PTSF 38

Hello, everybody. Welcome back to Psychedelics Today. This is Joe Moore here with Kyle Buller. How are you doing today, Kyle? Doing well, Joe. How are you? Doing great. Excited for another Solidarity Friday episode. This is going to be an interesting one, very different from the others. And I'm excited about it because it's you and me sharing some stuff that we don't often get to share about. Personal journeys. Yeah, totally. So before we dig in, just a reminder to everybody that Navigating Psychedelics for Clinicians and Therapists is kicking off in January. Seats are selling pretty quickly. It probably will sell out. If you want to be sure to be there, please buy soon. We don't have a huge wait list. We've had huge wait lists in the past. It's always kind of tough to tell somebody no, they can't. If you want to get in, get in soon. It's really great. CE approved in California, highly transferable to other states. Check it all out, psychedeliceducationcenter.com to learn more. I think that's good. I want to talk about salvia first, Kyle. Cool. You've been going at it. You were able to buy some because it's legal in New Jersey. And what was the guy's name? Just surprising. That you bought it from? Dan something? Yeah, Dan Siebert. I guess he's the OG in the salvia space. I think he was the first one to really kind of explore salvinorin A. I could be wrong about that, but yeah, he's been around for a while. I think he might've been the first one to actually even isolate it. Yeah. I think that might be true. I remember reading something along the lines of that, but I don't want to, let me see if I can find it really quick. This is the academic in you. I need a citation. No, but it's healthy and it's interesting, right? Like he's been around for a long time. He's got this site. It's like clearly not easy to order from. And it shows that he's not doing a tremendous amount of business because, you know, you're not, if it's not easy to buy, it's, you know, probably more significant for him as a, you know, he wants to share it with people that actually care enough to put in the effort. Yeah. Which I think is important, right? And from what I remember, Sage Wisdom is his site. I believe so. Yeah. Sage Wisdom. Yeah. And there's a lot of really interesting material on there. I think it's really helpful for people who are going to try it. Yeah. I think it is like the resource for salvia pretty much. It's a complicated plant with a really complicated history. Yeah. Yeah. I think traditionally, Kyle, like in Oaxaca, did they use salvia when mushrooms were not in season? Is that what you said? I've heard that a number of times. I hope it's true. But I know in the Hamilton Morris episode, I think that's maybe where I heard it, his salvia episode. Okay. But, you know, it's apocryphal things, things that are maybe meaningful or said all the time in these spaces. And it's hard to keep track, unfortunately. But it's got a long historical use in Oaxaca or in Mexico. And in the 90s, it became really big here. People found out about it in the States. And when YouTube came around, people loved filming themselves smoking salvia extracts. So like the way it was sold was not just pure leaf. Like you could buy pure leaf, but typically people were buying like 5X, 10X, you know, 20, 50X potency. So they actually like do an extraction, it's like ethanol or something, and then put the active ingredient back on the leaf. And you could smoke it, you could put it in your, I guess, in between your jaw and your gum. I don't even know. The hell do you call that? You put it in like it's a dip packet or something. Like, I don't know what that part of the mouth is called. So for like a sublingual, like buccal introduction. Yeah. Yeah. So you could, I don't know. You could get it introduced to your bloodstream in a more slow capacity versus smoked, which is like an extreme spike. And people would do some really dumb shit on YouTube. Like I've seen people smoke it and then run out a window, like totally blow their window off the door, off the wall, fall down. You know, the one guy that was featured on Hamilton, he made a pretty big name for himself doing a lot of salvia videos. And he would do stuff like let's smoke salvia in the garden. Let's try to plant, this plant into the ground while high on salvia. It's like, well, good Lord. Like clearly he just like falls over and, you know, it's not a good look. And not too many people were using it skillfully for healing or exploration. Most people were just trying to like get really high on it. Yeah. It seemed like a shit show during those YouTube errors. I remember watching those videos and being like, what the hell is going on here? Which, you know, I think ultimately kind of led to various states making it a little bit more popular. And I think that's kind of the reason it's illegal to possess. I think on the federal level, Salvinoran A isn't scheduled, but you know, it's state by state. And I think I was reading that Florida is the only state that actually made Salvinoran A illegal. And most other states, the Salvinoran A might be legal, but, you know, double check everybody, your state regulations. But most of them, I think just ban the sale of, you know, the plant, the extract and the concentrates. Yeah. So, you know, at times with good reason, because there is clearly to the public, no obvious benefit here. And they had no idea that there were religious use cases, spiritual use cases elsewhere. This plant just seemed to come out of nowhere into America and just became a whole sensation. I only smoked it once in college and I, it didn't really fly for me. I tried really hard, promise everybody, but it didn't fly for whatever reason. It's weird. It's weird when you smoke it. My earlier years when I was like 19 or 20, that was my first introduction to it. And yeah, it was, it was very strange, strange experience. Felt like gravity was twisting and pulling. I felt like I was like, yeah, just being pushed in a lot of different directions. And obviously it wasn't the best sense setting when you're young and dumb and exploring with friends. But I mean, never really piqued my interest to keep doing it. I was like, this is weird. And maybe I'll just kind of put that on the back seat and not really explore it again. So when Salvia kept coming back up, I'm like, hmm. It came back on my radar with Twig Harper like four years ago. I think you might've even pushed me in that direction to go, you see this? Yeah. He was talking about like the tinctures and stuff like that and working with it. Yeah. I saw him give a talk at, I think it was like the first or second symposia event up in Amherst, Mass. And he was kind of talking about his whole life, about working with Salvia and starting to work with tinctures and making tinctures out of it. Really interesting. Right. Because most of the people that smoked it never really wanted to smoke it again. Yeah. And to find somebody that's like, no, I really like this and appreciate it. You're like, wait, what? That's fascinating. What's going on here? Because it just seemed like I couldn't come up with a good use case. And I had no idea at the time, but I was like, there was this religious history, which to me carries a lot of weight. So maybe let's dig in, Kyle. What kind of stuff was coming up for you or how was it? It was really interesting. And obviously this was much different than how I was approaching it in my younger years, but it was oral tincture. And I tried a couple of different times with different doses. So they're primarily low to moderate doses. And I was like, well, I don't know. I don't know. I don't know. I don't know. I don't know. I don't know. I don't know. I don't know. I don't know. I don't know. I don't holding the tincture in my mouth for about like, you know, 15 minutes or so and, you know, kind of setting up a little ceremony and being really intentional with it. And, you know, the first couple of times with like the low dose, it felt very like, you know, heart opening kind of meditative, just like a little, almost kind of like a small, small dose of cannabis, but obviously a little bit different. It just felt just a little bit expansive. The moderate dose, more kind of in like that ceremonial context. It felt, it started to hit within like 15 minutes, felt, you know, my body starting to go a little numb. Things were starting to expand. And I had actually a really profound experience. It felt very shamanic in the sense of, you know, like the spirit of salvia kind of came in into my view. And, you know, it was, it was a really interesting experience and I thought it lasted a lot longer. than what it was. I felt like I was in that space for like an hour or two hours. And, you know, looking at my watch, it was only like 25 minutes or 30 minutes or something like that. And I was just blown away by, you know, just the time distortion there. But for me, that moderate dose was, you know, it felt, you know, I guess I would say on that spiritual kind of shamanic type of experience, which I found to just be really fascinating, really interesting. And just having like a little bit of like, you know, numbing sensation on the skin, on the body. And I was just thinking about like, oh, this is really interesting. I wonder if this has an to do with the kappa opioid receptors. And, um, you know, we know salvia is obviously has a much different mechanism of action there. And, um, so yeah, I, you know, I, I found it to be a very interesting experience. Um, I definitely want to kind of explore it a little bit more and to kind of understand it. I actually just recorded, uh, with Christopher Solomon maybe two weeks ago or so. And about the guy that made the pipe. Yep. Yep. The salvia pipe. And, uh, so I recorded with him and, uh, we chatted about the difference cause he's still doing smoke salvia, but it's like kind of small micro doses of, of smoke salvia, uh, of the concentrate, the leaf. And, uh, you know, he's, he's using it in a different way. And he said he likes that because you can kind of titrate and go into it a little bit more versus kind of like the tincture holding your mouth, letting it metabolize. And then. You know, maybe having to read dose again, um, these small doses of smoke salvia, um, really allow people to maybe do a little bit, um, you know, work with it to some degree. But yeah, I mean, obviously we know traditionally that it is, uh, it's chewed taken orally. And, you know, I know some people said that, uh, you know, the spirit of salvia doesn't like to be smoked or burned. The plant doesn't like to be burned. So, you know, I was asking, uh, Chris about that as well. And, and he was saying, well, you know, in some of the messages that I got, um, it was just saying, cool me down before you inhale me. So, um, he, he, he kind of brings the water pipe into the use. So it's like cooling the smoke down before inhaling. So I thought that was kind of interesting. And it kind of, it actually reminded me of like, uh, I told, I think I've mentioned this on the podcast with him. It was like, you know, your, your experience working with salvia and coming up with like a new process really kind of reminded me of twigs process. Cause twig was talking about like going into float tanks and, you know, kind of getting these instructions on, you know, how to work with the plant, which I find to be really fascinating. Right. And you got the sense. So you, you'd got a couple messages, right? Like pretty much like, don't, don't be an asshole to me. Yeah. Just like really respect the plants. Right. Yeah. It was like, yeah, it was a really interesting, uh, like message of, you know, wanting to get out there, but just be really respectful with plants. You know, we want to be here to heal. You and to show you things, but how do you, it's a relationship, right? And how do you respect that relationship? And, you know, I had no intention on trying to explore any of that, but, um, it was interesting that that came up there. Like, what do you think that means? Like, um, respect me, um, you know, just like approaching it in a respectful way. You know, if you were able to grow your own salvia, if you lived in a place like that, get to know the plant and just not completely commodify it, I guess, in a sense, um, how could we develop a relationship with these plants in a different way? And I think, you know, that's important. There's these filmmakers that have been trying to get in touch with for years, um, salvia, the movie. And I think they ran in, I think one person working on the film might've died maybe. And then like, I think they ran into some funding issues. So it really got slowed down. I would love to see that movie. And I think, I think that's a great way to do it. You know, I think Dan Siebert's probably doing similar stuff, but like not selling it like crazy big portion of it is education. Yeah. And that's what it was really educating people, um, about the experience and just being really cautious and respectful in that sense. And, you know, I was thinking about that. I'm like, Oh, you know, if, if this person wasn't, um, providing this service, like, ah, I wouldn't be able to have this experience. So really grateful for that. But, you know, it also doesn't seem like he's trying to create a as well. It's really edgy education focused and just kind of providing that service for folks that are curious. And I know he's kind of stepped away for a little bit in public, like talking about salvia and this and that, or that's what I've heard. Maybe, or maybe that's what, uh, Peter Addy said. I thought I heard it on one of the podcasts or something like that. Forget his name was a big name for a while. Um, he's just not been around. I think I remember in the psychedelic salon hearing from him here. Way back. Yeah. Hopefully he comes back. Like, uh, did you get a sense for like what kinds of things salvia was trying to do or teach or anything other than like respect me? Yeah. You know, that was like the, it almost felt like it was like the beginning of a relationship, right? Like, so I think I would have to go back in there a little bit more to, to do some exploring to kind of get some more of those insights. Um, yeah. So like, that was like the first, like real introduction. And it was like, Hey, this is who I am. And just really a lot of respect, I guess, kind of came in there. I was like, okay, um, this is interesting. You know, was it therapeutic in the sense of like, you know, like I went in there trying to heal something. No, I went in there with a little bit of curiosity and seeing, you know, what I could find and that's just like kind of what appeared. But, um, I was not expecting that at all. I was, I don't know what I was really expecting. I think I was thinking about like my experiences when I was like a lot younger, um, and it was going to be totally weird and strange and this and that, but, uh, you know, it did feel good, you know, like brought up energy, working with that stuff, somatically using breath to help kind of clear, clear that out. So I found it to be, yeah, just a really kind of great medicine and very short, you know, I think the whole thing was over within like two hours back to baseline. I mean, the peak experience felt like it only lasted like 30 minutes and then, you know, you kind of had the tapering down and chilling for like another hour. An hour, hour and a half or so. Hmm. So you would try it again. Yeah. And yeah, I think folks would want to hear more. I want to hear more. It is not legal in Colorado to possess salvia divinorum, unfortunately. So it might take me a little bit to, to find a legal state and, and do some experiments. Um, I think Arizona and New Mexico, Utah are all legal somehow. Oh, they're not Colorado. So, uh, we'll figure it out. Yeah. I'm surprised New Jersey is still legal. They put in a, they were trying to pass a bill like back in the, you know, mid two thousands. It just, I don't think ever really gained any traction and just stalled, but you know, who knows maybe if it starts to become a popular, uh, you know, substance implant again, maybe, maybe, um, you know, people will get concerned, but who knows, maybe not, um, it doesn't seem like a lot of people are actually exploring salvia. So I don't know if it's really that big of a deal. I think word got out that it wasn't, uh, pleasant in the same way a lot of other drugs are. Yeah. Like people don't smoke salvia the same way they smoke cannabis. No, not at all. No. Yeah. And you know, I think like those earlier times smoked, like really kind of was like, I'll never do that again. That's just like strange and not very pleasant. Um, so kind of doing it orally and kind of like these small titrated doses over a few weeks and just trying to really figure out like what that, what that feels like, you know, it was a much, much different experience and obviously approaching this work and all the years of breath work and, you know, just self inner work. Uh, you know, I think I approach this stuff just much differently than I was when I was 19, 20, 21, et cetera. Cool. Anything else you want to say about it? No, I, I just, you know, it was a very interesting experience and excited to, to learn more. And yeah, just everybody stay tuned for that episode with Christopher Solomon. Well, I don't know where that is in the backlog, but probably a few months after hearing this. But yeah, I mean, we, we got way into like his work, working with salvia somatically, why it is a good medicine for kind of somatic work. So yeah. Um, you know, if you're curious, we'll be releasing those episodes or you go back in the back, uh, in our archive and check out the interview that you did with Peter Addy, Dr. Peter Addy. Mentioning, you said it was a kappa opioid agonist, I guess. And the really interesting thing is that I believe there's been reports that you can shut down a salvia experience using naloxone. Oh, interesting. I think that's the case. I've not tried it. I don't think there's been any real research on this. I'd be willing to be a test subject on that. So I guess I need to find naloxone first. Which, it's really inappropriate that I don't own naloxone currently, by the way. Everybody should have naloxone. But I'll report back if I ever get the chance to try it. And I think that's it. So let's jump to what I did on Friday. Yeah, I want to hear all about this. My experience with ketamine in the past has been limited to. surgical applications, so they'll use it in a blend with other anesthetic agents, and it's part of the cocktail that anesthesiologists like to use, typically. So I've had it in three or four surgeries, maybe, so far. I've seen it used recreationally plenty. One person I know, like, I saw him just lay on the ground for two hours at a concert in the middle of a festival. It seemed inappropriate and dangerous. I had a number of nurses watching him. And they were. they were very worried about his pulse in the middle of a festival. And that was just really. made me not necessarily like how some people use ketamine recreationally. I think if you have an intelligent relationship with ketamine, it's a different story. But this person just went for the moon. It's like, oh, this feels nice. I wonder what more feels like. It's like, okay, now you're laying down on the ground in the middle of a crowded festival. It's not really a good move. You know, it's a weird drug, right? Are you going to really party with a dissociative anesthetic? It depends on the dose. Dose makes the poison. Dose makes the medicine. People like it, though, right? People love it. It's getting really big in the 20-something crowd. And I think people use it like there's no hangover. That's a big deal. You can just use a little bit, and it can make you feel really nice. Some people really like that. And, you know, you're not smoking something, so it's not like harshing your lungs or hurting your cells or anything like that. There is an addiction risk, so you've got to be a little careful there. There's that risk around like crystals in the bladder of some kind. Like I think there's some sort of byproduct. There's some sort of metabolism of ketamine that can damage some people's bladders. It's a pretty low number of people, but the real damage comes. I think it's like high doses, heavy use. Like daily. Yeah. Like a really awkward amount of ketamine on the regular. Anyway, I was invited to have an intermuscular ketamine injection into my deltoid. So right where they give you a flu shot in that area. Yeah. And we went for it. We went for about one milligram to kilogram. I'll disclose my weight, 86 milligrams. And it's a pretty heavy dose. Some people tell me they like 1.2 milligrams to kilogram. Some people even like to go as high as two. I think two milligrams to kilogram is essentially like they could harvest all your organs. You wouldn't notice one bit. Based on how high and disassociated I was, they probably could have done it to me. If they made it quick, like five minutes. Probably would have been. So I had the full dissociative experience. I had a nice chair, some eye shades, whatever the Alex Gray ones are. Mindful. Mindful. I had no idea that he was behind that. Pretty sure. Don't quote me on that. That's what I've been saying for 10, 12 years now. That's what I've heard too. So I had that. I had a, I really wish I did more prep. I did a Sigur Rós on Spotify. They had a, this is Sigur Rós playlist. And I just. Did shuffle, which is totally not my style with like intentional sessions. Usually it's really programmed and deliberate. They asked you to bring your music in or do they didn't have anything like pre-selected. No. So I had my nice little, uh, you know, I don't know if I showed you these. I got the Bose QC 35 wireless with the psychedelics today sticker on it. And, um, yeah, it was like blast off, you know, nothing. Like I didn't really feel anything for the first minute. So it gave me time to kind of settle in, which is nice and I was able to get blanket on. Had nice, you know, pretty comfortable, uh, no mask, which was kind of cool. And at a certain point I just kind of like blacked out ish. Mm. It was almost like falling asleep and then consciousness kind of came back. And I, I want you to help me explore this one Kyle. Cause I haven't had a chance to really debrief with anybody yet, but, um, essentially like a really small window of consciousness came back. There's nothing at all related to body. Mm. Oh, you know, backing up one minute, the, there was this really interesting experience of psychedelics today that came in, which is really kind of fun. Mm. So like you and me working together and like that being like a really interesting, like crux in the situation in the experience. And, uh, then I think that I blacked out, then something came in where it was like really primordial consciousness, maybe like, uh, the first thing I mentioned was it was like the first two worms to ever have an interaction. Like, like really primordial, like first cause type stuff. It was almost like a cartoon. So like there was depth and meaning, but like a lot of the edges were not there. Like a lot of the detail wasn't there. And it was like, I could tell that there was, um, intention and will, like there were entities trying to interact with each other. And, um, like it was kind of interesting. It's like watching humans interact at a grocery store or like at a market. Like, but without detail, like I could feel the will and the intention and, but, you know, it, it almost felt like a empty because, you know, lacks detail. Therefore it's empty. So I'm like, what is happening here? And, you know, no anxiety the whole time, by the way, I was like, this is really just fucking fascinating. Certainly not blissful like MDMA or LSD or something, but it was like, this is really fucking interesting. What is happening and what is this stuff that I'm experiencing? And the way I. Always framed it before going in was this is like, uh, experience of consciousness without identity, without ego, without anything really. Um, and I didn't really feel like there was anything there that was me. Like the idea of Joe felt like a weird thing, weird, silly thing. There was just like, I, an ego and like one consciousness. So it wasn't like a Hindu, like bliss consciousness thing. It was like me as an entity experiencing something. Have you ever experienced like an ego? Death on like, say like psilocybin or anything like that. And how would you compare? I mean, it sounds like an ego death, like experience, not having your sense of problems with that term, Kyle. Yeah, I think we both do. Like, what the fuck are we talking about? Like, I don't feel like I'm dying. Like, I feel fucking horrible sometimes. Sometimes I feel really great, but like, yeah, I've not necessarily had that, um, to the way people talk about it. Where I'm like, I don't know. Like, this sounds really, it feels really close to that. Like there was no me left, but that experience of dying wasn't there. So it was like, yeah, it was, it was kind of like an empty shadow Bardo or some kind. That's kind of like the vibe I got a little bit. And then like, things got a little more complex. I'm like, what on earth are people doing out there? Like, why? Like my, my whole experience is more about like the games we're playing in the world. And like, why are we playing these games? Why are we playing these games in the world? And like, it's just a fucking goofy thing. And like, uh, there was a sense of, you know, dying near the end where it's like, all right, well, if I have to go, I have to go. It's fine. Like, this is, you know, it's just a project. I had this like weird sense of like an ego being like, or like an experiencer being like an eternal thing. And like, it's nice that at least there's some things to bump into as opposed to just being out in empty void space for eternity. So it'd be boring as shit, but at least we got some things to like, bump into and interact with and I, you know, eventually my body sensations started coming back. Like, I think my, like my index finger was like, oh, like, oh, I feel something. Oh, cool. Like, that's nice. I'm told the peak was about eight to 22 minutes from minute eight to minute 22 is about peak. So I thought that was interesting. And then eventually, like, I started being able to sense like in my mouth, I'm like, oh, I feel something. And then my toes, we didn't even talk about the music, the music was really interesting. If people don't know Sigur Rós, I really suggest you dig in a little bit to Sigur Rós, S-I-G-U-R-R-O-S, an Icelandic, I don't even know what to frame them as, like kind of rock, kind of experimental, kind of post rock. And it's beautiful. I use it in Breathwork all the time. Lenny does, do you use it in Breathwork? Oh, yeah. Some of those songs just bring out soul. There's so much, there's just so much depth to the way that they play. So hearing comes in first, you know, if you're in a coma, I guess you might be able to hear before you can do anything else. So I had hearing, but it was kind of like emotionless. It was like the music was actually the texture of the experience. You know, I could hear his voice and I like recognize the voice and I love the voice. I love the music, but the music wasn't really there more so than the voice. And some of it was like really, you know, creepy, spooky architecture, but not necessarily having that kind of emotional charge. Yeah, and then it just like slowly started like opening back up over the course of, I think it was about 44 minute experience from time of injection until I took the eye shades off. Did you notice the music while you're in the peak experience or that kind of all faded away and you're somewhere else? It was there a little bit, it was there a little bit, but not much, if I'm being honest. Yeah, so more kind of started to come in to tune as you're starting to come back, it sounds like. Right, like I think it helped when I was in, when I was peaking by adding like a little bit of sensory input, but yeah, I don't know that it was like contributing to the, I guess, visual experience or I don't even know if visual is the right frame for that. It's just like a weird felt sense. Yeah. A sense of something happening. Yeah, like, you know, really detail poor, but there was meaning, there was consciousness and intention. It was like, yeah, like what do chickens do when they're in a yard together? Like how do chickens interact? You know, like something like that. So, you know, I came out going, I was fascinating and it's fascinating that ketamine is so cheap. I. We'll see you next week. i would do it again like i'm not in a real hurry but i would absolutely try that again and i can see why some people would get a little addicted to it yeah i don't know if i told you this but we're working on a piece and uh this one really famous ketamine woman um pusher slash pioneer i think in the 80s that we're somewhat not associated with familiar with stan just called her a ketamine addict i'm like what the i think there was more there than that stan come on and we should have a piece on this person and hopefully hopefully we can publish it in january so y'all out there will learn more about this person but she loved to do injections which right now injections aren't like the most common application i don't think like a lot of clinics really like the iv drip because they can really get rid of the IV drip and they can really get rid of the IV drip and they can really get really customized there's some clinics and people that work with it um that i think sounds like they prefer a lot of im um you know i know when raquel has joined us in the class you know it sounds like she likes im as well right yeah because of multiple dosing and whatnot yeah yeah there's less infrastructure required you can do it in rooms that can't legally support iv situations yeah and it there's a lot of reasons to do im over iv or lozenge lozenge from what i was told can't get you as deep yeah the bioavailability isn't that great with lozenges and and obviously it's going through like what is that secondary metabolism so it's just taking longer to come on and you know that whole experience probably lasts around like what like an hour and a half two hours from come up to come down but it would be like a nice relaxing meditative situation and at least you know you're not doing biochemically but yeah like this this experience is really just fascinating like how rapidly my consciousness changed and like it wasn't like a hurried frenetic thing like dmt it was like oh no you're just here you're chilling you're not going anywhere like it's uh you know they use the analogy of the well you're at the bottom of like a well it's you know 10 000 kilometers deep you know there's something that's there it didn't really work as an analogy for me it's more just like abstracted from the world like taken somewhere else yeah so overall like i i wish i could speak more highly of it but because i don't have like acute depression or suicidality i can't say like oh cool that's gone now like a lot of the people we've talked to say is what happens like right often the way i describe it is suicidality is gone in two three hours depression's gone two three hours or maybe you have to sleep a night or two before that kicks in but get your life back for a few weeks right like i i wish i could personally attest to that a little more but you know realistically not scary relative to ayahuasca or you know yeah like i didn't have anything scary going on i was super calm the whole time barely moved and uh yeah like i i'm comfortable saying maybe you should try that you know not like it's gonna cure you but go ahead right i guess like what was like one of your main takeaways there of the experience overall experience i was surprised i could walk as high as i did when i was on my way out um didn't feel right didn't fall felt agile enough the takeaway like there wasn't much like there's maybe like the everyday world just has a lot more detail than these interstates and the detail helps a lot but yeah really like i couldn't come up with anything that was like super valuable in terms of like you know a mushroom trip or ayahuasca or something right was there though yeah nothing that i can really think of yeah i wish i could say more you know like flesh it out in more detail i hope the story's not coming off like a cartoonish uh detail poor rendition of it but uh you know with projects that we've got going kyle like i was really freaked out to be going in there to do this like i'm like oh typically right if i was this freaked out i would probably just not use the drugs but because it's not a tryptamine you know it's not like a amphetamine i'm like okay like i think i'm good like let's try it i was able to link up with one of our mutual friends and try some eeg neurofeedback machines on the day before so i think that helped like calm down my nervous system i stayed in a hotel close to location the night before which was nice yeah sweet i guess thinking about like all the different projects or like stress load do you feel like it you know maybe helped you kind of step away from that for a little bit or even just kind of get some distance from that to be like all right maybe i don't need to think about this right now it gave me a reprieve yeah totally like for the rest of the day like my anxiety load was really low relative to what it normally is it was like yeah kind of baseline yeah so i was super high in the car for like an hour on the ride home like slowly in that second hour uh in the car it was like near zero i probably was acting a little goofy the whole time but it was you know i think there was a reprieve though like that idea of okay you get to like rest your neural circuitry for a little while and then let it come back on you know in a day or two like i think i think there was something there i tried my best to relax as much as i could over the weekend which isn't usually possible for me but i did and i think i think i feel really good this week as a result and did you have any maybe there is that benefit yeah did you have any like prep or integration with the person afterwards to like you know kind of either set an intention going a little bit a intention setting a little bit of a debrief at the end but it wasn't you know because we weren't it was more for me to just have the drug experience than to like get run through a process so i can speak to the drug like like you were saying about your salvia stuff like thank god i had so much breathwork experience and fair amount of drug experience in the last six seven years so it was like oh yeah i'm just high this is fine you know like oh i wasn't too worried about it i wasn't like really and i wasn't really trying to get at anything more than just understand the drug a little bit it's kind of like the first date yeah yeah that's how i felt with the salvia like first date see what's going on there um well actually it's probably like the third but you know um first like uh medium dose to kind of go into that space a little bit deeper so i'm really so from here go ahead oh no i was gonna say i'm really curious about um i am ketamine just because of uh some of those some of the reports i've heard about how similar it is to like near-death experiences and you know i wonder yeah at some of those doses like you know could a mystical experience foster any sort of deep insight or change from that and i don't know it'd just be interesting to kind of compare notes my my experience with like lozenges were really i mean obviously it was more kind of like i was chatting and you know the one big takeaway for me with that was um kind of getting away from ruminative thoughts for a bit and a lot of coex themes started to come up um so i started seeing these different patterns of dreams i had within the past few years and so yeah it was it was interesting to do it in that context where it was like paired with some sort of therapy um and you know i could you know see much more of the benefit um and i think that just brings up the the point about i guess like you know like i'm not sure if i'm gonna be able to do it in the future but i guess context and what raquel bennett talks about ketamine being a flexible tool in these different paradigms of use where you know maybe it's a psychotherapy aspect or kind of like these shamanic aspects where it's like maybe higher doses and and whatnot um or kind of just like the the management um type forget those paradigms which she talks about but um guarantee if i did a lot of like spiritual work like a lot of meditation on it a lot of writing on it or maybe had like a specific thing in mind that i spent like a few weeks digging into that i wanted to get in there like i guarantee it would have been a different deal like you know any kind of ritual or ceremony like probably would have changed it and i didn't really do anything like that yeah so i'm i'm really like totally on that nde thing too man like i i would love to hear you report back after uh i would say for you try to lobby for 1.2 plus milligrams to kilograms just so it's like possibly more similar to your nde i you know when someone told me they got two milligrams a kilogram like what cool but holy shit like maybe i would be scared of it then when it's that high of a dose i don't know but yeah like i'm interested in this um for a number of reasons like of course you know me being me first thing is like okay how can i implement this safely or should i implement this safely into like my celebratory use or whatever um and i'm like still on the fence i'm like yeah like i might try it once or twice twice, but you know, application, maybe I'd make some sort of really low concentration nasal spray really cheap to make. Like you probably get a whole setup that lasts for a few weeks for like five bucks or something, maybe 20. I don't know. But yeah, like I've, I've been told mixing it in a recreational setting with, with MDMA makes for really, really, really lovely sensations. I'm not really prioritizing that at all, but you know, it's on the back burner. I think, you know, for a long flight, like you strapping in to go to like San Francisco from New York, like that could be a decent application. Like benzos are nice for flying, but you know, obviously you want to minimize how often you have to use benzos. There's drugs that are much safer and much cheaper. Yeah. But you know, is it okay to have that much of a sedative while you're in a public situation? I don't know. Yeah. I think that's a ethical question. When I'm flying, there's like barely any waking me up there. Like, I think I slept from San Francisco all the way to Hong Kong just about, which was lovely. What was that? That was, yeah, I'm reckless though. That was like Ambien, Benadryl and Xanax. Yeah. I probably could have died, but I was not interested in being awake for that long flight. Don't try that at home, anybody. That's just what I did. Cause I didn't want to, I had a big problem with flying for a whole day going to Asia. Yeah. Not trying to be a role model. Don't do that. But I did it and I was fine, but I was like, oh, I didn't do it on the return flight. But yeah, like it, what drugs would make flying easier, less stressful. Flying is horrible most of the time. I can never sleep on planes or anything like that. Oh man, it's terrible. Especially for a long flight like that. I always like wake up, like can't do it. Terrible. Yeah. And you know, I was flying a lot at that point in my life too. So I'm like, I know that this is going to be a nightmare. I'm like, I'm going to sleep on planes. So just please put me out. Yeah. Anyway, like, yeah. What drugs would, you know, there's so many different applications for drugs, right? Like, I guess, are we trying to go away from that term drugs? I haven't really figured that out yet. Substances. But yeah, there's so many chemicals with so many different applications. And I don't think it's purely a therapeutic tool, right? It's an anesthetic. It's used in veterinary medicine too. Bothers me when everybody says it's a horse tranquilizer. Cause it's sure they use it in veterinary medicine, but it's used plenty over on the human side as well. When you said like your hearing came back online, I'm just thinking about like anesthetics. I remember it kind of flashed me back when I had my wisdom teeth pulled. And I just thought this was like a really interesting experience just to think about consciousness and whatnot. But I woke up like towards the end and I could feel them pulling on my teeth. And it was like a total numb feeling of getting something pulled on. And I could also hear them like just, you know, casual office jokes and, you know, work banter. And I just thought, like, I remember having this thought of going, wow, this is so interesting. I'm awake in my body and I can't feel anything, but like, I'm aware that the, you know, there's external things going on outside of me. And it only lasted for like, maybe like a minute before then my consciousness like turned off again. And then, you know, they pulled me out once they were done operating. But that was like a really, really weird feeling to kind of like wake up, notice sound and then notice like numb, numbing sensations of them like pulling at my teeth. And I just remember sitting there laughing like internally and be like, wow, this is a really funny consciousness experience right now that I'm going through. I don't know, it really fascinated me, like how, how our minds and bodies operate and how drugs, you know, suppress certain things and really fascinating. But I remember when they were giving me like anesthesia, I just kept seeing all these, uh, I'm not too sure what type of mixture they had, but, uh, I remember seeing all these bright lights and colors zoom at me. And I just wanted to like, start laughing, telling him I was tripping balls, but I didn't think that was appropriate. Man, you got a great dentist. I've never had any kind of visuals. I forget what they gave me. It was like laughing. It was like laughing gas with, I forget what else they use, but I just remember some crazy bright visuals. Um, when they started, they started giving me the anesthesia and I was just like, oh my God, this is amazing. For mine, I was like, I was super high for like at least three hours after I was definitely getting some IV stuff. Um, but no idea. I wish I had the awareness to actually ask. Um, it's really nice once you find out what drugs they've given you, you know, they told me, I just don't remember fentanyl at least four times. I'll just surgery, you know, it really freaks people out, but I, you know, it's a nice way to challenge people's assumptions. Like everyone assumes fentanyl is the worst thing in the world. It is not. It's actually a really great drug, but yeah, like there's a lot, there's a lot going on there. Yeah. The, the coma, like people in comas allegedly like hearing is one of the first things to come back or like the last things to go and people in, um, in comas. So there's something there that's related. Yeah. It's really fascinating. It's similar to like how smell and memory are super associated. Yeah. Maybe there's something with like awareness and hearing. It makes sense though. Right? Like you're, you're in bed, like think about it in evolutionary biology terms, like you're in bed and there might be a predator outside and you start to hear it. You're like, Oh, wake up. Not good. And, um, you know, I don't know if you've seen this or heard this one yet, but like when, when you're traveling and sleeping in a lot of different beds, your sleep is often a lot more shitty because. Because you're not in your normal safe zone. Like after you habituate to a place and like, yeah. So, you know, there's something there like, um, but you know, what is that? Why is it that way? Like, I'm not saying I'm right. Just, just the thought. Yeah. Well, okay. Uh, anything else you want to talk about with ketamine? No, it sounds like a interesting experience. Glad you were able to have that to kind of get an idea of what that's like. So yeah. Thanks for sharing that. It was really neat and more soon. Hopefully I get some more drug experiences to share with everybody here. I imagine there will be more. So let's talk about this new, interesting molecule where they call it TRG. I got the blog up. TBG. Um, yeah. So it's an Ibogaine analog. I think you called it like Tabernanth analog or something like that. Tabernantholog. I could be Tabernantholog. Yeah, there it is. Yeah. Yeah. It sounds like some chemists, uh, this title here from science mag chemists re-engineer psychedelic to treat depression and addiction in rats. And so they're looking at, um, Ibogaine and I think they said here, they came up with 20 different chemical analogs, uh, of the hallucinogen retaining a central ring shaped portion, um, that proved to be involved, um, with some of the desired effects, but losing. Other fragments that proved toxic and hallucinogenic. Um, and the, the promising result was a compound called, uh, TBG Tabernantholog. So yeah, it's, I always find it interesting when, you know, science says, you know, we're, we're getting rid of some of these toxic or, you know, unpleasant hallucinogenic effects. But, uh, you know, I, I, it also makes sense to, if you're looking for some sort of like medical application that, you know, I think, I don't know if it was in this article. Or, um, another article exploring the same, you know, research saying like, you know, it'd be great to have like a very safe medication just as like Advil that you could take home and, you know, people aren't going to worry about, you know, these unpleasant psychedelic effects and, you know, needing, needing more of those, uh, you know, safety mechanisms. But, uh, I guess, you know, something that we always come back to, it's like, I definitely see the benefit for some of that, but then I guess, when does it turn into just, you know, like, you know, like, you know, it's like, uh, another pharmaceutical drug where it's just, you know, but I guess we also have to check our own psychedelic bias and, um, think about when is it not appropriate to constantly like have these psychedelic like effects when, you know, if there could be other chemicals out there that could, you know, bring benefit to somebody's life, why not explore that as well? Right. There's a lot of disorders out there and like often when people are on one drug, they're on a lot of drugs. And yeah, like is it, if we could lower the cost of a treatment by 20, and maybe you have to do it two or three times longer, like that seems like a fair trade off. Like the MAPS protocol is going to be very expensive. Psychedelic therapy is already very expensive. So if we could have a drug that would be safe for somebody to take at home alone, I think of course we should do that. Like, yeah, you know, not everything is cured through the psychedelic experience, though a lot of things can be, it's not the case that everything needs to be. Yeah. One of the more interesting things I read here is that the, the researchers used a drug designing technique called function oriented synthesis to identify which part of the ibuprofen molecule induces structural changes in brain cells in laboratory cultures and animals. Wow. I need to learn more about this function oriented synthesis, because this sounds like a really great way to speed drug development in general. Yeah. Like there's, there's some really interesting stuff here. Like why Ibogaine is a really complicated molecule. I don't know if you've seen like the structure and I think it's like one of the most complicated is what I've heard from like Hamilton and a few others and just like, you know, structurally beautiful and so complex. Yeah. I think Hamilton even used like the term like structurally alien at one point. It's like, this is not like anything I've ever seen. Like, okay, that's a really interesting statement. So like they can now synthesize Ibogaine in a lab. And as a result of that, they can now run like, you know, the Sasha Shulgin game on it and like do a ton of modifications and hopefully do it in a more efficient manner than Sasha did though, though he did it in a pretty efficient way. But he didn't have these, like modern techniques, like function, function oriented synthesis or whatever else is going on there. So yeah, my hope, my hope is that in like 20 years, we've got like, you know, 500 new drugs based on all of these different psychedelic molecules, tryptamines, phenethylamines, Ibogaine derivatives, salvia derivatives. Like I'm hopeful that there's going to be a lot of really interesting stuff there. Yeah. And you know, the little, there's a little spark in me that hopes that, you know, stuff gets really kind of liberated too. Like you can manufacture all this stuff with E. coli bacteria that you've manufactured at home to produce this stuff. You know, you don't need expensive lab gear. You can do a little bit of a crisper setup. And then now you're just like the same way people can home brew beer. You're home brewing all these new interesting molecules and the government can hopefully get out of it. Like for sure, we need some consumer protection. I don't know if that will ever happen. Well, what we're seeing it with psilocybin, right? That group of Cybio brought the psilocybin manufacturer down to, I forget it like compass numbers was like two grand a gram of psilocybin. And this is like $20 or like 20 cents a gram or something crazy like that. It was just like orders of magnitude lower in price. So, you know, if you don't, and for GMP grade psilocybin. So I think we can do a lot with a lot of these things. Typically they're copying the segments of genes that manufacture these molecules, but we're going to have these new synthetic things. So we're going to have to like understand the genetic relationship to, to the molecule that we're producing even better. Yeah. Like Mitch Gomez at one point was like, it's not that far off that this is going to happen with cocaine. And then like the whole cartel thing falls apart because people can just manufacture at home. Right. At least, you know, the cocaine part of it, you know, the rest of the drugs that are, they're pushing, it's a little more complicated and like, you know, heroin, that would be interesting. It'd certainly be a bummer, but it'd be interesting if the cartels and like gangs and intelligence agencies got out of that market. Yeah. So anyway, there's, there's a lot of reasons why democratization is a benefit. Usually when there's a centralized authority, there's some negative consequences. So anyway, that's enough on that. But anything else in this, um, TBG? Yeah, they, um, yeah, they were saying a single injection, the compound protected against relapse of heroin use, um, for up to 14 days. And this is in, um, mice and rats. And it also doesn't appear to stimulate the brain's reward centers, um, as do drugs such as cocaine and, uh, indicating it may not call us dependency, which is really interesting. But, um, what's this guy's name? Uh, David Olson, the researcher, also mentioned that TBG isn't particularly potent, um, as animals had to be given large doses to see beneficial effects. Um, and that can be a warning flag for potential medicines because drugs giving it larger doses often produce more side effects. Um, so they're looking at creating a more potent version. Um, and they conclude here, if they succeed, it could bring much needed help to sufferers of conditions that currently have limited medical treatments. So. But that's pretty, um, impressive. I mean, just even thinking about like relapse, like just something that helps, um, you know, combat against that. Um, and how could you get into treatment, have us have something that helps to combat against relapse and probably, well, I don't know if it's saying withdrawal too, cause I'm sure that's pretty intense, but you know, if it did also combat against withdrawal, that's huge for people that are really want to get off some of these drugs. Totally. Like that's the big sell for Ibogaine, right? Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. To kind of short circuit the, uh, the chemical dependence feeling. So you can actually just straight up deal with the addiction, um, as opposed to deal with withdrawals on an addition to the actual, you know, substance use disorder situation. Another quote here from the science alert article with the exception of 18 MC, which is currently, they didn't write 18 MC. They wrote the full name, methoxycoronidine, uh, 18 MC, which is currently in phase two clinical trials. Very few Ibogaine analogs have demonstrated this level of safety while also producing therapeutic effects. So like in animal models, this is looking really promising. And, um, you know, they probably got to do a little bit more animal research and then they can probably get it into, uh, humans. I wouldn't be surprised if we see this in a, in a human trial in 2021. Yeah. People are really excited right now about this stuff. So, um, I just imagine like there's going to be money behind it. They're going to really want to push. So happy to see it. Like we need more stuff to help with our, you know, multifaceted crisis we're going through right now. Yep. I can only imagine like once the pandemic is done, like how many people are going to be struggling with crippling disorders from straight up depression to addiction to everything. Like it's going to mean how many people are already struggling already, you know? Yeah, totally. Yeah. For whatever reason, I'm like, oh, I won't see it. I won't see it until this is over, but I'm like, oh no, this shit's going on right now for sure. It is interesting to think about the backlash or, you know, kind of like long-term effects of, you know, lockdown, isolation and, and stuff like that. Yeah. I mean, it's, we're all feeling it to some capacity, right? I think I was just chatting. Rat park. Yeah. I was chatting with somebody like, just thinking about like how I really, um, you know, I'm always like moving around, always like traveling, always like doing stuff and having to put all that on hold. There's a part of me. I'm like, who am I when I'm not able to just get in my car and go? And I'm like, you know, just stuck here. It's, uh, you know, really challenges, uh, different parts of you when it's, when you can't like go about doing your own thing and, you know, your normal life. I dealt with that with a lot of my injuries. It's like, who am I when I'm not like really aggressive, you know, skier, snowboarder, biker, climber, that kind of stuff. Who am I when I'm not weightlifting, you know, not having. These huge endorphin rushes, you know, which is like a good placeholder for drug use, I guess. But yeah, like I'm somehow I'm really impressed with myself that I haven't like started drinking a ton or like smoking a ton or even like dipping into like LSD all the time, you know, like it's kind of proud of it, but I'm also like, uh, should I, should I be taking the edge off a little bit here and there? Probably the answer is yes in moderation, but it's a hard. Thing to sort out. And yeah, everybody's losing their identity. It's kind of like a collective ego death in some ways to use a problematic term. Who am I when I don't have the things that make me me around and be able to do the things that make me me. Yeah. So something to think about. And then what does that look like after, you know, and, you know, or some of those like psychological fears still going to be there for some folks, you know, being immunocompromised has this definitely took it like a, uh, you know, heightened sensitivity to a lot of this stuff, like trying to be extra, extra careful before I was like, didn't really like, I thought about it, but like now I'm just like, Ooh, you know, like that's now embedded in my mind about like being extra cautious around things. Yeah. So I guess a quick teaser before we wrap here, uh, I would say in two, three more weeks, I'll be reporting back on, um, my first. Batch of microdose sessions. And I took last week off because I didn't want to get more amplified going into the ketamine set situation. But yeah, it's, um, it's interesting. Like, I don't know that my dosing is perfect yet, but, um, yeah. Kudos to the people that are checking it out. It's really interesting to do it with LSD versus like mushrooms. LSD just seems a lot easier to do it with, um, the volumetric method with like water. And like measuring out a certain number of milliliters. Like that just seems a lot more sensible than like, not sensible, easier. That's the right word. Then weighing everything out and like 0.1, 0.2 grams for every pill or whatever you're doing. Yeah. But if you've got a machine, there's people out there, I don't know if I told you this, people out there with like really fancy machines that you can just like dump in your powder and it just like does it at a perfect dosage. Yeah. All right. Well, I guess let's wrap. Um, could you, could you mention some things about our upcoming class in January? Yeah. So navigating psychedelics. for clinicians and therapists. You can check that out at psychedeliceducationcenter.com. Classes start January 7th. We have two groups. Group one is at 2 p.m. Eastern time and group two is at 7 p.m. Eastern time. It's a hybrid course, so you'll get tons of online material that you'll be able to work through throughout the eight weeks and beyond. You'll get lifetime access to that material and special interviews and our trip journal or integration workbook and just tons and tons of resources. We'll meet online for an hour and a half each class time and use it as an open classroom session to really dig into the nuances and chat about this stuff in depth with you. If you want to join us, you want to cultivate your psychedelic education, learn more, we'd love to have you. Check that out at psychedeliceducationcenter.com. Fantastic. Thank you all for checking out this episode. If you don't want to check out our class but still want to help us out, tell a friend, maybe share it around on social. We'll see you on the next episode in just a few more days. Have a good one, everybody. Take care. Take care. Bye-bye. Bye-bye. Bye-bye.