There's a dude I knew, uh, who, uh, he went so many times, he was doing it so often, that he said the entities started telling him to stop coming.

    22. RS

      (gulps) Yeah.

    23. JR

      He was doing DMT, like, every day.

    24. RS

      Yeah.

    25. JR

      I'm like, "Hey, man." (laughs) "That seems like, that seems like a lot."

    26. RS

      Well, do you think it was the entities telling him to stop it, or that it was, you know, just his mind saying, you know, "You're- you're- you're- you're killing me. I mean, let's take a break."

    27. JR

      Yeah, I mean, the- or what are those thing- what is your mind, right? What did- your mind- is- is your mind an individual thing or is it something that constantly changes depending upon what it interacts with? And are those entities that are telling you to stop doing it, uh, do they live in your mind? Does your mind live where they live?

    28. RS

      Yes, I think so.

    29. JR

      Yeah. (laughs) But either way, this, this whole, uh, thing of he, he was having a real problem with it. Like, he, uh, he- the experience was so profound, he just wanted to recreate it over and over and over and over and over again.

    30. RS

      Um, w- you know, when I get emails from people who start sounding like they're just about ready to, like, lose it-

Episode duration: 3:30:07

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