Joe Rogan Experience #1854 - Rick Strassman

1. 0:00 – 15:00

   (drumbeats) Joe Rogan podcast,…

   1. NANarrator0:00

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

   2. JRJoe Rogan0:06

      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. RSRick Strassman0:14

      Uh, good. It's great seeing you.

   4. JRJoe Rogan0:16

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

   5. RSRick Strassman0:18

      Well, you know, we str-

   6. JRJoe Rogan0:20

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

   7. RSRick Strassman0:23

      Oh, okay.

   8. JRJoe Rogan0:23

      ... best way to do it. Yeah.

   9. RSRick Strassman0:24

      Yeah.

   10. JRJoe Rogan0:25

       There we go.

   11. RSRick Strassman0:26

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

   12. JRJoe Rogan0:34

       Wow.

   13. RSRick Strassman0:34

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

   14. JRJoe Rogan0:41

       This is before I did a podcast.

   15. RSRick Strassman0:43

       I think it was before the podcast time.

   16. JRJoe Rogan0:45

       Yeah.

   17. RSRick Strassman0:45

       I think you were still doing standup.

   18. JRJoe Rogan0:46

       Yeah.

   19. RSRick Strassman0:48

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

   20. JRJoe Rogan0:52

       (laughs)

   21. RSRick Strassman0:53

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

   22. JRJoe Rogan0:56

       (laughs)

   23. RSRick Strassman0:57

       (laughs)

   24. JRJoe Rogan0:57

       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. RSRick Strassman1:19

       It was the first new American study in 20 years.

   26. JRJoe Rogan1:23

       On psychedelics?

   27. RSRick Strassman1:24

       Yeah. Yeah.

   28. JRJoe Rogan1:24

       Yeah.

   29. RSRick Strassman1:25

       On any human psychedelic research.

   30. JRJoe Rogan1:28

       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. 15:00 – 30:00

   Right. …

   1. JRJoe Rogan15:00

      on with this substance? It must be gone from your body after two weeks.

   2. RSRick Strassman15:04

      Right.

   3. JRJoe Rogan15:05

      But somehow or another, you're still feeling the effects of it. Like, what happened? And what does that indicate about like states of mind and how pliable they are?

   4. RSRick Strassman15:14

      Well, I mean, the, the, I guess the way I would look at it, which might not be the way everybody would, but, um, I think what may have taken place is that because of all of the psilocybin that he took, he opened a portal-

   5. JRJoe Rogan15:28

      (laughs)

   6. RSRick Strassman15:30

      ... into things out there, and it just didn't close. Uh, you know, so the, uh, psilocybin was the trigger, you know, but after the, the, you know, portal was open, uh, it was open.

   7. JRJoe Rogan15:42

      I'm glad you said it that way, 'cause I say it that way too, and I know it sounds ridiculous. It's particularly to people-

   8. RSRick Strassman15:48

      (laughs)

   9. JRJoe Rogan15:48

      ... that don't do psychedelics, opening a portal. But I've, I've, I've thought about that a lot. I've thought about that a lot about the DMT experience, because it seems so insane and so impossible that I just can't believe that this isn't just another place. It seems like it's not just a chemical reaction in my mind. It seems like I'm going to another place.

   10. RSRick Strassman16:10

       Uh, that's how it feels.

   11. JRJoe Rogan16:12

       That's how it feels. But what does that mean by when I say, "That's how it feels," because I don't have any understanding of what ex- I'm experiencing it, what I'm, what I'm experiencing, rather. So I must put it in some sort of context where it makes sense to me as a person who lives on Earth, you know, sitting here right now in 2022. You know, there's all those variables that you l- you, everything, when you look at the world, goes through all the, the filter of, of your own personal reality. The thing about a psyc- a full-blown psychedelic experience, like the DMT experience, is it doesn't seem like any of that applies anymore. You go over there and it's like you're gone. There's no ... So I, I was wondering about myself, like, maybe I'm trying to put it into perspective like it's another place, because places make sense to me. And what doesn't make sense to me is n- just full nothingness, i- chaos, wild imagery, and geometry, and things that move to music. And it's like almost like it's so hard for me to wrap my head around that I convince myself it's another dimension, but it's not.

   12. RSRick Strassman17:15

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

   13. JRJoe Rogan17:19

       It could be. Yeah.

   14. RSRick Strassman17:20

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

   15. JRJoe Rogan17:26

       How could you do that?

   16. RSRick Strassman17:28

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

   17. JRJoe Rogan17:39

       Mm-hmm.

   18. RSRick Strassman17:40

       ... 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-

   19. JRJoe Rogan17:59

       How would you do that?

   20. RSRick Strassman18:00

       Pfft. I don't know.

   21. JRJoe Rogan18:00

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

   22. RSRick Strassman18:03

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

   23. JRJoe Rogan18:06

       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.

   24. RSRick Strassman18:23

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

   25. JRJoe Rogan18:24

       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.

   26. RSRick Strassman18:54

       Yeah. Well-

   27. JRJoe Rogan18:55

       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-

   28. RSRick Strassman19:01

       Mm-hmm.

   29. JRJoe Rogan19:02

       ... 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."

   30. RSRick Strassman19:12

       Right. Right.
3. 30:00 – 45:00

   Yeah. …

   1. JRJoe Rogan30:00

      I mean, what are you getting out of eating brains?

   2. RSRick Strassman30:02

      Yeah.

   3. JRJoe Rogan30:03

      I wonder what it's like. I mean-

   4. RSRick Strassman30:04

      Well, it would depend on whose brain.

   5. JRJoe Rogan30:06

      Right. What if you ate Einstein's brain and you actually got smarter?

   6. RSRick Strassman30:10

      Uh...

   7. JRJoe Rogan30:10

      If he gave you permission.

   8. RSRick Strassman30:11

      Yeah.

   9. JRJoe Rogan30:12

      "Look, I got about a week left."

   10. RSRick Strassman30:13

       (laughs)

   11. JRJoe Rogan30:13

       "Take my brain."

   12. RSRick Strassman30:15

       Yeah. Well, you know the frozen fr- uh, the frozen brain banks out there?

   13. JRJoe Rogan30:20

       I have heard of that.

   14. RSRick Strassman30:21

       Mm-hmm.

   15. JRJoe Rogan30:22

       Yeah.

   16. RSRick Strassman30:22

       Yeah, they f-... Uh, they flash freeze your brain right after you die. Y- you have to agree to it beforehand, but, uh...

   17. JRJoe Rogan30:29

       But imagine-... if you were in transcendence, you've escaped this physical reality, and you've gone into the next amazing dimension where there's no deception, it's all love and energy, and you're floating together in music. And then some dipshit brings you back to life, and you zoop, you get sucked backwards, but now you're stuck in a computer.

   18. RSRick Strassman30:55

       Um-

   19. JRJoe Rogan30:56

       Can you imagine?

   20. RSRick Strassman30:56

       Hmm.

   21. JRJoe Rogan30:56

       If that was your soul, your soul is just sucked back into that brain as soon as it's reanimated.

   22. RSRick Strassman31:03

       Well, I have thought about it.

   23. JRJoe Rogan31:05

       Have you?

   24. RSRick Strassman31:05

       Yeah, yeah, what do you think that would be like? Wh- what-

   25. JRJoe Rogan31:07

       Terrifying.

   26. RSRick Strassman31:08

       You wouldn't want to do it.

   27. JRJoe Rogan31:09

       Well, it'd be terrifying if they couldn't get rid of it, like if, if you couldn't go back. Like what if there's like portals, right, like you were saying, and what if those portals are activated by normal human neurochemistry, right?

   28. RSRick Strassman31:22

       Right.

   29. JRJoe Rogan31:22

       And that, that, and it's a part of dying-

   30. RSRick Strassman31:24

       Mm-hmm.
4. 45:00 – 1:00:00

   Uh-huh. …

   1. JRJoe Rogan45:00

   2. RSRick Strassman45:00

      Uh-huh.

   3. JRJoe Rogan45:00

      Settle down, buddy. (laughs)

   4. RSRick Strassman45:01

      Yeah, like the term entheogen, it refers to God.

   5. JRJoe Rogan45:04

      Yeah.

   6. RSRick Strassman45:04

      Entheos. And, uh, it refers to en, which means that God exists within.

   7. JRJoe Rogan45:09

      Mm-hmm.

   8. RSRick Strassman45:10

      And the ... it has the word en- gen in it, which means it's a drug which is, you know, generating something, like a, like God. You know, so that assumes a lot. And there are people who could benefit from psychedelic experiences who might not have cottoned to those ideas and would avoid an entheogen but might take a psychedelic.

   9. JRJoe Rogan45:28

      Yeah. I think psychedelic sounds manageable. Entheogen sounds like you're joining a cult.

   10. RSRick Strassman45:33

       It's a bit cultish.

   11. JRJoe Rogan45:34

       (laughs) It's a l- ... Well, isn't everything a bit cultish? It seems like whatever anything, you know, really affects people in a lot of ways, there's always someone who looks to sort of take the reins and sort of dictate what the experience is, and how to do it, and what the ritual should be, and how you should, you know, manage it, and ... It gets culty.

   12. RSRick Strassman45:55

       Uh, it gets culty. Um, but I think you could, you know, de-cultify it-

   13. JRJoe Rogan45:59

       Yes.

   14. RSRick Strassman46:00

       ... to s-, you know, to some extent. If, if, if you're open-minded.

   15. JRJoe Rogan46:03

       I think it also h- all, all practitioners ... I mean, there's a problem ... Here's the big problems with psychedelics, one of the big problems, is that we haven't really had a chance to openly discuss it in terms of, like, the effective and ineffective ways to use it, what's, what's detrimental, what's abusive, you know, what ... Treatment centers. Like we, we sh- we could've all this, had this lined up, right? If they didn't pass that sweeping psychedelics act, the controlled substances that we, uh, uh, eh ... Right now, uh, they're still illegal. But they've been a part of human history forever. The ... If, if they just opened that up, we would have the ability to tell people how to use them and how not to use them. We'd have the ability to monitor them. And you're gonna have some strays. You're gonna have some things that go wrong. Th- so there's gotta have to be some ways to mitigate that, right? And if this theory of, like, people that have these psychedelic breaks, if it's a d- a p- ... Imagine if you could find out that it really is, like, some sort of an overload of DMT. Like, they're, they have exogenous levels that are too high-

   16. RSRick Strassman47:08

       Mm-hmm.

   17. JRJoe Rogan47:08

       ... and they can't manage it. Reality's too fabricated.

   18. RSRick Strassman47:10

       Right.

   19. JRJoe Rogan47:11

       Or fragmented, rather.

   20. RSRick Strassman47:12

       Yeah. I think, you know, if we can keep things going with psychedelic research in humans, there's a vast number of options that are gonna start opening up. For example, like, a vaccine against endogenous DMT. I mean, that might be a great antipsychotic.

   21. JRJoe Rogan47:26

       That is wild. Can you imagine if that's really what it is? They just gotta dial it d- ... Or maybe some sort of technological, uh, intervention, like a Neuralink-type thing, where I think they're gonna be able to dial things in, which is gonna be crazy. (laughs)

   22. RSRick Strassman47:40

       Oh yeah. (laughs)

   23. JRJoe Rogan47:40

       You're gonna be able to dial in horny, you're gonna be able to dial in happy. Uh, I mean, 50 years from now, who knows what they're gonna be able to do?

   24. RSRick Strassman47:48

       Um, well, they're breeding these things called knockout mice, which don't produce the gene which makes, you know, X, Y or Z. And they've developed knockout mice for the enzyme that makes DMT.

   25. JRJoe Rogan47:59

       Oh, wow.

   26. RSRick Strassman48:00

       Uh, uh, you know, so there are animals that don't produce any DMT. You know, so you might be able, at some point too and put genes into people, like, you know, CRISPR.

   27. JRJoe Rogan48:09

       Mm.

   28. RSRick Strassman48:09

       And, you know, have them stop making their own DMT.

   29. JRJoe Rogan48:12

       Maybe that ... That'd be a good zombie movie. Everybody stops making their own DMT and just ...

   30. RSRick Strassman48:16

       Well, you know, there's a lot of good movies I think could kind of spring from DMT.
5. 1:00:00 – 1:15:00

   I don't know. …

   1. JRJoe Rogan1:00:00

   2. RSRick Strassman1:00:00

      I don't know.

   3. JRJoe Rogan1:00:01

      Is it killing people?

   4. RSRick Strassman1:00:02

      No, it's not killing people, but they're pretty uncomfortable. Those are apparently pretty painful sores.

   5. JRJoe Rogan1:00:07

      Mm, they look gross.

   6. RSRick Strassman1:00:08

      Yeah.

   7. JRJoe Rogan1:00:10

      Um, I mean, is there a bright side that it's not killing people?

   8. RSRick Strassman1:00:14

      Yeah, yeah. It's hard-

   9. JRJoe Rogan1:00:15

      It's hard to say when some fucking weird disease spreads.

   10. RSRick Strassman1:00:18

       Yeah, and I don't get weird diseases, or I, I don't even get the news about weird diseases on this phone.

   11. JRJoe Rogan1:00:24

       It's made it jump to other people. It's not, um, just people having unprotected gay sex. It's people that haven't had any sex at all.

   12. RSRick Strassman1:00:30

       Yeah.

   13. JRJoe Rogan1:00:30

       In fact, I think even kids are getting it now.

   14. RSRick Strassman1:00:32

       E- e- e- extended contact-

   15. JRJoe Rogan1:00:33

       Yeah.

   16. RSRick Strassman1:00:34

       ... I think can do it.

   17. JRJoe Rogan1:00:35

       It's f- It's a fucking creepy disease though.

   18. RSRick Strassman1:00:37

       Yeah. Yeah, it's got a horrible name.

   19. JRJoe Rogan1:00:39

       Yeah, yeah.

   20. RSRick Strassman1:00:40

       Th- they should call it something else.

   21. JRJoe Rogan1:00:42

       Too late, right?

   22. RSRick Strassman1:00:43

       Or, you can call it MPX.

   23. JRJoe Rogan1:00:45

       Yeah, but why didn't they just come up with a better name before they just busted out with Monkeypox?

   24. RSRick Strassman1:00:49

       Yeah, yeah.

   25. JRJoe Rogan1:00:50

       But they do that. Swine Flu, you know, avian virus.

   26. RSRick Strassman1:00:53

       Mm-hmm.

   27. JRJoe Rogan1:00:54

       It's al- It's always a, a way we connect it to animals, those zoonotic diseases.

   28. RSRick Strassman1:00:58

       Zoonotics, yeah.

   29. JRJoe Rogan1:01:00

       It's creepy. (laughs) It's creepy how many of them there are out there, you know?

   30. RSRick Strassman1:01:04

       Yeah, I know. Um, well, so what keeps you going? (laughs)
6. 1:15:00 – 1:22:33

   In Oregon, they seem…

   1. RSRick Strassman1:15:00

      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?

   2. JRJoe Rogan1:15:09

      In Oregon, they seem to be decriminalizing basically everything.

   3. RSRick Strassman1:15:14

      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-

   4. JRJoe Rogan1:15:22

      Really?

   5. RSRick Strassman1:15:22

      ... locations.

   6. JRJoe Rogan1:15:22

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

   7. RSRick Strassman1:15:27

      Uh-

   8. JRJoe Rogan1:15:27

      Like do you have to have a prescription? Or d-

   9. RSRick Strassman1:15:29

      No. No.

   10. JRJoe Rogan1:15:30

       No.

   11. RSRick Strassman1:15:30

       E- they're going to be setting up psilocybin, s- you know, centers.

   12. JRJoe Rogan1:15:34

       Holy shit.

   13. RSRick Strassman1:15:36

       Dispensaries.

   14. JRJoe Rogan1:15:37

       Wow.

   15. RSRick Strassman1:15:37

       And, you know-

   16. JRJoe Rogan1:15:38

       That's wild.

   17. RSRick Strassman1:15:39

       And you could be a certified s- you know, psilocybin sitter.

   18. JRJoe Rogan1:15:42

       I wish Portland wasn't such a hot mess.

   19. RSRick Strassman1:15:47

       (laughs)

   20. JRJoe Rogan1:15:47

       (laughs) Portland's such a hot mess. That city's such a hot mess.

   21. RSRick Strassman1:15:51

       Well, the smaller counties in Oregon, uh, have got the right, uh, you know, to ban, uh, you know, psilocybin and, uh, they're doing it. And so fewer and fewer, you know, counties seem interested and-

   22. JRJoe Rogan1:16:04

       Interesting.

   23. RSRick Strassman1:16:04

       Yeah.

   24. JRJoe Rogan1:16:05

       So it's passed statewide. You're gonna have to find some county that's gonna give you the green light and that's where people are gonna start growing their stuff. It's gonna come with a lot of problems. You know, like one of the problems that happened with, uh, marijuana was the f- the early days, banks didn't want to get involved. They wouldn't, uh, allow people to use credit cards 'cause y- they w- they didn't want to be connected to that. So the people were... had giant wads of cash and they were hiring these, uh, special forces guys to like take their cash-

   25. RSRick Strassman1:16:37

       Smelling from pot.

   26. JRJoe Rogan1:16:38

       Yeah.

   27. RSRick Strassman1:16:39

       (laughs)

   28. JRJoe Rogan1:16:39

       Stinking of pot. You know, and they're, the o- the whole thing was really s- sketchy 'cause everybody knew you're leaving that spot with bags of cash.

   29. RSRick Strassman1:16:48

       Mm-hmm.

   30. JRJoe Rogan1:16:49

       Like everyone knew you have cash there. And so you have to really worry about getting robbed and killed. (laughs)

Episode duration: 3:30:07