Shane LeMaster, B.A., M.A., LAC, CC-AASP - Part 2

Ladies and gentlemen, welcome back to Psychedelics Today. This is Joe, your host. We also have Kyle and Shane LeMaster here. Shane was a guest last week. We're going to get into some more stuff with him this week. Can't wait. Just a little bit of info about what we have going on and then we can jump right into the interview. So we have just launched a sales page for our Navigating Psychedelics class. It's kind of a way more inclusive class offering than we were offering before. We're going to have 10 experts give introductions and kind of masterclasses about the topics they are most expert in with psychedelics. For instance, integration or picking the right ayahuasca center, plenty of other topics. We'll kind of lay that out as we record them. The class will launch on August 8th. You have maybe a few more weeks for the early burger discount. We're selling that. What was the number Kyle? 107? 107, correct. 107 for a few more weeks and keep an eye on that to take advantage of the deal of getting it early. We're also selling a premium option for $40 more where you get an hour with either Kyle or I to talk at length about psychedelics. about what you have going on. And maybe we can give you some advice. I have a breathwork workshop coming up in Breckenridge, Colorado on July 8. So feel free to come check that out if you're in the area or if you want to come from far away, that would be quite flattering. So I think that's it for right now. So you really should listen to the last podcast we did with Shane if you haven't listened to it yet, because we're probably going to be talking at length about stuff we already talked about before at kind of a deeper level. So yeah, check out that last episode before digging into this one. Or if you're really bold, you can jump right in. So Shane is a licensed therapist, does a lot of really interesting work with veterans, is also a martial artist. And what did you call that? Shambhala? Something, Kyle? You mentioned something about warriorship. There's an S word. Yeah, Shambhala. That's a Buddhist kind of sect of warriorship. Maybe Shane could. Yeah, we'll get into that in a little bit. Describe it a little bit better. Yeah. So I guess here we go, Shane. Let's start talking about it. Just jump in. Okay. Yeah. I mean, I think if I tried to explain it, I'd probably butcher it pretty badly, but yeah, Shambhala tradition is what I base a lot of my own Buddhist practices and Buddhist. It's what I prefer to study. That and most of the Tibetan sects of Buddhism, I just find more in line with my own belief system. And yeah, we were talking a little bit before the podcast about part of my approach in my therapy or in my sport and performance psychology consulting and that sort of training, as well as my work with veterans is really kind of teaching this lifestyle of warriorship. Joe, you were mentioning what it's like to be a. A man in this day and age and. It's weird. And things like that. And I think it's really important. A lot of people are lost out there. There's a lot of people lost, man. Being a guy in this day and age is quite challenging. There's this whole flame war I'm seeing on the internet right now for a lot of people I know from alternative worlds. And there's just all these little subsects of ideology battling each other. And there's. Even if it's only a hundred percent of the world, there's. Even if it's only a hundred people total on the internet, they're all the way self-righteous about who knows what. And how do you negotiate that as a man without feeling beaten up and being able to be yourself and not feel like the whole world is out to get you, which is kind of what the internet is making it feel like right now. It's not really the case, guys. It's just the internet. But how do you negotiate that carefully? And in your day-to-day living, how do you be embodying of what's going on in you? So yeah, it's very complex math and definitely not simple. But yeah, so you help. That's kind of what you're focusing on for your inner work. Do you work with the veterans on that kind of stuff? Yeah, I do. I mean, I usually try and keep what I teach them to be non-denominational. Right. Smart. So I don't really bring in Buddhist terminology and things like that unless they specifically request it. Mm-hmm. But yeah, I mean, a lot of these vets, after experiencing the camaraderie and the fellowship in the community that they experience and having a mission and a purpose overseas and then coming back, again, they feel lost. They feel like a soldier without a mission, like they have no value, no purpose. And then on top of that, all the stigmas that come along with it from the general public can be really difficult for these guys to transition. So part of what we do in helping them reintegrate and help them feel better so that we can reduce that suicide rate is really teaching them that you can be a warrior in so many other ways. You don't have to be on an actual battlefield shooting a rifle like you were overseas. You can be a warrior every single day in every aspect of your life. Warriorship goes much deeper and is much broader than that. And that's something I try and live every day, is I try and live that way physically through my martial arts and develop those practical warrior skills. But also, we're mental warriors. We're mind warriors. Those are the warriors of the future, are the warriors who can really tap into their mental potentials. Yeah. That is huge. That's really awesome. And plus, I remember I took a warriorship class. And in my undergrad, I kind of just created it and read a bunch of the Shambhala texts and took some Aikido. But the thing that really turned me on to that whole concept was, I think, kind of coming back to being a man too, like how to just being the world without being violent, but also striving to create a better world. Because Shambhala is all about kind of, what is it, like building the enlightened world in some sense. I remember reading from the book. It had something to do with building this enlightened kind of world. Yeah. But there's so many different ways to go about it and going about it in a nonviolent way and just showing up however. Yeah. I feel like that's a theme among a lot of Buddhist traditions is to strive to give back more than what you take from this world. And what Joe was saying, it's very difficult for men these days to navigate the world with all the pressures and the internet age and all the criticism. Yeah. And all the little clicks and trends going on. For me personally, I find it's a spiritual practice for me, but also something practical that I use. And I just try and detach myself from as much as possible from those criticisms or from those expectations that society has. I feel like I'm pretty good at identifying what my core beliefs are and what the belief systems that were taught to me by churches and parents and the education system and really detaching from that so that I can fully explore who I am. Buddhists talk a lot about detaching from this reality because it's not really real. And discovering your higher self, your deeper self, something that's preconditioning if you could say that. Mm-hmm. Yeah. I'm kind of curious for myself, and maybe some other people are listening too, do you have any texts off the top of your head, books or references for this path of warriorship, say like any Shambhala texts or anything like that if people want to dive in a little bit more? You know, I wish I did off the top of my head. There's, I know a couple of book titles. So there's one called On Combat. Um, and I believe the author's name is, uh, he's a Lieutenant Colonel, if I'm correct, and a retired Lieutenant Colonel Christensen. Um, he, uh, yeah, I, you know, if you, if you go on Amazon and Google or Google, um, warriorship or, or Warrior Mind or, um, anything like that, um, usually a good, a few good things will come up. Yeah. Sorry, I can't name any off the top of my head. No worries. I thought maybe you had a little bit more than me. I know the one book that I read was like Shambhala, The Path of the Warrior. Um, but I, I think that, you know, it's a really relevant topic, especially in this psychedelic realm of how, how to show up and then how to, uh, move this movement forward and kind of stand ground and fight for what we believe is right. And, you know, these sacred medicines are helping people and, you know, how, how do we really fight for that if we believe in it? Yeah. You know, if I was in the other room, I could just look at my book. I could just look at my bookshelf and that whole section on this, but I'm drawing a blank right now. No worries. I know there was a really interesting one called On Killing. I think it was by Christian. So Yes. That's another one by him. That's really good. Yeah, it's, I haven't read it. I've wanted to because some of my vet friends suggested it. Yeah, it's interesting. Did you know Kalindi talks about this from a warrior perspective? Kalindi IE, like that's, I don't, he's not necessarily doing mental health, but he's doing like this warriorship thing. How do you stay in that self-defense, defended stance, even at, you know, 75 grams or whatever of psilocybin mushrooms? Like, I don't, I think he doesn't go that high, but I think people he knows and works with go that high, which is insane. But, you know, having that martial arts background probably helps. I would love to understand the why behind that, behind why they're doing that. I don't know, as a martial artist, can you relate to it? In Detroit this year, and he is just a fascinating, fascinating guy. He's so cool. So friendly to talk to. And you're right, you know, he takes a very spiritual and, you know, warrior type path with his psychedelics. And the way that, you know, the things he draws out of ancient history and texts on different warrior clans, you know, Vikings using psychedelics and the Egyptians using it and Native Americans using psychedelics during battle and all these things. And I think that's, I think that's a really good point. I think that's a really good point. It's just so fascinating for me coming from a martial arts background, my whole life. And then also having a love on the side for psychedelics and never really knowing that there was a connection between the two. And then, you know, you hit these synchronicities and then it just blows your mind every single day. Yeah. Yeah. The one book that I read, maybe Joe, you know, the guy's name off the top of your head. I can't remember. Daniele, Daniele Bellelli. We talked about him last time. Yeah. The Italian, now Los Angeles based historian, I think. Yeah. He had one sentence in this book where he was talking about martial arts and psychedelics. He's like, what's more psychedelic than an Aikido master knowing the move before it actually happens. And it's true, you know, and maybe that's a good segue into about, you know, your research and your interest in microdosing flow states and martial arts. And I know you wanted to jump back a little bit. And talk about how you got into all this. Yeah. Thanks. So, yeah, like I said in the last podcast, I've been a, you know, a martial artist my whole life. I've been an athlete in, you know, numerous sports my whole life and was never really the best, but always sought to reach those same potentials that I saw, you know, the stars on the team reaching. And I wanted to tap into that myself. So, I'd always had an interest in that. From a very young age, but I had been using psychedelics recreationally and never really drew the connection between the two until I heard, you know, the famous story about the Pirates pitcher, Doc Ellis, back in the 70s, pitching a no-hitter, a major league baseball no-hitter on LSD. And from what I hear, there's even a rumor out there that Ice Cube is going to make a new movie about Doc Ellis. And I'm so pumped if that's true. Because he has really been my inspiration for the research path that I want to pursue. You know, that inspired me to go experiment with my own microdoses and athletics. And, you know, right away I found profound results, but found nothing in the literature about enhancing physical and mental performance through the use of psychedelics. Like, in a direct action type state where you're doing something for performance reason. And so, I found that that was a gap in the research and in the literature. And I, you know, it was just calling to me. And that's really what got me inspired to want to look into these things and hopefully do some future research with it. And, you know, in university with my formal sports psychology training, we did a lot of, um, studying about flow states and, uh, mostly natural flow states, how people get into them, how athletes experience them, uh, what it means for performance as far as, uh, mental and physical enhancement. And, um, you know, I, again, I just want to bring those two things together. I feel like if we can, you know, I hate to use the word market, but if we can market, um, psychedelics to the general public. To the general population and kind of open it, open their eyes to the potential that lies out there for them with micro doses, I feel like it could open the door, um, for legalization for, uh, at least decriminalization, you know? Hmm. Yeah. This is really interesting because microdosing kind of is hitting the scene as that way. And it seems to be gaining more reputation. And I think Paul Austin was talking about, he, he believes that's kind of the, the way in as well as through microdosing, not having this psychedelic effect, but just taking sub threshold doses and just experiencing kind of like a flow state or just, you know, a little bit better of a day. Um, it's interesting. Sure. Yeah. And, uh, you know, I listened, uh, to Paul Austin's podcast on that recently and, um, you know, his and my views are very similar in that we think that, um, because of the sub perceptual, um, effects, um, we think it will be more widely accepted by the general public. Um, but I think I tend to take more, um, the route of, again, because of my background, uh, performance, you know, uh, we live in a capitalist society, you know, I, I understand who my audience is. Um, you know, most Americans want to succeed in life. They want to thrive. Um, they don't just want to survive. They want to perform. They want to perform at their best. We're high achievers. We're a country of perfectionists a lot of the time. And, uh, you know, if you can play on that a little bit and say, Hey, I can help you get closer to your greatest potential. Um, this is how we do it. Then I think a lot of people will be interested in that. I mean, they're already interested in those things. You know, you see the rise in, uh, ADHD medications and, um, you know, natural supplements that help with focus and attention and things like that. Um, micro doses though, do so much more on so many more levels. Um, I don't know if you guys have seen the movie, uh, limitless with rather than ever. Have you guys seen that? Yes. Trying to think, I think I've seen pieces of it. Yeah. When the, in the movie, he just takes like a super drug and, uh, it makes him perform, um, everything that he does at, at greater proficiency. And I, you know, I truly believe that's what. Microdose can do, um, maybe not to the level displayed in the movie, but, uh, but certainly get some people interested. Right. I think that's how they're pitching it for sure. They're also like provigil is kind of already there, but that's kind of meth as opposed to, do you have a question before I thought, um, yeah. Can you guys hear me? Yeah. Cool. Um, not sure what the deal is there. So I think there's, uh, provisional. Providual is kind of already there for this kind of thing. And, but that's more just like speed, uh, in a sense, or like it's, it's obviously very structurally different from an amphetamine, but it's, it's kind of that drug, but it's not taking advantage of the whole brain. So like a person that microdose for three months, then started using provisional, that would be an interesting experiment. Um, I think they just banned provisional in chess tournaments or something because I think they calculated it. It made you 15 or 30% better, something like that. This was, uh, from the Peter Schwerstedt H talk, um, Kyle, um, it's interesting that chess would be the place to ban cognitive enhancers first. Well, this is a question like, and I was just thinking about this too, is that like, why would we want to ban things that could improve performance? If like you're better at chest, isn't that okay? Like, isn't that pushing the limit? So maybe, um, create something new. I don't know. It makes me scratch my head that, you know, they'd be like, no, no performance increase. Right. Yeah. It's almost, uh, it seems common sense to us. Um, and I think to most people on the street that you talk to, it would seem like common sense too. Um, but I think it, you know, it probably goes back to what happened in the sixties and seventies with prohibition in the first place, you know, the people in charge don't want, um, uh, a new class of people all of a sudden becoming more intelligent and more proficient at everything and beating them out, um, of those positions, you know? Um, so I think there's a lot of shady stuff still going on behind the scenes. Uh, and that's, that's the uphill battle that, you know, all of us are facing right now. I think there's something about like scientists thinking it's not fair that somebody would do it and the others wouldn't. And there's also the idea of health risks. We're pretty sure microdosing is safe we don't you know 100 know it over like what happens if you do it for eight years but we're pretty sure it's a lot safer than you know most drugs i think um it probably actually even fight disease the way i've the way i model the um the brain scan data because you know disease theoretically would be due to low blood flow in certain zones of the brain and this would just increase metabolism all over the brain for the most part and hopefully keep your brain fresher for a lot longer so yeah it's it's weird math i don't i don't exactly know why and i think it would be interesting to bring it into sports because right now a lot of the stuff about microdosing is how to be a better capitalist but what about how to be a better athlete or how to be a stronger person like that those aren't really valued 100 in the capitalist model but that's something that i think is really important to look at for sure yeah i agree so you had this idea of a study like have you have you gotten much into like what you want to look at for this stuff yeah um i've uh given a lot of thought to as far as you know how i may want to structure it um some ideas on how to control some of the variables but you know basically i would like to you know take a sport jujitsu that i'm most familiar with um and what i'd like to do is in a controlled setting so a gym that's agreed upon by everybody maybe that everybody feels comfortable in um you know conducting microdose trials where um you know i might have 10 to 20 jujitsu athletes on the mat at a time um some would be microdosing some would not be you know double blind placebo study um and we would have them take uh subjective surveys before during and after uh as well as you know um tracking who was actually microdosing and and are their subjective experiences matching up um you know i've i've talked at length with a lot of my um black belt professors and you know i have quite a list of of willing uh research participants uh black belts in jujitsu that that are really interested in in the applications of microdosing and are you know want to give it a try with me if i can um manage to get the funding and a team behind me um so yeah we would be testing things you know and and um the basis for what i want to test uh in these sessions is based off of my own anecdotal experience um i've microdosed in both training and competition and experienced some phenomenal results so things i would be trying to test for um and you know we have sports psychology tests uh and sports performance tests that we can run in in labs to do this as well things like um improving eye hand coordination improving uh one's ability to put together a mental strategy on the fly um things like um you know uh time being um distorted where you you feel like your opponent is going much much slower than you and you feel like you you're able to move much much faster um you know anticipating moves uh two three four moves ahead of what you you're normally capable of um greater tactile sensation so being a jujitsu is a very tactile sport so being able to feel your opponent uh better more accurately um i've noticed better balance uh better for what it feels like more strength more explosive strength um greater capability for endurance uh greater capability for muscular endurance not just cardio endurance um and most importantly for performance what i think is is the clarity of mind that you get while you're microdosing so um you're no longer concerned about your fears of competition or you're not worried about the crowd you know it gives you this laser focus where you step on the and you are in the moment from the time you start until the time that you're done um and that's that's where a lot of athletes get caught up is uh up in their mind you know and that's what i do with my own private practice um if anyone's interested they can visit my website it's uh www.mind-ops.com so mindops.com um and that's what i do i help athletes get over you know their mental blocks get help them get out of their own way so that they can get out of their own way and they can get out of their own way and they can be purely in that moment during competition it's you know that's when we reach the flow state most often is when we're in the moment not thinking about the past or the future um but really you know experiencing the present for all that it is yeah there's a lot to unpack right there um i want to dig into a little bit about the research but i'm also kind of curious to how do you teach flow states to people without doing micro dosing in your practice um so in in my general practice when i'm working with um athletes who don't have experience with micro dosing um most people in general have had flow states in their life um you know a lot of times they just don't recognize that that's what's happening so i mean you can get in a flow state while you're washing the dishes if you are totally in it and you are doing nothing but washing the dishes and feeling the temperature of the water feeling the texture of the plate and the cloth that you're using you know you can get in a flow state you can get in um flow states while you know just jogging um so a lot of people have been through these flow states and so what i try and do is i try and help them remember times in their lives where they can remember a flow state and then we pick apart kind of what were the preceding events and circumstances that led up to that flow state mindset what was the setting like um what was it like during so what were the qualities that we want to try and elicit uh that are most profound and most remembered by you and remembered by the cells in your body and then afterwards you know what sort of um effect what sort of benefit did you notice afterwards and then we tried to the best of our ability try and recreate um the pre during and post aspects that they can remember and see if that helps them reach a flow state more easily or more quickly um and you know they'll come back to me and report you know i was able to get into it this much faster but i lost it after 30 seconds um and we can fine tune you know the the pre-performance routines we can fine tune you know the specific mind state that we want the athlete to be in that's most efficacious for them as an individual during their performance and then we can fine tune their personal integration of their training and competition experience experiences after that's huge yeah i was trying to think that's kind of like i had uh maybe a year and a half of being really into uh i don't exactly know how to pronounce this dude's name but one of uh oprah's minions uh eckhart tolle he did a lot of mindfulness stuff and um it was like kind of repackaged buddhism in a way but just that act of being with whatever you're doing really really pee really wash those dishes and feel it really drink that coffee it's it's fascinating that it's all attention based in a way and uh figuring out how to train that attention and yeah you're right with sports you could just kind of make this routine that would tune you in maybe customize to you and i think there's huge room for improvement there with uh any kind of sports group yeah um i mean you can just take a look at um any major league baseball game um and watch the guy in uh who's on deck to bat and watch what he's doing and you'll notice that every time he gets on deck or every time he steps up to the plate he has a specific routine that he does um and it's individualist it's it's individual for each person um and some of it is you know superstitious but uh superstition plays an important role in in how comfortable the person feels uh in the situation so um some of them have actual performance benefits uh like chalking your hands up or something like that while others are more superstitious and and just help with with the mental state um and joe i think i remembered you saying that you you're a snowboarder right right skier snowboarder biker all that stuff and it's all flow state all the time exactly so like if you were to come in and and into my office and ask me you know i need help reaching a flow state in um this new sport that i'm trying i'm just having so much difficulty with it i may have you recall the flow states that you experience while snowboarding and experience what that felt like maybe even put you into uh you know teach you a meditation to bring up some of those same somatic feelings so that you can remember them and then have you try and apply that same thing to this new sport that you're trying Right. Yeah. Yeah. That makes a lot of sense. Um, it becomes funny when you try to say, okay, this person has been a chef for 18 years. Now they want to learn how to do rally driving, getting that flow state. It's like, you know, that scenario has probably played out a lot, but, um, yeah, getting it more dialed in would be great. Yeah. Yeah. I liked what you said about getting out of your own way. And I think that's like the biggest trick sometimes. Cause I find when I enter into a flow state, I'm completely just not even thinking about anything. And I've completely just removed, cause I overthink things all the time. I think I just get lost in my head. I'm like, should I do that? And I go back and forth and getting out of my own way, I think is like the biggest block for me. But when I am in that state, I noticed I'm just, you know, not questioning anything and just feeling every moment, feeling it very intuitive to, you know, kind of tapping into that intuition and just feeling it. Yeah, exactly. And I feel like, um, that's what, you know, even if you're not playing a sport, that's what I feel on microdose. So when I'm microdosing just and going about my daily life, running errands, I feel like I'm running my errands extremely efficiently, you know, um, like I'm picking, I'm picking the shortest line to check out automatically and not having to think about it, or I'm finding the closest parking spot without trying. Um, you know, someone says something not so nice to me and it's so much easier to just let that go and, and keep going about my day. So couple that with a flow state and, you know, who knows what we can achieve as, as a human vessel, as a human being. I think the potentials are endless. And in the last podcast, I, you know, I cited, um, you know, some stories I've heard of Buddhist monks just achieving amazing, uh, inhuman things, um, through meditation. And I feel like we all can tap into that. We all can experience that. Um, and there's various ways to get there. Microdosing is just one. And it's one that may appeal to a Western audience more so than, you know, here, sit down for 50 years and meditate. And maybe you'll, you'll learn some of these skills. I have this story from being out here in like ski towns where, um, people up here obviously do a lot of drugs. It's just kind of like what ski resort towns are known for in a something risky that i don't really advise people do like i don't want you to break your leg on my account or whatever but so a really talented skier and his friend decide to take a quarter tab of acid so about 25 to 50 micrograms of acid at seven in the morning on a really deep snow day and proceeded to have the best day of their lives on snow and to the point where everything was automated everything was pure flow state and um this is where it becomes not micro dose i think he was actually seeing lines to follow similar to like a video game so it was like his subcon so like as a non-specific amplifier of psychic process your your mind kind of your your body or your flow state's kind of just projecting into the lsd where you want to go in a sense that's how the way i modeled it but i'm sure you could model it many other ways but it's just like fascinating and that sounds like something if we get there with flow states like you know a real premium experience somebody would pay what ten thousand dollars for people pay that much money to go heli skiing so i'm sure they would pay that much to have the best day of their life on acid skiing but again i don't advise it sounds super risky be really careful if you do that people i don't i don't want to say then how would the public react if you were marketing like that and somebody had an accident and then you know maybe they'd blame it on oh they were high on on drugs you know absolutely and i you know i've read a couple um different articles from different sources um talking about extreme athletes and in particular extreme snowboarders um in uh the professional snowboard realm uh you know i've been a snowboarder for um 15 years of my life too and so that was a just about 70 to 80 percent of the x-games snowboarders are on some sort of um microdose of lsd while they're competing um and i don't know how true that is or not but um the professional snowboarders that i know um they all do it uh and they're already doing these things i would just like to you know i feel like a lot of people are already applying microdosing to performance context um and sports um but there's no way to say that i'm not a snowboarder i'm not a snowboarder hard research to back it up yet and so it's hard to get people on board um you know more and more people and that's what i kind of want to do is is put that hard data to it so that you know people can say yeah i'm doing this and look why this is why i'm doing it you know my performance go through the roof yeah and would these be pretty subjective measures or would you actually maybe be timing say a reaction time or would it just be like the pre and post measure of like how did you think you reacted to that so i would like to do both um i'd like to have the subjective measures from the athletes themselves um but uh my jiu-jitsu master i'm not gonna name his name but um you know he's he's one of the top jiu-jitsu um artists in the world he uh is on board with with uh the benefits of psychedelics and to have an objective measure as well maybe uh invite him up from brazil to just come observe these um these reality research sessions and give his objective point of view of of you know who's performing better who's reacting faster um from from an objective master of the sport but also you know there's a lot of great um neural feedback and and uh biofeedback technology out there so we can have these athletes hooked up with uh biofeedback uh hair nets to to be um you know taking measures of their brain function while they're performing um we can uh put sensors on on certain muscle groups to see if the fast twitch muscle fibers or slow twitch muscle fibers are firing faster slower um you know identifying you know greater control and and greater um eye hand coordination you know all sorts of things another thing i noticed uh in my own training is is a much greater threshold for pain um which is advantageous in combat sports obviously um so yeah i definitely like to get subjective and objective measures um and do my best to control for the variables which is is going to be the most challenging piece of a research study like this only because jiu jitsu is so dynamic and every single practitioner has his own style you know you you don't uh everybody learns the same moves but everybody puts them together in their own way so so controlling for that stuff is going to be difficult yeah i was going to say what kind of variables would you look for like length of time that somebody's trained their strength their speed i guess the style i mean yeah it does seem like there's a lot of different variables in there that could yeah so true and you know what they ate for breakfast and who they're sparring against this time and who they just sparred against because each time you you spar you're more tired because you had just had a match so so controlling for you know what order you're going to be sparring against and what you're going to be sparring against and who's going to be um you know on these microdoses and you know but like i said i have you know a pretty good substantial list of jiu-jitsu black belts who um would more than happily volunteer for something like this so there was a recent tim well okay so tim ferris had this tv show called tim ferris experiment where he would try to learn something really quickly and he would try to learn something really quickly and he would try to learn something really quickly and he had one episode where he was trying to learn a single move a single jiu-jitsu move not anything like you know he's not learning the whole format or anything and the concept was to get some sort of arm bar in on this like a blue i think a black belt or something so you know obviously super hard right but it was one move out of infinite moves and he did it in about six days um one success and over the course of six days so that'd be interesting to take a bunch of college kids like 20 year olds or something and well maybe they have to be 21 i don't know but uh and you know one one set would be microdose the other wouldn't be and yeah same breakfast and uh you just see how long it takes them to do this single move that might i don't know simplify the process a little bit but if you haven't seen that one uh i think that's really worth checking out tim ferris experiment with the jiu-jitsu guy in new york i think i don't think it was one of the gracie's but it was some big name in new york okay is that on like netflix or hulu or something uh you might have to scoop up the episode on itunes i i don't think it's on any of the streaming services okay um cool yeah um that was fun uh it was a weird show because he did all sorts of performance enhancing drugs and sleeping with certain enzymes that boosted memory retention and consolidation stuff is super crazy but he did it so i i think it's very worthy um i I wouldn't be surprised if you could get some sort of backing from some university coaches like D one D two coaches would say, yeah, I think that's not a bad idea to throw. I don't know, $10,000 of that each school. So you might be able to get some sort of research pool from, from that. I don't really know how sports funding goes for psychology research or sports performance research, but you know, I know that one of the top neurofeedback trainers got hired by Canada in this huge push for the Vancouver Olympics that gave them like the most golds that year. So like, you know, that was one part of it was neurofeedback. So they are, people are looking for that kind of thing. You know, maybe China or Russia wants to do some doping for the next Olympics and they can fund the research. Yeah. Does seem like maybe some, simplifying it to like say how quickly does somebody learn a move? Like a very complex advanced move might be a good way to start like a nice entry level type of research project just to maybe get some funding saying, listen, this, this might work to go bigger. I don't know. No, that's a good idea. It's a great idea. Lots of ideas tossed around. Yeah. There's never really an end to it. So I actually had some snowboarders this past weekend. Talk to me, uh, at a retreat I was running and they said that most pros they knew, um, about 10 years ago were, were heavily, um, were like smoking a lot of pot, um, while they were training and doing whatever. But I've, I, I knew a lot of professionals, um, back in college and, um, you know, they weren't at the level that people are at now. We're like, you could be kind of slower then, but now you need to be extremely precise. It's like high end. Yeah. Gymnasts moving at extremely high speeds and, uh, with high consequences. So like, yeah, that there needs to be something there to, to dial in mental performance, like at a higher level than, than I think marijuana could do. Have you ever came across like any of those articles about microdosing cannabis? Um, I came across one, I think recently about microdosing edibles. Um, but, uh, not about, uh, smoked cannabis. Um, you know, I found, you know, just like with microdosing psychedelics, but, uh, you know, just smoking cannabis before jujitsu session, um, you know, is, is great. You know, um, a big part of athletics in general is, you know, you have to find the right level of arousal. Um, you can't be too amped up. Uh, you're going to make mistakes and you can't be too relaxed or you're going to make mistakes. And that's usually where injuries happen too. So you have to find this, this optimal zone of functioning is what it's called and your optimal state of arousal. And for me, cannabis, uh, really puts me in that zone where I step on the mat and I'm calm already. You know, my mind is calm. Um, I'm not taking things personally. If a lower belt is tapping me out or something, you know, um, I'm, I feel like I'm moving more smoothly. Uh, my joints feel more limber, uh, not stiff. Um, so even cannabis is, you know, that's, that's almost a daily thing for training. Um, I've actually read some studies about how, you know, cannabis when smoked anyway, can help to open up the, uh, the lung capacity, um, in the ankle. So, um, I find the smoking right before a run. Uh, I know it sounds counterintuitive, but I can breathe so much better, so much more deeply if I smoke cannabis before a run. And, um, same with jujitsu, you know, very intense, uh, wrestling grappling type sport, you're, you're breathing really heavy. And if you can control your breath, um, then, you know, you're safe. So, um, having that, that extra little, um, boost for my lung capacity, uh, I've, I've found has been extremely beneficial. Hmm. Yeah. I was going to say, I've definitely had some interesting flow States with like just small amounts of cannabis. And I find that very helpful for getting out of my own way of not maybe overanalyzing things and just kind of going with, with it. So it's interesting. What about your own personal experience with this? Would you want to dive into that at all of like, what's your microdose? Is it how you've done some microdosing in, uh, martial arts and what's that like, or what's your dose like? And yeah, sure. Um, so I've microdosed, um, in both training and competition, um, in training and microdosed, uh, during jujitsu training. I've also microdosed during our, uh, MMA sparring. Um, and, uh, my dose is usually around, uh, 10 to 15 micrograms. Um, you know, it's, it's a little more difficult to, to measure, um, at that small, small dose, but, um, you know, I'm, I'm, it's definitely sub perceptual, you know, I may feel a little euphoric, a little happier than normal, but besides that, I don't notice, um, much going into the training. Um, and what I've experienced in, in my training, like I said, are, are the things that I'd like to study. So, um, you know, during the standup sparring, the MMA sparring, you know, I can see punches coming for what seems like 30 seconds, you know, and have plenty of time to react to them. Uh, whereas, you know, if you go in there, um, without microdose, things are moving at you much faster, it seems like. Um, and it, you know, it helps with the mental strategy. It helps, like you said, when you're in the flow state, you're just trusting, you're just feeling, you're not thinking. Um, you know, if you think in these sports, you're already a step behind. So the moment you're, you're starting to think about your next move, that's when you're getting punched in the face. Um, so you really, you really need to stop the thought process as much as possible. Um, once you learn the movements and just trust. And, um, that's, that's really been my experience in training, especially, um, I did compete last year, um, with a microdose. And, uh, at that time I entered, um, two divisions, uh, that I had never been in before. Um, both divisions were one weight class above my normal weight. Uh, so I weighed in at the weight class before, but nobody showed up for that weight class. So they bumped me up to the higher weight class. Uh, I was also in a more advanced bracket than my skill level. Um, so as a purple belt, I was going against brown belts. Um, I was in the, the advanced, uh, no gi division, which I'd never done before. Um, and on the microdose, I think I took a silver and a bronze medal, you know? So, um, you know, I was, you know, I was not freaked out at all about getting on the mats with more advanced people. Um, you know, I almost felt like, um, you know, I could sense them easier. You know, I could sense their energy and play off of that. Um, and it was fantastic. It was in a flow state all day long. And, uh, was that the same day you microdosed or was that days later? Um, the same day I microdosed the day of the competition. Oh, that's fascinating. How long beforehand? Um, well, uh, we got there anticipating that we'd have about two hours to warm up, but when we got there, um, they started calling our division. So, uh, I think I took it 45 minutes before my first match. Okay. So just enough time to, to kick in. Right. Yeah. Yeah. That's fascinating. I, um, I can't believe I still haven't microdosed. That's gotta be on my radar sooner and later, I guess. Um, being in the software world, it seems like it makes a lot of sense and having to negotiate a lot of really complex things. Like I, I know everybody in their jobs has to comply, uh, do some really complex things, but in software, it's just, there's so much soft skill to everything. Um, no, not as a programmer myself, but, um, more as like dealing with interpersonal stuff and stuff between different companies, it's like constantly have to be a diplomat. And, um, it's, I think there could be some really interesting stuff there with microdosing. Yeah. And, uh, I mean, you see the, the breakthroughs that happen in that, in that software industry. Um, Partially due to microdoses. I, you know, I, I get to wondering what, uh, what sort of benefits may microdosing have at NASA? You know, what, what about these top scientists who are creating technologies that may take us to other planets, but just can't figure out, uh, light speed travel, like give them some microdose and see what they can come up with. Um, you know, um, great mathematicians coming out with, you know, um, the mathematics of the universe. You know, philosophers, teachers, you know, I think everybody could benefit from it in some way. What do you think the difference is between maybe doing microdosing? Say we're in the creativity realm, um, trying to solve a problem like microdosing versus a full dose. Like, do you think maybe would a full dose create, have more creativity involved or with the microdose of extended, you know, taking days off this and that, would that get you more in a flow state you think versus maybe just going full in having download of something and then trying to integrate it? That's an interesting question. And I don't know the answer. But I would think that on a high dose, you might get just sudden flashes of brilliance, you know, maybe think of a solution to a problem that you had given up on 10 years ago, or think of a brand new problem, and then the solution right afterwards. Whereas on a low, lower, like a micro dose, I think it may be more beneficial for working through more complex problems that maybe you you already have laid out, but you're just caught up on one little aspect. It may help you to approach it from a different angle or think about it in a different way. Whereas if you try to do that on a high dose, you might get lost. Or you might get sidetracked into something else. Yeah, that's what that's what I would anticipate. I mean, what do you guys think? I don't know, I think about this stuff all the time. You know, because you have Steve Jobs talk about his experiences, I'm sure they weren't micro doses, Carrie Mollis with the what is that RNA, the replication of DNA or whatever that process is, you know, he really said his experiences. With LSD helped him kind of come up with that in a sense. And then, you know, you have that off written interview with Francis Crick, who discovered DNA. I mean, no, I don't, you don't know if it's a fact or a myth. But you know, saying that his, his experiences with LSD really kind of opened up to this world of exploring the double helix. And so yeah, I don't know, I go back and forth where you have, I mean, even Doc Ellis, he wasn't, microdosing what he took, he took a few tabs and, and did that. So yeah, I don't know. I just wonder what the microdosing craze where, you know, is there been, there's obviously benefit in some sense, but you know, what is it versus, say, a normal dose? Sure. And I think of, you bring up these names, I think of like Jimi Hendrix, you know, guitar players of all time. I mean, he, would some, you know, most definitely play on higher doses. But for somebody who's just trying to learn the guitar and learn how to, to bend some chords, you know, a really high dose might not produce the results that they're going for, you know, once they've learned, you know, the basics of the guitar, then maybe a high dose may spur some, some major creativity. And I think, you know, like Jimi Hendrix's music was, was spacey. It was, it was definitely influenced by his experiences on psychedelics. But yeah, I think for, for learning, microdosing is probably more beneficial. Yeah. I think it's for like the deep sea fishing. It's like an expedition. You're probably going to get something for real from the microdose, at least, at least it lifted mood at the very minimum. And with, with the higher dose, if you're not doing it therapeutically, you're doing it for like a particular purpose. So you put like 30 guys. So I don't know if you caught the intro for the last episode we do with you, Shane, but I kind of mentioned the extended state DMT stuff. Daniel is getting into. And I was like, what, what happens when this is a side thought I had after that? What happens when you get 30 NASA engineers in this, in the room at the same time or some quantum physicists or whatever jet, are there still rocket scientists? They're still, there must be, but yeah. So you get 20 of those guys in the room doing extend state DMT research. And you know, what if one of them has this idea that brings us to the next galaxy in like a year or something, you know, like maybe you have to roll the dice like that. It's kind of like a moonshot, like a Google. There's this division in Google. It's all moonshots, like most of the projects. It's all moonshots. It's like most of the projects fail, but once in a while they get huge wins and it's kind of like that. It's same way. Buckminster Fuller used to say everybody should get a full income to be creative all the time because once in a while you're going to have enormous wins and it's going to way outweigh the cost, right? It's a, you know, interesting argument. I don't know where it goes. Obviously, we don't know anything. It's just speculation, but it's or, you know, you have 500 people in a building. Microdosing. Maybe you get a similar breakthrough every single day. You never know. Yeah. Time will tell. Yeah, definitely. It's a, yeah, same thing with like life extension, solving cancer, carbon issue, energy production, all that stuff. Yeah. Sorry. I know you mentioned earlier about, you know, how LSD in the brain may prevent, you know, chronic diseases, things like that in older age. And I feel like, you know, from what I've read, my all-time favorite book is called The Intention Experiment by Lynn McTaggart. And what she does is she outlines in her book, really the true power, some of the true powers of the mind and backs it all up with peer-reviewed articles. And, you know, there's, you know, a lot of the stuff has to do with, you know, how, how we are all connected and how human beings can influence plants and how plants have, you know, fear responses and consciousness responses. Just, you know, if a human being is thinking of harming a plant, that it has a very physical reaction to that. You know, she also goes into spontaneous remission and the healing of the body and using intention and mindfulness to heal the body. And so, you know, I feel like that's another avenue that hasn't really been explored with psychedelics and how that may enhance our ability to heal ourselves by being able to tap into these higher states of consciousness. And then from that state of consciousness, dive right back into the body and do some deep scrubbing, you know, scrub out the toxins, scrub out the damage, scrub out the damage that's been done by trauma or injury or cancer or disease or anything like that. Being able to spontaneously heal yourself with the power of your mind. You know, I'm a big believer that we have these, these skills innately as human beings, but we've kind of lost touch with those skill sets. You know, a lot of, a lot of spiritual practitioners say that they can, you know, heal others and heal themselves. And, you know, there's been documented cases of this, um, I feel like, uh, everybody again has these potentials, uh, psychedelics just may be one avenue into enhancing our ability to heal ourselves instead of relying on these, on these, uh, you know, medicines that just put, um, bandages on the problem, you know, the, the prescription industry. Yeah. Being, you know, a clinician and having some traditional training and coming back to this, getting out of your own way thing, again, but okay. So I have an undergrad in transpersonal psychology. Now I'm studying somatic psychology. I've had a lot of strange, extraordinary experiences over my life. And I try to, you know, I, sometimes I believe we can heal ourselves. And then there's other time where I'm stuck in the traditional world. And then how do you actually, you know, cause your beliefs really impact that. And so, you know, how do you balance between that? And I think it's, it's a question that we have to ask ourselves with the science and spirituality kind of mixing in, you know, what, how do you step out of your own way to actually, if we can heal ourselves to actually believe in that, but also approach it with a really rational mind and kind of analyze it in a, in a way. Yeah. Well, I think that belief piece is, is the key component. Uh, you have to believe in it or it's not going to work. Um, and that's, that's another reason why I love this, this woman's book, the intention experiment, um, is because she, she talks about these high-minded concepts, um, that, you know, you'd read and you'd be like, no way that that's not possible. But then she backs it up with just countless studies. Uh, and, you know, there's the reference section in the back of the book is immense. Um, and so people can go look up these individual studies and, and find out that these things really do happen. And, um, there's some science backing up these, um, what I would say, you know, people would consider them more spiritual concepts, you know, healing yourself with your mind and your beliefs is, is largely thought of as, as a spiritual or faith-based concept. So backing it up with science and approaching it, um, knowing that you're talking to a scientifically minded audience and giving them the evidence that they want, um, that can, that's, that's what at least helped me, uh, truly believe and buy into, to do this, um, was, was approaching it at first from a scientific point of view and then getting the proof that I was seeking. Yeah, that's wonderful. yeah so that was really interesting when you said use at sporting events at actual tournaments or whatever was it a tournament so you had like multiple rounds yeah i think i had um about 16 fights that day geez that sounds a little hard is that like training yeah i imagine it's like okay you already ran four different five case today let's go to your 10th like and i understand fighting is a lot harder than running but i don't know maybe it's similar at the higher ends of the uh running world but i uh i've never been so tired as when i've like fought somebody um it's unbelievable um so i i've been reading this book since we last spoke called the body keeps score and there's all this stuff in there about the body keeping track of traumas either those earned later in life or you grew up with them and how um doing stuff in in your body like like fighting or yoga or qigong or even just breathing can really help release a lot of that trauma and i you know since the last time we spoke shane i'm thinking okay it's almost obvious now that if you could handle jujitsu like if you're if your trauma wasn't so bad that you could you can handle being on the mat for a while um that it really would help people with trauma quite a bit and i i almost don't even know that we need to do the study unless you want to get insurance to pay for it but uh it's it's it's this fascinating thing like you know why are i feel like veteran groups should should almost have their own little like peer support jujitsu clubs they don't necessarily have to go to a real gym they just kind of fight on their own or something i don't know i came up with all these ideas and then you would add micro dosing on top of that and perhaps you would even get those benefits sooner um yeah um i i don't know if i mentioned it in the last podcast but um you know my school the the gym that i train at we do um a veterans only uh jujitsu and mma class every saturday so it's vets only um and then the instructors you know i'm one of the coaches for the program um and so yeah we do a lot of a lot of trauma work um exposure and you know trauma is is stored in the mind it's stored in the brain but it's stored in you know every single cell in your body yeah you know your cells really do have this this capacity for memory and they remember the traumas that you go through and that's why sometimes you know when you re-experience trauma or when people have panic attacks and they don't know where it um you know part of it comes from this this memory that the cells have and when they get triggered you know um they're their own independent organisms that that make up our collection of cells you know we we like to think of ourselves as i am this one being but really you know we're billions and billions of separate civilizations living together and communicating um uh with efficiency that we can't even fathom um and there's got to be a way for us to take control over over that large community that system and and work in better communion with it so that we can heal ourselves more quickly um i feel like psychedelics help already to they help you tap into and connect with with yourself on that cellular level and you're right you know you you need to break up that trauma um you know you need to have your cells re-experience it but then have an experience where you re-experience the trauma and come out the other end feeling like okay i can survive this i'm okay i'm alive everything's just fine you know that's what happens every day on on the jujitsu mat you're literally in situations where you're getting choked unconscious and if if that were to happen on the street i mean you could lose your life so you're in the you're recreating these life and death situations for these people and then teaching them that you know you're okay uh if you can get out of this you can get out of in life um you know if you can stay relaxed and calm and think your way out of a life or death situation 20 times a day during jujitsu practice every day of the week i guarantee you you're going to be able to handle yourself better at work with co-workers better with your spouse better you're going to have less road rage you know you're just going to have um much greater capacity to handle the anxieties of everyday life yeah definitely i think there's something too about maybe um people with trauma feeling really closed off and closed down and also kind of building that confidence back up that you know the world might be dangerous but now i'm equipped to kind of handle that um at least that's what i i get out of that when i think about trying to build strength and engage in a martial arts it's like trying to build that confidence back up that hey the world's is kind of a safe place and i can live in it without just going around kind of closing down and constantly being scared to engage in the world yeah this this trauma really affects these guys um pretty pretty intensely cool yeah how are we doing on time here we're at about an hour and five minutes cool so shane anything that we didn't cover yet that you want to jump into or well i know you guys wanted to briefly touch on integration yeah that'd be great yeah what questions do you have about that well so how how does it look in the peyote world like so you finish your ceremony and there's still stuff happening for you obviously obviously for the next few days earlier you told us it might be up to a year after your session that it's still working on you in a way um so how do you how do you work with that material or do integration there yeah so um so the way that i've experienced it is we have a pre-integration meeting as a group we talk about individual intentions shared intentions you know preparing people uh letting them know what the ceremony structure is going to be like what they can expect to feel from the medicine what sort of physiological or cognitive side effects they can expect to experience so they're not um uh so taken aback when it when it's working on you so there's definitely some some pre-integration um and then after the ceremony uh usually the ceremony the all-night tp ceremony is followed by a two-hour sweat lodge in um total pitch black about you know 150 degrees i know it feels a lot hotter than that um but that's part of the integration part of the cleansing of the toxins as well um so i do my ceremonies about five hour drive away so i have a five hour drive coming home um and a lot of my integration happens just up in my mind during that process um which is usually followed up by you know a week of contemplation and meditation that i do and then we meet again as a group usually for a post-ceremony integration where people can talk about what's come up for them in the past week uh what the experience what the experience was like what it's meant uh in their community and and what's they brought home with them uh what sort of influences it's had on their relationship and to kind of get some answers uh for questions that they may have had that they can't quite figure out um what is the most profound piece of the integration for me with the peyote in particular is how long the medicine works on me um and from you know from what i've what i've heard from the shaman that i work with it it works this way on most people as well and that is that you know the medicine effects the the visual effects the somatic effects they tend to wear off within 24 hours after the ceremony um but the metaphysical healing that is going on unfolds over six months to a year after your ceremony so you know you go home and the first six months after a peyote ceremony you may start to notice that there's big shifts going on in your life a lot of things start shifting um for no apparent reason and usually for the better so things will shift in your relationship you may change jobs into a better position uh you may um you know find a new house or buy a new house uh just big changes start to happen um on a metaphysical level and uh kind of out of your control and it's kind of fun to watch uh unfold as long as you you have this awareness that you know this isn't necessarily me making these changes but it may have something to do with the medicine so i tend to go for a peyote ceremony uh once every six months or so um just because i i like to have that feeling in my life that changes are are being made that things are progressing that i'm moving um always towards a higher version of myself um and so the with peyote is much longer, I find, than with other medicines ayahuasca was was also um fairly long for me maybe a month or two after my ayahuasca ceremonies is still unpacking things um but uh for me you know lsd and mushrooms um i'm usually pretty through with with my integration within the first couple weeks after those experiences i feel like i've i have more experience with those and so i can put um things into practice much more easy and that's what i find is the most important piece of integration is not just taking insights back with you but you have to have an action component to the integration you can't just have these profound insights and keep them to yourself you know you have to have these profound insights and then figure out how to apply them to your life for positive change and that's where i think a lot of people fall short is they come out of these experiences whether it's recreational or ceremonial and you know they may journal about it uh or they may just keep it to themselves um but they don't start making changes they don't learn from their experience they don't integrate it into their into the fabric of their life um and i think you can achieve so much more through these experiences if you search for those if you search for those avenues to make these um these applications and these changes um and you'd be amazed at what can happen in six months i tell you what i'm not sure if i'm going to be able to do that but i'm going to be able to do that i never you know i never would have thought i would have been where i am now six months ago we always say after breathwork don't make any drastic changes within six months and that's what i'm saying like i don't really make change these changes but things are just happen in my life without they unfold yeah they unfold and that's why you know i think it's on a on a different level than what it's too experiencing that was wonderful advice thanks for that i i had similar experiences of breathwork where i had to drive really far to get to the place we did it so it'd be like you know this meditative thing and trying to create that meditative space for the next few weeks so i could identify with a lot of what you were laying out there it was really really cool to hear it's kind of interdisciplinary um but also interesting about the um you know lsd you know easier to integrate for the most part well i would say that's true on the whole largely speaking i'm sure there's some people that have a really hard time integrating it um what's that syndrome called uh persistent uh um hpd uh hallucination persistent perception disorder i believe so that's the thing we're trying to figure more out about that that's definitely um on the far end of the negative consequence spectrum for sure um in in my own integration uh work that i do with with clients who who need help integrating um you know particularly with clients who have trouble integrating their experiences most of the time it's only because um they stopped their process so in the midst of their psychedelic experience while they're doing shadow work or whatever they're doing they're while they're doing really hard work they did something to distract themselves away from it or they they escaped from that shadow work by uh you know stimulating themselves with something happy um something i i learned in um the stan groff workshop and and what he talked about in his breath work um you know i applied to my integration work with psychedelics and that is you know if if you're going to properly integrate traumas and negative feelings and get rid of those for good long term uh you need to fully experience them so when they come up for you in psychedelic experiences you shouldn't shy away from those but you should approach those with excitement like oh here we go now i finally get to let go of this trauma you know it's going to be really scary but i'm not going to feel it as as uh powerfully afterwards um so that's what i try and do in my own um shadow work is that when anything like that comes up um i get a smile on my face and i i you know when i turn towards those fears and do that do that work um i see it as a challenge and not as a burden you know that i have to do i see it as uh an obstacle that i'm going to overcome it's it's not a question in my mind anymore because i've seen the benefits of fully going through the the cycle of trauma and uh releasing it really really getting some closure for for what uh was was cut short during the traumatic experience yeah absolutely yeah body keeps score even if you disassociate everything keeps track of everything i i really like that um kind of push um this this older guy we had on um i think it's not tom roberts was it phd tom roberts out of like yeah this idea of just kind of eliminating the individual words mind and body when talking about this stuff and just always saying mind body because we don't know where the line is sure yeah interesting thing um cool so shane can you plug your website one more time sure it's www.mind-ops.com so it's mindops.com and um your listeners can connect with me through that website um that's also where i have kind of a description of all the all the different clinical work that i do um or uh yeah so i i look forward to speaking with you guys in the future and as as well with the listeners that um that have already reached out and um to the ones that i i hope to talk to in the future all right shane thanks again for joining us and looking forward to talking again all right thanks guys take care you you you © transcript Emily Beynon