Hamilton Morris — Psychedelics, Smart Drugs, and More

1. 0:00 – 0:33

   Cold open banter and a Terminator-style joke

   1. TFTim Ferriss0:00

      What else do you recall from your breakfast, Hamilton?

   2. HMHamilton Morris0:03

      I ate it from a ceramic bowl with a metal fork.

   3. TFTim Ferriss0:09

      Optimal minimal. At this altitude, I can run flat out for a half mile before my hands start to shake. Can I ask you a personal question? Now would seem an appropriate time. What if I did the opposite?

   4. HMHamilton Morris0:21

      I'm a cybernetic organism, living tissue over metal endoskeleton. The Tim Ferriss Show.

2. 0:33 – 5:06

   Sponsor messages: Inktel customer support + Doris Kearns Goodwin’s leadership book

   1. TFTim Ferriss0:33

      This episode is brought to you by Inktel, and I've used them personally. Ever since I wrote The 4-Hour Workweek, I've been asked over and over again how I choose to delegate tasks, how I do 80/20 analysis, and so on. At the root of many of those decisions is a simple question, actually two questions. Number one, how can I invest money to improve my quality of life? I use that in investing as well. The second, how can I spend a little money or moderate money to save significant time? Inktel is one of those investments. They're a turnkey solution for all of your imaginable customer care needs. I used Inktel during the launch of The 4-Hour Body, which was very, very involved, and they provided twenty-four/seven customer service for my Land Rush campaign because it was critical for me to take care of every person who purchased my books and participated. This allowed me to focus on the things that I am better at, my strengths, like the marketing plan that we'd worked on for six months, implementing that. Inktel trains their experienced customer service reps to know your business and your products inside and out and make your customers raving fans. They answer more than a million customer service requests every year, and they can do so across all platforms, including email, phone, social media, text, even chat. Leaving your customers with poor service or just mediocre service, which by the way, in a competitive pool is a huge liability. Long wait times or unanswered messages carries a massive cost and risk to your business. Inktel removes the logistics and headaches of this type of communication, allowing you to focus on your strengths and grow your business. It can be a real competitive advantage, and I see many, many e-commerce companies and tech companies thinking of customer service as a good enough checkbox or an afterthought. And just like Airbnb used design in innovative ways to be a competitor and to win, you can do the same thing with customer service. So as a listener of this podcast, you can get up to ten thousand dollars off, that's a big discount, ten thousand off your startup fees and costs by visiting inktel.com/tim. So check it out. For more info, go to inktel.com, I-N-K-T-E-L.com/tim. This episode is brought to you by Leadership in Turbulent Times, which is the latest book by the ever amazing Pulitzer Prize-winning author, Doris Kearns Goodwin. I had her on the podcast not too long ago, and she just blew everyone away. What an incredible storyteller and weaver of history and lessons from history. You can check that out if you want at tim.blog/doris, D-O-R-I-S. It was a captivating conversation that, that really blew me away. Leadership in Turbulent Times, that is the latest book, is a culmination of five decades of acclaimed studies in presidential history, which offers an illuminating exploration of the early development, that's super key, early development, growth, and exercise of leadership, and, uh, draws upon four presidents, which we'll get to in a second. Goodwin asks and answers in those pages the questions, are leaders born or made? Where does ambition come from? How does adversity affect the growth of leadership? Does the leader make the times or do the times make the leader? And she draws upon the four presidents she has studied most closely, namely Abraham Lincoln, Theodore Roosevelt, Franklin D. Roosevelt, and Lyndon B. Johnson, to show how they recognized leadership qualities within themselves and were recognized as leaders by others. And I mentioned early development being key because it goes back to their first sojourns and experiments and attempts at engaging with policy and public life and covers their failures, their near misses, and lessons learned. So it applies to anyone who is trying to make a study of leadership or how they can better lead both themselves and others. It's important to underscore that no common pattern describes completely a single trajectory of leadership. Although set apart in background, abilities, and temperament, these four men shared a fierce ambition and deep-seated resilience that enabled them to surmount uncommon hardships. And at their best, all four were guided by a sense of moral purpose. This seminal work provides an accessible and essential roadmap for aspiring and established leaders in every field. I highly, highly recommend it. For more information, you can visit doriskearnsgoodwin.com. That's Doris Kearns,

3. 5:06 – 8:58

   Who is Hamilton Morris and what the episode will cover

   1. TFTim Ferriss5:06

      K-E-A-R-N-S, goodwin.com. And Leadership in Turbulent Times is available in hardcover, e-book, and audio wherever books are sold. Check it out. Why hello, boys and girls, ladies and germs. This is Tim Ferriss, and welcome to another episode of The Tim Ferriss Show. Today's guest, I'm gonna keep this intro short and skip the preamble because I'm so excited to share this with you, is Hamilton Morris. On Twitter, @hamiltonmorris, Instagram, @hamiltonmorris, who is a writer, documentarian, and scientific researcher who currently studies the chemistry and pharmacology of tryptamines. What are those? We'll talk about it, at the University of the Sciences in Philadelphia. His writing has been featured in Harper's, Playboy, and Vice, and he is the creator of the television series, and oh my goodness, do I love it, Hamilton's Pharmacopeia or Pharmacopeia Which, uh, you don't have to worry about spelling. It's easy to find as soon as you type in Hamilton's Pharma anywhere that, uh, you wanna find it, whether that's Amazon Prime or wherever, which recently completed its second season, and it is absolutely one of my favorite series of the last five years. I don't know how on earth it took me so long to find this. It's fantastic, and I encourage you to check it out. His website, which should be up by the time this episode publishes, [laughs] I'm gonna keep prodding him, is hamiltonmorris.com. Hamilton as you would think, M-O-R-R-I-S.com. And this episode goes into the chemistry of psychedelics and mind-altering substances, his adventures and misadventures around the world with different indigenous cultures, different clandestine chemists, [laughs] and all sorts of characters. Very, very smart guy, exceptionally good at explaining complex subjects simply and making science sexy. Please meet Hamilton Morris. [static] Hamilton, welcome to the show.

   2. HMHamilton Morris7:07

      Thanks for having me.

   3. TFTim Ferriss7:09

      I have been hoping to have this conversation on the podcast ever since I first saw your show and have recommended the show to probably more people than any other show I've seen in the last three to five years. So thank you for making it, first of all.

   4. HMHamilton Morris7:27

      That's great. I'm glad you like it.

   5. TFTim Ferriss7:28

      [laughs] And I wanted to begin the conversation, and we're gonna bounce around a lot. I will mispronounce many, many things, so please pardon my ignorance.

   6. HMHamilton Morris7:38

      That's fine.

   7. TFTim Ferriss7:39

      This has been a trend already in our conversations. Uh, but I thought we could start off by introducing people to a character they may not know, and that's Alexander Shulgin. And I think the best way to do this is to read the opening of the last interview with Alexander Shulgin. And here we go. Feel free to correct any of this if need be.

   8. HMHamilton Morris8:02

      Oh, so I'm already, I'm already feeling embarrassed before you even start. This is a pretty old piece of writing.

   9. TFTim Ferriss8:06

      Oh, okay. Would you prefer that-- Let me just get through it. Is that okay?

   10. HMHamilton Morris8:10

       It's okay, yeah.

   11. TFTim Ferriss8:10

       All right. [laughs] I love Alexander Shulgin. I've loved him from the first moment I read about him. He is my idol, my hero, my son, my otu. I love each of the nine hundred and seventy-eight pages of his phenethylamine magnum opus, PiHKAL, phenethylamines I have known and loved, and every milligram of his one point one three kilogram tryptamine treatise, uh, TiHKAL, tryptamines I have known and loved. Above my bed, I've pinned a large picture of Shulgin cuddling with his wife, Ann. I often sleep with a copy of PiHKAL, not under my pillow, but as my pillow. He is the grandfather of ecstasy, the molecular magician, the atomic conquistador. Over the span of fifty years, he has created more new psychedelic drugs than the Amazon jungle ever has. He is more of a mythological creature, a chemical centaur, than he is a real person. Who is Alexander Shulgin?

4. 8:58 – 16:10

   Alexander Shulgin’s life story: from Harvard to backyard research

   1. HMHamilton Morris8:58

      Alexander Shulgin is a chemist who has just a, a career so amazing that you'd think he couldn't be a real person. Um, he's very much a product of the nineteen fifties, and I could, you know, tell you his, his life story in a condensed way. But, um, I'll just do that very quickly.

   2. TFTim Ferriss9:21

      Yeah. Do it.

   3. HMHamilton Morris9:21

      The, the basic story is that Alexander Shulgin came from a, a poor family of Russian immigrants, uh, in California, and he was accepted at Harvard as a, I think as an unusually young freshman. I think at that time it was s-somewhat more common for people that were very young to go to college early, and he felt alienated from his classmates because they all had money and he didn't. And he made a, a small bomb out of mercury fulminate and blew up the windows of his freshman dormitory and then decided to leave Harvard and join the Navy. And in the Navy, he injured his thumb and had to have a small surgical procedure done to, to sew up the wound. And before the procedure, a nurse gave him a glass of orange juice that had crystals of morphine, um, that were floating on the surface of the orange juice, and he drank it and passed out, and they sewed up the wound. And when he regained consciousness, he thanked the nurse and said, "Thank you so much for giving me that morphine. It really made the procedure painless, and I don't think I could have gotten through it without the morphine." And she said, "There was no morphine. Those were sugar crystals." And that first encounter with the placebo effect was so profound for him that he realized he wanted to dedicate the rest of his life to understanding drugs and the mind. Um, and when he was in the Navy, he brought this chemistry textbook with him by a chemist named Paul Carrere and, um, and studied it. And, you know, these early chemistry textbooks, they had synthesis of mescaline, synthesis of lysergic acid, synthesis of harmaline. All these things were-- They weren't treated as taboo subjects. They were simply legitimate areas of scientific inquiry. So he was being exposed to all of this chemistry that would later serve as the foundation of his career. And then he got out of the Navy, um, went to Berkeley, got a degree in biochemistry, um, and started working for Dow, which then was in a sort of-- It was a controversial time because they were supporting the manufacture of napalm in Vietnam, and there was all this sort of political protests surrounding the work. But he had developed a profitable insecticide called Zectran, and because he'd made them all this money, they said, "You can do whatever you want." So while he was still working at Dow, he started making A variety of different psychedelics. And you can actually see his Dow notebooks online with the Dow logo and everything. And at that point, he was not only synthesizing these things, but he was testing them on himself, which was the only effective way to do it. And at some point, they decided they didn't want him to do that anymore, but he had enough money that he decided to continue the research in his backyard. Um, and he did this all openly. He didn't hide anything. He published in the most prestigious scientific journals then and now, Nature and Science, and he did it all from his home address with no university affiliation. Um, and he did amazing research. I mean, there are entire pharmaceutical companies that have done less than he did in his backyard. He is considered responsible for reintroducing MDMA as a psychotherapeutic tool. In addition to that, he created countless derivatives of MDMA. He also created a, a chemical called Ariadne or dimoxamine that was used as a potential treatment for senile dementia, created methylone, which he patented as an antidepressant. I mean, you could go on and on and on about the amazing contributions of this guy. So he's someone that, um, you know, you rarely have these experiences in life where you, you can point to them and say, "That changed my life." But I remember as a high school student reading a profile of him in The New York Times Magazine sitting in my parents' kitchen and thinking-- And I wasn't even very interested in drugs. I mean, I was maybe as inter-- Well, I was probably a little bit more interested than a, than a typical high school student, but I wasn't a druggie. I had smoked salvia and used cannabis a number of times and, and drank alcohol a number of times, but I wasn't actively pursuing this. And then I read a profile of this guy and, um, and thought, "Wow, he is inventing not only new drugs, but new types of drugs, drugs that I didn't know existed and no one knew existed, and he's doing it in his backyard. What an amazing human being. What a totally fascinating creature this person is." And, uh, and became pretty seriously obsessed with him, you know, ordered his books, read the books. And the books, I think, have, um, have many levels to them that you come to appreciate. There's the, the superficial level, which is you read these things, and they're fantastic, some of the best-- not just best books about drugs ever written, some of the best books about science ever written. So, you know, if you're just interested in science, I can't recommend these books-

   4. TFTim Ferriss14:55

      Are they accessible to non-chemists?

   5. HMHamilton Morris14:57

      Yes, they're absolutely accessible to non-chemists because there's a narrative component to each book, um, a love story, and stories that are more accessible, and then there's hardcore chemistry as well. Um, so the typical way somebody reads these books is you read the stories, and you read the qualitative effects of the drugs, and you kind of skim over the chemistry because it's too complicated, and that's the way I read it the first time as well. Um, and then there's a kind of second reading, which is, you know, now you've taken or I had taken, you know, general and organic chemistry, and now I'm, I'm ready to really understand these things, and then you realize, "Okay, wow, all right, this is, this is real." And then the most amazing thing, and this is maybe what really, um, has inf- reinforced my love for him, is then following some of these recipes in, you know, in a university research laboratory and realizing this is real. This really works. This-- these are scientific tools, and the syntheses that he provided are not only effective, they're often brilliant routes to producing these compounds, and what an amazing contribution this man made.

5. 16:10 – 20:00

   Why Shulgin mattered: self-experimentation and ‘experience’ as timeless data

   1. TFTim Ferriss16:10

      What made him so good in the sense that presumably other people had access to the same books and similar training? I don't know what, what distinguishes a great chemist from a merely good chemist.

   2. HMHamilton Morris16:25

      Well, he would actually often say that he was a terrible chemist because he, his PhD was not in chemistry. Um, he was, he was more interested in biochemistry and enzymes and things like that, and that's an, an interest that carries over into a lot of his later work in, in certain ways. Um, but what made him great is not so much the chemistry itself, although that was fantastic, and I, I would never, uh, suggest that it wasn't. But what made him great was he had a perspective on science that a lot of people don't have. A lot of people, they think whatever they're doing right now is state-of-the-art because it is, and they don't think, "Well, what if this fMRI stuff we're doing right now, what if a decade from now it's all garbage, and what if this was a huge, very expensive waste of time? But what's the one thing that won't be a waste of time? What's-- what is certain to be timeless?" And that's experience. That's the one thing that never becomes obsolete, and he understood that. If he had been like so many of his colleagues and said, "Oh, wow, I just discovered a new derivative of mescaline. I can't wait to cut out a strip of a rat's uterus and place it in a bath and see if this mescaline derivative causes the strip of uterus to contract. This will be so interesting to find out." Well, all the research that is-- was done on isolated uterus tissue and things like that, it's all obsolete. You can't cite that in a scientific paper in a meaningful way without kind of understanding that it's not considered useful because it doesn't differentiate between the different subtypes of serotonin receptors, and there's so many variables to consider. Um, so he understood all that, that these pharmacological assays were flawed But his own experience was the bottom line. That's what mattered. And, um, and there've been a number of, of philosophers that I think had a, a similar attitude. You know, Goethe also wrote this amazing book on colors. I don't know if you know about this book, but he, he-

   3. TFTim Ferriss18:34

      I know of it. I haven't read it. I have a friend who's a memory competitor who's, uh, who has read this and recommended it to me.

   4. HMHamilton Morris18:41

      Well, it's, it's a really amazing idea. I've been reading it recently, and, um, you know, he was saying physicists are saying that color is made of waves of light or there are these different theories, but what difference does it make? We don't experience color as waves of light, so why don't we take our own experience as seriously as the physicists that are measuring the wavelengths of each color of light? And why don't I sit and describe the experience of green and sit and describe the experience of yellow and what it's like and what does it look like during the day and what does it look like at night and how does it change? Everything, everything that I can observe, and to not underestimate my perceptual apparatus as a sort of analytical device.

   5. TFTim Ferriss19:23

      How generalizable-- What is the value of the subjective experience or describing that experience, and how generalizable is it? I mean, you mentioned color, so it makes me think of how certain cultures treat and perceive colors very differently.

   6. HMHamilton Morris19:36

      Right. Of course.

   7. TFTim Ferriss19:37

      Uh, s- so in the, in the case of, say, a Shulgin or others, uh, what do you see in the value or what did he see in the value of describing the subjective experience? And I'm sure the question a lot of people are wondering is, how the hell did he risk mitigate? Like, if he's creating these novel compounds, how do, how do you think about risk in such case?

6. 20:00 – 23:33

   Risk mitigation in novel compounds and the logic of starting extremely small

   1. HMHamilton Morris20:00

      Right. And that's a, that's a great question. There's two ways to think about the risk issue. Um, there's one way that you could say, like, how could, how could he possibly have done this? It was so dangerous. He was the first person to synthesize these things. No one knew a- anything about them. They hadn't even been given to rodents yet. So how could he possibly take that risk? The flip side is, do we really know anything about any drugs that we take? I mean, there's still fundamental debate going on right now about whether or not cannabis decreases IQ after long-term use. I mean, I have the psychopharmacology textbook that I was using when I was in college says that it does. Um, then there's endless debate about it. We haven't resolved very basic aspects of the toxicity of the most widely used drugs on Earth. So I would say before we magnify the potential danger in unknown substances, we shouldn't minimize the potential danger in the known substances because really everything is unknown to a certain extent. Um, and the, the basic way that he mitigated that risk, and he actually published a scientific article describing his methodology that's worth reading for anyone that wants to get into this area, um, is to start small, to start at one-tenth of whatever the absolute smallest imaginable dose might be for something. So if it's a, you know-- Suppose you made, this is just completely hypothetical, suppose you made 6-methyl-DMT. 6-methyl-DMT is likely to be inactive. It probably won't have any activity. But just to be safe, if I were hypothetically making that, I might want to start at 100 micrograms. All evidence would point to it being less potent than DMT, but why risk it? Start at 100. Nothing in an hour? Move up to 200, then move up to 400, and then over the course of days, very gradually escalate the dose. And if you do it that way, you can say with a pretty high level of certainty that you won't poison yourself, because even if it were cyanide, you wouldn't poison yourself if you were doing it that way. You would recognize that it was toxic before you reached anything close to a lethal dose of the material. Same would be true of strychnine. There are very few-

   2. TFTim Ferriss22:34

      Which you wouldn't advise.

   3. HMHamilton Morris22:35

      Which I would not advise people, although strychnine has been used medicinally in the past, and I would actually be curious about trying it at a low dose, but, but maybe this just shows the sort of person I am.

   4. TFTim Ferriss22:47

      What would people search for if they wanted to find that, uh, that methodology and his description of it?

   5. HMHamilton Morris22:52

      I believe it was published in the Journal of Psychopharmacology. Um, and I think it's called [sighs]

   6. TFTim Ferriss23:01

      Any type of gingerbread trail. Uh, we can put it in the, in the show notes. We can give it a-

   7. HMHamilton Morris23:06

      I can definitely pull it up for you quickly with a Google search. I can't remember off the top of my head.

   8. TFTim Ferriss23:10

      Okay. Perfect. Yeah, no problem. W- And for people listening, we'll put that in the show notes. And also for people listening, a quick audio engineer note. Here in my sound studio, uh, this is the hour of the blue jay, so if you hear any birds in the background, those are blue jays, and it is my kitchen table. Uh, so Shulgin, uh, he's captured my fascination in the last few years.

   9. HMHamilton Morris23:33

      Mm-hmm.

7. 23:33 – 27:12

   Learning chemistry as a non-chemist: books, videos, and hands-on practice

   1. TFTim Ferriss23:33

      But part of me is maybe embarrassed or insecure about picking up this book beyond the narratives because I know no chemistry. I've never taken a chemistry class. Y- How would you recommend or would you recommend to people who are out of school who would like to gain a basic literacy in chemistry, uh, uh, is there any particular approach you would, would-- that you would recommend? And-

   2. HMHamilton Morris23:58

      Definitely. Yeah. Yeah. I mean, I think this is a great time to learn anything. There's so many educational resources available to people on the internet. So, um, you know, when I was taking organic chemistry, there are two books called Organic Chemistry as a Second Language-

   3. TFTim Ferriss24:14

      Hmm

   4. HMHamilton Morris24:14

      ... um, Part One and Part Two. Those are fantastic, very well-written, very clear, very accessible books.

   5. TFTim Ferriss24:20

      Do you need any-- Are there any prerequisites before reading this, or can you just hop right into?

   6. HMHamilton Morris24:25

      It, it just depends, I would say, on your basic foundational scientific literacy.

   7. TFTim Ferriss24:30

      Got it.

   8. HMHamilton Morris24:30

      Um, I would say for most people that have Let's say high school level understanding of, of chemistry in the sense that they, you know, know about elements and things like that.

   9. TFTim Ferriss24:42

      Right.

   10. HMHamilton Morris24:42

       That should be accessible, I-

   11. TFTim Ferriss24:43

       Mm-hmm

   12. HMHamilton Morris24:43

       ... believe. It's been a little while since I've looked at it. Um-

   13. TFTim Ferriss24:46

       Mm-hmm

   14. HMHamilton Morris24:46

       ... but I, I re- uh, remember it being pretty accessible.

   15. TFTim Ferriss24:51

       Mm-hmm.

   16. HMHamilton Morris24:51

       And then there's Khan Academy-

   17. TFTim Ferriss24:53

       Mm-hmm

   18. HMHamilton Morris24:53

       ... videos that are very good as well. Um, and there's a kind of an industry. There's actually a pretty big educational industry surrounding organic chemistry specifically because it's a class that's taken by a lot of people that don't want to be taking it-

   19. TFTim Ferriss25:08

       Right

   20. HMHamilton Morris25:08

       ... uh, because it's a pre-med requirement. So the-- an industry has emerged to help all of these pre-med students who don't want to become chemists and don't find chemistry interesting to ensure that they can pass the class, so they can go to med school, um, which is nice because the same isn't true for some other technical things. This is really a, purely a product of the pre-med requirement, I believe.

   21. TFTim Ferriss25:33

       I remember having, uh, uh, another scientist had, uh, spoken with, uh, Nav, um, on a prior episode with, with Peter Attia. For people who've listened to this podcast for a while, you've, you've seen these characters recur, had recommend actually getting the test prep books, uh, for some of these related subjects, and I think it was Something or Other 101 that was all in a Q&A format. But, um, the Organic Chemistry as a Second Language will be on the shopping list. Uh-

   22. HMHamilton Morris26:03

       Definitely get that. And then the other thing is, you know, I'm a-- I learn about things when I have a practical application for them. There's a lot of things that as an abstract idea don't have a lot of value, so, and I say this with some hesitation, but, you know, if you really wanna learn these things, the absolute best way to learn them is to do chemistry, um, ideally in such a way that you don't hurt yourself or other people or get arrested. But there's a lot of basic chemistry work like distillation that you can do, and it's a lot of fun to distill essential oils or to, um, s- extract various things from plants. You know, you could extract piperine from black pepper-

   23. TFTim Ferriss26:44

       Yeah

   24. HMHamilton Morris26:44

       ... or, um, or a number of different things, and that's not illegal, and it gives you a basic idea of how to do these sorts of chemical manipulations. Um, yeah, I mean, I think that i- if I didn't have experience working in a lab, I don't think I could ever care about chemistry as much as I do because you need that practical application typically to really dig deep into something.

8. 27:12 – 32:03

   Hamilton’s early encounters with psychedelics and first appreciation via salvia

   1. TFTim Ferriss27:12

      When did psychedelics enter your life experience, and why, why has it stuck and held your interest for so long?

   2. HMHamilton Morris27:25

      I was always aware of them, um, and always interested in them, even as a child. You know, I remember there was a book called Buzzed that was, uh, a sort of like-- I think my school library had a copy of it, and it was, um, an educational drug book, and they had a, a section about DMT in it. And I remember even as a maybe a fifth or a sixth grader thinking, "Oh, wow, this DMT stuff, it's called the-- they call it the businessman's trip on the street."

   3. TFTim Ferriss27:55

      [laughs]

   4. HMHamilton Morris27:56

      And, uh, and that, that sure sounds interesting. And I remember, um, at, uh, I don't even know if this place still exists, but there was a, a, a shopping mall called The Garage in Harvard Square. I grew up in Cambridge, and I remember a drug dealer approaching me at The Garage and saying, "Do you want some LSD?" And I said, "Well, I don't really want LSD, but I would like some DMT if you have that."

   5. TFTim Ferriss28:19

      [laughs] The discerning [laughs] consumer of streets I've ever-

   6. HMHamilton Morris28:24

      And I was probably 12 or something like that.

   7. TFTim Ferriss28:26

      [laughs]

   8. HMHamilton Morris28:26

      And, uh, [laughs] but, but, um, but-- And he didn't, of course, and I didn't take the LSD. But I was aware that they had a certain power. Um, my, [clears throat] my dad was very afraid of them. His child psychiatrist had written some medical papers about how damaging it is for people to use LSD as children. And so he had been very much influenced by his psychiatrist, who had led him to believe that LSD was dangerous. Um, so he had-- He had a, uh, I would say pretty permissive attitude toward most things, but he really felt like he would say, you know, "Don't take LSD. Promise me you won't take LSD." And, um, and I had-- I went to a kind of alternative high school, and there was also there a little bit of a sense that psychedelics didn't necessarily do people any favors. You know, a lot of the people that used psychedelics weren't people that I wanted to be like. Um, it wasn't, you know, the-- I was, I was a pretty nerdy guy. I was on the science team, and certainly no one on the science team was using psychedelics. And, uh, and, and so I was afraid of them and simply didn't use them in a major way in high school other than salvia, which I actually loved, and, uh, although I was fascinated by them and their, and their power.

   9. TFTim Ferriss29:56

      How did salvia enter your life? What was the f- what was, what was the first experience?

   10. HMHamilton Morris30:01

       Because for better or worse, it was very available at that time in head shops, and so it was the sort of thing that high school students would talk about. You know, there's this stuff, it's, uh, it's legal. You can buy it in stores. You smoke it. It causes you to trip dramatically for a few minutes, and then you're back to normal. I mean, it's a, a pretty good sales pitch if someone's a 14-year-old. And, um, and so I tried it, and this was also before, um, people considered it as frightening as they consider it now. There wasn't this fear narrative surrounding the substance. And I tried it, and it was utterly amazing. Um, and you know, that was my first Experience beginning to appreciate that these things were not only very different from the way they had been described, but to some extent they were not describable to begin with. That no matter who was describing them, there was going to have to be some degree of distortion, and it really was the sort of thing that had to be experienced. And then I started to understand a little bit more about culturally why these things are misunderstood and why they might have more potential than people realize.

   11. TFTim Ferriss31:13

       Why is that? Why, why do you think they're cult-- Well, let me mention two things. Number one is that before people listening run out to find their local salvia distributor, uh, watch a few YouTube videos. [chuckles] Uh, I mean, it's, it's worth being cautious about. Uh, I find, I find Salvia divinorum fascinating, and the, the science, uh, equally fascinating, but, uh, it, it, it is fairly well-known for people who jump into it without doing a whole lot of reading as something that people do once for [chuckles] in many cases. You, you tend to, or in some cases like to run away. Um, so, so check out the YouTube videos first. But, uh, secondly, uh, why are these, why are these substances culturally, culturally misunderstood? What are the-

9. 32:03 – 46:03

   Science vs shamanism, why dose matters, and the problems with plant variability

   1. HMHamilton Morris32:03

      Part of it-

   2. TFTim Ferriss32:03

      The-

   3. HMHamilton Morris32:03

      ... has to do with there being no place for it, I think. You know, what, what do we do with a salvia experience? Um, it's a little bit weird to even talk about it for a lot of people. So what do you do with it? It doesn't fit into any spiritual or religious frameworks in our culture. We don't have a, a framework for it there. Scientifically, at least at that time, it was barely studied. I think when I first used it, it may have been before they even understood that it was a kappa-opioid receptor agonist or anything about it. Um, so there isn't a lot to do with them, so they become marginalized almost because there's nowhere else for them but the margins. It's, uh, you know, what do you do? You can write an Erowid experience report and tell your friends about it, and then that's the end of it. But the potential, of course, extends far beyond that, and these are really important tools for studying consciousness and in certain cultures or even in our own, if you develop a framework to do it, could be ways of treating disease or having a spiritual-type experience.

   4. TFTim Ferriss33:19

      What, uh... Would you consider yourself, and this is not a trick question, there's no right answer here, but y- since you used the word, a s- a, to be spiritual, a spiritual person?

   5. HMHamilton Morris33:28

      I am not a spiritual person at all. Um, in fact, I am not even sure I know what the word spiritual means.

   6. TFTim Ferriss33:35

      Me neither.

   7. HMHamilton Morris33:36

      Yeah.

   8. TFTim Ferriss33:36

      So in that, in that case, what w- is there value or what-- Is there value in the spiritual experience for someone like yourself?

   9. HMHamilton Morris33:47

      Yes. Or I don't know. I don't know-

   10. TFTim Ferriss33:49

       It's, it's, it's lacking a better descriptor. I mean, I recognize that maybe that's not the right word to use, but I don't, uh, I don't know how else to label it.

   11. HMHamilton Morris33:58

       Well, it, there's a very tangible value, which is that, you know, along with the visual distortions and the distortions of time and sense of self, there's often these, um, very simple positive things that emerge, like a sense of love for my parents.

   12. TFTim Ferriss34:15

       Hmm.

   13. HMHamilton Morris34:15

       Something like that. Love for my friends, appreciation for being alive, gratitude, um, a desire to work hard, to use the time that I have on Earth in a way that will benefit other people. You know, these are basic things that sometimes emerge from the experience, and to feel those things in a, in a genuine way is fantastic. It's really good, especially if you are a somewhat cynical, materialist person. And when I say materialist, I don't mean in the like, uh-

   14. TFTim Ferriss34:46

       Ac- acquisitive-

   15. HMHamilton Morris34:48

       Yeah

   16. TFTim Ferriss34:48

       ... sense of the word.

   17. HMHamilton Morris34:48

       Yeah. But just in a sense that you believe in physical reality as the ultimate be all, end all. And, um, and it doesn't change that belief, but it gives me a sense that within that physical reality, there's tremendous depth and beauty and so many things worthy of exploration.

   18. TFTim Ferriss35:07

       We, we were chatting a little bit yesterday about, about something that I'd love to, to dig into, which is very closely related, uh, and, uh, is I suppose reflective of some trouble I've had with interacting with various types of explorers in this realm, meaning scientists on one hand, if, if, if I can simplify it, you've these sort of hard scientists on one end of the spectrum who, um, almost, I'm not gonna say universally, but very much fall, I would say, in line with the, the type of, of thinking you're describing. And then on the other end of the spectrum, people coming from, uh, looking at psychedelics from a, for lack of a better adjective, uh, shamanic perspective. And, uh, it's, it's hard to get-- Uh, there, there, there seems to be allergies on both sides to the other, uh, in some cases. Uh, what is the, what is, what are the reservations that you have about, aside from not believing in the deity spirits, whatever might be used, uh, for explaining things on the shamanic side? Um, it seems to be many people in these psychedelic experiences want that type of context, or they, they seek, say, the, uh, sh- shaman of one type or another to provide them with this container and experience. And, uh, even people who are otherwise would view themselves as very hyper-rational. Uh, how do you think about the sort of shamanic cultural context? We lack it here, but there are cultures where that does exist, but it comes along with a lot more.

   19. HMHamilton Morris36:48

       Right. That's a complicated question, and there's, there's a lot of aspects to it that- I find slightly problematic. One is that plants are the be all, end all. Um, I think that plants are a wonderful starting place, and they introduce us to so many things, and maybe those things are the best. Maybe DMT is as good as it gets. But I've had the opportunity to try a number of different DMT derivatives, MET, MPT, DPT, DIPT, and so on, NIPT, and a number of others. And, um, and what I can say about having tried all these different tryptamine derivatives of DMT is that they have different properties and might be better for different things, that we don't need to use these in a one-size-fits-all manner. So for example, [clears throat] people often talk about ego death. Um, I, I, for whatever reason, don't even like using these psychoanalytic terms when describing psychedelic experience. But for whatever reason, um, with DMT, it tends to be about me, about my life, my friends, my family, my associations. Um, with DPT, it feels more universal. It feels like this is an experience that anyone-- My DPT experience could have been your DPT experience or could have been anyone in the world's DPT experience because it's not about me. It's about-- It's not about my life, it's about life. And, um, and I think with the shamanic route, there's often a lot of dogma. There's a lot of, um, this is the way to do it, and this is what's traditional, and there's a little bit of discouragement of experimentation in favor of what is traditional. And that's fantastic because we have a lot to learn from these traditions without question, an enormous amount to learn. But I don't think we've figured it out. I don't think any culture has figured it out, and I am most in favor of anyone that is continually trying to push things forward, trying to see how can they be even better than they are, how can they-- Um, and that's maybe not a good mindset. Maybe it's better to, to just be satisfied, but this is, you know, maybe that's the scientific mindset. How can we change it? How can we make it better for people that don't like to vomit? How can we make it better for people that want a shorter experience or people that are sensitive to this or that?

   20. TFTim Ferriss39:22

       And, I mean, we, we chatted about this a little bit yesterday, but also the, uh, [lip smacks] not just the specificity of action or being able to use derivatives for different types of experiences, but also the reliability or accuracy of dosing.

   21. HMHamilton Morris39:37

       Right. Yes.

   22. TFTim Ferriss39:38

       Which maybe you could-

   23. HMHamilton Morris39:39

       Yeah

   24. TFTim Ferriss39:39

       ... maybe you could chat about for a second.

   25. HMHamilton Morris39:42

       Yeah. I mean, I think that if there's one thing that is not talked about enough in the realm of psychedelics and drugs in general, it's dose. Dose is so, so important to understanding a drug's effect, and it's often not even discussed. You know, people will say, "Oh, I hated Adderall. I hated this. I hated that." I'll say, "Well, really, you hated Adderall? How much did you-- How much were you taking?" And they'll say, "Oh, I don't know. A pill." "Well, there's twenty-milligram pills, and there's five-milligram pills, and which one were you taking?" And, and it makes a big difference. It makes a huge difference. I mean, this is, you know, the toxicology is founded on this idea, Paracelsus's idea that the dose is the poison, that, um, the difference between a medicine and a poison is the dose. And with plants, you don't have that luxury of knowing the dose. You simply don't. There's tremendous variability. Then on top of that, they're often being prepared in one way or another that can make it even harder to know exactly how much is being consumed. And then someone drinks a cup of brew, and they say, "I don't like ayahuasca. It's too strong," or, "I didn't feel anything. I'm not sensitive to ayahuasca." And what's sad about that is you can't learn from the experience because you don't know what you took in the first place, whereas if they had taken forty-five milligrams of DMT freebase and a synthetic MAOI, then you could say, "Interesting. Maybe you're unusually insensitive to DMT. Next time, try fifty-five milligrams and work your way up gradually, and eventually you'll find the dose that works for you." And that's-- And you can kind of troubleshoot the psychedelic experience. It doesn't need to be just a I felt it, or I didn't feel it, or it was too much, or it wasn't enough thing. You can figure out what works for you. And that's really important because these are serious experiences. There's a lot of uncertainty going into these experiences. At the very least, to have that foundation of I know what I took and I know how much of it I took is something that can't be underestimated in its value.

   26. TFTim Ferriss41:51

       There's so many different directions I want to go, but I'll try to pick one for now.

   27. HMHamilton Morris41:53

       And, and just, and just one more thing in that vein. That's the real tragedy of psychedelics right now is for a common person, they have access to two psychedelics, LSD and psilocybin-containing mushrooms, and they don't know the dose of either of those things. You take one blotter of LSD, maybe someone told you that it contains a hundred micrograms of LSD, but you have no idea. It-- I have analyzed blotters of non-LSD containing, um, lysergamides, like 1P-LSD blotter. Um, I was working with a, a chemist friend on an experiment, and there's variation across the blotter. Then on top of that, there's different salts of these different things, these different lysergamides. So it's-- you don't know how much you're taking to begin with. Making the assumption that it's exactly one hundred micrograms per blotter is a huge mistake. You have no idea. Um, and the same is true of mushrooms. Um, even the same species grown on the same substrate, there can be variation in potency between two different mushrooms. There can be variation in potency across the same mushroom between the stem and the cap. So-

   28. TFTim Ferriss42:52

       Now, and, and just, just for sake of clarity, when you say variation in potency, we're not talking like a ten percent difference in potency.

   29. HMHamilton Morris42:59

       Well, there's a, a chemist named Joshan, I believe that's how you pronounce it, Joshan Gartz. Um, and he did-- he published some work on this. You can see exactly how much variation he observed. There hasn't been as much research on it as I would like, but the, the general takeaway is that, um Is that these things are not homogenous, and, um, and if you're going into what is potentially a very profound experience, you really want to have that baseline confidence that I took this much of something. It-- I think it really helps and is not to be underestimated.

   30. TFTim Ferriss43:35

       But, I mean, particularly if you're coming in, as many people would, with a reasonable level of anxiety or fear or apprehension about something that you've never experienced that people describe, well, I suppose this is maybe an oxymoron, but describe as ineffable. Uh, are there any books you would recommend or resources that you could recommend to people aside from, uh, Shulgin's books for those, uh, who would like to learn more about psychedelics? And you mentioned, you know, you know, consciousness. I'm wondering if there are any books that you've found very thought-provoking that don't also, uh, activate your gag reflex given-
10. 46:03 – 50:02

    Why Hamilton made the show: clandestine chemistry, media narratives, and drug value

    1. TFTim Ferriss46:03

       Great. I will put all those in the show notes for folks, so you'll have links to all of those. Uh, why put together the TV show? Why do so much work? I mean, uh, having a, like, some understanding based on our conversation, also just watching the show, you realize how much work it is to put something like that together. Why, why do it?

    2. HMHamilton Morris46:28

       I wanted to do it, um, for a number of reasons. One is that I-I've always felt that even-- that there, there's certain-- there are trends in journalism, and that certain things become demonized, and then everyone talks about how terrible they are, and then the public decides that that's truly the case. So, you know, right now, no one could write an article about opioids being good. You simply couldn't do that. It's not-- It wouldn't be allowed. You'd be violently attacked. Um, but you can easily write an article about how psilocybin is good, and you will be congratulated for doing that. And I started thinking about what things can and can't be talked about and what can I talk about that no one else is going to talk about. And the main thing that I was interested in with the show is clandestine drug synthesis. That's sort of the thing that I feel is most widely misrepresented in the media are the people that run underground drug labs. So somebody at Johns Hopkins, if they're doing research with psilocybin, we're very eager to congratulate them for their work. But someone who's actually responsible for providing these drugs to the public so that someone can-- normal people can use them, we're eager to demonize them, even though they're risking their freedom to do that. And they're typically not bad people. In, in many cases, they're very good, idealistically motivated people that do this because they think it's the right thing to do with their lives. They really believe in it. So I thought, okay, with my understanding of chemistry, this would be a great opportunity to clear up a lot of the misconceptions regarding clandestine drug synthesis. That was kind of the, the most important thing for me to do. Um, but then beyond that, I wanted to tell drug stories that hadn't been told and to present a basic case for understanding the value of these things, um, you know? And there's a lot of different ways to do that. You can say that, "Look, this is valued by an indigenous group, and they've integrated this into their traditions and into their spirituality, and they really appreciate it. So maybe think twice before making it illegal because these people are not only not experiencing problems with it, it's making their lives better. So think very carefully before making a plant illegal." That's one basic idea that I wanted to communicate. Um, but then the other is these are real scientific tools. You know, I've been on both sides of this discussion journalistically. I've had the opportunity to interview enormous numbers of people and to be interviewed many, many times, and I've-- from being on the opposite side, from being interviewed and profiled by people, I've become aware of how stupid a lot of these discussions are and how easy it is for people to Minimize and reduce the importance of all of this. It's just dru- it's just drugs. It's drugs. Just drugs. It's everything. It's your consciousness, all of medicine, medicinal chemistry, pharmacology. This is not a, a niche subject of study. This is one of the most important areas known to mankind, and has been for thousands of years, are medicines. So, um, so just to get people, at the very least, even if they don't like it, to acknowledge its value and to take it a little bit seriously and not just say, "Oh, drugs, just that stuff that drugies use." You know, it's so much more than that.

11. 50:02 – 1:09:52

    Episode recommendations and on-the-ground realities: 5-MeO-DMT, safety, and film choices

    1. TFTim Ferriss50:02

       So I've, I've recommended this, I've recommended, uh, w- w- well, there are, let's see, a few different pronunciations, but [laughs] Hamilton's Pharmacopeia, Pharmacopeia. Don't worry about the spelling, just search [laughs] Hamilton on your, your favorite provider and you'll find the show. Uh, uh, I watch it on Amazon Prime, but you can watch it anywhere, or many, many, many different places. W- which episode might you suggest, and I'm gonna give you a few different profiles, uh, a scientist start with? And I know that's really broad, but let's just say somebody who, who would consider themself or who is professionally a scientist.

    2. HMHamilton Morris50:39

       It depends on what the-- There's an episode from this most recent season called "A Clandestine Chemist's Tale," and that's about how the war on drugs has made it more difficult for people to have home labs, partially. That's one of the ideas that I was trying to communicate. It's also about clandestine MDMA synthesis and features the first-ever televised total synthesis of MDMA. Um, and it's real. It's, you know, that's what you see is a real synthesis of MDMA. So just the w- amazingness of even capturing that on film is something that I think is cool for almost anyone who really wants to see this is where it comes from. This is how it's done. You know, it goes, we start with-- Not we, I didn't. Uh, but the chemist starts with, um, you know, crude sassafras root bark oil and takes it all the way down to the recrystallized MDMA hydrochloride, um, over the course of five days, and it's r- I was just kind of blown away by watching that process. Um, and I also televised a total synthesis of Quaalude, um, and also we did a little bit of a drug called gaboxadol, um, got a little bit into LSD chemistry. I mean, there's, there's a lot of chemistry. I would say that drugs aside, there's probably more hardcore chemistry in this TV show than there has ever been in any TV show ever. Uh, if anyone can find-

    3. TFTim Ferriss52:09

       I would be astonished if that's not the case.

    4. HMHamilton Morris52:12

       Which is cool.

    5. TFTim Ferriss52:13

       Yeah.

    6. HMHamilton Morris52:13

       I mean, I, I think it's great because people find it interesting, and I get so many emails from people saying that they find chemistry interesting for the first time, and the way to do it wasn't to simplify it. It was to show people how complicated it is.

    7. TFTim Ferriss52:25

       [laughs] Well, I lo- it's not only not dumbed down, but I love that routinely in these episodes, and I'd like to think of myself as a reasonably well-read guy, but I haven't taken much chemistry [laughs] and you'll go through a number of different diagrams, or they'll ha- th- certain words will come up, and there is no pause for, uh, you know, a 10-minute explanation of the term. It's just, it's provided in context, but it is, uh, sophisticated. It's a sophisticated show, but still very entertaining to watch. Uh, for, for someone who is a non-scientist, let's just say they're fascinated by the, what they have read about psychedelics or heard about psychedelics. They've never taken a psychedelic. They find it terrifying on some level, the prospect. Is there an episode or-

    8. HMHamilton Morris53:15

       Yeah

    9. TFTim Ferriss53:15

       ... a set of episodes you'd recommend?

    10. HMHamilton Morris53:17

        Well, I'm so, I'm probably the worst person to ask because what, the things that I like in my own work are always the things that are the most obscure, that no one has ever done, but that's from my own perspective. Whereas, I think the mushroom episode that I did was the most successful of them all. Um, so that's probably, I, I guess that's the people speaking. They like that one the most.

    11. TFTim Ferriss53:39

        Mm-hmm.

    12. HMHamilton Morris53:39

        Um, I, um, w- that wouldn't be the first one I would recommend, but people wanna learn about mushrooms, so.

    13. TFTim Ferriss53:46

        What would be the first one you would recommend?

    14. HMHamilton Morris53:48

        Probably "A Clandestine Chemist's Tale" or the "Lazy Lizard School of Hedonism" episode about this chemist who operated an, an MDMA lab in the center of a volcano.

    15. TFTim Ferriss54:00

        So, so you mentioned, which is a fantastic episode, you mentioned the mushrooms. Uh, what, what have the other most popular episodes been?

    16. HMHamilton Morris54:10

        I think the, people like the episodes that detail shamanism. I think people are very interested in shamanism, partially because it's, it's non-technical, but because it's such a foreign idea that you could have a spiritual tradition based around drug consumption, and that it's so non-taboo that people do it with their families, and they do it to heal, and they, um, they've just never seen anything like that before, and I hadn't either until I saw it myself. Um-

    17. TFTim Ferriss54:41

        What episodes would fall into that category?

    18. HMHamilton Morris54:43

        The mushroom episode, the salvia episode from Season 1 both have that. Um, and the San Pedro episode from Season 2, um, is a pretty in-depth analysis with actually no voiceover, though. It was a different-- It had a different format from the other episodes. But it's, it's a view of cactus shamanism in Peru that I think gives you an appreciation for the medical context in the community, that this really is, um, this is so different from what you would think of when you would hear this guy gives people mescaline every night. You know, these are people that are treating him exactly the same way you would treat a doctor in the United States, just- I have epilepsy. I have a sprained ankle

    19. TFTim Ferriss55:37

        I, I mean, I don't know what he would call himself, huachumero or a curandero, but I mean, probably not shaman. Maybe he does, but, uh, I'm not sure how he would self-describe f- from that episode. What, what would he call himself, do you think?

    20. HMHamilton Morris55:49

        Mm, he may have called himself a shaman.

    21. TFTim Ferriss55:52

        Oh, he did? Okay.

    22. HMHamilton Morris55:53

        He may have. I would have to double-check.

    23. TFTim Ferriss55:54

        Maybe in English, yeah. I mean, a lot of those guys would say curandero or huachumero, something like that.

    24. HMHamilton Morris55:59

        Yeah.

    25. TFTim Ferriss56:00

        This is not gonna make m- be relevant to anyone else, but since I'm curious, did you actually have, like, toilet shit or chicken shit splashed on your face in that episode? Because there was a shot while you were doing your chores where something awful, and it was, it was edited in to your cleaning montage [laughs] got splashed onto your glasses, and it looked awful. I don't know if that was done in the effects studio, but-

    26. HMHamilton Morris56:24

        I-- Okay, you caught me.

    27. TFTim Ferriss56:25

        [laughs]

    28. HMHamilton Morris56:25

        It was a, I couldn't resist that gag.

    29. TFTim Ferriss56:27

        [laughs] Okay, all right.

    30. HMHamilton Morris56:28

        I, I just couldn't resist it. I have a, a sort of-
12. 1:09:52 – 1:16:56

    Ayahuasca, dogma, tragedy, and the value of confronting mystery without explanations

    1. HMHamilton Morris1:09:52

       there's a number-- We can get back to that. I actually tried. Um, I tried to do a story about the, the death of Kyle Nolan, I don't know if you know that story, um, because one of my concerns again with dogma and with prescriptivism is that people start to say that there is only one way to do things. So when ayahuasca was at the height of its popularity, um, in New York at least, if you said to someone, "I've done ayahuasca," the next question they would ask you is, "Did you do it in the Amazon?" And if the answer is no, then you didn't really do ayahuasca, did you? You just did some perversion of ayahuasca that shouldn't be called ayahuasca. And I found that very obnoxious and elitist and stupid because ayahuasca is a tea, and it's a tea that anyone listening to this can make. Not that they should, but they can, assuming that you can boil plants in water. And it's not a special knowledge to make it. So the idea that you have to go to a foreign country and be with a different culture to experience it, I think is flawed, especially because a tourist industry has emerged to satisfy this enormous demand of white outsiders in the Amazon. I don't think there's anything intrinsically wrong with drug tourism, but if the whole point of going there is to have a traditional experience, and then what you're actually having isn't traditional in the slightest, then what was the point of traveling in the first place? So, um, what-- one thing that happened is you had all these white outsiders that there isn't all that much anthropological literature on the subject, and they probably weren't reading it to begin with, so they don't know what is traditional to begin with. So someone comes to a retreat, in this case it was a retreat called Shimbre, and the shaman says, "I'm actually a Martian." [laughs] "I'm, I'm a- Always a promising start. Is it? I mean, this- No, I'm-- I mean this, but this is a question. Yeah. So you're a white outsider- Yeah ... and somebody says, "I'm a Martian." Yeah. You don't wanna, you don't wanna appear racist. Right. This could be their tradition. Yeah. You don't know what their tradition is. Right. Maybe they, maybe they come from a long line of Martians- Mm-hmm ... and, uh, and it would be very offensive to question their Martian heritage. Right. You don't know. True. So peop-- no one wants to say anything. Mm-hmm. So people are getting away with saying absolutely ridiculous things about themselves, just neglecting their duties, forget spiritual duties, just their duties as basically babysitters. Yeah. They're not watching people. And there was a, a teenager named Kyle Nolan who went to Peru to have one of these sorts of experiences with a, um, a shaman named Maestro Moncoluto, and he disappeared. His parents go to the retreat looking for him. The shaman says, "Oh, he just walked away." Then they find his body buried in a shallow grave on the outskirts of the retreat. So as soon as that hits the news, and that w- was actually international news, it was in tabloids, um- I do remember when that happened. Yeah. Then all these people come out of the woodwork and say, "That, that Maestro Moncoluto, I always knew there was something up with him. I always knew there was something wrong. He, he would say that he would just sit and watch soap operas while everyone was on ayahuasca. He wasn't watching anyone." And, uh, and, and something about that struck me as being very dangerous, that people cared more about what they perceived as being traditional than what was effective or what was safe. And if k- if he had thought, "You know what? This is a tea, and if I'm really interested in it, maybe I can brew a, a low-dose batch of it myself and test it out and figure this out on my own," I guarantee he was capable of it, and he would probably still be alive. So- What was the cause of death? Was it ever determined? It was never determined, unfortunately. So I don't And that's often the case with these. So, so it, it's really out of open-mindedness that I think that people, um, should be aware there's multiple ways to do these things, that, um, it doesn't make your experience non-valid if it wasn't conducted in South America. Um, but the other reason that you were initially getting at is that, you know, the mystery of existence or the mystery of life is sort of the grand mystery that we all must figure out for ourselves, and it's so difficult and painful to think about your own mortality and the death of the people that you love and what the purpose of life is that religions emerged to help people deal with these big existential questions, and they help. They help a lot. I think that's one reason that religions are as popular as they are, because it's rough to sit alone in your apartment scratching your head wondering what the meaning of life is or something like that. And, um, and so I understand why people want these interpretive conceptual frameworks for the psychedelic experience, and that's why from the get-go in the 1960s, it was, you know, Zen Buddhism or the Tibetan Book of the Dead or whatever. Any explanatory framework that could be found was jumped on because the reality that there is no explanation is not all that palatable. But as unpalatable as it is, I think that that is the value. Exactly what makes it difficult is what makes it valuable. And to have that experience, and I, I say this cautiously, but to have that experience by yourself with no one explaining anything to you, to be confronted by the full magnitude of the mystery with an absence of explanation, is one of the most powerful experiences that you can have. And I don't know if a shaman prevents you from having that experience. They might not, but I know that y- you will have it if there's no one there to tell you what's happening.

    2. TFTim Ferriss1:16:14

       How have you found it, if you're comfortable sharing, positively powerful to sit with that great uncertainty versus profoundly destabilizing? I mean, uh, f- uh, and, uh, that's not-- I'm not using that as a justification for having this overlay of like a shamanistic, uh, cosmology or anything like that in, in every experience. But what is the, I guess, internal, the, the self-talk or anything that allows you to-- helps you to turn that into a positive experience as opposed to a negative one or an overwhelming one?

13. 1:16:56 – 1:21:45

    Pharmahuasca experiences: overwhelming ‘deconstruction’ vs practical insights about addiction

    1. HMHamilton Morris1:16:56

       Well, if you can-- the more that you can direct these things toward values that will help your life, I think that that's generally good because too much destabilization isn't healthy. Um, I remember the first really, really, really, really strong ayahuasca experience I had. Um, I had a, I had a bit of that. I remember my friend was watching Seinfeld, um, in, in the other room.

    2. TFTim Ferriss1:17:23

       [laughs]

    3. HMHamilton Morris1:17:23

       And, uh, and I came out of it thinking-

    4. TFTim Ferriss1:17:26

       And when you say ayahuasca, are you talking about the-

    5. HMHamilton Morris1:17:29

       Uh, pharmahuasca.

    6. TFTim Ferriss1:17:29

       Pharmahuasca.

    7. HMHamilton Morris1:17:29

       Synthetic DMT with moclobemide.

    8. TFTim Ferriss1:17:31

       Mm-hmm.

    9. HMHamilton Morris1:17:32

       And, um, and coming out of it and thinking, "Well, that, that was a deconstruction of everything I have ever known and ever will know." I didn't know who I was. I didn't know what year it was. I, um-- Time had completely deconstructed. I saw my entire life as a book with each day a page in the book and, you know, just these profound re-conceptualizations of every aspect of being, and then you come out of it, and what do you do? Do you go and join your friend and watch Seinfeld?

    10. TFTim Ferriss1:18:06

        [laughs] I think that'd be very difficult to do.

    11. HMHamilton Morris1:18:11

        I don't know, or maybe, maybe the easiest thing in the world. I de- but I, I wasn't inside your experience at the time.

    12. TFTim Ferriss1:18:16

        What did you do?

    13. HMHamilton Morris1:18:18

        I apprehensively watched some Seinfeld and then decided against the Seinfeld.

    14. TFTim Ferriss1:18:27

        [laughs] Newman! A- and, and what did you, what did you gain from that experience, if anything? I mean, what, what did you take from that?

    15. HMHamilton Morris1:18:41

        Well, it's-- Okay, here's what I would say about that experience, is that I am not-- I, I don't know what to do with experiences of that magnitude, and I'm reluctant to find a framework that explains it. So I- I don't know that it's especially beneficial. It w-- I don't think it was damaging, but I can say that at lower doses, ayahuasca has had much more practical benefit, and sometimes almost cartoonishly practical.

    16. TFTim Ferriss1:19:12

        Could you give an example?

    17. HMHamilton Morris1:19:13

        Yes. Uh, I remember once I'd taken a low dose, I believe it was forty-five milligrams of DMT with three hundred milligrams of moclobemide, and, um, and I was writing, and I was really enjoying everything that I was writing, and I was thinking, "Damn, I'm getting some good writing done. I'm really working through ideas in a, an effective way. I'm loving this, but you know what would make it that much better? Is a little nicotine gum," because I like nicotine gum. And, uh, you know, that will make my thoughts sharper, that will give me enhanced clarity, and it will make my writing even better if I'm chewing nicotine gum. And then I looked at the nicotine gum, and I thought, "But then this is the thought that underlies all addiction. This is the thought that underlies all compulsive behaviors. I want more. It's not good enough the way it is. I want it to be that much better, but it will never be good enough." And the nicotine gum is already inside me. I can p- create my own nicotine gum, and I dramatically threw the nicotine gum across the room. I was like, "I don't need this. I already am the nicotine gum." And, uh, and, you know, that's I think why these things can have an anti-addictive effect. One of the reasons is, you know, there's all sorts of pharmacological reasons, but even psychologically, they teach you that all these things are inside you, and that you have the ability to create these sorts of drug effects on your own to some extent, that it's all, you know, it's, it's your acetylcholine receptors that are being activated. You can activate them on your own. You know, it's, it's a-

    18. TFTim Ferriss1:20:48

        Yeah, flashback to Shulgin with the sugar crystals on the-

    19. HMHamilton Morris1:20:51

        Right

    20. TFTim Ferriss1:20:51

        ... bullet shoes. That's amazing. I had never heard that story.

    21. HMHamilton Morris1:20:54

        Right. Yeah, yeah. So that's a very practical thing, is don't chew nicotine gum to make your writing better because it's already inside you, and you just can create it yourself. Um, and I've had so many of those, those sorts of low-level practical experiences, and I really like that because it's not about time. Like, what can I tell you about how my sense of time was deconstructed? I could go on and on about it, and you wouldn't understand, and I wouldn't understand, and it, it exists outside of the realm of any sort of comfortable comprehension, at least for me. Whereas, um, thoughts about addiction, about how you construct your life, about how you ration your love or how much love you have or how to integrate love into your existence, those are things that you have practical applications, and I think that's important are the practical applications.

14. 1:21:45 – 1:25:31

    Wade Davis, the zombie hypothesis, and field-exploration storytelling

    1. TFTim Ferriss1:21:45

       S- This may or may not be a good segue, but I'm gonna give it a shot anyway. Uh, I know nothing of Wade Davis. Uh, I don't know if, if you'd be open to describing who Wade Davis is and perhaps d- furthermore defining the cultural matrix.

    2. HMHamilton Morris1:22:06

       Sure.

    3. TFTim Ferriss1:22:06

       But who is Wade Davis?

    4. HMHamilton Morris1:22:08

       Wade Davis was a student of Richard Evans Schultes at Harvard. He was an ethnobotanist who came to prominence in the '80s after writing a book called The Serpent and the Rainbow, um, and propos-

    5. TFTim Ferriss1:22:23

       L- later made into a movie.

    6. HMHamilton Morris1:22:24

       Later made into a movie by Wes Craven, um, and proposing this pretty outrageous idea that the idea of zombies in Haiti was not only real in the sense that there really was zombification, this wasn't some kind of folk legend, but that there was a intricate pharmacological explanation for how these zombies were created that involved scopolamine and the toxin from pufferfish, TTX. So really amazing idea. He got a huge amount of criticism for it at the time of its publication and was even accused of fraud and/or contaminating his samples with TTX to prove his hypothesis. Um, it was very, very controversial at the time, but it's such an interesting idea, and it hadn't been adequately tested. I wanted to go back, and did in 2009, to collect samples just to see if anyone else could find further evidence for what he said, because that's one thing that people do all the time is endlessly debate, is it real? Is it not real? Instead of just going out and trying to see for yourself and collect new samples and do additional analysis and figure it out. But he, he's had a lot of luck, I'll tell you that. He's, um, he's one of these guys where the number of crazy things that he collected in his career, it borders on being suspicious, and I understand why people regard him with suspicion because he's-- First of all, he's a, he's a great storyteller, which, um, makes maybe people maybe regard him with suspicion for that reason as well, because he's not dry and serious enough. But, you know, he discovered a fungus called Dictyonema huarani that contains, um, it's a sort of a, a lichen that contains psilocybin. Crazy. No one else has ever found the species. He just happened to find it. No one else has ever found it. Amazing. He also claims to have found the tallest San Pedro cactus ever observed. It was, I think, a hundred feet tall. Okay. Um, that one strikes me as unbelievable, but I've examined the specimen at the Harvard Herbarium myself, um, and read his descriptions of it. I, you know, I think maybe he didn't bring a tape measure with him and made a, a little bit of a generous estimation of, of its height. But he, um, but he really also was, by all accounts, a very hard worker and really was, you know, out there talking to people. He was a prolific writer and made a lot of really amazing discoveries.

    7. TFTim Ferriss1:25:17

       Was the field exploration and sort of the cultural, uh, examination, is that something that you try to emulate, or is that, uh-

    8. HMHamilton Morris1:25:27

       Yeah

    9. TFTim Ferriss1:25:27

       ... it, I mean, it seems like that's a, a strong component of at least the TV show-

    10. HMHamilton Morris1:25:31

        Sure

15. 1:25:31 – 1:31:25

    Ibogaine: anti-addiction interest, cardiotoxicity concerns, and possible Parkinson’s relevance

    1. TFTim Ferriss1:25:31

       ... from what I can tell. Uh, the, the- there's another, uh, compound that I wanted to, to chat about, which is ibogaine. Uh, we didn't, we didn't really get into it yesterday, uh, over dinner. But can you perhaps introduce people to what ibogaine is and, um-

    2. HMHamilton Morris1:25:54

       Yeah

    3. TFTim Ferriss1:25:54

       ... why it, why it might be of interest or is of interest?

    4. HMHamilton Morris1:25:57

       Yeah. So ibogaine is an alkaloid that is found in the roots of a central West African plant called Tabernanthe iboga, and it's a pretty amazing molecule. It's very, very difficult to synthesize. Um, all of the ibogaine that's used Commercially has to be extracted from plants. It's very complicated structurally, and pharmacologically it is w- one of the most complicated drugs I've ever read about. But the reason that people are interested in ibogaine is there was a guy named Howard Lotsof who was addicted to heroin. He tried ibogaine sort of on a whim, and then afterwards lost his desire to use heroin and patented it as an anti-addictive intervention for treatment of heroin addiction. So it's a pretty amazing thing. I mean, one of the most difficult pharmacological tasks is getting people off of opioids to the point that, to some extent, people have thrown up their hands and said, "All right. The best we can do is agonist replacement therapy. We'll give them methadone. We'll give them buprenorphine, and we're just giving them another opioid that's regulated, and that's the best treatment we have." When it comes to actually getting people off of it, there are very-- f- there really, there's nothing in terms of pharmacotherapy. There's, you know, clinics that specialize in helping people wean off of it, but we don't have drugs that, um, are designed to reduce the addictiveness of the opioid itself. Um, so it seems to have that effect for a lot of people. Unfortunately, it hasn't been studied as well as w- I would hope because it's a Schedule I drug in the United States, which has interfered with scientific research. But, um, but what's really amazing about ibogaine is even though it's famous for its treatment of opioid addiction, is that I think it has a, a general anti-addictive, anti-compulsive effect. Um, it also works for alcoholism. It also works for methamphetamine addiction. It seems to work for many compulsive behaviors.

    5. TFTim Ferriss1:28:17

       Does it only have that persistence of effect at high doses?

    6. HMHamilton Morris1:28:22

       That is a question that hasn't been thoroughly investigated, but my guess is that there are alternative dosing strategies that are safer than taking single high doses, which are referred to as flood doses, and that would be microdosing, um, over longer periods of time or taking lower doses over longer periods of time. Um, and this is especially useful because ibogaine is cardiotoxic and has been associated with a number of deaths. So any way to reduce that toxicity is a boon to the therapeutic use of the substance.

    7. TFTim Ferriss1:28:59

       Are there other, uh... Outside of, uh, addiction, are there other applications or, or potential applications of ibogaine that, uh, people are exploring or hypothesizing?

    8. HMHamilton Morris1:29:13

       Yes. So one of the most interesting things that, uh, uh, that I have researched regarding ibogaine is i- its effect on a protein called GDNF. That's glial derived neurotrophic factor, and this is a, a protein that is very useful in the treatment of Parkinson's disease. There's been some limited clinical work where they show that it, um, can cause a regrowth of dopaminergic neurons and-- which is the mechanism of Parkinson's damage to the brain is loss of dopaminergic neurons, so it's directly reversing the toxic effect of Parkinson's. Um, and they found that ibogaine causes a release of this same therapeutic protein. So that's pretty damn useful. And, um, and that's just the tip of the iceberg with it. I mean, it also seems to synergize with dopaminergic drugs, so it's possible that it increases patient sensitivity to the L-DOPA treatment as well. And on top of that, it seems to have an antidepressant effect, and depression is one of the major symptoms of Parkinson's disease. So, uh, I think it could really be helping people with Parkinson's, and there's this sort of underground community of people with Parkinson's that use ibogaine and, um, and I occasionally receive emails from these sorts of people. It's often they use it at twenty milligrams a day, and they seem to really believe in it as a treatment. And, and on one hand, I understand that it's irresponsible to talk about these things without a lot of serious medical support, but the flip side is that it needs to be studied. People need to be aware of it, and it's very sad to see the same treatments being used for Parkinson's today that were used thirty, forty years ago. I mean, it's still pretty much take L-DOPA, wait till it stops working, and then we'll switch you on to something else. But there's no treatment available that's actually addressing the root cause of the neurodegeneration. And if this does and patients are being deprived that treatment, it's a tragic thing.

16. 1:31:25 – 1:37:26

    Synthesis vs natural sourcing: sustainability, conservation, and toad-venom uncertainty

    1. TFTim Ferriss1:31:25

       You mentioned, uh, in the beginning of your description of ibogaine that it's, uh, extracted from plants and it is difficult to synthesize.

    2. HMHamilton Morris1:31:36

       Very, uh, very difficult, yeah.

    3. TFTim Ferriss1:31:37

       Uh, and this is-- I- I'm so glad to have you on the show, uh, from-- for there are many, many reasons, but also just to discuss this, uh, this spectrum of kind of, uh, [lip smacks] I don't know, scientific materialist, I'm not sure if that's the right description, all the way to, say, shamanistic practices and so on. But there, there's-- Because while watching the 5-MeO-DMT episode and the, the capturing of toads and also your commentary at the end made me think, uh, or contemplate how one of the weaknesses of the argument for whole plants is that, uh, or squeezing toads for that matter, is it seems very environmentally unsustainable. And if the objective is to get some of these compounds to... I mean, you could have farms like they do in Brazil for Santo Daime, where they have ayahuasca vines For just hectares and hectares and hectares, but

    4. HMHamilton Morris1:32:39

       Oh, wow. That's amazing. Have you seen that?

    5. TFTim Ferriss1:32:41

       I haven't seen it, but I, I, I, I know, I know a guy who knows a guy. Uh, but is there, is one of the arguments for synthesis that it is just a, a, a more scalable solution if one wants to, like, let's just say maybe not in the case of Parkinson's, although it is widespread, but for OCD or utilizing some of these psychedelic compounds, if they were to be rescheduled or derivatives developed that were not Schedule 1, uh, the synthetic route is more, it's the sustainable option compared-

    6. HMHamilton Morris1:33:14

       Right

    7. TFTim Ferriss1:33:14

       ... to using naturally occurring plants and so on. I mean, is that-- I don't know the, the realities of extracting or synthesizing, because I've done neither. But, I mean, is that, is that something that you thought about while, uh, quite a lot while making the show, or something that came up a lot? Like kratom is another example, right? I mean, I, I just, uh, seeing the kinda devastation and the, the conflicts between, I don't know if you would call them kratom poachers and people who are attempting to preserve some of these last existing forests. I mean, it's, it's the, so much violence, so much destruction. Um-

    8. HMHamilton Morris1:33:49

       Yeah

    9. TFTim Ferriss1:33:49

       ... does synthesis fix that?

    10. HMHamilton Morris1:33:52

        Sustainability, of course, does matter, and synthesis is typically more sustainable. Um, but the other thing is that, you know, these plants are genetic reserves that if we're just looking at them as a crop and not appreciating them as something to conserve and study, then we may be losing the opportunity to discover all sorts of new things, you know? [clears throat] I'm sure there is, are old ayahuasca vines that contain beta-carbolines that have never been found before. And if we're just chopping them down to use them in a brew when you could just as easily use, um, Syrian rue, Peganum harmala, or something like that, um, you have to wonder whether or not we're potentially losing the opportunity, or they could be, you know, useful cultivars. They might be faster-growing. There's all sorts of reasons to keep and study plants, um, as opposed to just using them up. Uh, same is true of, of peyote. There's so many different alkaloids, and there's been very little study done in terms of finding, you know, faster-growing varieties of peyote or finding strains that have a higher mescaline content or a higher peyotein content or things like that. Um, and if we wanted to make these things available, those would be necessary things to do in the same way that they've been done with cannabis. You don't just grow any cannabis. You grow cannabis that has been bred to have the qualities that you're looking for, typically high THC content. But, um, there's a lot of other things, high THCV or high CBD content. And, um, and so, you know, I think that that's really important. You want to have natural reserves of these things that, that can be studied and can be used as stock for breeding, and you risk losing all of that if you're just thinking only in the moment, "I want it now." Um, same is true of these toads. I mean, there's a lot of basic scientific questions that haven't been answered about the toads. Um, I would love to see people, you know, studying the rate that they regenerate the venom or how they respond to the milking or if they're sensitive to their own venom, which is such a fascinating question because with, you know, with pufferfish, they've actually evolved a mutation in their sodium ion channel that makes them insensitive to the toxicity of TTX. Is the same true of the 5-HT1A receptor in the Bufo alvarius toad? Have they also evolved a different type of serotonin receptor that makes them insensitive to their own venom? I mean, those are the sorts of things that I would love to be doing with the toads, answering these basic scientific questions. When it comes to just using them as a source of drugs, you can make 5-MeO-DMT from melatonin, and it's so much more efficient and so much cheaper probably as well, that it just seems that without a good reason, why even potentially harass a toad? Um, and then on top of that, you have the certainty regarding dose, which is so wonderful to be able to say, "This is exactly 15 milligrams of 5-MeO-DMT freebase," as opposed to, "This is 100 milligrams of toad venom that might contain who knows how much 5-MeO-DMT and however much 5-MeO-NMT or serotonin O-sulfate or whatever steroidal lactone that's found." You know, it-- there's a lot of stuff in there, and it's rarely looked at objectively or quantified in any way, so the people that are using it don't really know what they're getting.

17. 1:37:26 – 1:41:34

    Defining ‘alkaloid’ and shifting to nootropics and cognitive enhancers

    1. TFTim Ferriss1:37:26

       I'm gonna pause for a second for just a remedial definition for me and anyone who might be curious because a, a word has popped up a number of times that I've read a thousand times, alkaloid.

    2. HMHamilton Morris1:37:36

       Mm-hmm.

    3. TFTim Ferriss1:37:37

       Can you define what an alkaloid is?

    4. HMHamilton Morris1:37:40

       Sure. In the strictest sense, an alkaloid is a material isolated from a plant that contains a basic nitrogen atom. So that's an alkaloid. Um, sometimes the term is extended to include any material that's extracted from a plant, but in the strictest classical definition, THC would not be an alkaloid because it doesn't contain a nitrogen atom. Salvinorin A would not be an alkaloid because it doesn't contain a nitrogen atom. Uh-

    5. TFTim Ferriss1:38:13

       Terpenoid? No.

    6. HMHamilton Morris1:38:14

       Yeah. I mean-

    7. TFTim Ferriss1:38:16

       Another thing that I don't understand, but I've read.

    8. HMHamilton Morris1:38:18

       Yeah.

    9. TFTim Ferriss1:38:18

       [chuckles]

    10. HMHamilton Morris1:38:19

        Yeah. So, um, so that's it. It's, it's a term mostly derived from the, the classical methods of extraction from plants. So all these drugs that have basic nitrogen atoms behave in a certain way chemically and can be extracted from plants using an acid-base extraction, and s- that's how they get this name.

    11. TFTim Ferriss1:38:43

        Thank you. No, it's-- This is, this is the type of education that I need, uh, but I won't, I won't take up the podcast to do that. I'll, I'll be looking at the, the book recommendations. I'd love to... I know we have not too, too much time left, and I'm keeping an eye on time, but gear shift to smart drugs, uh, nootropics, nootropics. I'm not sure how to pronounce that either. Uh, are there any particular types of cognitive enhancers that you find interesting? Um, and one which maybe you can recall the name of came up in one of your episodes, in fact, because it was described in a pamphlet by one of the chemists. I think it was, uh, the same chemist who had the-

    12. HMHamilton Morris1:39:28

        Darryl LeMahieu.

    13. TFTim Ferriss1:39:28

        Yes.

    14. HMHamilton Morris1:39:29

        2CD.

    15. TFTim Ferriss1:39:30

        2CD.

    16. HMHamilton Morris1:39:30

        Yeah.

    17. TFTim Ferriss1:39:31

        All right. Uh, so are there any particular cognitive enhancers that you have found effective and/or interesting?

    18. HMHamilton Morris1:39:39

        [sighs] It's such a, it's such a philosophically interesting question because whenever people say that something made them smarter, I always think of the Dunning-Kruger effect. Are you familiar with that?

    19. TFTim Ferriss1:39:49

        Don't know what that is.

    20. HMHamilton Morris1:39:50

        It's, uh, these, these two psychologists at, um, at Cornell, I believe, um, found this effect that the, the more competent someone is in a given task, whether it's, uh, musical ability or humor, the more likely they are to underrate their ability, and the less competent they are, the more likely they are to overrate their ability.

    21. TFTim Ferriss1:40:12

        [laughs]

    22. HMHamilton Morris1:40:14

        So I always wonder, you know, what would it, what would be the manifestation of a true cognitive enhancer? Would it make you feel stupid? Would it make you feel increasingly-

    23. TFTim Ferriss1:40:25

        Oh, I see what you're saying [laughs]

    24. HMHamilton Morris1:40:27

        ... aware of all the things you don't know? Would you feel intellectually ashamed of yourself?

    25. TFTim Ferriss1:40:31

        [laughs] That's a good, that's a good point.

    26. HMHamilton Morris1:40:34

        And then, and could it be that the true smart drugs have all been abandoned because they actually made people feel abysmally stupid? Um, there's a major problem with self-assessment in the realm of nootropics. Um, just because something makes you feel smarter does not mean that you are smarter. And then there's a larger question of how do we define intelligence? What does it mean to be smart? Is having an improved memory, does that mean that you're smarter? Um, is being more creative a sign of intelligence? It's typically not included in any kind of objective measure of intelligence. So, um, so how do you define it to begin with, and what are these drugs doing, and what is the intended effect? Um, it's a, it's a really complicated question. You know, the most basic thing I think is memory. That's the thing that most people can agree if they had a better memory, it would be useful.

18. 1:41:34 – 1:48:13

    Hamilton’s personal ‘smart drug’ shortlist and how psychedelics might change problem-solving

    1. HMHamilton Morris1:41:34

       And I do believe that some of these things, you know, often some of the most mundane things like nicotine improve memory and, um, aid focus a little bit. So n- of all the things that I've tried in the realm of nootropics, and it's many, the one that I s- still use is just nicotine gum. Um, I try to use it less. I sometimes don't use it at all. I know I told that story about not using it, but I still, I still chew it on occasion because it really helps me read, especially if I'm going, you know, plowing through a, a dense novel or something. I like to go to the library and, um, pop in a square of nicotine gum and, and just really try to focus. But, uh, you know, Noopept was okay. PRL-853 was okay. Um, Phenylpiracetam is okay. They're all, you know... Typically, it's the stimulating ones that are a little bit better, but then the, then the question is are these nootropics or are they simply stimulants? And are stimulants nootropics? How do we designate these things? It's-

    2. TFTim Ferriss1:42:41

       W- have you tried 2CD? I have not.

    3. HMHamilton Morris1:42:43

       Yes, absolutely. And 2CD is really interesting because, um, one thing if you read about people, mnemonists, people with photographic memories, uh, one thing they all seem to have in common is they're all synesthetes.

    4. TFTim Ferriss1:42:58

       Right.

    5. HMHamilton Morris1:42:58

       And one thing I've wondered about that synesthesia that they have is, is this multi-sensory cross-linking of information aiding recall? Because if every-

    6. TFTim Ferriss1:43:08

       And just for people listening t-to, just to define that term, so it's, uh, if people who may smell colors or visualize numbers, um, that's, uh, the type of cross-linking that you see in these. Like The Mind of a Mnemonist by A.J. Luria gets into this in great depth. But sorry to interrupt, please continue.

    7. HMHamilton Morris1:43:28

       Right. So, so yeah. So yeah, if when you think of an orange, it's not just an orange, it's the color, it's the smell, it's the taste, it's the sound, it's the texture, and there's all this multi-sensory encoding of the information. Does that allow you to recall the orange in a different way, or do you have more handles on that memory that allow you to retrieve it more easily? So psychedelics also induce synesthesia, and that was one question that I had is could this synesthesia-inducing effect be harnessed in order to aid retention of information? And I don't have a, a real answer to that question, but I think that if drugs like 2C-B do have any sort of nootropic effect, it may be as a result of that kind of... I mean, there's different ways. That maybe encouraging synesthesia would be one way. Another way might be, um, just a basic stimulant effect. Another way might be that they cause you to approach problems from a different perspective, um, and this is why James Fadiman-

    8. TFTim Ferriss1:44:36

       Right

    9. HMHamilton Morris1:44:37

       ... is very interested in psychedelics i-in problem solving is because sometimes having a different way is all that it takes. Not necessarily a better way, not necessarily a smarter way, simply a different way of looking at something is All it takes to solve that problem because you got locked into a certain way of approaching it, you're only thinking about it one way, and just to mix it up, to shuffle the deck for a moment and think, "Well, maybe I could have done this in a completely different way," is what it takes.

    10. TFTim Ferriss1:45:06

        Jim's great. Uh, he's really fun to chat with too-

    11. HMHamilton Morris1:45:08

        Yeah

    12. TFTim Ferriss1:45:08

        ... about the, the, uh, the studies that they had, um, conducted related to the, the problem solving with, with hard sciences and a lot of engineering problems. Uh, for people interested, I also, uh, spoke with Jim on the podcast, so you can find the Fadiman episode pretty easily. But, uh, for you personally then, if you had nicotine gum currently in pole position, would you put anything in second and third place?

    13. HMHamilton Morris1:45:33

        I think, you know, the classics, nicotine, caffeine-

    14. TFTim Ferriss1:45:38

        Just like caffeine anhydrous or, I'm not sure if I'm pronouncing that correctly.

    15. HMHamilton Morris1:45:41

        Yeah, you are, yeah.

    16. TFTim Ferriss1:45:41

        Sweet.

    17. HMHamilton Morris1:45:42

        Um, and, you know, good old-fashioned Ritalin on occasion. I say this with a little bit of reluctance because stimulants are addictive and, um, and it's kind of a bad habit to get into, but I would be dishonest if I didn't acknowledge the fact that, um, using low-dose Ritalin has helped me.

    18. TFTim Ferriss1:46:09

        What does low dose mean?

    19. HMHamilton Morris1:46:10

        10 milligrams. Um, I don't take it every day, but it's, you know, it's, it's a tricky one because it does give you a certain intellectual stamina that helps you read and write and think, and I think that with a lot of discipline, you could achieve those same effects without Ritalin, but, um, it's helped me.

    20. TFTim Ferriss1:46:32

        The-- You mentioned something that I, I wanna come back to just for a, a moment for people who might be listening and interested if they're, if they want to assess before-and-after effects on cognition. Um, so I was, uh, you can find online, uh, tests that are used, uh, in studies to s- in, to assess reaction time, working memory, things of that type. So if, if one were proactively looking at the be- the before-and-after effects of just about anything, I mean, yerba mate or alcohol, doesn't really matter, there are tests if you look up, uh, some of the studies done, uh, by any number of cognitive neuroscience, Kanamaru and others, where you can, uh, you, you can identify online tests that can give you... It'll help, help you to establish a baseline if you want to look at some of the effects.

    21. HMHamilton Morris1:47:24

        Yeah.

    22. TFTim Ferriss1:47:24

        But yeah, the, the intelligence can be fine sliced into so many different component areas.

    23. HMHamilton Morris1:47:30

        Right.

    24. TFTim Ferriss1:47:30

        Uh, I mean, it can get really, really complex. Uh, for people who are, or who, who would be... Um, I was actually involved, [chuckles] with a study. People should check this out. He's also been on the podcast, Adam Gazzaley out of UCSF at the Gazzaley Lab. Uh, they developed a software, uh, called Neuro Racer, uh, that was very, very effective. Uh, they ended up, I think it was the cover of Nature at one point, um, being able to r- uh, reverse certain aspects of age-related cognitive decline, and then after the cessation of training with software, there was a persistence of effect, I wanna say, at least six months later. It was really remarkable.

    25. HMHamilton Morris1:48:12

        Hmm.

19. 1:48:13 – 1:55:17

    Wrap-up: where to find Hamilton, funding basic science, and final book recommendations

    1. TFTim Ferriss1:48:13

       Uh, so there are tests you can use to assess, uh, the, the effects of these types of compounds. Uh, well, Hamilton, we could go on or I c- I could go on for hours and hours and hours, uh, but, uh, I suppose we should, uh, probably wrap up in, in just a little bit. Where can people find you, say hello, and, uh-

    2. HMHamilton Morris1:48:36

       Y-

    3. TFTim Ferriss1:48:36

       ... otherwise learn about your work?

    4. HMHamilton Morris1:48:38

       Yeah, I mean, I, I have a, a Twitter, @HamiltonMorris, an Instagram, @HamiltonMorris. I'm starting a website, hamiltonmorris.com, but it's not up yet.

    5. TFTim Ferriss1:48:48

       My prediction is that we will have it up, the royal we, in this case meaning Hamilton [chuckles] and people I might introduce you to, by the time that this goes live. So hamiltonmorris.com.

    6. HMHamilton Morris1:48:59

       Hamiltonmorris.com.

    7. TFTim Ferriss1:48:59

       Pending.

    8. HMHamilton Morris1:49:01

       And if you want to watch my TV show, Hamilton's Pharmacopeia, it can be purchased for $3 an episode on iTunes and Amazon, and it's also free on Hulu, and, uh, it's on National Geographic and Viceland, and I'm sure you can also torrent it as well.

    9. TFTim Ferriss1:49:20

       [laughs] And if you have Amazon Prime, I think it's actually available with Prime membership-

    10. HMHamilton Morris1:49:24

        Oh, good

    11. TFTim Ferriss1:49:25

        ... uh, as well. Is there anything-- Do you have any ask of the audience? Is there anything that people can help you with besides the TV show?

    12. HMHamilton Morris1:49:33

        Um, yeah. If, you know, I, I self-fund a lot of the scientific research that I do, so if there are any psychedelic philanthropists out there that are interested in funding non-clinical basic science research that's chemistry and pharmacology with no clinical end in sight, but are just interested in understanding the mechanisms of these substances, um, reach out to me because in a chemistry lab, a couple thousand bucks can go a long way, and it's, um, it's always important to remember that without the basic science, the clinical work can't really be done.

    13. TFTim Ferriss1:50:10

        To what type of research would... If, if somebody's listening and says, "You know what? I don't have a lot of money, but I could probably dig up two to 5K for something interesting," what might that be applied to?

    14. HMHamilton Morris1:50:23

        Right now, I'm working with a chemist named Jason Wallick, and we are trying to do a process called autoradiography, where you take a radiolabeled drug, and you look at the distribution in the brain, and we're looking specifically at a drug that seems to distort the way sound is perceived based on Shulgin's reports, and we want to see, with the radiolabeled drug, how it will distribute in a rodent's brain. So we're trying to raise a little bit of money to do that sort of research. It's not all that expensive, and it could really have interesting bearing on our understanding of auditory perception.

    15. TFTim Ferriss1:51:03

        We didn't have time to get into Oliver Sacks, but have you read Musicophilia?

    16. HMHamilton Morris1:51:07

        I haven't read it.

    17. TFTim Ferriss1:51:08

        I think you would love it.

    18. HMHamilton Morris1:51:09

        I have to, yeah. [laughs]

    19. TFTim Ferriss1:51:10

        It's almost entirely about auditory, uh, pathologies of various types, but I think you would, you would greatly, greatly enjoy it. We did not have a chance to get into Oliver Sacks. We did not have a chance to get into Claudio Naranjo. Is that how you say the name?

    20. HMHamilton Morris1:51:24

        Yeah.

    21. TFTim Ferriss1:51:25

        Maybe another time.

    22. HMHamilton Morris1:51:26

        He's amazing.

    23. TFTim Ferriss1:51:27

        Uh, so for people who might be interested in helping you with, with some of this science, uh, I, I would encourage them to first go to hamiltonmorris.com. It may be [laughs] unavailable, but there may be a contact form on there by the time that is ready. And if not, is Twitter generally the best way-

    24. HMHamilton Morris1:51:44

        Yeah

    25. TFTim Ferriss1:51:45

        ... to contact you? Uh, do you have any other recommendations, suggestions, parting words, book recommendations, [laughs] anything at all-

    26. HMHamilton Morris1:51:56

        I mean-

    27. TFTim Ferriss1:51:56

        ... that you would like to say or share?

    28. HMHamilton Morris1:51:58

        I really can't overestimate the value of P Hall for understanding these things. It's just a fantastic book. It will tell you almost everything you need to know about psychedelics and drugs in general, and it's a really great love story. And, um, it-- yeah, it's, it's a, it's a moving experience to read it, so I, I hope everyone will run out and buy a copy. I think it's 15 bucks or something.

    29. TFTim Ferriss1:52:24

        Why P Hall and not T Call?

    30. HMHamilton Morris1:52:26

        Well, P Hall's the first one, and if-
20. 1:55:17 – 2:01:18

    Post-episode notes: newsletter plug and additional sponsor messages

    1. TFTim Ferriss1:55:17

       Hey, guys. This is Tim again. Just a few more things before you take off. Number one, this is 5-Bullet Friday. Do you want to get a short email from me? Would you enjoy getting a short email from me every Friday that provides a little morsel of fun before the weekend? And 5-Bullet Friday is a very short email where I share the coolest things I've found or that I've been pondering over the week. That could include favorite new albums that I've discovered. It could include gizmos and gadgets and all sorts of weird shit that I've somehow dug up [laughs] in the, uh, the world of the esoteric as I do. It could include favorite articles that I have read and that I've shared with my close friends, for instance. And it's very short. It's just a little tiny bite of goodness before you head off for the weekend. So if you want to receive that, check it out. Just go to fourhourworkweek.com. That's fourhourworkweek.com all spelled out, and just drop in your email, and you will get the very next one. And if you sign up, I hope you enjoy it. This episode is brought to you by Leadership in Turbulent Times, which is the latest book by the ever amazing Pulitzer Prize-winning author Doris Kearns Goodwin. I had her on the podcast not too long ago, and, uh, she just blew everyone away. What an incredible storyteller and weaver of history and lessons from history. You can check that out if you want at tim.blog/doris, D-O-R-I-S. It was a captivating conversation that, that really blew me away. Leadership in Turbulent Times, that is the latest book, is a culmination of five decades of acclaimed studies in presidential history, which offers an illuminating exploration of the early development, that's super key, early development, growth, and exercise of leadership, and, uh, draws upon four presidents, which we'll get to in a second. Goodwin asks and answers in those pages the question: Are leaders born or made? Where does ambition come from? How does adversity affect the growth of leadership? Does the leader make the times, or do the times make the leader? And she draws upon the four presidents she has studied most closely, namely Abraham Lincoln, Theodore Roosevelt, Franklin D. Roosevelt, and Lyndon B. Johnson, to show how they recognized leadership qualities within themselves and were recognized as leaders by others. And I mentioned early development being key because it goes back to their first sojourns and experiments and attempts at engaging with policy and public life, and covers their failures, their near misses, and lessons learned. So it applies to anyone who is trying to make a study of leadership or how they can better lead both themselves and others. It's important to underscore that no common pattern describes completely a single trajectory of leadership. Although set apart in background, abilities, and temperament, these four men shared a fierce ambition and deep-seated resilience that enabled them to surmount uncommon hardships. And at their best, all four were guided by a sense of moral purpose. This seminal work provides an accessible and essential roadmap for aspiring and established leaders in every field. I highly, highly recommend it. For more information, you can visit doriskearnsgoodwin.com. That's Doris Kearns, K-E-A-R-N-S goodwin.com. And Leadership in Turbulent Times is available in hardcover, e-book, and audio wherever books are sold. Check it out. This episode is brought to you by Inktel, and I've used them personally. Ever since I wrote The 4-Hour Workweek, I've been asked over and over again how I choose to delegate tasks, how I do 80/20 analysis, and so on. At the root of many of those decisions is a simple question, or actually two questions. Number one, how can I invest money to improve my quality of life? I use that in investing as well. The second, how can I spend a little money or moderate money to save significant time? Inktel is one of those investments. They're a turnkey solution for all of your imaginable customer care needs. I used Inktel during the launch of the 4-Hour Body, which was very, very involved, and they provided twenty-four/seven customer service for my Land Rush campaign because it was critical for me to take care of every person who purchased my books and participated. This allowed me to focus on the things that I am better at, my strengths, like the marketing plan that we'd worked on for six months, implementing that. Inktel trains their experienced customer service reps to know your business and your products inside and out and make your customers raving fans. They answer more than a million customer service requests every year, and they can do so across all platforms, including email, phone, social media, text, even chat. Leaving your customers with poor service or just mediocre service, which by the way, in a competitive pool is a huge liability, long wait times or unanswered messages, carries a massive cost and risk to your business. Inktel removes the logistics and headaches of this type of communication, allowing you to focus on your strengths and grow your business. It can be a real competitive advantage, and I see many, many e-commerce companies and tech companies thinking of customer service as a good enough checkbox or an afterthought. And just like Airbnb used design in innovative ways to be a competitor and to win, you can do the same thing with customer service. So as a listener of this podcast, you can get up to ten thousand dollars off, that's a big discount, ten thousand dollars off your startup fees and costs by visiting inkttel.com/tim. So check it out. For more info, go to inkttel.com, I-N-K-T-T-E-L .com/tim. [upbeat music]

Episode duration: 2:01:18