Tripping Past Your Ego with Michael Pollan | What Now? with Trevor Noah Podcast

Trevor Noah 0:00 If you're a rat in a lab and you use LSD, the experience that you have would probably be so all-encompassing that you cannot fathom using it again.

Speaker 0:10 [laughs]

Trevor Noah 0:10 You're in a lab.

Speaker 0:11 [laughs]

Trevor Noah 0:12 You're, you're in a ... Imagine you, you, there, there are these giant monkeys making you walk through mazes and, and now you take LSD for the first time and you're like, "What does a maze mean?"

Speaker 0:21 [laughs]

Trevor Noah 0:21 Like, "Where am I going? Why do I like cheese so much? What, what is it that drives me?" And now you're seeing the universe for the first time, you're thinking about cats in a completely different way.

Speaker 0:31 [laughs]

Trevor Noah 0:31 If I was, if I was a rat in a lab, I'd be like, "I don't know. I need to, I need to chill on this. I need to, I just need to think about my life a little bit more." [upbeat music] This is What Now? With Trevor Noah. [upbeat music] Do you think, do you think this could be the first topic where we don't agree at all?

Speaker 1:01 Yes, which has made me, like, afraid.

Trevor Noah 1:04 Huh.

Speaker 1:04 Yeah, 'cause normally there's some overlap or I can even see where you're coming from.

Trevor Noah 1:11 Oh, you, you don't even think you'll be ... Okay, but wait, wait, wait. So he- help me understand this.

Speaker 1:16 Yeah.

Trevor Noah 1:16 We say we're gonna have a top- we're gonna have a conversation. We're gonna, we're gonna be speaking to Michael Pollan. He has single-handedly changed the perception of, of, I mean, like, millions and millions of people when it comes to psychedelics. Yeah, and it doesn't, it's not only psychedelics, you know? He, he wrote The Omnivore’s Dilemma, um, This Is Your Mind on Plants, How to Change Your Mind, and he's written beautiful accounts of how we see the world of what we take.

Speaker 1:46 Mm-hmm.

Trevor Noah 1:47 One of my favorite books of his just even talks about how we see coffee versus how we see something like taking, you know-

Speaker 1:54 Marijuana

Trevor Noah 1:54 ... mushrooms-

Speaker 1:55 Yeah

Trevor Noah 1:55 ... or marijuana. And he goes, "You know, coffee, it's just, it's a drug that has suited the establishment and so that's why it's allowed to, to stay around." So he's explored everything, but it's interesting how now, and, and we'll talk to him a little bit about it, is it's like now he has become the de facto go-to guy on mushrooms-

Speaker 2:14 He's the guru

Trevor Noah 2:14 ... and psychedelics and-

Speaker 2:16 Yeah

Trevor Noah 2:16 ... you know? And yes, it's funny you say he's the guru, but he's not even trying to present himself as a guru.

Speaker 2:20 [laughs] No, he's not.

Trevor Noah 2:21 He's like, "No." He's like, "Guys, I'm a journalist."

Speaker 2:22 "I'm just a guy." [laughs] He's like, "No."

Trevor Noah 2:24 He's like, "I'm a journalist."

Speaker 2:25 "You're the chosen one."

Trevor Noah 2:25 And everyone's like, "You are the guru. Where do I score myself some dope shrooms?"

Speaker 2:30 [laughs]

Trevor Noah 2:30 Yeah, but it's funny, you ... I've never seen you-

Speaker 2:33 I know

Trevor Noah 2:33 ... recoil like this.

Speaker 2:34 I know. I know, and I've been thinking about it. Even I may have prayed about it.

Trevor Noah 2:39 Oh, wow.

Speaker 2:39 Yeah, [laughs] 'cause I was just like, I don't want people at home to think, like, I'm like this lock them up conservative about people-

Trevor Noah 2:47 Okay

Speaker 2:47 ... who do recreational drugs.

Trevor Noah 2:48 Okay.

Speaker 2:49 But I may be a little bit. [laughs]

Trevor Noah 2:51 Okay. Okay.

Speaker 2:51 No, I think it just, it brings up some stuff for me.

Trevor Noah 2:54 Is, is this, is this because of your upbringing? 'Cause for me, I, like, I think about growing up and my perception of drugs. So I didn't touch weed my whole ... I've ... Okay, so I'll, I'll, I'll, I'll even take it before even, like, drugs drugs.

Speaker 3:10 Mm.

Trevor Noah 3:10 Uh, my mom doesn't drink, my mom doesn't smoke. My dad doesn't drink, my dad doesn't smoke.

Speaker 3:14 Mm-hmm.

Trevor Noah 3:14 All right? So I grew up in a home where that wasn't a thing. My grandmother, et cetera.

Speaker 3:18 Yeah.

Trevor Noah 3:18 And my mom said to me when I was 13, 12, 13-

Speaker 3:25 Mm

Trevor Noah 3:25 ... maybe even younger, she came to my room and she had cigarettes-

Speaker 3:30 Mm-hmm

Trevor Noah 3:30 ... and she had, uh, beer.

Speaker 3:32 Mm.

Trevor Noah 3:33 And she said to me, "Do you want?"

Speaker 3:35 [laughs]

Trevor Noah 3:36 And, [laughs] and I was like, "Oh, this is a trap. Obviously this is a trap." And I was al- I was almost disappointed and I was like, "Come on lady. I'm not gonna fall for a trap like that."

Speaker 3:44 [laughs]

Trevor Noah 3:45 "You're gonna come into my room and offer me cigarettes?" And, and she was like, "Do you want, do you wanna try them?" And I was like, "No, because these are bad things and we should ne-"

Speaker 3:52 [laughs]

Trevor Noah 3:52 And then she said to me, "Listen, Harry. You're gonna, you're gonna encounter alcohol, you're gonna encounter cigarettes and things. So if you're gonna use it, I would rather know that you use it-

Speaker 4:00 Wow

Trevor Noah 4:00 ... and then you use it at home."

Speaker 4:02 Yeah.

Trevor Noah 4:02 "And then I don't worry that now you're out in the world using it, you know, hiding it from me, and then getting into situations where you can't share that you're, you're using it."

Speaker 4:12 Calm reduction.

Trevor Noah 4:13 Exactly.

Speaker 4:13 [laughs] It's amazing.

Trevor Noah 4:14 Which is wild. I, I mean, my mom is-

Speaker 4:16 Yes, please. Yeah

Trevor Noah 4:16 ... my mom is, like, super religious and super-

Speaker 4:18 Yeah

Trevor Noah 4:18 ... strict and super-

Speaker 4:19 Very progressive.

Trevor Noah 4:20 So ... Yeah. And so then she didn't even know how to, like, light a cigarette.

Speaker 4:24 [laughs]

Trevor Noah 4:24 So we had to go to, we had to go to an uncle of mine, and then he was like, "Trevor, what's up?" And she said, "He wants to try cigarettes." And the guy was like, "Okay, you want to smoke?" And he gave, gave us the cigarettes, and I puffed with him and I was like, "This is trash. This is so..." I was like, "How is the taste in your mouth..." You know what I mean?

Speaker 4:41 Yeah.

Trevor Noah 4:41 It, it, it tastes like someone's, like, eating everything disgusting and then farting it into your, your, your oral cavity. And then the alcohol beer just tastes like, like old water that has, you know-

Speaker 4:53 Ugh, yeah

Trevor Noah 4:53 ... dribbled down a sewer into-

Speaker 4:54 I'm a bad brit. I don't like, I don't like it either.

Trevor Noah 4:56 So I, I didn't like any of that. And then drugs was almost in the same category for me. In fact-

Speaker 5:00 Because of that in- initial experience?

Trevor Noah 5:02 Yeah.

Speaker 5:02 Okay.

Trevor Noah 5:03 Yeah. In fact, drugs the way I grew up was, "You are a loser."

Speaker 5:08 Mm-hmm.

Trevor Noah 5:08 "You are gonna end your life." That's how I knew drugs.

Speaker 5:11 So that hasn't changed now, that was just when you [laughs] grew up?

Trevor Noah 5:13 That's, that's how I knew drugs.

Speaker 5:14 [laughs]

Trevor Noah 5:15 That's all I was told, "These are the things that'll happen when you take drugs." So I didn't, I didn't touch weed. I smoked weed for the first time when I was 21.

Speaker 5:21 Okay.

Trevor Noah 5:21 That's how, like-

Speaker 5:22 Yeah

Trevor Noah 5:22 ... anti-drug ... I used to judge people, and I would look at them and I would say to them, "It is a pity that you've chosen to do this with your life."

Speaker 5:29 [laughs]

Trevor Noah 5:29 I used to say that to my cousin. So I, I can see where you might come from.

Speaker 5:33 Okay. Yeah. I think it's all of those things and a bit more.

Trevor Noah 5:38 All right.

Speaker 5:39 You know? But yeah, I c- I just-

Trevor Noah 5:41 Are you open to a conversation about it?

Speaker 5:43 I'm open to a conversation, and I think the thing that bothers me about this, I'm, I'm sad I'm not nuanced, 'cause I pride myself [laughs]

Trevor Noah 5:50 [laughs]

Speaker 5:51 ... on being, like, gray area, nuanced, both sides of m- almost.

Trevor Noah 5:56 Yes.

Speaker 5:56 And on this, I'm like, "Uh-uh, no, no, no, no, no, no, no."

Trevor Noah 5:58 Okay.

Speaker 5:59 So yeah.

Trevor Noah 6:00 The African mom has finally arrived.

Speaker 6:02 The African mom has just emerged and is just here. But- And the more I seem to read, the deeper I go into no. That's why I'm really curious about today's-

Trevor Noah 6:11 Huh

Speaker 6:11 ... conversation.

Trevor Noah 6:13 Oh, that's, that's an interesting one. M- m- Michael, um, wel- welcome to the podcast. But, like, let me ask you this.

Trevor Noah 6:19 Do you, do you think or do you find that people b- become more open to the idea of exploring even the idea of psychedelics when they read, or do you find that people become more closed off?

Michael Pollan 6:35 Uh, I find when people, um, read, they do become more open. There are a couple things that make people more open, and by the way, Christiana, I'm not gonna advocate you do anything [laughs] .

Trevor Noah 6:46 [laughs]

Michael Pollan 6:46 And it's, it's, it's-

Trevor Noah 6:47 I'm gonna advocate for that.

Speaker 6:48 I know. That's what Trevor's here for.

Trevor Noah 6:49 It's, I'm gonna advocate.

Michael Pollan 6:50 [laughs] It's perfectly okay not to do these drugs. When I started talking about this, uh, right when my book came out and I was talking to various groups of people, and I would notice when I spoke in positive terms about psychedelics, I found that unless I started talking about risk right at the beginning, there was always a person or two in the room before I said anything, uh, more about it. This person would not open her ears. So I learned in my conversations where I'm, I was trying to get a hearing for what have turned out to be some therapeutically really important, uh, substances, and the key was, let's talk about risk right at the beginning. Can you get addicted to-

Trevor Noah 7:37 Right

Michael Pollan 7:37 ... these substances? Can you overdose on these substances? Because I, I came very late. My, I, I didn't use a psychedelic till I was in my late 50s. I was somebody who, you know, with a family who, uh, and, and lots of responsibilities, and I did a lot of investigation. Well, how dangerous are these things?

Trevor Noah 7:55 Right.

Michael Pollan 7:56 And I found that on the classical psychedelics, and it's important to define what we're talking about, LSD, uh, mushrooms or psilocybin, DMT, but not ketamine and not, um, uh, MDMA. These are not technically psychedelics. There is no recorded lethal dose. Uh, that's quite remarkable because you have drugs in your medicine cabinet, uh, if you have Tylenol, that is lethal at about 17 pills.

Trevor Noah 8:26 But, but before, you know, before we get into that, before we get into that, uh, Michael, I, I, I love, I love the idea of speaking about risk first.

Speaker 8:34 Mm-hmm.

Trevor Noah 8:35 And I, I've actually seen you do this in, in more than one setting. My favorite en- encounter with, with Michael, and watch- watching this in real life, was we were at an event where it was myself, Michael, and then Oprah Winfrey-

Michael Pollan 8:49 [laughs]

Trevor Noah 8:50 ... Gayle King, and Ava DuVernay.

Michael Pollan 8:53 Right. [laughs]

Trevor Noah 8:54 And we all... This is like a, like a weird motley crew of people who found themselves around a table, and um, I, I don't know if it was Oprah or Ava who starts off and says, "Wait, you the, you the mushroom guy," you know? And, and, and I'm like, "Oh yeah, mushrooms. It's amazing, this whole thing. Do you know..." And I'll never forget, like, the more I was speaking, I thought I was convincing people.

Michael Pollan 9:13 [laughs]

Trevor Noah 9:14 Oprah's face got more and more concerned.

Michael Pollan 9:17 [laughs]

Trevor Noah 9:17 Gayle looked at me with more and more compassion. You know how Gayle is.

Michael Pollan 9:21 [laughs]

Trevor Noah 9:21 Like, Gayle looked at me like, "Oh, Trevor, do, do we need to call somebody?"

Michael Pollan 9:24 [laughs]

Trevor Noah 9:25 And Ava looked like the cops were about to, like, swarm in.

Speaker 9:28 [laughs]

Trevor Noah 9:29 And it was interesting to watch because when Michael started speaking, the first thing you spoke about was risk. The first thing you talked about was-

Michael Pollan 9:35 Yeah

Trevor Noah 9:35 ... hey-

Speaker 9:36 Mm-hmm

Trevor Noah 9:36 ... you cannot guarantee any outcome. You've gotta be worried about your physical, you know, the physical aspect. You've got... And I watched them slowly turn their bodies from the outside of a conversation back to the inside of the conversation.

Speaker 9:50 Interesting.

Michael Pollan 9:50 Mm-hmm.

Trevor Noah 9:50 And so maybe, maybe we can talk a little bit about that aspect. So, so what, so what are the risks, then? Like, if, if you cannot, if you cannot overdose, what are like, for somebody like Christiana who's going like, "This, you, you guys are putting yourself at so much risk," what, what are the actual risks?

Michael Pollan 10:05 Well, if you use, if you put LSD in one of those classic, uh, setups with a rat given two levers to press-

Trevor Noah 10:11 Yeah

Michael Pollan 10:11 ... you know, and it administers a drug to its veins, with, uh, amphetamines, cocaine, they will press that lever until they're addicted and they die. If you put LSD in that setup, they'll try it once and never again.

Trevor Noah 10:25 Oh, wow.

Speaker 10:25 And that doesn't sound like an endorsement. [laughs]

Michael Pollan 10:28 No, it's not. I mean-

Trevor Noah 10:29 [laughs]

Michael Pollan 10:29 ... animals-

Speaker 10:29 It's like the rat's like, "No, thanks." [laughs]

Michael Pollan 10:32 Well, I, I mean, imagine being a rat and, and trying to interpret what's going on. We don't know what kind of experience they have. There's actually a study underway to try to figure out if rats and mice have, uh, the sort of mental, you know, hallucinations.

Trevor Noah 10:46 Yeah, yeah, yeah.

Michael Pollan 10:47 All we know now is they head twitch when they take LSD.

Trevor Noah 10:50 Huh.

Speaker 10:50 Wow.

Michael Pollan 10:50 And, and that's not very useful for research. So those are... So, so no risk of addiction.

Trevor Noah 10:56 Yeah.

Michael Pollan 10:56 Um, no risk of overdose. The risks are of a psychotic break. I mean, there are people-

Trevor Noah 11:01 Mm-hmm

Michael Pollan 11:02 ... who have a psychotic experience. Uh, sometimes it's just, it, it looks like a psychotic experience, and it's just a panic attack. Um, there's a wonderful story that, um, a- Dr. Andrew Weil tells about working in the Haight Ashbury Free Clinic in 1968 as a young, newly minted doctor who had had a lot of experience with psychedelics, and the doctors were all saying, "People are coming in, you know, having s- LSD-induced psychosis."

Trevor Noah 11:29 Yeah.

Michael Pollan 11:29 And he goes into a little examining room, and there's somebody who's absolutely flipping out, and he takes a few notes, and then he says, "Will you excuse me? There's someone in real trouble in the next room."

Speaker 11:39 Mm.

Michael Pollan 11:40 And as soon as he said that, this person realized, "Wow, I'm not so fucked up as I thought I was. There's somebody more fucked up than me."

Trevor Noah 11:47 That is hilarious.

Michael Pollan 11:48 And they were fine. Um, so he understood what was going on in a way that the other doctors didn't. Um, but people do flip out, and these experiences can be mitigated, I think, um, if you're, if you work with a guide, um, someone who's with you to talk you down when this kind of thing happens.

Trevor Noah 12:07 Mm-hmm, mm-hmm.

Michael Pollan 12:07 But without question, the bad trip is real, and it can be absolutely terrifying. And that, you know, as Trevor said earlier, the effects cannot be predicted. There, there's a, there's a kind of a physiological signature to alcohol or cocaine. That's not true with psychedelics. Everybody has their own experience. And, uh, a lot of it depends, as Timothy Leary famously said, on set and setting, that you've gotta be in the right mindset, and you need to be in a very safe setting, uh, where you're not worried about the FedEx driver coming to the door [laughs]

Trevor Noah 12:40 [laughs]

Michael Pollan 12:41 Or, uh, or a call from your mother.

Trevor Noah 12:42 Michael, s- let me ask you this. I distinctly remember, and it's purely anecdotal, how the, the, the, the conversation around weed, cannabis, marijuana, whatever you wanna call it, changed when white American moms started smoking it. All of a sudden American was like, "Actually, maybe it's not so bad. Tell me more, Snoop Doggy Dogg."

Michael Pollan 13:02 [laughs]

Trevor Noah 13:03 You know what I mean? It started changing.

Michael Pollan 13:05 Well, that, h- how to change your mind, my, my book about it was, um, in 2018. And at that point, uh, there were lots of people who were using psychedelics but would never talk about it publicly. And one of the things that's happened is that that taboo, and none of the scientists would ever admit to ever having had an experience on the record.

Trevor Noah 13:25 Wow.

Michael Pollan 13:25 They would off the record, which was hard for me. Um, but the, everything changed, uh, in the, in the few years after that, and it became acceptable, uh, for people to talk about their use. Um, but I think the big thing is the taboo, um, you know, has, has lifted, the way it did with cannabis.

Trevor Noah 13:45 Yeah, yeah.

Michael Pollan 13:45 Um, right. It was, it was moms doing it, but what happened first was, and this was the activists did this, they rebranded ca- cannabis from Cheech and Chong-

Trevor Noah 13:55 Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah

Michael Pollan 13:56 ... you know, goofiness, to medicine for AIDS patients and people with wasting syndrome and things like that. And remember, we started with medical marijuana, and that changed the image. And it may be that the same thing is happening with psychedelics, uh, which are getting a lot of attention as a therapeutic aid. But, you know, a- as one of my sources put it, um, they're very important for the betterment of well people also, um, not just people who are ill.

Trevor Noah 14:21 Yeah.

Michael Pollan 14:22 So, so far though, the path that they're on, I think, uh, is, it, there are two paths really. There's a medical path that we've talked about. There's also a spiritual path. There, there are a lot of people who are interested in religion. There was a really interesting study that hasn't been published yet that I'm writing about where religious leaders in, in, like, 13 different faiths were given a high dose of psilocybin to see what insight they, they might have on the religious visions they had and the mystical experience.

Trevor Noah 14:49 Huh, and what did they find?

Michael Pollan 14:51 Well, a lot of these people were burnt out, uh, before.

Trevor Noah 14:55 Yeah, yeah, yeah.

Michael Pollan 14:56 You're working with the dying.

Trevor Noah 14:56 Yeah.

Michael Pollan 14:56 And people at really hard times in their lives and, and, and congregations are shrinking. And many of the ones I talked to were, had their faith renewed. They all had divine encounters except for, um, a Buddhist, so that's, it's kind of what you'd expect.

Trevor Noah 15:11 [laughs]

Michael Pollan 15:13 The Buddhist, the Buddhist said, um, I, when I, I interviewed her, she's a Buddhist priest, and she said, "I traveled to a realm beyond concept for which there are no words."

Trevor Noah 15:22 Oh, I love that.

Michael Pollan 15:23 It's a very, it was a very short interview. There was nowhere to go from there.

Trevor Noah 15:26 [laughs]

Michael Pollan 15:26 Um [laughs] . But others, um, had a, a, they're, they were really surprised that the divine didn't always conform to their faith. And in many cases, I think the majority, the divine was feminine, and that blew some of their minds.

Speaker 15:43 I love that. God is a woman.

Michael Pollan 15:44 I know.

Speaker 15:45 I can get behind that.

Michael Pollan 15:45 Yeah, God is a woman, so.

Trevor Noah 15:46 Now we've got her.

Speaker 15:47 [laughs]

Trevor Noah 15:48 Now we've got her [laughs] .

Michael Pollan 15:50 [laughs]

Trevor Noah 15:51 What's, what, okay, wait, so what's, what's the thing you're most, like, when you, when you think about it, what's-

Speaker 15:55 Do you know what? It's so funny. I was gonna-

Trevor Noah 15:56 What's the scariest thing you think of?

Speaker 15:58 What scares me? The benefits.

Trevor Noah 16:01 Wait, what?

Speaker 16:02 Yeah. Everything I read about, about the good, and I'd love Michael to go through the benefits first, and then I'll explain why I found it profoundly terrifying.

Trevor Noah 16:11 Wait, wait, wait, wait, wait, wait, wait. I thought you were gonna be like-

Michael Pollan 16:13 Yeah, this is interesting

Trevor Noah 16:14 ... wait, I thought you were gonna tell me that you're afraid of-

Speaker 16:16 Yeah, but all of that stuff also exists with alcohol, which I think if it was invented today-

Trevor Noah 16:20 Okay, okay

Speaker 16:20 ... we probably wouldn't sell it so freely. Do you know what I mean? Like, all of that stuff exists with other substances, but psychedelics for me, the more I read, it was the benefits that was like, "This is some cultish, scary shit."

Trevor Noah 16:33 [laughs]

Speaker 16:35 And people should just be Pentecostals. But Michael, I want you to talk through, um, the benefits, particularly, um, what did take me was end of life care.

Michael Pollan 16:44 This was the most moving, uh, work that I saw getting done, which was, um, people with cancer diagnoses, many of them terminal, uh, having a guided psychedelic session. This happened at NYU in New York and at Johns Hopkins i- in Baltimore. And I interviewed a lot of these people, and they had their whole, um, attitude toward death and their anxiety, um, changed. Some had the experience of, uh, developed a confidence that something would happen to their consciousness after they died. Other people had incredibly naturalistic scenarios in their head about what would happen. I remember one woman describing, um, uh, that she'd been flying all over the world and then went into the ground and was kind of disaggregated, and her molecules were taken up by plants.

Trevor Noah 17:40 Wow.

Speaker 17:40 Wow.

Michael Pollan 17:40 And she-

Trevor Noah 17:41 It's tricky.

Michael Pollan 17:42 Now, this is not a supernatural idea. This actually happens, right?

Trevor Noah 17:45 Yes. Yeah, but to, but to feel it-

Michael Pollan 17:46 To people who are buried

Speaker 17:47 Yeah

Trevor Noah 17:47 ... I mean.

Michael Pollan 17:48 But she felt it-

Trevor Noah 17:49 Yeah

Michael Pollan 17:49 ... and she identified with it. And, and she identified with something beyond her ego that made it easier to think about her death, that we are all interconnected, and that, uh, in some way she would go on. And yes, her ego would not, but that was okay. And th- this experience of, of, of, uh, what's called ego dissolution, of feeling that you're, um- Yourself has kind of been, I mean, I had it, I, I, I describe in the ex- in the book this experience of seeing myself explode into a cloud of blue Post-it Notes [laughs]

Trevor Noah 18:26 [laughs]

Michael Pollan 18:27 Which then flutter to the ground and form this pool of thick blue paint, and I'm from some new perspective I'm observing this, and it's like, "Okay, this is perfectly fine. That's okay being a, a puddle of blue paint."

Trevor Noah 18:41 [laughs]

Michael Pollan 18:41 I don't have a problem with that. Um, but what happens when your ego dissolves is that the barrier, your ego is a, is a wall, is a, is a defensive structure, right?

Trevor Noah 18:51 Yeah. Yeah.

Michael Pollan 18:51 And, uh, when the, when the walls come down, there's nothing separating you from whatever is out there.

Trevor Noah 18:58 We're gonna continue this conversation right after this short break. [upbeat music] I have friends-

Speaker 19:11 Mm-hmm

Trevor Noah 19:11 ... who took psychedelics as atheists.

Speaker 19:16 Mm-hmm.

Trevor Noah 19:17 And then called me and said, "I now believe in a god." I'm talking about the most skeptical-

Speaker 19:24 Yeah

Trevor Noah 19:24 ... just, like, calloused individuals, and they go like, "I'd die and nothing. It's dust."

Speaker 19:28 Straight up materialist. [laughs]

Trevor Noah 19:29 "You forget, you, you forget about it. This is stupid." And then they take, they take psychedelics, and they will say to me, "Look, I don't know what it's called."

Michael Pollan 19:38 Mm-hmm.

Trevor Noah 19:38 "I don't know w- w- who made it or whether it made me or how it works or doesn't work."

Speaker 19:44 Yeah.

Trevor Noah 19:44 "But I now know that it exists." And you see them develop a different connection with themselves and with this idea that goes beyond themselves. And I, I always wonder, actually, Michael, like, you know, we, we know that psychedelics affect, or at least mushrooms in particular affect our neuroplasticity, right?

Michael Pollan 20:02 Mm-hmm.

Trevor Noah 20:03 So essentially what it does is it interrupts your brain's ability to make assumptions about things.

Speaker 20:08 Mm-hmm.

Trevor Noah 20:08 Which is how the human brain needs to work.

Speaker 20:11 Yeah.

Trevor Noah 20:11 Right? The reason a baby is enamored by a box is because their brain is constantly going like, "Whoa [laughs]

Speaker 20:16 [laughs]

Trevor Noah 20:16 "What is this? Whoa." And then at some point, you're like, "It's a box."

Michael Pollan 20:20 [laughs]

Trevor Noah 20:20 That's why when we, you know, when we have, like, cake, you know, that, what's it called again? You know, the trend. You guys know the trend I'm talking about.

Speaker 20:26 And it's not a cake.

Trevor Noah 20:27 Yeah, yeah.

Speaker 20:27 Yeah, but cake's not cake.

Trevor Noah 20:28 Yeah, but you know why that messes with us.

Speaker 20:29 You think it's a pencil.

Trevor Noah 20:30 Yes.

Speaker 20:30 But it's, but it's a cake.

Trevor Noah 20:31 Exactly.

Speaker 20:32 Okay, yeah.

Trevor Noah 20:32 So one of the reasons that messes with us and mesmerizes us so much as adults is because it's sort of returning us back to being a baby.

Speaker 20:39 Mm-hmm.

Trevor Noah 20:39 Babies are constantly living in a world of is it cake. You, you with me?

Speaker 20:42 Yeah, [laughs] I am.

Trevor Noah 20:43 So when you play peekaboo with a baby, when you cover your eyes, you know you're gone to them.

Speaker 20:47 Yeah.

Trevor Noah 20:47 Right?

Michael Pollan 20:48 Yeah.

Trevor Noah 20:48 So the baby's like, "Where did you go?"

Speaker 20:49 I know.

Trevor Noah 20:49 And then you open your eyes and-

Speaker 20:50 They're such idiots.

Trevor Noah 20:51 Yeah, exactly.

Speaker 20:52 [laughs]

Trevor Noah 20:52 But that's why they live in so much wonder.

Michael Pollan 20:54 [laughs]

Trevor Noah 20:54 That's why they, they're like, "Wow, the world is so big."

Speaker 20:57 But, and I, sorry, Trevor, this is, this is, I think, part of my objection.

Trevor Noah 21:01 Yeah.

Speaker 21:01 That shortcut to wonder.

Trevor Noah 21:03 No, but it's not necessarily about the wonder that, that I'm talking. I'm s- I'm talking about the, the brain being interrupted in creating a fixed idea of what it is-

Speaker 21:12 Yeah

Trevor Noah 21:13 ... and what reality is or isn't, right?

Speaker 21:15 Yeah.

Michael Pollan 21:15 Yeah.

Speaker 21:16 But meditate- meditation can do that, no?

Trevor Noah 21:18 No, you, you've never meditated so much that you thought something was cake.

Speaker 21:21 I do, I do, I-

Trevor Noah 21:21 Don't lie

Speaker 21:22 ... I, okay. All right. I, I-

Trevor Noah 21:23 Don't, everyone who tells me this, you're lying

Speaker 21:25 Wait, wait

Trevor Noah 21:25 ... everyone.

Speaker 21:25 Okay.

Michael Pollan 21:26 [laughs]

Speaker 21:26 Do you know what? I come from a spiritual tr- tradition where people really believe in the transcendent and the supernatural. Like, I was raised in the Pentecostal tradition, where people speak in tongues, they fall on the floor. It's all of this somatic body work.

Trevor Noah 21:39 Mm-hmm.

Speaker 21:39 They see visions all the ti- like, they have these out-of-body experiences constantly, and they don't do shrooms.

Trevor Noah 21:46 Some of them say they have the experiences.

Speaker 21:49 [laughs]

Trevor Noah 21:49 But they don't necessarily-

Speaker 21:50 I mean, if they say it, it's still true. It's true to them.

Trevor Noah 21:53 I, I don't know. I, I'll be honest with you, as somebody-

Michael Pollan 21:55 And, and it's true to, it's true to people who take psychedelics, their insights, in the same way.

Speaker 21:59 Yeah.

Trevor Noah 21:59 Yeah.

Michael Pollan 21:59 I mean, they're both subjective opinions, and-

Speaker 22:01 That can't be proven. [laughs]

Michael Pollan 22:03 E- but the people having these, these religious experiences, you know, there is brain chemistry involved there, too.

Trevor Noah 22:09 Yes.

Speaker 22:09 Yeah.

Michael Pollan 22:09 So the, so we're talking about, you know, chemicals produced by your own brain or chemicals introduced to your brain, that that's the distinction, and I don't know, you know, how important a distinction that is. But I think that going back to what Trevor said, we don't really take in the world anymore as adults, right? We have a set of predictions and beliefs, and so that's why we don't think about boxes. It's just a box, and it's just cake.

Speaker 22:35 Mm-hmm.

Michael Pollan 22:35 And that, um, we have stopped, uh, having the kind of, um, w- what's sometimes called lantern consciousness of children, where they take in information from everywhere and everything's, you know, awesome and wonderful. We have what's called spotlight consc- uh, consciousness, which is very useful for getting stuff done.

Trevor Noah 22:54 Mm-hmm.

Michael Pollan 22:54 Um, but it gives you a kind of focus, and it's based on the world being as the world usually is. And, uh, so y- very little new information comes in. We- our senses are only being used to correct the predictions that our minds are making.

Speaker 23:08 Mm-hmm.

Michael Pollan 23:08 That's it. What psychedelics appear to do is short-circuit that predictive machinery, and what that means is they can help you break out of habits of thinking and habits of behavior that you're stuck in because you're predicting that, you know, I'm the kind of person who can't get through the day without a drink.

Trevor Noah 23:31 Yeah.

Michael Pollan 23:31 This is a prediction about who you are and an identity you're stuck in. Um, and the psychedelics, uh, Trevor mentioned plasticity, they make the mind more plastic, and they essentially temporarily dissolve those habits of thought, and that's very useful for people struggling with addiction, for people struggling with, uh, eating disorders, uh, people struggling with obsessive compulsive. I mean, these are all disorders where you're stuck in a loop, and you have some habit of thought you can't break, and psychedelics appears to be able to help people break those habits.

Speaker 24:09 I'm curious, can it, and I'm, this is a completely serious question, can it be used to treat racism?

Trevor Noah 24:13 [laughs]

Speaker 24:14 'Cause like that is a pattern. No, that is a, to me that's, I mean, there's lots of-

Trevor Noah 24:19 I know you, I know you're being serious.

Speaker 24:20 I'm being so serious, 'cause-

Trevor Noah 24:20 No, I know you're being serious. That's what maybe what made it funnier for me.

Michael Pollan 24:23 It's not, it's not a r-

Trevor Noah 24:23 [laughs]

Michael Pollan 24:24 It's not a ridiculous question.

Speaker 24:25 No, but I'm like-

Trevor Noah 24:26 It's not. That's what made it so funny

Speaker 24:26 ... 'cause I'm like, all right, some people have anorexia, some people have depression, but a lot of people have racism.

Trevor Noah 24:30 A lot of people have racism, right.

Speaker 24:32 Yeah.

Michael Pollan 24:33 Are you or your loved ones suffering from racism?

Speaker 24:35 [laughs]

Trevor Noah 24:35 [laughs]

Michael Pollan 24:36 Do you find yourself hating people because of the color of their skin?

Speaker 24:39 No, but like racism, homophobia, these are real, like [laughs]

Michael Pollan 24:42 Consider shrooms.

Speaker 24:43 I'm talking [laughs]

Michael Pollan 24:44 Talk to your doctor about shrooms.

Trevor Noah 24:45 [laughs]

Speaker 24:46 I'm just, I, it's a serious question.

Michael Pollan 24:48 I, and I like, it just, it caught me off guard.

Speaker 24:51 Okay. Can it be used to treat racism-

Michael Pollan 24:54 So-

Speaker 24:54 ... homophobia, et cetera?

Michael Pollan 24:55 ... it's a hypothesis that needs to be tested. [laughs]

Speaker 24:59 [laughs]

Michael Pollan 25:00 Um, you know, they, they do change people's beliefs. There's a general belief that the direction of those changes are toward, um, feeling more like other people, more connected to other people.

Trevor Noah 25:14 Yeah, yeah.

Michael Pollan 25:14 More connected to nature, less tolerance for authoritarianism. I haven't seen a study looking at racial attitudes.

Speaker 25:21 Mm-hmm.

Michael Pollan 25:22 But it stands to reason that if there is this very common feeling of, "I love everybody, we're all one," you know? And so it's, it's not out of the question. It would be very interesting to test. I mean, racism is a habit of thought, right?

Speaker 25:36 Mm-hmm, 'cause I actually thought about police officers. When you said that thing about like our minds-

Michael Pollan 25:40 Yeah

Speaker 25:40 ... making these predictions-

Michael Pollan 25:41 Yeah

Speaker 25:41 ... I thought of, sure, we can look at these institutions as racist, and these are terrible people, but they are basing everything they do based on predictions and biases-

Michael Pollan 25:49 Exactly

Speaker 25:50 ... that often that they can't help themselves. Like, to me it's interesting if shrooms can unravel that, you know-

Michael Pollan 25:55 Yeah

Speaker 25:55 ... in a way that I think words and even living in sometimes diverse environments cannot.

Michael Pollan 26:01 Well, you know, what happens with these experiences is that people begin to write new stories, uh, about who they are, about how the world works, but you need to be guided through it. The guide would talk to you about that after the experience, um, to kind of, uh, solidify a new perception.

Trevor Noah 26:20 Yeah, I think, I think actually that's, that's one of the biggest misconceptions-

Speaker 26:23 Mm-hmm

Trevor Noah 26:24 ... that I, I, I've, I've seen around psychedelics-

Speaker 26:28 Mm-hmm

Trevor Noah 26:28 ... you know, particularly mushrooms, is people will go, "You take this and your life changes-

Speaker 26:35 Yeah

Trevor Noah 26:36 ... and everything will never be the same, and it's perfect." And to what Michael's saying is, I f- I found that people who take mushrooms unintentionally or, like, without, without intention behind their action, don't have the same results. All they do is they experience a moment of joy, they experience a moment-

Speaker 26:54 Mm-hmm

Trevor Noah 26:54 ... of feeling connected, but then they quickly settle back into all the old patterns, because they've been around for so much longer. But the people who have a guide or-

Speaker 27:03 Yeah

Trevor Noah 27:03 ... people who do what they call, like, reintegration, those people spend more time in the liminal space that is thinking about what you're experiencing.

Speaker 27:11 You know, I object, and that's another reason I didn't like it.

Trevor Noah 27:14 Why?

Speaker 27:14 Because the g- as I understand it, right, this, the roots of this stuff is indigenous medicine, right? It, it belonged to a people before it was kind of codified, and it becomes this thing that academics and, you know, Hollywood elites and white liberal people do.

Trevor Noah 27:30 Well, I don't think it, I don't think it belonged to anyone. I think people were just taking it, you know?

Speaker 27:33 I mean, sure, but, like, it's part of, like, indigenous plant medicine in a way that it's not connected to the white American experience. Am I wrong, Michael?

Michael Pollan 27:42 Well, you're partly right and partly wrong.

Speaker 27:44 I love this.

Michael Pollan 27:45 I mean, there is-

Speaker 27:45 This is great, great. [laughs]

Michael Pollan 27:47 [laughs]

Speaker 27:47 But, like, I-

Michael Pollan 27:48 No

Speaker 27:48 ... go, go ahead.

Michael Pollan 27:49 Psilocybin, so, so some psychedelics have an indigenous history. Psilocybin is one. It was used in Mexico and Central America for thousands of years. Peyote, uh, Native Americans and Mexicans for thou- 6,000 years. But LSD, MDMA, you know, these are, these are creations of, of modern, you know, Western chemistry.

Speaker 28:12 Mm-hmm.

Michael Pollan 28:12 I think that in general, the indigenous use of these substances has a lot to teach us, and that I think one of-

Speaker 28:20 Mm-hmm

Michael Pollan 28:20 ... one of the places we went wrong in the '60s was, uh, not paying attention to the wisdom of indigenous cultures.

Speaker 28:29 Yeah.

Michael Pollan 28:29 And we figured we could, you know, we could create a whole new context, and, and we failed.

Trevor Noah 28:34 Mm-hmm. Where are we seeing the biggest changes in the adoption of psychedelics or even the acceptance of them? Where, are we seeing a thrust coming from a particular segment of society in America?

Michael Pollan 28:45 I think, you know, Silicon Valley has been, uh, a place where psychedelics are in widespread use, and these are the people who are, who are the philanthropists funding a lot of the studies that are going on.

Trevor Noah 28:57 Mm-hmm, mm-hmm.

Michael Pollan 28:59 One interesting community that I've been working on, I'm writing a book about consciousness, and most of the philosophers and neuroscientists who are working on that issue are experimenting with psychedelics-

Trevor Noah 29:12 Oh

Michael Pollan 29:12 ... as a, as an avenue of inquiry. You know, people who are completely brain centric, people who think, of course, consciousness emerges from the neurons, are having experiences of consciousness outside of the skull.

Trevor Noah 29:26 Yeah.

Michael Pollan 29:27 And they're, like, having, and they're having crises, um, you know, metaphysical crises.

Trevor Noah 29:31 [laughs]

Michael Pollan 29:31 So that's, that's really interesting. I don't know how that'll, where that'll go. One community that's really important in this space is veterans. Uh, it's, it's a community with, you know, high rates of trauma. Uh, what is it? 18 suicides a day in America among vets.

Trevor Noah 29:47 Yeah, yeah.

Michael Pollan 29:48 And some of them are using it, you know, often in groups, sometimes going down to Mexico or somewhere where it's legal or quasi legal. But that they're getting a lot of relief, uh, from trauma using a, a series of psychedelics. I think, you know, you have this interesting phenomenon of microdosing, which is very low risk, and many people do it. Christiana alluded to it earlier. Some people find it very helpful. We don't have a lot of science on it to say one way or another. It may be a placebo effect. But there's nothing wrong with a placebo effect. If it works, it works. And placebos are ac- actually driving changes in your, in your mind.

Trevor Noah 30:23 Mm-hmm.

Michael Pollan 30:24 But that, I think, makes it very easy for people to enter into this world at a, a, you know, low risk and potentially high reward. Um, and, and that seems to be in many, many different circles.

Speaker 30:35 So much to unpack here for me, because I do know part of my rejection of this is rooted in, in my own sense of ego, I will own, own that, and having a family with mental illness and addiction issues.

Michael Pollan 30:48 Mm-hmm.

Speaker 30:48 So there's a lot of stuff around substances for me. And now we have this drug that is coming more into emergence that some people can afford a fancy guide [laughs] for it.

Michael Pollan 30:57 Yeah.

Trevor Noah 30:58 Yeah.

Speaker 30:58 And-

Trevor Noah 30:58 And it is very expensive.

Speaker 30:59 And it's very expensive, and, like, settings. Like, it sounds like this is something that could be hugely beneficial for people who don't have much money and can't afford a guide.

Trevor Noah 31:08 So, uh, first, first of all, I wanna go back to what you said about family and, and addiction and stuff. I, like you, have family members who have struggled with, uh, predominantly alcohol.

Speaker 31:18 Okay.

Trevor Noah 31:18 You know? And, and that addiction, when you see it, is, is one of the worst things. It's, it's one of the scariest experiences you'll have. That's why when I first encountered any semblance of something that was even-

Speaker 31:29 Mm

Trevor Noah 31:29 ... considered a drug, I was like, "Oh, this is the escalation of that."

Speaker 31:32 Yeah.

Trevor Noah 31:32 I was like, "If alcohol is 10% bad, drugs are 500% bad."

Speaker 31:36 Yeah.

Trevor Noah 31:36 That's how I thought.

Speaker 31:37 Mm-hmm.

Trevor Noah 31:38 And then what I came to find is how these, these substances, you know, these medicines, I would even call them, they do the opposite of, of, like, alcohol. I always try and explain this to friends. I go, "Alcohol disconnects you from yourself."

Speaker 31:55 Mm-hmm.

Trevor Noah 31:56 And psychedelics connect you to yourself. I've met very few people, if any, actually, who go, "Oh, yeah, I can't believe I did that, and I..." No. Alcohol will always have a story that ends with, "And then I crashed the car, and then I punched this person." Psychedelics does this, it's this strange, it's a strange different connection that connects people to themselves and who they actually wish to be, as opposed to, like, who they've sort of become, you know, you know?

Speaker 32:20 It sounds so religious, Trevor. [laughs]

Trevor Noah 32:21 No, no, it is, it is, it is in many ways. But, but you know what I like about it is it's n- it, it's not easily manipulated by a religious figure.

Speaker 32:28 Is that how it's felt for you when you've done psychedelics?

Trevor Noah 32:31 Yeah. That's exact- that's exactly how it's felt. So I think in an optimistic world, in, in a future, right now it's expensive. There's guides. People have made it a little, like, you know, like, uh, what they call it?

Speaker 32:42 Hippy trip.

Trevor Noah 32:42 Like glamping.

Speaker 32:43 Yeah, glamping.

Trevor Noah 32:44 They've made it glamping right now.

Speaker 32:45 Yeah, glamping. Yeah.

Trevor Noah 32:46 But I do think there'll be apps. I do think there'll be a democratization of the idea of a guide. General- I genuinely think it'll be very short before you'll have, you, you'll have an AI guide on your phone.

Speaker 32:58 So dystopian.

Trevor Noah 32:59 No, I know it is in some ways. But, but can I tell you something? I actually think that that will be what opens it up to everyone in the right way, and I think that's gonna open it in the right way. Because to, you know, to your point, Michael, when people have used psychedelics in the right settings, with the right company, with the right intention, I've witnessed people change their lives.

Speaker 33:22 Mm-hmm.

Trevor Noah 33:22 I've seen people who couldn't build connections with their families.

Speaker 33:26 Mm-hmm.

Trevor Noah 33:26 They had deep traumas that they've held their entire lives, and they couldn't, with all the talk therapy in the world, they couldn't let go of the feeling. You know the feeling you have-

Speaker 33:34 Yeah, for sure

Trevor Noah 33:35 ... when, when somebody has traumatized you, or when you've experienced trauma because of them or around them? I've witnessed people lose that. I've seen people shift so much of who they were to who they c- could be-

Speaker 33:47 Yeah

Trevor Noah 33:47 ... because of psychedelics. And, and w- when we live in a world where so many people do what they do because they're stuck in the idea of who they are, I think of how magical it could be to find ourselves in a place where it's not, first of all, it's not a pharmaceutically controlled thing. There's no, like-

Speaker 34:04 Trevor, don't you want to create a world where m- less people feel they need to escape reality 'cause they're so depressed, anxious, and traumatized? Like, it-

Trevor Noah 34:13 Yeah

Speaker 34:13 ... it feels like-

Trevor Noah 34:14 And that's, and that's what I'm saying. I, I don't know.

Speaker 34:15 But I don't think psyche-

Trevor Noah 34:15 I don't, I don't know if you agree, Michael, but-

Speaker 34:16 But I feel like psychedelics are kind of like a plaster-

Trevor Noah 34:19 I-

Speaker 34:19 ... over the w- the, the mother wound or whatever it is.

Trevor Noah 34:22 I see what, I see. Yeah.

Speaker 34:23 Do you know what? If we weren't in a capitalist hellscape, right, and we had good housing-

Trevor Noah 34:27 I'll challenge you on-

Speaker 34:28 ... and good schools

Trevor Noah 34:28 ... I'll challenge you on this.

Speaker 34:29 And more people were healed. I've, this is work-

Trevor Noah 34:31 Okay

Speaker 34:31 ... of, like, prison abolitionists, right, who are like, "Don't put him in prison. He just needs organic food and a nice house," right? [laughs] Doesn't do good.

Trevor Noah 34:39 No, no, no, but okay, let me challenge you on this.

Speaker 34:40 Okay.

Trevor Noah 34:40 Real, real quick. I think it is beautiful for us to think of, um, you know, psychedelics as a soul for what's happening now. And I think in many ways it can help-

Speaker 34:49 Yeah

Trevor Noah 34:49 ... with a lot of what society's going through. However, this has been as old as time.

Speaker 34:54 That's true. That's true.

Trevor Noah 34:54 There will always be something that makes times terrible.

Speaker 34:56 The human condition.

Trevor Noah 34:57 You get, you're gonna get eaten by a lion. That is gonna traumatize you.

Speaker 35:00 [laughs]

Trevor Noah 35:00 Okay?

Michael Pollan 35:01 Well, and, and don't forget death. I mean-

Trevor Noah 35:03 Yes

Michael Pollan 35:03 ... you could have the perfect society-

Trevor Noah 35:04 Yeah

Michael Pollan 35:04 ... but you're still gonna have death.

Speaker 35:07 But that's very natural to me.

Michael Pollan 35:09 And dealing with it.

Speaker 35:09 Like, death-

Michael Pollan 35:09 Well, it's very natural, but it, but it makes people crazy.

Trevor Noah 35:12 Yes, it does.

Michael Pollan 35:12 And, um, I mean, it's, it's, you know, very disturbing to us. And we don't-

Speaker 35:16 Yeah, the sack

Michael Pollan 35:16 ... we're not very good at processing it. And so I agree. I mean, the goal should be to remove causes of trauma. Uh, and that's a worthy goal. And being able to treat people who are, have been traumatized does not in any way diminish the need to address the, the causes of it, but it's gonna happen.

Trevor Noah 35:35 Yeah.

Speaker 35:35 Mm-hmm.

Michael Pollan 35:35 And so you do have to give some thought to how you, how you treat people who've had this. In terms of democratizing it, um, yeah, you can, you can, I guess, use technology. Um, and maybe AIs will turn out to be very good guides. But I think this is why there is so much energy on the part of, uh, researchers in this area to get FDA approval. I mean, that's really how you reach lots of people, and that's what we were hoping would happen with MDMA, although that approval has been-

Trevor Noah 36:05 Yeah, actually, let's-

Michael Pollan 36:06 ... delayed

Trevor Noah 36:06 ... let's talk a little bit about that. This is my conspiracy theory. I'll put it out there.

Speaker 36:09 I love it already. [laughs]

Trevor Noah 36:11 There's a conspiracy theory. My conspiracy theory is that governments won't legalize or won't fully accept these medicines or these substances or whatever you wanna call them, they won't- ... formalize them until the pharmaceutical industry has figured out a way to-

Michael Pollan 36:27 Yeah

Trevor Noah 36:27 ... synthesize them.

Speaker 36:28 Okay

Trevor Noah 36:29 And when they've learned how to synthesize them, and sort of like corral what they do, they're going to sell synthetic versions of it to people at a marked up price that nobody can afford, right? And then what they're gonna do is they're gonna outlaw the stuff that people were just growing and being able to make and distribute themselves.

Speaker 36:46 Yeah.

Trevor Noah 36:46 That's my problem. Like, I'm sure there's some wonderful-

Speaker 36:48 So you don't want FDA approval or that stuff?

Trevor Noah 36:50 No, no, no, no, no. I'm saying they should just go like, "Hey, you can use it the same way they let you use alcohol." You know, because I, I think, you, you know, and, and, and, and Michael, I, I don't know if you, you have an opinion on it, but I, I just go like, once it becomes a formalized medicine and they block out what it has been and can be for so many people

Speaker 37:10 Mm

Trevor Noah 37:10 ... I think then we actually end up in a world where you can't get it now because you don't have health insurance, or you don't have enough money to buy the medicine-

Michael Pollan 37:18 Yeah

Speaker 37:18 Yeah

Trevor Noah 37:18 ... the official FDA approved. When the thing grows out of the grou- it's mushrooms.

Speaker 37:22 [laughs]

Trevor Noah 37:23 It's the most resilient thing ever.

Michael Pollan 37:25 Which is why, which is why I think it'll be hard to control. I mean, I, I, I think that the, the means of production are so easily, uh, acquired, uh, by everyone. But I think you're right. I mean, we saw, if you compare the, what happened with MDMA, whose approval was rejected by the FDA, to, uh, the approval of, uh, Spravato, or esketamine, this is a form of ketamine, uh, approved for depression. It's a nasal inhaler. They had to do three phase three tests before they got one that showed it worked at all.

Trevor Noah 37:59 Wow.

Michael Pollan 37:59 And yet it got through. Why? Because it had big pharma behind it.

Trevor Noah 38:03 Yeah

Michael Pollan 38:04 And it was also a drug that could be administered without any therapy. The FDA is totally stumped by the idea of what really should be called, uh, psychedelic-assisted psychotherapy, because you can't remove the therapeutic component.

Trevor Noah 38:21 Yeah, I agree.

Michael Pollan 38:22 It, it really is, it's important to its effectiveness, it's as importance to its safety. Um, it mitigates the chances of bad experiences and helps people consolidate what they've learned. And the FDA is not equipped to regulate therapies, so they kind of threw up their hands. But when the business model is figured out, and it hasn't been yet f- uh, for any of these substances, uh, then big pharma will get involved, and then the sort of scenario that Trevor's describing, I'm afraid, could, could well come to pass. [paper rustling]

Trevor Noah 38:54 Don't go anywhere, 'cause we got more What Now? after this. [paper rustling] [upbeat music]

Speaker 39:04 I fit a profile [laughs] of a person who's typically anti-um, psychedelics, and that's a mother who has young children at home. And I guess, like, so my kids hit 10, 11, 12, 13, 14, the exploration is just a normal-

Trevor Noah 39:19 Yeah

Speaker 39:19 ... part of adolescence. If it was sex, I'd be like, "Here's some condoms." [laughs]

Trevor Noah 39:22 [laughs]

Speaker 39:23 You know? You know, like everything else. And I'm like, with what we know about how adolescent brains are, their fragility, but also their, their ability to change so quickly, how does a parent discuss this-

Trevor Noah 39:37 Yeah

Speaker 39:37 ... with their 15-year-old, 16-year-old kid who's interested and who's probably gonna try it? Is there a safe way for them to do it, or they need to kind of be like Ronald Reagan, "Over here, me," and just say, "Don't do anything and stay in your room." Like, and I'm just curious about what the conversations around shrooms looks like for parents to their children, and is it even appropriate for like... I, I don't mind my 15-year-old smoking some weed, but like, when you say they're going on a journey and they may see vampires-

Trevor Noah 40:02 [laughs]

Speaker 40:03 I'm like, "No, no, no." [laughs] You know? So Michael, yeah, a long way of saying that.

Michael Pollan 40:07 Yeah. I, you know, I, I didn't have to deal with this. Um, my son, by the time I got interested, my son was, you know, well into his 20s I think. And he had a couple experiences with mushrooms-

Trevor Noah 40:17 Before you or after you got into it?

Michael Pollan 40:19 Before me. Um-

Trevor Noah 40:21 Oh, okay.

Speaker 40:21 Ah.

Trevor Noah 40:21 Okay.

Michael Pollan 40:22 And, you know, I mean, this, I'll tell you very quickly what would happen, 'cause it, it, it, it, it gives you some sense of what can [laughs] go wrong. He, uh, he and a friend went up to Tilden Park, which is, uh, the, in the park above Berkeley where we live. They drove up there in our car, I should say. They took mushrooms, and his friend became convinced that his arm was falling off, and it was, it was about to fall off. And my son could not persuade him that his arm was well attached, and it wasn't a problem. They were in, I think, high school, early high school. And, you know, this became a freak out, and they get to a parking lot and my son finds, uh, a sympathetic woman there and says, "Can you help us? My son, my, my friend thinks his arm is falling off. Can you drive us to his pediatrician's office?" [laughs]

Trevor Noah 41:09 [laughs]

Speaker 41:12 [laughs]

Michael Pollan 41:13 And that's, that's what they did.

Trevor Noah 41:15 [laughs]

Michael Pollan 41:16 And she was able to assure him in a way my son couldn't that his arm was not falling off, and his arm was well attached, and there was nothing to worry about. And they got through it. But, um, you know, my, my concern in that narrative is the car, is the involvement of the car.

Trevor Noah 41:32 Right, right.

Michael Pollan 41:32 As it would be if we were using alcohol.

Trevor Noah 41:34 Mm-hmm.

Speaker 41:34 Yeah.

Michael Pollan 41:34 I think, a- and some people would disagree with me about this, but in general, you're talking about, uh, chemicals that, um, mess with your ego, and it seems to me, until you've fully developed your ego, that might not be a good idea. And that, uh, you know, kids and boys in particular are still developing into their early 20s, and it seems like that might not be the best time to do it. I see psychedelics as kind of a rite of passage, and cultures are always very specific about who's eligible-

Trevor Noah 42:07 Yeah

Michael Pollan 42:07 ... for a rite of passage.

Speaker 42:09 Mm-hmm.

Trevor Noah 42:09 Yeah.

Michael Pollan 42:09 And I would say a 13-year-old, not, not ready.

Speaker 42:13 No, I love that framing though, rite of passage.

Trevor Noah 42:16 No, it, can I-

Speaker 42:16 I love that framing

Trevor Noah 42:17 ... it's fu- so it's funny you say that. I, um, so I remember talking to my, my youngest brother about it, and he is 20. And we had this whole conversation. He was like, "You know, what is, what is this thing about?" 'Cause he knows me. We've grown up in the same household.

Speaker 42:30 Yeah.

Trevor Noah 42:30 You know? And so I said to my youngest brother, I said, "You know, the biggest reason I would say to you you shouldn't," and this is what I would say to any young person why you shouldn't Do mushrooms is because it will not give you, other than like, oh, hallucinations and what. I mean, but it won't give you the thing that is so important for, like, older people to get from it, and that is a loosening of how you see the world. Young people already have a loose view of the world.

Speaker 42:55 Yeah.

Michael Pollan 42:56 Yeah.

Speaker 42:56 Yeah.

Michael Pollan 42:56 Yeah.

Speaker 42:56 That's true.

Trevor Noah 42:56 That's why they-

Speaker 42:57 Yeah

Trevor Noah 42:57 ... they're the ones who start revolutions, and they protest for different ideas and they-

Speaker 43:01 Tech companies.

Trevor Noah 43:02 Yeah, no, it's true.

Speaker 43:03 Facebook. [laughs]

Trevor Noah 43:03 It's, it's all the young who think-

Speaker 43:05 Yeah

Trevor Noah 43:05 ... this could be different. And so I, I said to him, I was like, "Your brain is already so fantastically plastic. Why not keep that? Keep that until you find that you're stuck." And I, I st- I'll tell this to anyone.

Speaker 43:16 Mm-hmm.

Trevor Noah 43:17 I go, "You can use mushrooms for fun," but I go, "You can use it when you're stuck, you're stuck in alcoholism, you're stuck in, in, in love and in relationships and you can't figure out how to break your patterns. You're stuck in how you see the world. You're, you're stuck in whatever it is." That's when I would say to somebody-

Speaker 43:35 Try Jesus.

Trevor Noah 43:36 [laughs] No, try-

Speaker 43:38 It's like they're so interchangeable to me.

Trevor Noah 43:39 Try... No, no, no. You, okay, I'll say this as somebody who has done Jesus, and I've done mushrooms.

Michael Pollan 43:44 [laughs]

Trevor Noah 43:45 I've done both.

Michael Pollan 43:46 [laughs]

Trevor Noah 43:47 I've done Jesus, and I've done mushrooms. Jesus is amazing. Jesus is the way, the truth, and the life.

Speaker 43:52 Trevor's like, "My mom's listening." [laughs]

Trevor Noah 43:53 Okay?

Speaker 43:53 I have to be careful. [laughs]

Trevor Noah 43:54 Jesus is the way, the truth, and the life, don't get me wrong. But I always say, and I al- I always talk to my mom about this, I go, "Don't forget, Jesus made wine when the party needed wine." So even Jesus knew that sometimes people need a little something, something. You know what I mean?

Michael Pollan 44:13 And by the way, that wine was not just wine.

Trevor Noah 44:16 [laughs]

Michael Pollan 44:16 I mean, there's a lot of evidence that the early communion wine was spiked.

Trevor Noah 44:20 Oh, wow.

Speaker 44:21 Oh, wow. You're being serious?

Trevor Noah 44:22 That's interesting. Interesting.

Michael Pollan 44:23 Oh, yeah, completely serious. So there is a, a, there are archeologists that specialize in chemistry, and they've been looking at, um, early communion cups, and they found one in, um, Spain that had residues of ergot, which is the fungus from which, uh, LSD was derived.

Trevor Noah 44:44 No way.

Michael Pollan 44:45 And I know, I know.

Speaker 44:46 So fascinating. Wow.

Michael Pollan 44:47 So there is a theory, and, and it needs a lot more research and proof. There's a good book on this called The Immortality Key by Brian Maresca. And but that there is some reason to believe that, um, there was another drug in the communion cups, and they were trying to give people, as you know, the, the, the, the, the Native Americans had done-

Trevor Noah 45:06 Yeah, yeah, yeah

Michael Pollan 45:07 ... and many other re- cultures, a big experience. And what we have left is, you know, this kind of Manischewitz-y wine that's, you know, nothing special.

Trevor Noah 45:15 [laughs]

Michael Pollan 45:17 But, um, but once upon a time, it, it apparently had a real kick.

Trevor Noah 45:22 I think what I, what I, what I don't like is how I've seen how presidential advisers during the Nixon era and, you know, during the Vietnam War and all of that, they specifically set out to target these psychedelics-

Speaker 45:37 Yeah

Trevor Noah 45:37 ... because they felt they undermined what America was trying to be. And what was America trying to be at that time? A place where it fights wars, it bombs other countries, it gets their resources, and it makes people clamor for those resources in their lives. And they found when people started using these psychedelics, they didn't care about being a manager.

Speaker 45:57 Yeah.

Trevor Noah 45:57 They didn't care about getting more money than the person around them. They didn't care as much. They cared about other people. They wanted other people to eat.

Speaker 46:04 Yeah.

Trevor Noah 46:05 And this, they felt, undermined what the American Dream was built on.

Speaker 46:09 And I get the US government in that, 'cause I'm someone [laughs] ...

Trevor Noah 46:11 Yes.

Speaker 46:12 I'm someone that loves order, like I'm an order over freedom type of person.

Trevor Noah 46:15 Yes, but I, what I'm saying is you're conflating-

Speaker 46:17 So all these free people opening their consciousness-

Trevor Noah 46:18 No, no, no, but what I'm saying is-

Speaker 46:19 No, close it. Close it. [laughs]

Trevor Noah 46:20 Ir- ironically, ironically, that's where I think, like, the indoctrination has worked. They've tricked people into believing that there is only one way to have order.

Speaker 46:30 Okay.

Trevor Noah 46:30 Do you get what I'm saying?

Speaker 46:31 Yeah.

Trevor Noah 46:31 They've tricked people into believing that the only way we can live in a civilized society is if everybody goes to an office and everybody tries to make as much money as possible, and everybody screws each other over.

Speaker 46:42 Yeah.

Trevor Noah 46:42 That's order. But, but when it's ancient tribes, you know, whether it was Native Americans, whether it was, you know, in, in South America, whether it was in Africa, with-

Speaker 46:51 Mm.

Trevor Noah 46:52 They had order.

Speaker 46:53 Yeah.

Trevor Noah 46:54 And this was a tool that they used, ironically, to maintain that order. Because when-

Michael Pollan 46:58 It did maintain that order. That's right.

Trevor Noah 46:59 Yeah, because when, because when people are stuck, that's when there's disorder.

Speaker 47:04 For sure.

Trevor Noah 47:05 You know?

Speaker 47:05 Yeah.

Michael Pollan 47:05 Yeah.

Trevor Noah 47:06 This is when people now, they break. They, they, they fight. They hurt each other. They, that's the thing that actually brings the order back because you go like, "Oh, yeah, I'm part of something. I'm not alone in this thing."

Speaker 47:16 Yeah.

Trevor Noah 47:16 We're all part of something.

Speaker 47:17 Yeah, I think that's my problem. I'm not comfortable with a society where there's no yearning and, like, profound brokenness for people to keep striving. [laughs]

Trevor Noah 47:26 [laughs] Yeah, but striving for what? No, but striving for what?

Speaker 47:29 Striving for just, like, this, being their best, which is F'd up.

Trevor Noah 47:32 Actually, actually, so I, no, no, I'm gonna ask-

Speaker 47:34 Do you know what I mean? Like I wanna be the best artist. I, Michael-

Trevor Noah 47:35 I'm gonna ask, so I'm gonna ask Michael about this, but, uh, okay, I'll-

Speaker 47:37 Do you, you know what I'm talking about, right?

Trevor Noah 47:38 Yes.

Speaker 47:39 Okay. Thank you. [laughs]

Trevor Noah 47:39 And, and, and I, I would love to know, Michael, from your side, 'cause look at you. You are one of the most accomplished writers. Did you find that you didn't have a yearning after taking psychedelics, or how did it affect your perception of what to yearn for?

Michael Pollan 47:53 Well, you know, one of the things about psychedelics is you don't immediately wanna do them again.

Trevor Noah 47:57 [laughs]

Michael Pollan 47:58 It's kind of overwhelming.

Trevor Noah 47:59 Yeah.

Michael Pollan 47:59 And that's why they're not habit-forming, I think. It's like, ugh, I, you know.

Trevor Noah 48:02 That's why the cartel doesn't sell mushrooms.

Michael Pollan 48:04 [laughs] Yeah. There's no money in it.

Trevor Noah 48:05 [laughs]

Speaker 48:06 [laughs]

Michael Pollan 48:06 Um, these are, I mean, even, even when these things are used in a treatment modality, uh, it's one or two pills or experiences. That's it, you know? And the pharmaceutical model is based on taking the same pill every day for the rest of your life. But without question, they're, they're very disruptive. You know, they're, they're, so every society has drugs, right? I mean, it's just a given that humans change consciousness. It's one of the things we do. Children do it when they get dizzy. Um, we're just not satisfied with everyday normal consciousness for whatever reason. We have caffeine. Uh, we don't even think about that as a drug. Uh, but it's a very powerful drug. Uh, it happens to be a drug that makes us fit in- Even more smoothly into the machinery of the capitalist order

Trevor Noah 48:49 Mm-hmm

Michael Pollan 48:49 It makes us very good workers, and that's why there are coffee breaks.

Speaker 48:52 [laughs]

Michael Pollan 48:53 Right? I mean, think about it. Your employer gives you free drugs and time to use them then.

Trevor Noah 48:59 [laughs]

Speaker 49:00 [laughs]

Michael Pollan 49:01 Twice a day [laughs]

Trevor Noah 49:03 Oh, that's amazing.

Michael Pollan 49:04 So and then there's alcohol, which kind of numbs people to a miserable life, um, although they can get into trouble with it, and there's cigarettes that actually help, help make people better workers in various ways. And then there are drugs that disrupt the whole system.

Trevor Noah 49:18 Mm-hmm.

Michael Pollan 49:18 And, and psychedelics in the Western context in the '60s were definitely that. There's a famous quote, uh, from President Nixon that his domestic policy advisor, John Ehrlichman, gave to a journalist, but basically Ehrlichman said, yeah, the drug war, which Nixon starts in 1970, um, that wasn't about public health. That was all about politics. Um, Nixon's great enemies were hippies and Black people.

Trevor Noah 49:45 Yeah.

Michael Pollan 49:46 And by making LSD illegal, he could disrupt the hippie community, and by making marijuana illegal, he could disrupt the Black community. So we have to understand that which drugs are illegal, which ones are not, is always changing. It, and it depends on the nature of the drug, but also the nature of the society. What's happening with psychedelics now is it's undergoing a, a, a transformation itself from being this very disruptive force to potentially being something that could help people deal with various mental health issues.

Speaker 50:20 Mm-hmm.

Michael Pollan 50:20 That's the story that hasn't been completely written yet, whether, whether our society can make peace with these incredibly powerful and disruptive molecules. And, and the answer, the jury is still out.

Trevor Noah 50:31 Yeah, I, I, I don't think, uh, I mean, I'm, I'm biased, but I, I'm biased because of the writing, the people I've met, the, the research. I, I, I don't think it does. Y- to, you know, to what Michael just said, it may interrupt people's yearning to be part of a system that has failed so many.

Speaker 50:50 Yeah, I agree.

Trevor Noah 50:50 Yes. I can agree with that.

Speaker 50:51 Yeah, yeah.

Trevor Noah 50:52 But, but look at, look at what it's done to the world. Do you know what I mean?

Speaker 50:55 Yeah.

Trevor Noah 50:56 Like, we're bombing other countries because we want the black goo that's underneath them, and then w- we'll bomb another country because we, we want that thing, or we feel like we need that. And, and all of that yearning, I, I don't mind if some of that goes down.

Speaker 51:09 Yeah.

Trevor Noah 51:09 I, I, I think, because I think people will have a different kind of yearning, and I think that'll broaden us out again as people.

Speaker 51:16 Yeah.

Trevor Noah 51:16 Do you get what I'm saying?

Speaker 51:16 No, I completely feel you. I, I, like, I know that a lot of my objection is on one hand indoctrination.

Trevor Noah 51:21 Yes.

Speaker 51:21 And then it's just, like, being a mother, it's fear.

Trevor Noah 51:24 Of course.

Speaker 51:25 Do you know? Like-

Trevor Noah 51:25 No, yeah, that I understand

Speaker 51:26 ... putting these stakes into s- [laughs] you know? It's just like, it's this loosening or this loss of yearning or, happening all... That terrifies.

Trevor Noah 51:34 Yes.

Speaker 51:34 I couldn't even live through 2020. That was like [laughs]

Trevor Noah 51:37 [laughs]

Speaker 51:37 We just had to be in our rooms. And Black people were like, "We want a few more rights." And I was like, "What's going on here?" [laughs] Like, it was just like, it was any sort of upheaval. I guess it's the British in me. We never really had a revolution [laughs] and it's just like-

Trevor Noah 51:48 Yeah, no, that's true

Speaker 51:48 ... it's just, like, come from societies are all about order and hierarchy, and there's a king, and there's a queen, and you're, if you're Nigerian, you have a chief. Do you know what I mean?

Trevor Noah 51:56 Chief.

Speaker 51:56 And so like there's a lot of fear on the other side of it, and the ego, even if not something that I should... 'Cause I think that even though I'm like, "This isn't for me," there could be someone e- else in my life that is like, I could say, "You know what? You should try microdosing. This could help you."

Michael Pollan 52:09 Well, exactly. Or, I mean, it, I, even if I never wanted to use these substances again, I think I'd wanna live in a world where other people were.

Trevor Noah 52:19 I like that.

Speaker 52:19 Yeah.

Michael Pollan 52:19 Some other people.

Speaker 52:20 Yeah.

Michael Pollan 52:20 Because, you know, w- what we're doing is, I mean, there's an, there's, we haven't talked about creativity. And, and, you know, some people get great ideas on psychedelics. They're, they're, um, cultural mutagens. They, right? They're, they're like mutations.

Trevor Noah 52:34 I mean, The Beatles. We don't have The Beatles without psychedelics.

Speaker 52:37 Ringo Starr-

Michael Pollan 52:37 We don't have The Beatles-

Speaker 52:38 ... was the worst drummer-

Trevor Noah 52:38 [laughs]

Michael Pollan 52:39 [laughs]

Speaker 52:39 ... to probably ever live.

Trevor Noah 52:41 Hot take.

Speaker 52:42 So [laughs] I think I'm okay.

Michael Pollan 52:44 Whoa.

Speaker 52:44 I think we're doing okay [laughs]

Michael Pollan 52:45 Whoa.

Trevor Noah 52:45 Wow, hot take.

Speaker 52:46 Terrible at keeping time.

Trevor Noah 52:47 Shots fired.

Speaker 52:48 But anyway.

Trevor Noah 52:48 Sorry, yes, Michael.

Michael Pollan 52:49 Or, or, or Steve Jobs, right?

Trevor Noah 52:51 Right.

Speaker 52:51 Yeah, yeah.

Michael Pollan 52:52 Who credited his, his creative vision to LSD. I mean, I think that you wanna have a lot of different kinds of people in your world, in your culture, and some of them are exploring frontiers of knowledge and, or in, or frontiers of the self and interiority, and some are not.

Speaker 53:08 Yeah.

Michael Pollan 53:08 And, um, it's, it's not for everybody. Um, but I think that it's on balance a good thing they exist, and the fact that people can achieve these states of consciousness, which may benefit all of us.

Trevor Noah 53:21 I love that. Um, Michael, thank you. Thank you for joining us. You know, I, you know me. I could talk to you for hours and hours-

Speaker 53:28 It's great

Trevor Noah 53:28 ... about this. Because I, I do believe, not that this is the solve for everything, but rather that there are many people who are stuck in their lives.

Michael Pollan 53:38 Mm-hmm.

Trevor Noah 53:39 And when you can start to unlock that in people, you just, you just change, you know, how people... When you, when you change how you see the world, you change how you be in that world.

Speaker 53:49 Yeah.

Trevor Noah 53:50 And I don't know.

Michael Pollan 53:50 And the fact that you have a way of seeing the world-

Trevor Noah 53:53 Yeah

Michael Pollan 53:53 ... we're not even aware of.

Trevor Noah 53:54 Yes.

Speaker 53:54 Yeah.

Michael Pollan 53:54 We're not aware of this windshield-

Trevor Noah 53:56 Yes

Michael Pollan 53:56 ... of consciousness, right?

Trevor Noah 53:57 Yeah, I like that.

Michael Pollan 53:58 And what psychedelics do is they kind of smudge the windshield, and you realize, "Oh, shit, there's a windshield there."

Trevor Noah 54:03 Yeah.

Speaker 54:03 [laughs]

Trevor Noah 54:04 In fact, I-

Michael Pollan 54:04 Why is it that way?

Trevor Noah 54:05 I would say-

Michael Pollan 54:05 And could it be another way?

Trevor Noah 54:06 I would argue world leaders should be doing psychedelics. Like, you see the UN. One day at the UN, everybody should have to take psychedelics-

Speaker 54:16 [laughs]

Trevor Noah 54:17 ... and they should all get guided, and then you can start... You can only start negotiating about how the world should be when you are fully able to see the world through multiple lenses. That's what I believe.

Michael Pollan 54:26 Mm-hmm.

Trevor Noah 54:26 So Michael, I'm gonna try pitch, I'm gonna pitch that, and you-

Michael Pollan 54:29 I like that

Trevor Noah 54:30 ... you're gonna come in and-

Michael Pollan 54:31 UN General Assembly, this fall

Trevor Noah 54:31 ... let's do it.

Michael Pollan 54:32 [laughs]

Speaker 54:33 [laughs]

Trevor Noah 54:33 We, we're gonna do it like the communion. We're just gonna spike all the water that's in front of them. And then we start, we start guiding them from the front. Um, Michael Pollan, thank you so much. Thank you so much again for joining us.

Speaker 54:44 Thank you, Michael.

Trevor Noah 54:45 Um-

Michael Pollan 54:45 Thank you, guys. And thank you, Christiana, for adding some hybrid vigor to the conversation.

Trevor Noah 54:49 I love it.

Speaker 54:50 [laughs]

Trevor Noah 54:50 I love it.

Michael Pollan 54:51 [laughs]

Trevor Noah 54:52 I call it hating, but you call it hybrid vigor.

Michael Pollan 54:54 [laughs]

Speaker 54:54 [laughs]

Trevor Noah 54:55 I, that's, that's gonna be the new term we use.

Speaker 54:57 Hybrid vigor.

Trevor Noah 54:58 Hybrid vigor. She's a hybrid vigorist.

Speaker 55:00 Vigorist. [laughs] I love it.

Trevor Noah 55:02 Oh, man.

Speaker 55:02 I'm gonna put that in my Instagram bio.

Trevor Noah 55:04 I love that. Thank you so much, Michael.

Michael Pollan 55:06 All right. You guys take care.

Trevor Noah 55:07 Okay.

Speaker 55:07 You too. [upbeat music]

Trevor Noah 55:13 So okay. So n- let me, let me ask you this. I, so first of all-

Speaker 55:17 Okay

Trevor Noah 55:17 ... if, if we were at 100% no.

Speaker 55:21 For me personally or for society?

Trevor Noah 55:23 No, for you personally.

Speaker 55:24 Oh, yeah.

Trevor Noah 55:24 Oh, okay. We can do both. You were at 100% no for both.

Speaker 55:26 Okay. Yeah, 100% no for me.

Trevor Noah 55:27 Okay. So let's, let's, let's go, let's go with society. Where, where are you now?

Speaker 55:31 For my s- for society-

Trevor Noah 55:32 Yeah

Speaker 55:32 ... I'm at, like, 50% no.

Trevor Noah 55:34 Oh.

Speaker 55:34 Because I think-

Trevor Noah 55:36 That's a, that's a, that's a good jump though

Speaker 55:38 ... I think most people should not be anywhere near this shit.

Trevor Noah 55:40 This is, this is fine. I'm willing, I'm willing to take just the percent.

Speaker 55:42 But, like, when you're telling, like, end of life care-

Trevor Noah 55:45 Yes

Speaker 55:45 ... veterans.

Trevor Noah 55:46 Yes.

Speaker 55:47 You know, people need relief.

Trevor Noah 55:48 Yes.

Speaker 55:48 People need healing, and however you find their healing in a way that's not harmful, I don't wanna be in the way of that.

Trevor Noah 55:52 Mm-hmm.

Speaker 55:53 But for everyone else, you need to figure it out. [laughs]

Trevor Noah 55:56 [laughs]

Speaker 55:56 I beg. Figure it out. Grow up.

Trevor Noah 55:59 Okay.

Speaker 55:59 Everyone's traumatized.

Trevor Noah 56:00 And for you personally?

Speaker 56:01 For me personally, um, got me down to maybe 100% no to, like, 95% no. 'Cause I don't wanna augment my reality.

Trevor Noah 56:08 So you, so there's nothing in your life where you go, like, "I'm stuck and I haven't been able to unstuck this"

Speaker 56:12 Oh, my whole family situation is crazy. Yeah, but I-

Trevor Noah 56:14 [laughs]

Speaker 56:14 ... I can't fix them.

Trevor Noah 56:16 No, but I'm-

Speaker 56:16 I can't fix my ex- extended family, but, like, my thing-

Trevor Noah 56:19 No, but I'm saying what about you in them?

Speaker 56:20 I b- agree there are, like, blocks and stories that we tell ourselves.

Trevor Noah 56:24 Yeah.

Speaker 56:24 But I feel like someone that I encountered at the divine, and I have, like, a sense of wonder and nature, my children.

Trevor Noah 56:30 Yeah.

Speaker 56:30 I don't have that yearning for it right now because I have things-

Trevor Noah 56:33 And that's, that's why I wouldn't say you should do it

Speaker 56:34 ... I have things that do that for me. But, like, I can s- I, I see the benefits, but Michael's great. You're great. You have changed my mind on this.

Trevor Noah 56:42 I'll take it. 5%.

Speaker 56:44 [laughs]

Trevor Noah 56:44 I have moved somebody who is extremely vigorous. I'll take my 5%.

Speaker 56:48 Hybrid vigor. [laughs] Hybrid vigor.

Trevor Noah 56:52 Hy- hybrid vigor. [upbeat music]