Welcome And Guest Introduction

SPEAKER_00 1:25

Welcome everybody to the Next Level Human Podcast. And I'm also coming live today on Substack. And I have a guest that I have discovered on Substack and Instagram and YouTube that I have fallen in love with. And she's just absolutely brilliant. And so I wanted to bring her on the show. And I was very excited that she was like, absolutely, I'll come on. And so we're very lucky today to have Dr. Chloe West. And you can find her on Substack. What is it, Chloe? Is this Born Again Again? Is that what your Substack is?

SPEAKER_01 1:58

It is.

SPEAKER_00 1:59

Yeah. And so make sure you all go over and follow her there on Substack and also on her YouTube channel. Follow her there as well. What's your handle on YouTube, Chloe?

SPEAKER_01 2:11

Dr. Chloe West.

SPEAKER_00 2:13

Dr. Chloe West on YouTube. And then she's also, I think, dr. Chloe West on Instagram. So make sure you all go follow her there. She's educating constantly on this. And Chloe, thank you so much for being here.

SPEAKER_01 2:28

Thank you so much. I'm so excited to talk to you.

SPEAKER_00 2:31

Same, same. All right. So let me, I was actually telling you before we jumped online how I discovered you. And I'm just going to tell them I was on Substack and reading, and Chloe had this pretty amazing article I loved on, I think it's called The Utility of Belief, which kind of dovetails into a lot of what you all hear me talk about on story and belief architecture and all of that kind of stuff. She is a psychedelic neuroscience, which many of you know I'm actually working on my PhD. So she has her doctorate in this area. And actually, I want to know exactly what your doctorate is in, but she focuses on psychedelic research. And one of the things I wanted to understand from her as I was consuming her information is that she really keeps this, she really helps us understand the science. Because right now I was telling her before we came online. I was like, Chloe, like this this stuff is like everyone says everything from hangnails to, you know, it's gonna zap you into another dimension. What do we need to know about psychedelics? So this was my interest in you primarily, this sort of philosopher in you. You have a very deep mind and talk philosophy, which I love. You're very well versed in psychedelics. Um, and this is your doctorate and your work, and I think you're brilliant. And so, what I would love to start out with is your story. What got you into this, especially if I'm reading right from getting to know you a little bit? You come from a kind of interesting background in the South, right? You know, so it's really interesting that you came into

Chloe’s Path From Faith To Science

SPEAKER_00 4:00

this work. So give us a little bit about your story and what got you into psychedelics and this work.

SPEAKER_01 4:06

Okay, yeah. So, first of all, thank you so much for all the kind compliments. Yeah, of course. So, my my PhD is in neuroscience. Um, and so what brought me to that was I grew up evangelical living in the South, and I really from a very young age was asking pretty deep questions, pretty hard questions about the whole um Christian framework, and I just wanted to know more. Um, I was really drawn to how experience shapes belief, and then how belief then shapes our experience. So, kind of that whole full circle. Um, and it was in college where I was really struggling with my faith. Having grown up in evangelicalism, I was kind of taught you had to pick between science and religion. I didn't know there was an option for the two to coexist. Um, and that was just kind of what I learned. Um so I was really struggling with that. I was taking biology classes, learning about evolution, learning that the world is not 6,000 years old, and I was really starting to question things. And I just wanted a relationship with something bigger and greater than myself. Um, and I had a friend, you know, friends in college, dabbled with LSD, and he had shared his experience, and it was a very mystical spiritual experience, and I thought that's pretty cool. Um, so I started looking at the research, and this was back 10 years ago now. Um, so it was just kind of starting to make waves in the science world. Um, and it just seemed so interesting to me that there were these substances that induced mystical experiences, but they also seemed to treat things like depression and anxiety and PTSD. And I thought maybe there's a connection there, maybe there's something to how psychedelics influence our belief and our perception and how that can lead to the healing. And so I decided I wanted to study neuroscience. I was looking for answers about how everything works, about how the brain works. Um and I just started applying to schools. Um, I spent the first two years of my neuroscience PhD just kind of learning neuroscience in general, taking all of the required courses. And then when it came time to decide what I wanted to do my dissertation on, what research I wanted to contribute to the field, I knew it had to be psychedelics. Um so that's kind of where I how I got to uh to that. And then from there, I've just continued learning and exploring this crazy wild side of neuroscience.

SPEAKER_00 6:57

Yeah, so so one of the things I first want to ask you, has your interest, because it sounds like you got there through understanding experiences and beliefs, right? So this was a guess of mine from watching your material and reading your stuff. How has that evolved? Is that still your main interest or has it evolved a little bit more? Are you still mainly interested in how these things sort of change our story structures, our belief structures, our identity structures, or has that expanded for you?

SPEAKER_01 7:27

Um I will say my primary goal and kind of the area of research that I'd like to continue down and very early in my career is centered around belief. Um but when we look at the literature, um psychedelics don't predictably change beliefs in one way or another. Um, it's a lot of uh maybe metaphysical belief changes, but we're not talking about switching from this religion to that religion or anything like that. Um, so I am interested in belief, maybe more so when we're looking at beliefs about the self, um, how somebody's experiences with psychedelics can kind of reshape how they relate to whatever they call the divine, the sacred, um, but also what that does to your sense of self. Because I think that is probably getting at the crux of psychedelic therapy.

SPEAKER_00 8:27

Right. Love it. So let's why don't we do this, Chloe? I know you and I kind of eat, live, breathe this stuff, but for somebody who what I find is when we start talking about psychedelics, depending on uh, you know, where someone is coming from, and a lot of my audience tends to be 35 to 65 year olds. So it's kind of getting into a little bit of the Gen X, mostly Gen X, but some boomers and then some millennials as well. So especially when you kind of get up into the boomers, they kind of think about, you know, the 60s and you know, psychedelics in that area. Me coming from Generation X, I was terrified of all this stuff because I heard all these horror horror stories about what these things do and they can fry your brain and they

Defining Psychedelics And Classic Compounds

SPEAKER_00 9:10

can do all this kind of stuff to you. When you think of psychedelics from your perspective, what exactly are we talking about here? What how would you define them as a group? And how would you want people to think about them if you had to educate us on this?

SPEAKER_01 9:27

Yeah, so psychedelics in general are psychoactive substances that induce a temporary altered state of consciousness different from your normal waking consciousness. So you can think about dreaming as an altered state of consciousness, um, being sedated as a very, very minimal state of consciousness, um, and then psychedelics as this expanded state of consciousness. So there are a few different classes of psychedelics, and the ones that people most typically kind of recognize as psychedelics are what we call the classic psychedelics. These are things like LSD, DMT, and psilocybin, which is the psychoactive ingredient in magic mushrooms. Um, and all of these classic psychedelics produce their effects uh by acting on the brain in the same way, and that is by binding to and exciting a particular type of serotonin receptor in the brain.

SPEAKER_00 10:30

Yeah, so let's get into this real quick, and then I'm gonna tell you a little bit about my one of my uh psychedelic journeys that we can all laugh about. But okay, so we know some of the mechanisms here, and I have some things that I think I know that I'm hoping you will set me sort of straight. So one of the things that I feel like I understand, perhaps uh very rudimentary, is that it changes

Default Mode Network And Ego Death

SPEAKER_00 10:55

the center of the brain or does something to the default mode network, which is the self-referential area of the brain that essentially, let's just say, holds loosely our identity structures in a sense. So to me, I'm interested in this area, and this is one of the things I want to be like, oh, I gotta get Chloe to educate me on this. One, is that right? Uh, that that is partly what it's doing. What exactly does this tell us if this is what it is doing, and how it can potentially uh change how we see ourselves and the world? My major interest here is, and I'm not attached to the way this shows up, but my major interest and maybe hypothesis is that if I can use this in my work to change someone who's got a rigid belief structure or some kind of trauma or emotional learning that is keeping them stuck in their lives, and we can get into this self-referential area of the brain, the way they see themselves and perceive the world, that then perhaps we can loosen some of these belief structures and help this individual. So is there some anything to this mechanism? What am I getting right? What am I getting wrong? How can you educate us on this? Because this to me is where I wanted to be like, hey, I gotta talk to you so you can get me straight on this.

SPEAKER_01 12:13

Okay, so that was really good. Um we'll kind of start from the beginning. Um the default mode network is a network or a set of different brain regions that when it is active, all of these different particular brain regions are in sync and communicating with each other. Um and so we say the default mode network is active, we can look and see all of these particular regions syncing up their activity and communicating with each other. And when the default mode network is active, this is when somebody is engaged in, like you just said, self-referential thought. So thinking about the self, ruminating on the past, daydreaming about the future. This is all default mode network activity. And it's called the default mode network because it's because it's kind of the default network that is active. When we start working, when we're engaged in a task, that network switches off. And other networks, which is called one called the task positive network, turns on. And so um, that's kind of how we can think about the default mode network. So, yes, we do believe our sense of self when we are experiencing a sense of self arises from the default mode network being active. So when it comes to psychedelics, what we see is that default mode network activity doesn't necessarily reduce, but the activity becomes disorganized. It gets a little chaotic, it gets harder to predict. And in neuroscience, we call this uh entropy. So we've got increased entropy across the brain and within the default mode network. And so that sense of self uh starts to dissolve or can completely disappear, and that's what we would call ego death. Um, and with ego disillusion or ego death, some people will experience just a complete loss of everything without feeling any type of connection to anything greater than themselves. Other times they'll feel like a melting with everything around them. Um, this sense of unity with God, with the universe, with other people. Um, and that's where a lot of the research on mystical experiences comes from. And that's really what a mystical experience is defined as when we're looking at the research. It's this experience of unity with something greater.

SPEAKER_00 14:42

So that's interesting. I mean, to me, it's almost sounds like we're hitting a reset button in this area. Do we know when people come back from these, like, you know, so let's say, um, because not all journeys would be the same, or not all experiences would be the same. Not everyone hits, let's say, ego dissolution. Do we have any data that suggests that when they do experience ego dissolution, this does anything different to them versus when they are not able to hit ego dissolution?

SPEAKER_01 15:11

Yes. So the higher the dose, the more ego dissolution or more likely somebody is to experience ego dissolution, the stronger it is, and the more therapeutic it is. So we see this kind of correlation between degree of ego dissolution and therapeutic efficacy of a psychedelic trip for something like depression.

SPEAKER_00 15:36

And and is this also correlated to, I'm assuming, but I just want to just spell it out. So you're watching the DMN if you're watching something, and the more disorganized this gets, is that correlated with the chance also of ego dissolution, where someone would actually uh say and feedback to you as the scientist to say, hey, look, I was completely dissolved and felt connected to everything and did not know where Jade began and everything else. So this change in default mode network is correlated with ego dissolution. And also, it sounds like you're saying that's also correlated with degree of efficacy on some of these things that we'll talk about here in a minute, like depression and trauma and anxiety and things like that.

SPEAKER_01 16:18

Yeah, that's exactly right.

SPEAKER_00 16:21

Okay. So one of the things that I am curious about then with uh this particular uh mechanism, which uh psychedelics are most likely to cause this, if any? Are we talking like, you know, the big ones like, you know, I know MDMA is kind of you know a different psychedelic? Some would say it's not even really a true psychedelic, but you know, we have different categories. Which ones are more likely uh, you know, to cause this? You know, are we talking about psilocybin? Are we talking about LSD? Are we talking about um ayahuasca and you know some of the other DMT compaint containing uh compounds? Or are we talking about all you know, sort of uh compounds under the rubric of psychedelic, including ketamine and MDMA? What's the story there?

SPEAKER_01 17:08

Yeah, so primarily this kind of story applies to the classic psychedelics, psilocybin LSD, DMT, ayahuasca. Um I believe there's some research exploring these things in ketamine. Not my area. I kind of stick to the classic psychedelics, but if anybody's

Filtered Perception And The DMT Realm

SPEAKER_01 17:30

interested, search up ketamine increased neuroentropy and you'll find any research that's available.

SPEAKER_00 17:37

You know, one thing for me, Chloe, this gets into, I know you do a lot with consciousness, and so do I. Um, I may have this right, I might have this wrong. But one of the questions that I wanted to ask you in relation to this before we get into exactly what these things might be able to do is my understanding from trying to parse this research, and it's a little tough for me, is that it seems to me there's this sort of argument of, okay, if the brain is moving into more entropy, right, and it's less connected, you would think that we would have less ordered sort of experiences. But instead, we have these highly ordered, very uh conscious um sort of experiences that you would not seem to predict based on a brain getting less, you know, having less entropy. You'd almost think it would be shutting down, perhaps, and you'd have less consciousness. But instead, you have people reporting sort of these heightened awarenesses and more connected to people and more connected to animals, and you know, even talking about the tree was talking to me or whatever it was. You would think that some of these conscious experiences that people are having on these things, even the visual stuff, would be less likely, not more likely. And this has always confused me, and it kind of goes into this area of is the brain sort of like a filter for consciousness and this thing is sort of popping open our filter? Because this seems to go against the materialist idea that the brain is just creating consciousness. But I know this is a simplified way of sort of thinking about this, so I'm wondering what you have to say on this. Am I just completely off on this? Is this something that you think about as it pertains to consciousness and something that psychedelics can do? Because obviously a lot of people would be like, don't have her on unless you're gonna ask her about the spiritual aspects of this. And so you can see where I'm going with this. How does this tap us in to another realm if this is all just happening in the brain? And it seems to me that the brain is less organized. That would seem to go in the opposite direction of what we would predict.

SPEAKER_01 19:42

Yeah, okay. So regarding entropy, there's this critical zone where consciousness lives. Psychedelics, increase entropy within that zone. So beyond that, I do think consciousness would break down. I think we start to see this with five MEO DMT, where people have this complete whiteout experience, and maybe entropy is just so high that consciousness completely breaks apart. But we're talking about with like a DMT trip where somebody is being transported to this completely other realm. Um, there's a framework that I really like called the Albus model. Um, it's called altered beliefs under psychedelics. And they kind of say, okay, you use this filtering valve metaphor, which I think that's a great metaphor for consciousness. Um, so let me back up and kind of explain that a little bit, then I'll get into Albus. But essentially, our perception of the world is a sort of controlled hallucination. So we're not just taking in the raw sensory information, but we are predicting what's going on around us. And so oftentimes we perceive our brain's best guess. Um, so we've got this kind of what we call bottom-up sensory information being compared to this top-down prediction. And under psychedelics, what we see is a loosening of those top-down predictions, a weakening of those top-down predictions, and increased uh drive of the bottom-up sensory information. So just like you said, it's this loosening of the valve, the filter is coming off a little bit. Um, and so that in my view kind of explains this richer state of consciousness, this more expanded, present state of consciousness where you're just aware of more around you than you normally would be. The brain typically filters a lot out. Um when it comes to something like DMT, Albus model would say, No, we're not necessarily taking in a real other dimension that now we can see because the filter's been removed. But instead, our brain in some aspects and in some areas is sending down even uh stronger predictions. So predictions about faces. We're kind of hallucinating these faces, right? And in the fractal Alex Gray kind of um artwork of the DMT trips. Um, we're um building this world because we have these areas of the brain that specifically, when activated, produce hallucinations of buildings. And so people will see these kind of fractal y buildings. Um, and so um Albus would say it's not just a reducing of the filter, but it's a reducing of the filter in some aspects and a strengthening of the filter in other aspects. Andrew Gallimore, which I'm sure you're familiar with his work, would say, no, the DMT realm is real, the filter's coming off, and these are real experiences. And his work I have not explored. I have a couple of his books, and I'm super excited to go down that rabbit hole. I just have not gone down it quite yet.

SPEAKER_00 23:05

Yeah, and this is and honestly, Chloe, this is why I um really like you and your work because I think I think it's important to hold these things and hold these things loosely. I'm I'm unattached to them. I really want to understand sort of the truth of it. I have my, you know, sort of um hypothesis that I lean towards. But I'm completely fine with it being either way. And you seem to also be somebody who tends to hold these ideas pretty loosely, but be open to exploring all of them. And I do feel like this is kind of what we need in this space versus uh, and especially if you're going to do scientific inquiry, I really do think, you know, holding this kind of space of like, hey, I'm open to whatever the data tells us. I am curious, I'll put you on the spot a little bit. If you had to guess, um, what do you think is going on here? Do you think the brain is creating all consciousness? Um, and that's basically where consciousness comes from, and the psychedelics are just impacting that? Do you think the brain is more like a radio receiver of consciousness, or do you think it's some kind of um, you know, uh middle ground? Like, you know, and I'll give you, rather than put you on the spot, I'll give you one of my hypotheses, and I and you may even know these researchers or not, but there's a fellow by the name of Joaquin Kepler who is essentially saying consciousness, he's probably the most popular in my mind of the consciousness is a field, and we receive it like a radio signal. So he essentially says the zero point field is essentially where all information and experience exist, and we are essentially resonating with that like a filter. And he has a falsifiable mechanism. He says it's happening through the microcolumns and it's resonating through glutamate, which theoretically could be tested. Then you have John Joe McFadden, who is a pure materialist. So obviously you would say Kepler is an idealist, consciousness is out there. And then we've got John Joe McFadden, who's sort of a materialist who's essentially saying the binding problem is solved by the brain's electromagnetic field, and that electromagnetic field is what puts everything together, and that's what causes consciousness. And my whole thing goes, well, why aren't they putting these two things together? That perhaps there's a field of consciousness out here and a field that we produce in our brain, and that our consciousness comes from the connection of these two fields. Now there's all these theories, and you may not want to answer this. Um, I don't know which is which, and I'm unattached to which is which, but which way do you lean based on your understanding presently, if at all?

SPEAKER_01 25:40

Yeah, so I think typically most of the time, I'm a pretty hard materialist, and that's just my skeptical science mind. I'm a big fan of Alex O'Connor on uh the Within Reason podcast. And I've been listening to him talk about um panpsychism lately. And I have to say it's a little bit compelling to me. Um, although she's converting. I his definition of consciousness is a lot simpler than what we think of when we think of consciousness, doing these amazing complex things that we do with our brain, like experience emotion and memory. But if you strip all of those things away that the brain can do with consciousness, if consciousness is just this fundamental moment-by-moment awareness, um, or even just being um inner experience, then I think consciousness is a lot less complex and maybe a lot more um widespread. Um can be found in more than just us, uh animals, plant. I don't know where I would draw the line. Uh I don't know if it's tied to biology in a particular way. Um so that's kind of where I'm at. I'm exploring, I'm learning, but at the end of the day, I do kind of go back to materialism.

SPEAKER_00 27:13

Yeah, and I think uh, you know, I think that's super important because to me it is, it's not necessarily proven, but it has all the data. This other piece over here has very little data. Uh, it is a viable hypothesis, I suppose. You know, we we still haven't explained the hard problem of consciousness. And so until we do that, you know, materialism is still a hypothesis as well. But I think it's a very

Dreams Synchronicity And Meaning

SPEAKER_00 27:35

well uh researched one, and we have lots of data more in that direction. Um, I'll tell you my story now, and then let's get deeper into uh psychedelics. And I'll tell you why I have um perhaps moved a little bit more over into the consciousness is uh everywhere. And I want to share these with you primarily because I would just love an expert to kind of go. You might just go, oh Jade, you that's not what was going on. This is what was going on. And I just really want you to kind of uh so I have two experiences in my life that really fundamentally changed everything for me. The first one was uh I was sound asleep. My grandmother, who had passed, who I was not that close to, came to me in my dream and told me a bunch of things. Uh, one of the things she said is, Your uh sister is pregnant with a boy. Um, I didn't think anything of it. I was in Seattle at the time in medical school. My sister was in New York City. She happened to call me that morning. Uh, this is going back when I didn't even have a cell phone. I had a landline, so I remember picking it up. And I'm the jokester in the family, so I basically said, Hey, Jody, how come you didn't tell me you were pregnant? And she goes, I'm not pregnant. What are you talking about? Like, I'm on the pill, we're not planning on having kids, and whatever. And I was like, Well, I had this dream and you're pregnant, whatever. So then we had a conversation, hung up. About two weeks later, she calls me and goes, Jade, you're not gonna believe this. I am pregnant. Um, tell me about this dream. And of course, I was like, What? Like, how does something like that happen? So that's the first story that I want to tell you. Maybe you have an answer for that. And then here's the second one. And I kind of, when you and I were texting back and forth, I kind of told you about this experience where I took a dose of LSD and I was gone, Chloe. I was like, you know, what I was just gone. I was in the giant electron, as I call it, right? So I'm just floating around. And next thing I know, I am having a full-on experience of being an octopus, like straight up octopus, moving like an octopus. Like I'm just, I'm an octopus. And one of the things that I was doing, I don't know anything about it, I'm not a marine biologist. I don't know anything about, you know, octopi. I don't, I don't know. But one of the things I was doing in this state is I was getting really pencil thin and then shooting through these small spaces. I just remember like squeezing my body into forming and then shooting out into these very small like pipes and stuff. So shortly after that, for no reason, I never shared this with my mother, but she goes, Oh my God, you got to watch this amazing documentary. It's on octopus. And because I had this experience, I watched it. And Chloe, I kid you not, on this documentary, I'm seeing these octopus like, you know, get small and shoot through these spaces. Now, consciously, maybe I ran into that idea somewhere in my life, and it just happened to be in my brain. But then I go, how did I understand that as well? And so this is something I have been wondering about, and it's kind of moved me into this space. And I'm wondering, does a psychedelic neuroscientist like yourself find this, oh my gosh, Jade's interesting and funny, or do you have any way to explain such phenomena? I'm just curious.

SPEAKER_01 30:44

Yeah, I mean, your first story, it's kind of crazy that you that was your story because I had something similar happen. Um, I, when I found out I was pregnant with my daughter, I was just so anxious. I was like, how am I gonna get through nine months of this like worry that she was gonna be okay and healthy and developing and all of that stuff? And so I, you know, uh at the time was not praying too often, you know, praying when I needed something. Um, and I was just like, please, God, universe, whatever I was calling on anybody and everybody I could think of, give me some kind of sign that this pregnancy is gonna go well and that I don't just can relax and and not worry for the next nine months. Um, and I had asked for a sign in the form of a dream because there is a part of me that has had these kind of experiences where I feel connected to something greater than myself through dreaming. So I was like, if I'm gonna get a sign, it's gonna be through a dream. Let's just cut to the chase. Let me ask for a sign in a dream. I went to bed that night, I woke up the next morning, and I did not have any type of prophetic dream. And I was just like, ugh, oh well, it didn't work. Um, later that day, my husband calls me and he said, My co-worker um dreamed last night that you were pregnant and told me. And I was like, Wow. So to me, that was my sign. And you know, things like that do happen, things that we cannot explain just happened. And when those things happen, they feel really meaningful and they feel really profound and special. And of course, science would say probability is just rare things can happen and do. Um, but we have, you know, so much meaning attached to them that it does make me wonder, you know, if there's something more, some type of uh Jungian collective, unconscious kind of thing going on. So I I kind of have moments like that and my skepticism will subside. Um, and then as time passes, it'll come back up again.

SPEAKER_00 33:12

So yeah, you you and I are so similar. It's kind of like seeing the angel numbers 1111, right? Like people are like, oh my God, I you know, I always see these numbers. I'm like, well, your brain sees the pattern, and therefore, like you're gonna notice 1111. You're gonna notice 555. You're not gonna notice like 528, you know, or you're just not gonna notice that, right? So it is interesting, and I have similar to you, I'm like, oh, it's just, it's, it's just coincidence. But this is it's really interesting, right? When we talk about psychedelics, because people automatically want to talk about um consciousness because they seem to be, well, they are so linked, you know, the way they change um your consciousness. But this is really interesting for me to kind of get a sense uh of you that you're you're very similar to me. I'll tell you one more story, actually, since you brought that up. My father actually told me when I was telling him, he read an article where I explained this, and he goes, you know, I had this dream, um, this guy at work, I had a dream of him pushing a baby carriage on a golf course. Uh, and I told him, and his eyes got super big and was like, you know, oh my God, like me and my wife are pregnant. I haven't told anyone, and we live on a golf course. So these weird things, I think a lot of people have these experiences, and we kind of just file them away. It's like, strange can't explain it. I do think this is what moves me maybe a little bit more lately to brain as receiver of consciousness, because at least if consciousness is out there in a field and we're picking it up, this would explain certain things like NDEs, past life, you know, experiences, you know, these kind of weird things that you and I are experimenting with or experiencing, uh, have experienced. But like you, I tend to drift back towards the materialistic mindset. So I do kind of take one foot in, dip my toe in the water, and then one foot back out. So let's get a little bit back into hard science now since we went a little bit out there. Um, tell me uh a couple things about people who are interested in psychedelics, you being the expert, what are these things actually shown to help with? You have a really nice chart that I saw on, I think it was your Instagram page, maybe, or on um, that basically broke down all the data that we have. And I was surprised to see that some areas that I thought psychedelics were very well researched in, maybe not so much,

Where Psychedelics Show Real Benefits

SPEAKER_00 35:30

but some other areas they seem to be really, really uh profound. And so can you walk us through a little bit of someone's thinking about these, wondering about what they're really good for instead of watching all the influencers all over social media tell them what are these things actually beneficial for?

SPEAKER_01 35:47

Yeah, so it's a it's a long list and we're learning more. It seems like every six months something new is being explored. Um, most of the research um has focused on depression and PTSD. Um we also see really strong data uh looking at end of life anxiety, um which kind of makes sense with everything that we've been talking about. Um there's some really cool mouse research looking at psychedelics and plasticity, neuroinflammation, some cool research being done on um pain, fibromyalgia, things like that. So there's a lot kind of in the works, but I would say the main things are depression and PTSD.

SPEAKER_00 36:41

Yeah. So let's talk about this a little bit. You you brought up uh the idea that the brain is really a prediction engine. And I think that this is um an area that most people just don't understand. And I and I want to talk about this with you for just a minute about is this part of the mechanism of what's going on here, especially with pain? And and I'll just break this down for people and then you can correct me because I might botch it. So just correct me if I get this wrong. But I think most people go, the brain is a controller, right? The brain is controlling sort of everything. And this new model essentially says, well, yeah, maybe it's a controller, but it's also a prediction engine. So it's essentially going, here's what I expect from the world, and I am going to essentially react and perceive as if that is true, unless someone, something creates a prediction error. And then I'll update my model of the world. So this is to me a very interesting thing because if I'm walking around, if Chloe's walking around, if all of you are walking around and going, I'm Jade, this is the way the world works, right? Um, there's certain things you're gonna notice and certain things you're not. It's as simple as saying, you know, like, notice everything red in the room. And because I tell you to notice everything red in the room, you're gonna you're not gonna pick up anything brown in the room, right? We all know that sort of game. And so to me, if the brain is doing this and causing this prediction machine all the time, first thing is, is what ultimately is it predicting against? My hypothesis is it's our stories, it's the you know, the story architecture that we have. But if that's then the case and these um psychedelics are sort of changing perhaps this prediction

Predictive Processing And Belief Revision

SPEAKER_00 38:20

model, then what is it changing? Is it changing the way the brain um perceives? Is it making it more open to prediction error? Is it updating that story architecture that we have? Do we have any understanding of what is happening there? Because I can understand if I'm in pain, pain is also a prediction by the brain, and then I take a psychedelic and it changes this prediction process in some way, then I can see, oh, maybe it goes, oh, I don't have to protect my shoulder, I don't have to hold my body this way anymore because the prediction error is broken. Is this partly what's happening? And if so, where are these psychedelics working? Is it openness from the brain? Is it a metaplastic effect? Is it a neuroplastic effect? Like, what's going on here?

SPEAKER_01 39:10

Yeah, so a lot of all of that. Um when we talk about all of that and more. Yeah. When we talk about predictive processing, primarily we talk about it um regarding like psychological pain. So um depression, anxiety, thing, things like that, things that are causing us distress, so pain in that way. Um, when we're looking at actual physical pain in the body, that's gonna be more related to the anti-inflammatory effects of psychedelics. Um, but you know, in cases where uh we have things like fibromyalgia, where we've got this disrupted sensory gating from the thalamus to the cortex. And I won't get into it too much. I do think maybe there's a type of predictive processing mechanism happening there to be explored that's not been explored, or to be clear, um, as far as I know. Um, but when we talk about um these predictions and the bottom-up sensory information, yes, the predictions are our story, they're our understanding of how the world works based on our past experiences, our knowledge, our beliefs. Um, and so if somebody is experiencing chronic depression, what can happen according to the Rebus model, the kind of primary framework in psychedelic research, um, what happens is that those predictions um or the the that model of self is so rigid um and so negative that it does not update when it's contradictory information comes in. And so it's kind of like the person is ignoring anything coming in and just perceiving these negative predictions about themselves. Um with psychedelics, what seems to happen is that the how certain the brain is that these uh negative beliefs about the self are true reduces um these uh sensory um uh prediction errors, not sensory, sorry, um, these prediction errors uh coming from, you know, this expanded thinking, thinking about the self in a new way, exploring different thoughts about the self, those can kind of um be integrated into the models um and so they can be updated. So we say beliefs about the self are revised after psychedelics.

SPEAKER_00 41:44

So is this is it uh, you know, there's a concept uh in uh neuroscience called memory reconsolidation. I know you know it. Uh I don't know that everyone else may know it. Um, but is it is this partly the mechanism that's going on? Is this a reconsolidation event that psychedelics are are uh sort of uh helping with? And just I'll just break down for everybody if you don't memory reconsolidation is sort of a process where I do this in my work. Uh so basically what we do is if Jade believes something and it's got an emotional charge to it, right? So imagine you have a story and you have an emotion. And the way I look at these things is a story plus the emotion create a belief, right? And so that belief then essentially has a sort of a um, for lack of a better term, a charge to it. And from my perspective, what I do when I work psychologically with someone is I bring up the belief and I try to elucidate the story that's associated with that belief and get it hot, meaning get them emotional about it. And then while they are emotional about it, hopefully in the prior process of leading up to that, I'm dropping in breadcrumbs for them to update and see it differently so that they can spontaneously, hopefully, when they've got this emotional belief structure hot, they can essentially go, oh, wait a minute, maybe I'm not so worthless, or maybe I'm not so bad. And that belief then becomes updated through this concept of memory reconsolidation. Now, I, in some of my events that I do, um, let's not tell anyone this, but I'll tell everyone this. I use microdose psilocybin to help this process along. I'm wondering if psychedelics are doing some of this memory reconsolidation as well, or are they simply allowing it to be more likely when you set an intention to do this work? So I'm wondering if if what's going on there with mechanism. As you could tell, this is why I wanted you on, because I want to be like, I have these questions that I don't know the answers to. And so what is the mechanism happening there that updates someone and goes, I'm so worthless, or uh, you know, I don't trust the world and I have no hope, which would be maybe the story that is, you know, uh most uh prevalent in depression.

SPEAKER_01 44:06

Yeah, I think there are kind of two sides to it. The first is that while somebody is under the influence of psychedelics, we've got the increased entropy, we've got this opportunity to explore new ways of thinking, to bring in a different version of the story. Um and that comes from the increased entropy. And then after the psychedelics, according to the mouse research, we've got this window of neuroplasticity where these new ways of thinking can kind of get hardwired into the brain. We can prune back pathways that need are maybe too rigid, and um new kind of pathways to consolidate these new beliefs can become um can strengthen. So um I think it's both of those things creating this opportunity for belief revision. Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 45:09

So that's interesting. So if I'm hearing you right, it's more heavy. The way that would just would be described is more heavy, and maybe you know, neurons that fire together, wire together. You know, it's kind of like you've got sort of a dam that's happening here, and you can kind of branch off and go, oh, we haven't opened up this gate. Way and psychedelics make it more likely to sort of see that different. So that that's more heavy in a nature, right? Which is a little bit different than changing the proteins on these neurons, which I would say is more a reconsolidation event. And it sounds like you said maybe both of these things are going on.

SPEAKER_01 45:43

Yeah, and when we're looking at the neuroplasticity research, again, this has all been done in mice. So we see, you know, the growth of uh connections between neurons, the strengthening of the connections between neurons. Um we see um also in DMT, I think two months ago, um neural stem cells growing in a dish for with DMT. So um I think there's a lot of insanely cool. Yeah, yeah. I think there's a lot of really exciting um stuff as far as neuroplasticity goes. Um again, this is all in animals, so so yeah, yeah. Lots to learn.

SPEAKER_00 46:27

Yeah, and so just a couple more questions for me. Um, just stuff that I'm like, I gotta be educated on this. What, if anything, do uh does brainwave state through EEG have to play in this when you're you're measuring this at all? For example, my when I do some of my work, and my work is um sometimes I use um psychedelics, but I rarely do heavy dose. I like to do microdose, which I want to talk to you about both those in just a minute, then we'll we can start wrapping up. But from my perspective, I look at it like, okay, what do I want to do if I'm trying to change someone's internal belief structure and stories? Obviously, from my perspective, uh, and I and this is why I wanted to ask you, because I might be completely wrong here. I want someone in theta brainwave states, not gamma brainwave states. And I feel like sometimes when you go super high psychedelics, you can hit that gamma brainwave state. Maybe I'm uneducated about this. And to me, gamma brainwave state is kind of like an amazing dream that you wake up from and you know you dreamt something amazing, but you can't quite remember what it was. And theta brain wave state, you know, kind of allows you to process uh emotions or at least is correlated with more emotions. And I'm wondering, is there anything to this? Am I completely off in a direction that has nothing to do with anything? Uh, and is there any data around psychedelics and brainwave states?

SPEAKER_01 47:54

Yes. So there is a lot of research on it. I do think it's probably a little more complicated than kind of how you explained it, which is fine. It's an area that I um really can't speak to, to be completely honest. Um, it gets really complicated when we're looking at, you know, uh which frequencies are are active and during what phase of a psychedelic experience before, during, after, um what uh kind of frequency are particular brain regions communicating with um using under the influence of psychedelics. So it's it's a whole world that I'm seeing.

SPEAKER_00 48:36

But there is but there is research in the there is research in this area.

SPEAKER_01 48:39

Oh yeah.

SPEAKER_00 48:40

Yeah. Yeah. One of the reasons I asked Chloe, because I have a close friend here who's a uh psychotherapist and she does ketamine-assisted therapy. And um, so I went in to do it with her, and she was like, Well, we need to keep you. She didn't use this terminology, but she was like, We need to keep you in a particular zone because you can get completely dissociated if you go too far. And I'm very sensitive to these things. I was just gone. So there was no processing of emotions, there was no processing of my stuff in this. I was just on a, you know, again, in the giant electron on a roller coaster, you know, basis. I just went too far with it. So I've always been um kind of interested in this, and I do use, you know, more breath work and stuff like that for this. But anyway,

Dosing Set Setting And Microdosing

SPEAKER_00 49:20

final questions for me, and this is probably the major reason people would want you on here. Uh, and I know, you know, you and I have to be careful about this. You know, I'm not advocating for anyone going and doing anything illegal in there or doing this stuff, but I do believe in people being educated on this and people want to know and have these questions. What is the difference uh and in dosing and differences between doing full-on a psychedelic journey and using set and setting and all that kind of stuff versus in a party? And then microdosing. Can you just walk us through how we all should be thinking about this in terms of heavy dose journey type stuff versus microdosing and what these things do and what doses are we actually talking about? Like for example, with psilocybin.

SPEAKER_01 50:12

Yeah, so in um the research, what we see is that the higher the dose, the more therapeutically beneficial the experience can be up to a certain point. Beyond that point, you know, that hero's dose, which I forget exactly what it is.

SPEAKER_00 50:33

I think they typically say four grams, five grams, something like that. Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 50:37

Can be a little intense, can be a very challenging. I a lot of people don't like the term bad trip, but can be a bad trip, a uncomfortable experience.

SPEAKER_00 50:47

I've had a few of those for sure.

SPEAKER_01 50:50

Um so dose definitely has an influence on the therapeutic efficacy. Set and setting do as well. So your mindset going into the experience. And I think when people first hear that, they're like, oh, well, what if I have depression or anxiety? I think it more so means like on the particular day of the experience, are you particularly feeling down or particularly anxious? Did something really negative just happen? Maybe today's not the best day. Um, so that would be your set, and then you're setting the environment that you're in. Some people, some personalities are completely fine, have the time of their lives using psychedelics in a party setting, a festival setting. Obviously, that's kind of what they're known for. Um for other people, that can be so overwhelming, too much. Um, and that is because under psychedelics, that filter is reduced, so people are more sensitive to the information coming in through their sensory organs. And so, yeah, you're going to be paying attention and aware and processing the information around you. And so, if the environment is very chaotic, that can influence the trip. Um, so that's uh set setting and dosage. Um, when it comes to microdosing, there's not a lot of strong research on microdosing being therapeutically beneficial, but I do hold this a little loosely because I've talked to enough people to claim experiencing to claim having experienced benefits from microdosing, um, cognitive benefits. Um, I don't know how effective it will end up being for something like depression or anxiety when we kind of explore that research more. Um and I think there was another part of your question, but I'm forgetting what it was.

SPEAKER_00 52:52

Yeah, I was just wondering, what would you consider microdosing for psilocybin? You know, like I hear some people say as high as 500. I I consider like 250 or lower micro-dosing, but you hear all these different things. Like, what is what would be your definition of that? Is it all kind of all over the place as well? I'm wondering in the research, what are they what are they using if if we know?

SPEAKER_01 53:11

It depends on the strain of the mushroom. Um, I don't remember exact numbers from the research, um, but a microdose is going to be subperceptual. So as soon as you're experiencing something, then it's no longer considered a microdose.

SPEAKER_00 53:33

Yeah, and that's I love that and it's a brilliant answer because that's what I say as a clinician as well. I typically go, well, that's gonna depend because me at 250, I'm, you know, if I go above that, I'm getting some some light psychedelic effects. Other people at 500 are not at all. So it's kind of a brilliant answer. So I guess, you know, we can kind of say it's gonna depend, you know, sort of on the person, sub-perceptual. So microdosing is not something where you're walking around feeling high and having visual alterations and all of that kind of stuff. So, final question for me, and this is where I just wanted to kind of get a sense uh from you like what is it that you are excited about? What is it that you are, you know, sort of studying, looking at? What is it that you would want, you know, someone like me to be careful about, to, you know, educate appropriately with? Like, just give us your sort of general take on what you're excited about, what you wish was different about this space, things for us to keep in mind so we can be a little bit more mindful as we, you know, take some of your education and pass it on to other people. Because we know how that can be, right? We can all get ahead of ourselves, we can start making stuff up. We can, I'm just curious for you where your head goes when you look at this space as someone who eats, lives, and breathes it for a living. What are you excited about? What's on the frontier, and what do you wish people would stop doing?

SPEAKER_01 54:55

Yeah, yeah. Oh, there's a so much. Um, I think regarding safety, the research is clear. Psychedelics change the way your brain works, so they should be taken seriously. Um, I it's such a complicated topic with legality, with the fact that a lot of these things grow in the ground and um people use psychedelics for spiritual reasons. And so, you know, if you're somebody who's going to use psychedelics, educate yourself. Psychedelic assisted therapy is the safest way to go. Um so there's my little disclaimer there. Um, what I'm excited about, I'm I'm writing a book on psychedelics and religious trauma. This is an area of research that hasn't been explored as far as I know. Um and so that's something that I would really like to get into. I've met so many people through kind of the book writing process that are coming to psychedelics from a Christian background like myself. Um and so I think the psychedelic space is such a wonderful, cool space where people from all different walks of life can kind of come and meet together. Um and I'm excited for kind of that side of things. Um and yeah, I'm just I think the future is bright and I'm optimistic about it, and maybe that's naive, but yeah, same, same.

SPEAKER_00 56:34

Actually, one final thing I'll say have you uh I'm sure you have you got into any of the work with the the book, the immortality key and the Kikion and all of that regarding Ergot and how that may have been used in early Christianity. It's fascinating uh stuff to me. So I'm sure you're you're kind of all into that. But uh, just so all of you know who are listening, that's why I kind of got into Chloe, because I she's just really interesting. You're super interesting in your philosophy, your background. I just think it's always very cool to find people like you who have these converging interests who then you know uh pick up a particular research thing. It's like the work that only Chloe can do in the way

Safety Religious Trauma And What’s Next

SPEAKER_00 57:15

that Chloe can do it because of this unique confluence of factors that make you you. So I just want to say, and that's a principle in Next Level Human. Like one of the things as we go, a next level human is simply someone who takes their essential nature and their earned wisdom and points it at work that only they can do in the way that they can do it. And you are doing that, which is why I adore you and the work that you're doing, and I'm super excited for people to get introduced to you. But Chloe, thank you so much for hanging out on the Next Level Human podcast. Uh, I so appreciate you being here.

SPEAKER_01 57:45

Thank you so much. This has been so fun.

SPEAKER_00 57:47

Cool. So why don't you stay on the line? Because I want to make sure all this loads up. But for all of you, thanks so much for hanging out with Chloe and me, and we will see you on the next show.