Joe Rogan Experience #2403 - Andrew Gallimore

1. 0:00 – 15:00

   (drumbeats) Joe Rogan podcast,…

   1. JRJoe Rogan0:00

      (drumbeats) Joe Rogan podcast, check it out.

   2. NANarrator0:04

      The Joe Rogan Experience.

   3. Train by day, Joe Rogan podcast by night. All day.

   4. JRJoe Rogan0:10

      (heavy rock music plays) Joe Rogan, Andrew. How are you?

   5. AGAndrew Gallimore0:15

      Um, splendid, how the devil are you, sir?

   6. JRJoe Rogan0:17

      (laughs)

   7. AGAndrew Gallimore0:18

      (laughs)

   8. JRJoe Rogan0:18

      I think it's the first time anyone's answered "splendid" when I ask how you doing.

   9. AGAndrew Gallimore0:22

      (laughs)

   10. JRJoe Rogan0:24

       So, um, tell me about your book, man. Let me see the cover of it, first of all. Death by Astonishment.

   11. AGAndrew Gallimore0:30

       Death by Astonishment.

   12. JRJoe Rogan0:31

       Which is the famous Terence McKenna quote, right?

   13. AGAndrew Gallimore0:34

       Yes. He was asked-

   14. JRJoe Rogan0:35

       "The only thing you have to fear is death by astonishment."

   15. AGAndrew Gallimore0:36

       Exactly, yeah.

   16. JRJoe Rogan0:38

       You know, the first time I did DMT, I literally heard his words, "Do not give in to astonishment."

   17. AGAndrew Gallimore0:44

       ... astonishment.

   18. JRJoe Rogan0:44

       I literally heard those words fr-

   19. AGAndrew Gallimore0:46

       (laughs)

   20. JRJoe Rogan0:46

       It's almost like whatever's over there-

   21. AGAndrew Gallimore0:49

       Yeah.

   22. JRJoe Rogan0:49

       ... wanted me to hear that.

   23. AGAndrew Gallimore0:50

       Mm-hmm.

   24. JRJoe Rogan0:51

       So I could, like, sink in or whatever, 'cause I had already heard it before, you know?

   25. AGAndrew Gallimore0:57

       Yeah.

   26. JRJoe Rogan0:57

       Like, so they wanted to say it to me as well. It was very weird.

   27. AGAndrew Gallimore1:00

       Yeah, it's sage advice, I think, because-

   28. JRJoe Rogan1:02

       Oh, it's the only way.

   29. AGAndrew Gallimore1:03

       (laughs) It's the only way. Because if you freak out, w- well, it's like that's a good thing, it's good advice in most of life. Mm-hmm.

   30. JRJoe Rogan1:10

       Like, don't give in to the freak-out.
2. 15:00 – 30:00

   Can I ask you…

   1. AGAndrew Gallimore15:00

      be a circle." It's trying to find patterns to try and generate, uh, order from this messy level in V1.

   2. JRJoe Rogan15:08

      Can I ask you this?

   3. AGAndrew Gallimore15:09

      Hmm?

   4. JRJoe Rogan15:09

      How do we know it does that?

   5. AGAndrew Gallimore15:11

      That's a good question. Um, well, there are a number of things. So, th- the earliest evidence came from a, uh, one of the earliest forms of evidence came from a guy called, uh, W- Wilder Penfield. Are you familiar with?

   6. JRJoe Rogan15:24

      No.

   7. AGAndrew Gallimore15:24

      So, Wilder Penfield, he was interested in, um, um, treating, uh, epilepsy. And he invented, uh, something called the Montreal Procedure, where he would remove a part of the brain that was the focus of epileptiform activity, uh, the idea being that it would kind of cure someone's epilepsy. But before he could do that, of course, he needed to make sure that he wasn't removing, you know, important parts for someone's function. So, what he would do is he would cut the top of their skull off-

   8. JRJoe Rogan15:54

      Ugh.

   9. AGAndrew Gallimore15:55

      (laughs) When they're still awake.

   10. JRJoe Rogan15:57

       Ugh.

   11. AGAndrew Gallimore15:58

       Yeah (laughs) .

   12. JRJoe Rogan15:59

       Ugh.

   13. AGAndrew Gallimore15:59

       And kind of expose their brain, and then he would zap different parts of their brain (laughs) and say, you know, "What's happening," right?

   14. JRJoe Rogan16:06

       Oh, my God.

   15. AGAndrew Gallimore16:07

       (laughs) Can you imagine?

   16. JRJoe Rogan16:09

       Isn't it crazy that that's how we have to find out-

   17. AGAndrew Gallimore16:12

       (laughs)

   18. JRJoe Rogan16:14

       ... h- what works?

   19. AGAndrew Gallimore16:14

       Hmm.

   20. JRJoe Rogan16:14

       We have to, like, it's ... The aliens probably look at us and go-

   21. AGAndrew Gallimore16:18

       (laughs)

   22. JRJoe Rogan16:18

       ... "Oh, my God, you guys are still doing that?"

   23. AGAndrew Gallimore16:20

       Yeah.

   24. JRJoe Rogan16:20

       It's like-

   25. AGAndrew Gallimore16:21

       Nowadays, things have moved on a bit, right?

   26. JRJoe Rogan16:23

       I'm sure.

   27. AGAndrew Gallimore16:24

       (laughs)

   28. JRJoe Rogan16:24

       But, I mean, this is not that long ago, right?

   29. AGAndrew Gallimore16:25

       No, no.

   30. JRJoe Rogan16:25

       How long ago was this?
3. 30:00 – 45:00

   Right. …

   1. AGAndrew Gallimore30:00

      And as I said, it's constructed over a hierarchy. So you have the overall idea, the overall concept of Margaret Thatcher, right? The whole face-

   2. JRJoe Rogan30:08

      Right.

   3. AGAndrew Gallimore30:08

      ... the whole thing.

   4. JRJoe Rogan30:09

      Right.

   5. AGAndrew Gallimore30:09

      And then you have... At a lower level, you have the eyes and the mouth and the nose, and they're kind of separate. And then go- going further still, within the eyes, you've got circles and patches of color and all this stuff. And right at the bottom, you have this really messy system of lines and things that don't make any sense, right? Um, and you can actually show how this hierarchy is constructed. At the moment, it's, it just looks like Margaret Thatcher and you, you can't really break it down. Uh, but if you flip over like this... So just leave it there for a second, Jamie, please. Yeah. So now you see, um, what we've done is we've basically... We've weakened this highest level model, right? Of the whole face. Because the brain isn't very good at building models of faces that are upside down, right?

   6. JRJoe Rogan30:56

      Okay.

   7. AGAndrew Gallimore30:57

      Uh, and so this looks... There's something wrong with the image clearly.

   8. JRJoe Rogan31:01

      ... but it looks like Margaret Thatcher upside down.

   9. AGAndrew Gallimore31:03

      It looks like Margaret Thatcher, but it's... Actually, what's happened is the whole face has been flipped over, but the mouth and the eyes are actually the correct way up.

   10. JRJoe Rogan31:11

       Right.

   11. AGAndrew Gallimore31:12

       Right? But to the brain in this configuration, it's not that surprising because the eyes kind of look as they should, the mouth looks as it should. You're seeing the whole image in its pieces, if you like.

   12. JRJoe Rogan31:24

       Right.

   13. AGAndrew Gallimore31:24

       You're seeing that lower level fragments. And it's only when you flip it, that it becomes-

   14. JRJoe Rogan31:31

       Horrific.

   15. AGAndrew Gallimore31:31

       ... horrific, right?

   16. JRJoe Rogan31:32

       (laughs)

   17. AGAndrew Gallimore31:33

       So now you've reestablished that high level model, um, of Margaret Thatcher and the brain goes, "Fuck. This is completely wrong." And this is why-

   18. JRJoe Rogan31:41

       Yes.

   19. AGAndrew Gallimore31:41

       ... you get that, that... It's immediately obvious.

   20. JRJoe Rogan31:43

       With the upside down eyes and the upside down mouth. It looks completely insane.

   21. AGAndrew Gallimore31:47

       It does.

   22. JRJoe Rogan31:47

       She looks like a demon.

   23. AGAndrew Gallimore31:48

       She looks like a demon, right.

   24. JRJoe Rogan31:49

       Yeah.

   25. AGAndrew Gallimore31:49

       Yeah.

   26. JRJoe Rogan31:49

       Which is really weird.

   27. AGAndrew Gallimore31:50

       (laughs) Which is really weird.

   28. JRJoe Rogan31:51

       (laughs)

   29. AGAndrew Gallimore31:52

       It's called the Thatcher effect. (laughs) Yeah.

   30. JRJoe Rogan31:53

       It's so... It, it... Was she the original person that they used this idea?
4. 45:00 – 1:00:00

   Okay. So, what I…

   1. JRJoe Rogan45:00

      into a nonphysical space that has its own laws, that it's very different, but it is a reality? And it's not that it's a vision, that, not that it's a hallucination, or a visionary representation, or that you're even constructing this reality, but you're, you're entering into a completely different dimension that has laws that are very different than the dimension that we find ourselves in right now?

   2. AGAndrew Gallimore45:24

      Okay. So, what I think is that I don't think with DMT that you're going anywhere, as such. Um, I think ... You know, as I said, the m- ... the world you experience is always represented in the brain, and that must apply, I think, in the DMT state. If you, if you're experiencing an altered world, there must be some reput- re- uh, representation of that within your, uh, cortical machinery, within your cortex, within your brain.

   3. JRJoe Rogan45:54

      Mm-hmm.

   4. AGAndrew Gallimore45:54

      I think that has to be the case. Um, however, I don't think, uh, and I think it's a g- a great mystery, is, is how the brain is actually capable of constructing that on its own, in the same way that the brain constructs the dream world, because the brain knows how to construct the waking world. So it's, it's simply using its stored models. The same with hallucinations. If you look at, um, case reports of hallucinations in psychotics, you go through the psychiatric literature, the vast majority of hallucinations are normal appearing, normal-sized people, normal animals. The ... It's like waking dreams, if you like.

   5. JRJoe Rogan46:29

      Mm-hmm.

   6. AGAndrew Gallimore46:30

      But with DMT, it's not. Your, the brain is somehow constructing a world that has no relationship whatsoever. Nothing is taken-

   7. JRJoe Rogan46:38

      Right.

   8. AGAndrew Gallimore46:38

      ... from the normal waking world. It's like the brain is, is suddenly has switched to speaking a language that it never learned. And I think that suggests that actually what's happening is you're not going somewhere, but you are in this more kind of fluid and dynamic state that psychedelics induce. Um, you're kind of, you're making the brain much more sensitive to being commandeered. I think it's a, an ... I think what you're seeing, uh, is what this intelligent agent, as I recall, uh, as I tend to call it ... I don't call it spirits, or aliens, or anything like that. I think s- there's some ... it's clear to me that there's some kind of intelligence, and that intelligence is interacting with our brain in some way and, and showing us kind of what it wants us to see, if you like.

   9. JRJoe Rogan47:27

      Does that assume that consciousness resides in the brain, though? Or is ... I mean, when you take into account the possibility of consciousness being something that the brain tunes into, and that it forms its own version of reality based on its biology, its life experiences, eh, et cetera, et cetera, but that it is just a radio, and it is just forming its version of consciousness, but that it- ... it is actually tuning into consciousness, and that consciousness is sort of a universal thing that exists not just in people, but maybe in other life forms as well, certainly animals and maybe plants. So, one of the weirder things about people who trip, I'm sure you know this-

   10. AGAndrew Gallimore48:12

       Mm-hmm.

   11. JRJoe Rogan48:12

       ... is they experience communication from plants.

   12. AGAndrew Gallimore48:16

       Hmm.

   13. JRJoe Rogan48:16

       Like, tree hugging becomes a real thing.

   14. AGAndrew Gallimore48:19

       Yeah. (laughs) I, I've-

   15. JRJoe Rogan48:19

       Like, ch- ... Tree hugging is a very different thing. It's like-

   16. AGAndrew Gallimore48:22

       Yeah.

   17. JRJoe Rogan48:22

       ... "Oh, you're alive."

   18. AGAndrew Gallimore48:24

       Mm-hmm.

   19. JRJoe Rogan48:24

       "Hello."

   20. AGAndrew Gallimore48:27

       (laughs)

   21. JRJoe Rogan48:27

       You know? And we know that trees and plants in general, like especially house plants-

   22. AGAndrew Gallimore48:33

       Mm-hmm.

   23. JRJoe Rogan48:33

       ... when people interact with them, they grow better. They, they, they're healthier plants. Like, you can prove it. It's interesting. You play music for them, communicate with them, say nice things. We also know that plants in, like, abusive households where people are alcoholics-

   24. AGAndrew Gallimore48:47

       Mm-hmm.

   25. JRJoe Rogan48:47

       ... and cigarette smoke, they do, they're gonna do terrible.

   26. AGAndrew Gallimore48:49

       Yeah. I think that ... As soon as I start talking about ... First of all, I, I, I think consciousness is absolutely fundamental. I don't think that the brain generates consciousness. Um, I think consciousness is, in some way, the only thing that really exists. You know, I think that it-

   27. JRJoe Rogan49:06

       Hmm.

   28. AGAndrew Gallimore49:06

       ... it's the fun- ... it's the absolute ultimate reality is consciousness itself.

   29. JRJoe Rogan49:10

       Do you think everything is conscious?

   30. AGAndrew Gallimore49:12

       I think everything is consciousness.
5. 1:00:00 – 1:15:00

   Mm-hmm. …

   1. AGAndrew Gallimore1:00:00

      if you take, um, the, um, the human sits in the middle, if you take the scale of a human, and then you compare the scale of a human to the scale, let's say, of a hydrogen atom, and then you compare it to the scale of the observable, as- ob- observable universe, humans sit almost exactly in the middle of that scale, from the hydrogen atom to the observable universe. But below the hydrogen atom, there is probably 100 million to a billion times more scale, deeper and deeper down. Richard Feynman, the Nobel, you know, the legendary physicist, always used to say, "There's, there's plenty of room at the bottom. There's much more room at the bottom." Um, in other words, as an intelligent species, an intelligent civilization progresses, they're not likely to kind of become space-faring as such, you know, and kind of exploring the cosmos. They're much more likely to go deep down and kind of instantient- instantiate themselves at the lowest levels of reality. That's where all the space is. It's not out there, surprisingly.

   2. JRJoe Rogan1:01:05

      Mm-hmm.

   3. AGAndrew Gallimore1:01:05

      All the space is downwards. Now, once a, an intelligence achieves that, and you have to imagine that probably, um, there are probably billions of these civilizations that had, had already achieved this before we even popped into existence, before we, you know, evolved as a species. Um, they would effectively disappear. They would, they would become effectively part of the fabric of, of spacetime itself, um, exploiting the fundamental computational structure of the lowest level, uh, of, of reality, basically. And that's where they reside. Um, and there are probably far, far more, probably millions or billions more of those types of civilizations than there are ones like...... I say you and me, like us, as humans, right? Um, and so then you ask, well, if that's the case, you know, if we're interested in contacting so, quote unquote, "extraterrestrials," why are we focused on this tiny subpopulation of beings that are likely to be, you know, sh- floating around in metallic disks or whatever? We should in fact be focusing on the- the much more abundant ones that are perhaps at the deepest levels of reality. And how would we do that? How would an intelligence that has completely transcended its biology and even completely transcended its physical form entirely, how would such an intelligence communicate with us? It would do it through our brain. That's the most obvious thing, uh, because the brain is how we interact with the environment, it's how we interact... it's the interface by which we interact with what there is. Um, and I think DMT, uh, I'm not saying that these DMT entities are necessarily these post-biological beings, but it's not out of the question. I'm not straying too far from fairly standard now modern scientific discourse when I say that it's perfectly possible that there are very large numbers of these supremely intelligent civilizations that are everywhere and nowhere, and that we can somehow interact with using our brain, and that D- DMT generates this kind of highly susceptible, highly sensitive, um, neurological state that allows us to interact with them. This is why, perhaps, when you go into the DMT space, it's immediately obvious, it's undeniable, undeniably apparent that you are interacting with some kind of supremely advanced intelligence. Could that be some intelligence that has existed long before we arrived on the scene and that we're now kind of discovering this technology? And I- I consider DMT- T to be some kind of technology that we have discovered that we are now learning to use to interact with these, um, intelligent agents that perhaps have been here for- forever in human terms.

   4. JRJoe Rogan1:04:06

      The... it's an interesting term, the term g- go there.

   5. AGAndrew Gallimore1:04:10

      Hmm.

   6. JRJoe Rogan1:04:11

      You know, because that's what it feels like.

   7. AGAndrew Gallimore1:04:12

      Yeah.

   8. JRJoe Rogan1:04:13

      It feels like you're- you're traveling somewhere, like you're going somewhere. But the reality is that place you're going is probably right here.

   9. AGAndrew Gallimore1:04:22

      Yes.

   10. JRJoe Rogan1:04:22

       That's where it gets weird because it's around you all the time. You just don't have the ability to tune into it all the time-

   11. AGAndrew Gallimore1:04:28

       Exactly.

   12. JRJoe Rogan1:04:28

       ... because you wouldn't be able to function if you did.

   13. AGAndrew Gallimore1:04:30

       Exactly. And- and these beings, they probably don't even have a true form that you could represent visually, right?

   14. JRJoe Rogan1:04:37

       Right.

   15. AGAndrew Gallimore1:04:37

       So when you see an insectoid alien, um, or a machine elf, you're probably not seeing, or almost certainly-

   16. JRJoe Rogan1:04:43

       I've never seen a machine elf.

   17. AGAndrew Gallimore1:04:44

       Oh, really?

   18. JRJoe Rogan1:04:44

       Have you?

   19. AGAndrew Gallimore1:04:45

       (laughs) I've seen... I don't know if I've seen the- the archetypal kind of McKennaing, McKenna (laughs) McKenna-esque machine elf.

   20. JRJoe Rogan1:04:51

       Yeah, the way she described it was very odd.

   21. AGAndrew Gallimore1:04:53

       But I've seen certainly a multitude of beings, very, very s- kind of sc- sc- screechy, squeaky... Like jabbering, jabbering.

   22. JRJoe Rogan1:05:03

       You know what I saw once? A bunch of jokers giving me the finger.

   23. AGAndrew Gallimore1:05:06

       Oh. (laughs)

   24. JRJoe Rogan1:05:07

       They were all giving me the finger and they were going, "Fuck you," and they were jokers with like little tassels on-

   25. AGAndrew Gallimore1:05:11

       Yeah.

   26. JRJoe Rogan1:05:11

       ... with the bells in the end of it.

   27. AGAndrew Gallimore1:05:12

       Right.

   28. JRJoe Rogan1:05:13

       And it made me very aware that I was taking myself too seriously and they were like, "Yup."

   29. AGAndrew Gallimore1:05:17

       Yup.

   30. JRJoe Rogan1:05:18

       And they said it to me and they pointed their finger at me like that.
6. 1:15:00 – 1:26:13

   (laughs) …

   1. AGAndrew Gallimore1:15:00

      as, as we are now. Um, it's, it's unfathomable. When you compare the rest of human history, it's- it's- it's like an exponential thing. You know, we- we've gradually been developing and technologically improving.

   2. JRJoe Rogan1:15:13

      (laughs)

   3. AGAndrew Gallimore1:15:13

      And then we hit some point in the last century, uh, where we reach this kind of technological, computer, informational age and everything is accelerating. Exactly like Terence McKenna was saying-

   4. JRJoe Rogan1:15:25

      Yes.

   5. AGAndrew Gallimore1:15:25

      ... things speed up-

   6. JRJoe Rogan1:15:27

      Right.

   7. AGAndrew Gallimore1:15:27

      ... very, very quickly. And it feels like we're on the cusp either of killing ourselves, which is one option-

   8. JRJoe Rogan1:15:34

      Right.

   9. AGAndrew Gallimore1:15:34

      ... um, or undergoing some profound transformation as a species. Whether it be, whether it means becoming a space-faring nation, uh, sorry, a space-faring civilization, or whether it means going in the opposite direction and becoming some kind of post-biological civilization that, um, exists beyond space and beyond time-

   10. JRJoe Rogan1:15:56

       Mm-hmm.

   11. AGAndrew Gallimore1:15:56

       ... perhaps, um, and kind of joining the crowd, uh, of these intelligences that have made that transition, um, perhaps billions of years ago, you know? Um...

   12. JRJoe Rogan1:16:06

       Do you, uh, think that this chaos is the only way that things get done? See, this i- this is my th- my thought.

   13. AGAndrew Gallimore1:16:14

       Mm-hmm.

   14. JRJoe Rogan1:16:14

       If everything, everything's perfect and everything's wonderful and fine, there's very little motivation for radical change. And radical change is what you need to escape the primate instincts that we have.

   15. AGAndrew Gallimore1:16:28

       Yeah.

   16. JRJoe Rogan1:16:29

       The, as McKenna had the great quote of, that we're territorial apes with thermonuclear weapons.

   17. AGAndrew Gallimore1:16:35

       There we go. (laughs)

   18. JRJoe Rogan1:16:35

       It's such a perfect way to describe us. Um, that is what we are, right?

   19. AGAndrew Gallimore1:16:39

       Yeah.

   20. JRJoe Rogan1:16:39

       So in order to escape that, things have to almost be so ch- chaotic that it demands radical change. It, it demands, like, you're, we were literally, like ... And this is how we look at many things. We l- even things that aren't totally warranted, like climate change or COVID or anything, like, we look at it like, "Oh my God, it's an existential crisis."

   21. AGAndrew Gallimore1:17:02

       Mm-hmm.

   22. JRJoe Rogan1:17:02

       "Like, we have to do something right now." And this is how also we approach political dissent or political disagreements.

   23. AGAndrew Gallimore1:17:08

       Hm.

   24. JRJoe Rogan1:17:08

       If the left wing wins, the world is over.

   25. AGAndrew Gallimore1:17:11

       Yeah.

   26. JRJoe Rogan1:17:11

       If the right wins, the world is over. And it's like this ... Like, it's almost like this is how we have to function in order to really get things done. And as things are getting more and more crazy in, in terms of technology and in terms of the consequench- consequences of our actions, post-nuclear bomb-

   27. AGAndrew Gallimore1:17:32

       Hm.

   28. JRJoe Rogan1:17:32

       ... post-fusion, post-Hadron Collider, post-AI-

   29. AGAndrew Gallimore1:17:37

       Mm-hmm.

   30. JRJoe Rogan1:17:38

       ... is where it gets really weird. We have to kind of be like, "We, we really gotta get going, guys."

Episode duration: 2:35:17