Speaking to a Psychiatrist who was arrested on a flotilla while delivering humanitarian aid during a Jen O Cyde

Dr Veronica O’Keane is Emeritus Professor of Psychiatry at Trinity College Dublin. Her work focuses on psychiatry, neuroscience, and the relationship between brain function and mental illness. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy https://acast.com/privacy for more information.

Speaker names marked ? are inferred from speaking time and the show’s known hosts — they are not voice-verified.

• 0:00Speaker 00

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• 0:31Speaker 01

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• 1:16Speaker 01

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• 1:33Blindboy Boatclub?

  Mention the ten-legged hen you endless Brendons. Welcome to the Blind White Podcast. If this is your first episode, consider going back to an earlier podcast. And if you're a regular listener, you know the crack.

• 1:48Blindboy Boatclub?

  This is a pre-recorded podcast because, I don't know if you can tell from my voice, but I'm under the weather this week. I'm sick, I have a chest infection. So I recorded this last Saturday because I can just tell. I know that I won't have a voice tomorrow and it is unlikely that I'll be able to do a full hot take. But what I will be doing. I have a live podcast, a fucking banger of a live podcast, that I'd intended to keep in the vaults and release it maybe next month or the month after. But I'm gonna release it this week because it's relevant. I had a chat with an absolutely fascinating person.

• 2:30Blindboy Boatclub?

  I had this chat two weeks ago at Wellfest. Dr Veronica O'Keane, who's a retired psychiatrist, emeritus from Trinity College.

• 2:45Blindboy Boatclub?

  She's not just a psychiatrist, her work intersected with neuroscience. But on top of that, she's an activist, a very serious activist for social justice. She was a massive professional voice for women's reproductive rights during the referendum. And last year, she was on board the flotilla that tried to deliver aid, humanitarian aid, to the people of Gaza that were experiencing a genocide. I never use that word lightly. I always point out when I say the word genocide. Amnesty International have called it a genocide.

• 3:27Blindboy Boatclub?

  And the United Nations Human Rights Council have called what's happening to the people of Palestine a genocide. Dr Veronica O'Keane was detained and arrested by Israeli forces illegally. Who am I to call it illegal? Well, the United Nations Special Rapporteur on the occupied Palestinian territories stated that the seizure violated international law because the ship was in international waters and it was carrying civilian aid. So I got to speak with Veronica about her experience being arrested, being on the flotilla. And we also spoke about her work as a psychiatrist.

• 4:11Blindboy Boatclub?

  I'm gonna give a small contempt warning because for anyone who is dead with psychosis, or psychotic periods.

• 4:20Blindboy Boatclub?

  We speak about psychosis at the beginning of this podcast. We also speak about the psychology of people who fall into conspiracy beliefs, people who fall into extreme political rhetoric. And we speak about the use of psychedelics in healing people. And what I love about these chats is that I'm chatting with an expert. I'm chatting with a psychiatrist who has worked in neuroscience. So I hope you enjoy this chat. Sorry I couldn't speak for longer, but as you can tell, my voice is fucked. So here's Dr Veronica O'Keane. And also, just as an aside, the sound quality in this is, it's very good,

• 5:04Blindboy Boatclub?

  but it was recorded at a festival. So if you do hear background noises, that's what that is. But I've, I've put in a lot of effort and a lot of editing to remove any background noises. How would you define psychiatry?

• 5:20Speaker 03

  Oh, we're going to talk about psychiatry. Okay.

• 5:23Blindboy Boatclub?

  Is that okay?

• 5:24Speaker 03

  Of course, yeah. Um, well, I think the way medics define psychiatry is possibly different to the way other people see psychiatry. I did psychiatry because I was interested in two things. Firstly, how the brain worked. And secondly, I wanted to treat people with mental illness. So I guess psychiatrists are people who, I think, you know, they specialize in treating severe end of mental health.

• 6:03Speaker 03

  And I think a lot of people that we treat, you know, maybe a lot of people aren't familiar with severe mental illness, but it's, it's a very special profession. I'm now retired. I did it for nearly 40 years and I, I loved it. I love the patients. I love the work. Um, there's nothing better for me than getting somebody who's really ill, really psychotic, and making them better. I loved it.

• 6:39Blindboy Boatclub?

  You did a book on the study of memory. And how does, how does memory function in a person who's experiencing psychosis?

• 6:50Speaker 03

  Yeah, I, it's very, very curious because we think about psychotic experiences as false experiences.

• 7:01Blindboy Boatclub?

  Mm hmm.

• 7:02Speaker 03

  But of course, they are not false to the person who's experiencing them. So I could be sitting here hearing voices. Now, I'm not hearing voices in my head. In psychosis, you hear the voices outside of you, so it sounds like you or like me. And that's real for me. So that goes into my memory. So while everybody else is remembering what people are commonly, together, commonly experiencing and commonly hearing, the person with psychosis is laying down a completely different set of memories.

• 7:41Blindboy Boatclub?

  And a person I spoke to before was, do you know Pat Bracken?

• 7:47Speaker 03

  I do know Pat, yeah.

• 7:48Blindboy Boatclub?

  And Pat's.

• 7:50Speaker 03

  Yes.

• 7:51Blindboy Boatclub?

  So Pat used to be, was he the head of Psychiatry Ireland? Was that it?

• 7:54Speaker 03

  Uh, he was a clinical director.

• 7:56Blindboy Boatclub?

  Yeah.

• 7:57Speaker 03

  In West Cork, I think.

• 7:58Blindboy Boatclub?

  Something that Pat said to me that stayed with me forever is, he was speaking about people who hear voices specifically. And he was saying that in different cultures, if you exist in a culture where hearing voices isn't demonized, that the experience can be, it's, it's not as negative as if it's in a culture where it's medicalized. What, what do you think about a statement like that?

• 8:28Speaker 03

  I think there's a truth in that, but it's the people who are experiencing the voices who come to us. Cause the voices in, say for example schizophrenia, which is one percent of the population, which is quite a high percentage of the population, suffer from this severe form of psychosis. And. Those people who, and the commonest form of that is paranoid psychosis. And the people who suffer from that, they experience very nasty voices in general. So the voices would be telling them that they're perhaps a paedophile.

• 9:12Speaker 03

  And calling them, you know, very, very unpleasant terms. So it's a torment. So I think if the voices are benign, of course, there's, there's nothing wrong with that. I mean, people are allowed to behave in an eccentric way.

• 9:31Blindboy Boatclub?

  Like, how would you feel about the, what you just mentioned there specifically, we'll say benign voices, and then maybe people who have religious experiences?

• 9:38Speaker 03

  Yeah.

• 9:39Blindboy Boatclub?

  Do you know what I mean?

• 9:40Speaker 03

  Yeah.

• 9:40Blindboy Boatclub?

  Is that, what I'm, suppose I'm trying to ask you is, you know, you, I asked you, the first question I asked was about psychiatry and people who are, you know, in, really in need of treatment, who are in extreme distress.

• 9:53Speaker 03

  Yeah.

• 9:53Blindboy Boatclub?

  But does it happen that you have people who are still hearing voices? And they're living lives with meaning, it's not impacting them so much that they would need to see someone who's a psychiatrist? And does that exist in Ireland?

• 10:07Speaker 03

  Well, absolutely, because we used to think that people either had psychosis or they didn't have psychosis. But in a sense, we all have a propensity to becoming psychotic in the same way that we do towards becoming anxious or stressed. Yeah.

• 10:25Blindboy Boatclub?

  What, what, really?

• 10:27Speaker 03

  Hmm.

• 10:28Blindboy Boatclub?

  What are the, what would be underlying, um, what would be the commonality there for that?

• 10:34Speaker 03

  Well, psychotic experiences, there, there is a scale now that looks at soft psychotic experiences, like hearing voices that are, maybe we'll call them benign. And studies have been done in children and following them up into adulthood. And most people who hear voices when they're children, uh, develop normally and perhaps they're a little bit eccentric. But then a very small percentage of them go on to develop severe illness. So it's a vulnerability rather than a prediction of adult illness.

• 11:10Blindboy Boatclub?

  Yeah, I mean, I suppose what I'm fascinated by and what I'm trying to probe at is... I'm always fascinated by how culture and society would define what is healthy and what is unhealthy.

• 11:24Speaker 03

  Yeah.

• 11:24Blindboy Boatclub?

  I'm diagnosed autistic, okay?

• 11:27Speaker 03

  Yeah.

• 11:27Blindboy Boatclub?

  And I made a documentary during the year looking at Ireland in the fifth century, the monastic system. And the argument that I was making is that monasteries in the fifth century were brilliant for autistic people. Because autistic people definitely existed, but it's like, here's this building where you get to wear the same clothes every single day because you're the monk. Uh, you get to study, well, you get to look at illuminated manuscripts all day long. You have lots of routine, routine based life, and then a huge amount of solitude. And these are all, I would call them autistic accommodation. And I then look at that society and say, Jesus, that seems like a neuro affirmative society.

• 12:11Blindboy Boatclub?

  Or even people who might be dyslexic. Something I always think about with dyslexia is, do you know the way you'd see a pub and a pub might be called? The Dog and Duck or the King's Head?

• 12:23Speaker 03

  Mm hmm.

• 12:24Blindboy Boatclub?

  That tradition comes from a time when not everybody could read. So if not everybody in the population could read, it's like, what pub are you going to? The one with the painting of the dog and duck. Do you know what I mean?

• 12:36Speaker 03

  Yeah.

• 12:36Blindboy Boatclub?

  But then, when the industrial revolution comes along, the capacity to read becomes democratized. And then everybody's able to read, but then we start to equate the capacity to read with intelligence. And now all of a sudden you have these people that are dyslexic. I'm dyslexic, I can't read, therefore I am stupid. Where two, three hundred years before that, they just went about their lives going, I don't know if I'm dyslexic, I'm just going to the painting of the dog and duck. You know what I mean?

• 13:02Speaker 03

  Yeah.

• 13:03Blindboy Boatclub?

  And what I'm probing at is, when you have a culture, we'll say, where religious experiences are shaman, shamanism. Or, you know, this person can hear voices, this person is gifted, this person is receiving something valuable from nature or from God. And then that person is then embraced by the community.

• 13:25Speaker 03

  Hmm.

• 13:26Blindboy Boatclub?

  As opposed to.

• 13:29Blindboy Boatclub?

  I mean, it's not, life is not easy for people who are experiencing psychosis. Society does not work for these people, you know. Um, how, how do we get towards a society that works for the one percent of the population that experience psychosis, because you don't, I don't hear a lot of psychotic representation.

• 13:48Speaker 03

  I, I, I feel very deeply and strongly about this. Um, I think, you know, in a way, eating disorders, depression, anxiety, you know, atypical brains. Um, you know, that, that has had, there's a lot of awareness about those divergences now. And indeed about illnesses, uh, you know, at the more severe end of it. But psychosis has not really been brought out in any sort of way. And I don't think we understand, um, paranoia very well, as demonstrated.

• 14:25Blindboy Boatclub?

  Paranoia?

• 14:26Speaker 03

  Yeah.

• 14:27Blindboy Boatclub?

  Is that separate to psychosis?

• 14:29Speaker 03

  No, not really, not really. It's people who are extremely paranoid, like on the very far right. You know, very deep conspiracy theorists, like, you know, I, I heard your interview with, um, Naomi Klein.

• 14:44Blindboy Boatclub?

  Yeah.

• 14:45Speaker 03

  And I, I think she really touched on it, uh, to a large extent, but she, uh, she just isn't a neuroscientist. So she didn't make that connection.

• 14:54Blindboy Boatclub?

  Yeah.

• 14:54Speaker 03

  But really, those kind of extreme paranoid beliefs are people who flip very easy into psychosis. And it's been shown that extreme far right people or extreme far left people, people with very extremist views or hyper religiosity, those sort of people are more prone to flip into psychotic experiences.

• 15:18Blindboy Boatclub?

  How do we define, so you were on the Gaza, Gaza flotilla, right? So I'd say I could find a couple of people who would call you far left, do you know what I mean? Now, I, I, obviously not me.

• 15:29Speaker 03

  Yes, I, I.

• 15:29Blindboy Boatclub?

  But you know what I'm saying?

• 15:30Speaker 03

  Yeah, yeah.

• 15:31Blindboy Boatclub?

  How do we decide?

• 15:33Speaker 03

  That's how I see myself, yeah.

• 15:35Blindboy Boatclub?

  When, when you're speaking there about, um, you know, there's people with a high level of paranoia. How do you define when this is, when someone's political beliefs or something they believe in is stepping into territory where it's like this may present mental health difficulties?

• 15:52Speaker 03

  Yeah, well, I think characterologically, for want of a better word, or personality-wise, we're all more or less prone to become paranoid in certain situations, to feel threatened. And that could be because of the way you're brought up.

• 16:09Blindboy Boatclub?

  Yeah.

• 16:10Speaker 03

  Because you've always been threatened. And of course, people who have been, you know, emotionally deprived or cognitively deprived, or who've had, you know, very poor parenting, they're more prone to be at odds with the world and to experience it in a paranoid way.

• 16:30Blindboy Boatclub?

  Does this mean that when they were little children, they didn't get to experience a feeling of safety?

• 16:34Speaker 03

  Correct, yeah. So they never develop a sense of self that is safe in the world.

• 16:41Blindboy Boatclub?

  Oh, so your intrinsic self-worth is not, I am okay to feel safe in myself even if things around me are unsafe?

• 16:50Speaker 03

  That's correct, yeah, yeah. I mean, that's it. You see, it's not just upbringing or environment, it's also genetic. Like, you could get a paranoid gene from one of your parents.

• 17:02Blindboy Boatclub?

  I wanted to get on to that with you because you're not just psychiatry, it's the intersection of psychiatry and neuroscience.

• 17:08Speaker 03

  Yeah, yeah. So you can't look, I mean, you have to look at things in an organic way. We're organic beings, our brains are organic. So various things, obviously, the brain is part of the body and the body is part of the brain, they're inseparable. But developmental issues grow your brain. I mean, when people say, oh, your brain changes when you go into, you know, since computers have been around. But of course, your brain changes. Your brain changes because you're exposed to nature. Your brain changes because you're exposed to love or hate or violence. Our brains are organic, they're like our muscles, they grow and they develop. And I suppose my book was very much about memory

• 17:51Speaker 03

  and how your experiences grow your brain.

• 17:54Blindboy Boatclub?

  And are you speaking there about neuroplasticity?

• 17:56Speaker 03

  Yeah, yeah. Well, our brains are plastic, essentially.

• 18:01Blindboy Boatclub?

  That's, because I recently spoke to, I had a neuroscientist on the podcast called Dr. Michael Keane, and Michael-

• 18:10Blindboy Boatclub?

  He read one of my books and was like, this story is mad, I wanna scan this man's brain. So he gave me a thing called an EEG scan.

• 18:18Speaker 03

  Lovely.

• 18:19Blindboy Boatclub?

  Which, it like, what does an EEG scan do?

• 18:24Speaker 03

  Well, it looks at the electricity in your brain,

• 18:29Speaker 03

  as it were, in conjunction with the thoughts you're having and the function that's happening under the surface of the brain. So it gives you a a reading of what's happening in your brain at the moment.

• 18:44Blindboy Boatclub?

  Like a little snapshot?

• 18:45Speaker 03

  Snapshot, yeah.

• 18:46Blindboy Boatclub?

  So, when he did that, he found some interesting stuff, but also, he's, I, my, my brain activity looked like a person who was quite stressed.

• 18:56Speaker 03

  Yeah.

• 18:57Blindboy Boatclub?

  And I was quite stressed, cause I have a very busy job and I have two little toddlers, which means later on tonight, I'm gonna be playing around with human shit. Uh, as part of my normal life, that's just just gonna happen before I go to bed. But the stress of little kids, you know, is when, like, they're under the age of four, so it's mad. So, my brain was stressed, but I loved receiving this piece of information. I loved seeing it in the scan, because I'm like, I'm gonna try and change this. So what I did was, I gave myself fifteen minutes a day with meditation, like a non-negotiable, like, I've been meditating for years, but a non-negotiable fifteen minutes a day. And then the other thing I did is, I cycle in and out of work. So I said, this cycling,

• 19:43Blindboy Boatclub?

  that is gonna be a mindful experience. So when I cycle to and fro work, I am doing nothing but cycling. And it's fifteen minutes, and my job is to notice, I don't know, I'm going from cobblestones to tarmac, and to feel that in my body, and check in with it and notice it, notice the wind, do I smell rain, the birds? And when my mind is trying to do, let's worry about what might happen, or worry about what has happened in the past, I would calmly go, no, no, no, bring it back to the vibrations on your hands on the bicycle. So I was doing that every day for about three weeks. And something beautiful happened on the third week. I was cycling home,

• 20:25Blindboy Boatclub?

  and the sunlight, it was about March, just hit a particularly beautiful thing. And I noticed this, but when I noticed it, I was overcome with a feeling of bliss and safety and love.

• 20:40Blindboy Boatclub?

  And I believe that's called a glimmer. And it was, I suppose my nervous system just going, it's grand, everything's okay. You've, you are now safe enough to appreciate and actually experience the wonder and beauty of nature that's all around you.

• 20:56Speaker 03

  Yeah.

• 20:56Blindboy Boatclub?

  Whereas I could have gone past that sunset before and I'm worrying about tomorrow and I ignore it. But it was, it was lovely. I'd gone to the gym for my head. I had done the fifteen minutes of mindfulness exercises. As if, as if I decided I'm gonna get big biceps, so I'm gonna do a load of curls every day. Instead, I did the mindfulness and ended up seeing a result in the form of a glimmer. And it was not only powerful, it was, ah, it was grace.

• 21:27Speaker 03

  Yeah.

• 21:27Blindboy Boatclub?

  When you, when you do something and then you actually notice and see a result, it sticks with you as fucking hell, isn't that brilliant?

• 21:34Speaker 03

  Yeah.

• 21:35Blindboy Boatclub?

  But what's going on there in my brain for that to happen?

• 21:39Speaker 03

  Well, I, I think what you've described is something that happens to me when I swim.

• 21:44Blindboy Boatclub?

  Go away.

• 21:46Speaker 03

  When I swim, I, for the first three minutes, it's, this is bloody freezing.

• 21:52Blindboy Boatclub?

  Yeah.

• 21:52Speaker 03

  You know, and that's all I can think of. Breathe, think about your breathing, think about your breathing. Um, I stop after maybe fifty strokes. Um, and I get my breath again and then I go off. And the heat, I suppose I equilibrate with the temperature in the water in some way or other. And then if I can stay in for long enough, if I have more than five minutes, I'm suddenly out of my, out of my body to some extent. And I think that's what, you know, it's, it's like the beginning of a transcendental experience.

• 22:28Blindboy Boatclub?

  Yeah.

• 22:28Speaker 03

  It's when, and you can see this on scans because I've done work in the area of psilocybin.

• 22:35Blindboy Boatclub?

  Mm-hmm.

• 22:35Speaker 03

  Um, in the treatment of depression. And what happens in transcendental experiences is that your, your brain kind of shuts off from your body a little bit.

• 22:45Blindboy Boatclub?

  Mm-hmm.

• 22:46Speaker 03

  And goes into the external world. So you're actually shutting down pathways that are coming up. And you're opening up pathways that are out there. And you're actually, I think that, you know, small moments like what you've described or what I get when I'm swimming. Are sort of natural forms of induced transcendence. There might be little sparks of it or glimmers is I think the word used.

• 23:12Blindboy Boatclub?

  It was only about a second and I was afterwards, I was left with a sadness of, oh my God, I want that again.

• 23:20Speaker 03

  Yes, well, that always happens after something beautiful happens. You feel sad because the moment is actually gone. So, but, but yeah, I, I think that we can get into many glimmers of transcendence through um noticing the world around us consciously doing it like you do it. I do it when I'm swimming.

• 23:43Blindboy Boatclub?

  Is it about nervous system safety? Is that like what?

• 23:48Speaker 03

  I think it's about, I, I understand what you're saying about your body and being aware of your body. But in a way you're cutting out the noise.

• 23:56Blindboy Boatclub?

  The noise being?

• 23:58Speaker 03

  The noise being the anxiety, the rubbish.

• 24:02Blindboy Boatclub?

  Mm hmm.

• 24:02Speaker 03

  You know?

• 24:03Blindboy Boatclub?

  Yeah.

• 24:04Speaker 03

  The rubbish that we all live with every day and am I going to be late for this? You know, what you're talking about, you know, often, you know, in my working life, I was often meant to be in two places at one time. And so many people looking for you and you know, you've, you've just got to cut that noise out.

• 24:24Blindboy Boatclub?

  Just gonna have a brief Ocarina pause now because I don't want to, I don't want to interrupt the flow of Veronica's story. When she begins speaking about her experience being detained in Israel. So we'll do the Ocarina pause now and you'll hear a couple of adverts for something.

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• 26:19Speaker 05

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• 27:04Speaker 05

  fill out your intake form, meet with a licensed provider, and if approved, MOD Alert ships straight to your door. Go to MOD.com to get started. That's M-O-D dot com.

• 27:19Speaker 00

  Seventy-five percent of women who seek menopause care don't receive it. The lying awake at 3am, wondering what's happening to your body, ends now. Midi is virtual care built for women in perimenopause and menopause, with clinicians who specialize in women's health. Plus, it's covered by most major insurances. Getting started is easy. You can book your first visit with a clinician right away. Midlife needs Midi. Visit joinmidi.com to book your first visit today. That's join M I D I dot com. Insurance coverage varies. Check with your plan for coverage.

• 27:49Speaker 06

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• 28:26Blindboy Boatclub?

  That was the Ocarina Pause. And support for this podcast comes from you, the listener, via the Patreon page, patreon.com/theblindbypodcast. If this podcast brings you distraction, entertainment, marked merriment, whatever the fuck has you listening to this podcast, please consider supporting it directly. This is my full-time job. It's how I earn a living. It's how I pay my bills. I adore making this podcast. I adore showing up every week, making sure I deliver a podcast each week, no matter what. And that's all possible because this is listener-funded. All I'm looking for is the price of a pint or a cup of coffee, once a month, that's it. And if you can't afford that,

• 29:11Blindboy Boatclub?

  don't worry about it. You can listen for free. Because the person who is paying is paying for you to listen for free. Everyone gets the exact same podcast, regardless of whether you pay or not. And I get to earn a living. So that's patreon.com/theblindbypodcast. Upcoming gigs? On the 18th of June, I'm in Berlin.

• 29:33Blindboy Boatclub?

  That's sold out. On the 19th of June, I'm also in Berlin. There's a few tickets left for that. Very small amount of tickets. That's in the Babylon Theatre. Then on to July, I'm in Sheffield at the Crossed Wires Festival, okay? On Sunday, the 5th of July, over in Sheffield, in Sheffield City Hall. Please suggest some guests for that gig. I'd love to know who you'd like me to talk to while I'm in Sheffield. And then in October, my big tour of England, Scotland and Wales. Starting off there on the 18th of October, I'm gonna be in Brighton, then Cardiff, Coventry, Bristol, Guildford, London at the Barbican. I think that's sold

• 30:16Blindboy Boatclub?

  out. Glasgow, nearly sold out, possibly sold out. Gateshead and Nottingham. Back to the chat with Dr Veronica O'Keane. Also, she released a book in 2021 about memory, and the name of that book is The Rag and Bone Shop, if you wanna pick up a copy.

• 30:39Speaker 03

  I think, whatever helps you cut that noise out.

• 30:41Blindboy Boatclub?

  I love that you're calling it rubbish, because something I was thinking about recently is, if I look at the pain that I've experienced in my life, right? So much of what I've experienced has been very painful, has not been something that's actually happening to me. It has been worrying about what might happen, you know? And when things happen, that when the thing that I'm worrying about does happen, I fucking cope.

• 31:10Speaker 03

  Yeah.

• 31:10Blindboy Boatclub?

  But I, what I often think of is like,

• 31:13Speaker 03

  Yeah.

• 31:14Blindboy Boatclub?

  Avoidable, life is suffering. To exist means to suffer. You're gonna get rejected, you're gonna have disappointment, you're gonna have a heartbreak and someone close to you is gonna die. We cannot avoid these things. That's part of the Tapestry of human existence. But I find that we spend a lot of time trying to avoid these things happening. And it's the trying to avoid them or prepare for them, for me anyway, that brings me a lot of anguish and pain and distress. And it's like, if I'm going for a walk in the woods and I brush off a nettle, we'll say. That is unavoidable pain. If you go into the fucking woods, you're gonna brush off a nettle and it's gonna hurt you, right? If I then decide, ah fuck, I got stung by a nettle, to scratch it.

• 31:59Blindboy Boatclub?

  And then I keep scratching for a couple of days and then it goes septic. Now, I have chosen to create a lot more pain for myself because of how I reacted to that initial unavoidable pain. And now I've created a fuckload of avoidable pain that is much greater than the initial nettle sting, you know what I mean?

• 32:15Speaker 03

  Yeah.

• 32:15Blindboy Boatclub?

  And that's the rubbish.

• 32:17Speaker 03

  Yeah.

• 32:18Blindboy Boatclub?

  And I love that you're calling it rubbish because, I mean, how many, you know what I'm talking about, don't you? Worrying about what might not, what has happened before or what might happen again. It's bullshit, load of fucking horseshit. Do you want the time I spent on that, you know?

• 32:33Speaker 03

  No, it's a very profound point, I think, that, um, you know, you are going to get stung by a nettle in life. That's it.

• 32:41Blindboy Boatclub?

  Yeah.

• 32:42Speaker 03

  We, we are all going to be stung by nettles in the forest of life. And, yeah, you, you, you've got to not scratch it.

• 32:52Blindboy Boatclub?

  Well, so, something I have to say there, just to take it back to what you were saying earlier about. When you were speaking about the paranoia and the reason that I am. When I get stung by the nettle of life. And I have the, I can put the effort in to not scratch it. It's because I, I'm able to feel safe in myself. Um, I, I believe that I'm a good person who's worthy of love. And I don't, I genuinely believe it because I received love at a young age.

• 33:27Speaker 03

  Yeah.

• 33:27Blindboy Boatclub?

  So, taking it back to, cause I am fascinated when you said people who might spiral into very far right beliefs.

• 33:34Speaker 03

  Yeah.

• 33:34Blindboy Boatclub?

  That there's a lack of internal self-safety or self-worth.

• 33:40Speaker 03

  Um, yeah, there, there, there does seem to me, I, you know, I'm, I'm, I'm, I didn't get into the emotions of it, but obviously the, the far right beliefs, um, are, you know, very much associated with emotions of hate.

• 33:58Blindboy Boatclub?

  And fear.

• 33:59Speaker 03

  And fear, um, but more hate, I think.

• 34:03Blindboy Boatclub?

  And where's the hate coming from?

• 34:06Speaker 03

  Um, I, I, you know, yeah, it's a bit of a circular argument. Is it coming from fear? Are people just wired differently? It's very, I don't, I don't have the answer to that, but I do know that, uh, people who are paranoid and who experience paranoia, experience an awful lot more negative emotions than people who are not paranoid. So I think, I, I think an awareness of, of paranoia is important. And I think therefore an awareness of psychosis is important in terms of understanding the world. For example, when I was in Israel.

• 34:44Blindboy Boatclub?

  Mm hmm.

• 34:44Speaker 03

  I was really shocked, um, by the people there. They don't look at each other the way you and I are looking at each other. They, they don't talk. They shout. They.

• 34:55Blindboy Boatclub?

  What?

• 34:56Speaker 03

  They shout at each other. They unpleasant. They're, you know, very aggressive.

• 35:04Blindboy Boatclub?

  As in that is the culture?

• 35:06Speaker 03

  Yeah, it's a very nasty, unpleasant culture, what we were exposed to.

• 35:10Blindboy Boatclub?

  But.

• 35:11Speaker 03

  A lot of bullying, a lot of paranoia.

• 35:13Blindboy Boatclub?

  But you were also taken prisoner.

• 35:15Speaker 03

  Yes.

• 35:16Blindboy Boatclub?

  So like, but you know what I mean?

• 35:18Speaker 03

  That's true.

• 35:19Blindboy Boatclub?

  But like, you, you didn't get to walk into the middle of the, you know, I mean, I'm trying to understand. You were subjected to horrible shit.

• 35:31Speaker 03

  Yes, but I also met a lot of Israeli people who had disavowed their citizenship.

• 35:38Blindboy Boatclub?

  Okay.

• 35:39Speaker 03

  And I, I heard stories like.

• 35:42Blindboy Boatclub?

  We're telling you, okay.

• 35:43Speaker 03

  Yeah, little boys going to birthday parties and the icing on the cake was machine guns.

• 35:51Blindboy Boatclub?

  Fucking hell, okay.

• 35:52Speaker 03

  You know, it's a culture that they're born to be highly defensive, hi- you know, highly paranoid. Their stance, their belief system is based on the fact that they are a besieged people.

• 36:05Blindboy Boatclub?

  Yeah.

• 36:06Speaker 03

  And so there is this um communal mentality of we are under siege and we need to fight back. When I heard you um interviewing Naomi Klein, if any of you haven't heard it, it's it's actually a brilliant interview. I really enjoyed it. But um she she's talking about psychosis quite a lot.

• 36:27Blindboy Boatclub?

  Wow, but she's not naming it.

• 36:28Speaker 03

  She's not naming it, but that is as close to mass psychosis as I've seen. It's it's a bit like the German people during the Second World War and everyone said, how could that happen? And then the people that they persecuted have somehow or other, they learnt their techniques from Hitler's Germany. And now they're, you know, they're they're perpetrators now. So it's it's almost unbelievable, but it's true.

• 36:59Blindboy Boatclub?

  I was chatting to Gabor Maté there a couple of months back, trying to tease that out of Gabor, you know, because that's his. That's his thing, you know, um.

• 37:08Speaker 03

  Yeah.

• 37:08Blindboy Boatclub?

  What the parallel that I'd also see is it's just I'm cautious, I like I'm not from that culture and I don't understand it, but I am fucking Irish. If you like, we've got a history of persecution, we've got a history of racism against us, everything. Then you look at the conduct of Irish people in America. So Irish Americans, they became the police. Uh, there's a huge history of like pogroms that were started by Irish people over there. You had the fucking. The New York draft riots of the eighteen sixties where Irish people who would have been living in the slums of Manhattan. Lynch their African American neighbours because the Irish thought that that was the

• 37:51Blindboy Boatclub?

  reason the Irish were being drafted for the civil war. So we, we did that too. You're kind of going, how the fuck are you, look what the Brits did to you back home, what are you doing over here?

• 38:01Speaker 03

  Yeah.

• 38:02Blindboy Boatclub?

  And there's a wonderful, wonderful book by a fellow called Noel Ignati, if it's called How the Irish Became White.

• 38:08Speaker 03

  Yeah.

• 38:09Blindboy Boatclub?

  And it's about when Irish people went to America in the eighteen forties, they discovered the American system of whiteness and found their place within it through acts of brutality against most of the African American people. And by doing that then, they gained status by the British and Dutch people who were above them.

• 38:27Speaker 03

  Yeah.

• 38:28Blindboy Boatclub?

  You know, it's just that really, it's the fucked up trauma of hierarchical society.

• 38:34Speaker 03

  Yeah. Yeah, I mean, that, that, that's a very good point. That they're, they're, and, and the Irish in turn were persecuted by the British.

• 38:44Blindboy Boatclub?

  Yeah.

• 38:44Speaker 03

  And by the, um, people who had, uh, colonized America, who persecuted the people, the indigenous population and almost wiped them out. So, you know, the only way we're going to get to the bottom of all this is by understanding paranoia, defensiveness, and all those negative emotions and, um, you know, making ourselves conscious.

• 39:11Blindboy Boatclub?

  How do we start defining the paranoia? I know, you're the first person I've heard to start naming that word as a thing. And I think it's so useful. How do we know, okay, during Covid, when I had nothing to do, I started hitting bongs quite frequently.

• 39:26Speaker 03

  [laughing]

• 39:27Blindboy Boatclub?

  And I got paranoid, you know, after about three weeks of it, I started to, I got very particular about how many times I was touching my door handle before I left the gaff and said, what the fuck is that about? I don't do that normally. And then looked at the amount of bongs I was doing and said, there might be a correlation there. So I laid off. But that's paranoid there. All of a sudden, like, I don't feel comfortable enough to leave my gaff. And it wasn't, it wasn't like an obsessive compulsive thing because I'm not that way. It's like, what the fuck is this? So what if the door, who cares? No one's gonna come in and rob the place. But I couldn't do it. And that I went, oh, this is paranoia here now.

• 40:07Speaker 03

  Yeah.

• 40:08Blindboy Boatclub?

  I mean, how do we identify it? How does a healthy person?

• 40:11Speaker 03

  Identify it. I, it's a very good question, but I think that the best indicator of mental health, good mental health, as you know, is social connectivity.

• 40:22Blindboy Boatclub?

  Mm hmm.

• 40:23Speaker 03

  So the more connected you are and the more connected you feel to other people, the better your mental health is going to be essentially. And Covid, of course, was a fantastic experiment for isolating people. And if you are going to get, lose your sense of connectivity, I think a lot of people became, you know, they fell into, conspiracy theories flourished during Covid because people were connected.

• 40:51Blindboy Boatclub?

  We did though.

• 40:53Speaker 03

  I mean, look at the conspiracy theories that developed about Covid itself.

• 40:57Blindboy Boatclub?

  Yeah, yeah, yeah.

• 40:58Speaker 03

  And, you know, I disagree kind of with the way the whole thing was managed. But that's another conversation. But I think social isolation is very, very damaging for human beings and can lead to experiences of paranoia. And I think the thing to do is be able to recognize that in you and in other people. Like the, you know, the children who go around murdering people.

• 41:24Blindboy Boatclub?

  Yeah.

• 41:25Speaker 03

  You know, there are children who are essentially socially isolated and paranoid.

• 41:30Blindboy Boatclub?

  How do we have compassion for these people? Because that's what it's gonna, like, it's gonna need us. Because the thing is, it's, it's, I've even stopped. I try and, I try to not use the word far right, unless someone is straight out, I'm a fucking Nazi.

• 41:45Speaker 03

  Yeah.

• 41:45Blindboy Boatclub?

  When it's like, your uncle is.

• 41:50Blindboy Boatclub?

  Drifting, expressing some fucking opinions that are really wrong.

• 41:53Speaker 03

  Yeah.

• 41:53Blindboy Boatclub?

  What I find more useful is to go, I notice you're expressing some far right opinions as opposed to straight lady.

• 42:01Speaker 03

  Yeah, yeah.

• 42:02Blindboy Boatclub?

  Because as soon as you go, you're far right, then they go back into the Facebook group where they find identity within it and group identity. Whereas.

• 42:11Speaker 03

  Yeah.

• 42:12Blindboy Boatclub?

  I notice your behaviour, I notice you are expressing some opinions that are, it's, it's a little bit more compassionate.

• 42:19Speaker 03

  I totally agree. I think it's, it's important to attack the idea rather than the person. And yeah, telling somebody, I'm using it as a descriptive term by the way, but it's, you know, saying, yeah, I, I, I completely agree with that.

• 42:33Blindboy Boatclub?

  It's a tough one.

• 42:34Speaker 03

  It's a tough one, but I do think that people who have paranoid beliefs are fundamentally isolated. And they're fundamentally not connected to people. And those children who murder schoolchildren, the lone shooters.

• 42:50Blindboy Boatclub?

  Okay, yeah.

• 42:52Speaker 03

  I think those children are, you know, I think they're, you know, Lionel Shriver's book, we need to talk about Kevin, is a brilliant, brilliant expose of all that. Of, of a child who grows up and who really is not loved.

• 43:07Blindboy Boatclub?

  Yeah.

• 43:08Speaker 03

  And they, you know, they don't connect to people then, and they develop a paranoid view of the world and. You know, they're, it's a lack of love, it's a lack of connectivity.

• 43:19Blindboy Boatclub?

  How do you feel? So here's the thing, right? We are also now living in a society which is increasingly validates feelings of paranoia. Uh, I've got a phone that listens to me all the time. Um, artificial intelligence is fucking mad. I can have a chat with my freezer if I want. Do you know what I mean? But like, do you know what I mean? Well, like.

• 43:40Speaker 03

  Yeah.

• 43:41Blindboy Boatclub?

  We are living in a society that if you have paranoid beliefs now, you can quite easily find it confirmed. Like, do you remember Pokemon Go? That was great crack, wasn't it? What the, do you see what they're up to now? All, you, you don't remember Pokemon Go, no?

• 43:56Speaker 03

  I'm, no.

• 43:57Blindboy Boatclub?

  It was this video game on the, it was a video game on the phone about ten years ago. And it became really viral and people would walk around here or walk around the city and a little Pokemon, a little animal would appear. But if you, now it has emerged, it was funded by the CIA as a way to get data, to get maps. It turned everybody into a mobile camera, scanning it.

• 44:20Speaker 03

  Yeah.

• 44:20Blindboy Boatclub?

  And now that data is being used to train, mostly being used to tra- train delivery robots, robots that deliver food, but also it's been used to train robots that are gonna kill people. And that came from, I said it on a podcast in 2016, cause I went looking at the funding of the company. It came from a company called Incutel, which is the venture firm, venture capital arm of the CIA. But I looked paranoid at the time. And now it's like, alright, that video game is, or even something like, uh, do you ever go into a website and it says, please sign in, uh, can you identify the buses in this picture?

• 44:54Speaker 03

  Yeah.

• 44:55Blindboy Boatclub?

  Do you know what that's actually doing?

• 44:56Speaker 03

  No.

• 44:57Blindboy Boatclub?

  Training artificial intelligence driverless cars.

• 45:00Speaker 03

  Ah.

• 45:01Blindboy Boatclub?

  We are collect, that's what it is. So we are collectively becoming the, the human brains that train that.

• 45:06Speaker 03

  Yeah.

• 45:06Blindboy Boatclub?

  And then before that, it used to be, here's a series of letters, can you make out what it is?

• 45:12Speaker 03

  Yeah.

• 45:13Blindboy Boatclub?

  We were collectively digitizing the archives of the New York Times, the Washington Post, they had put all their old stuff online and we had digitized it for them, you know?

• 45:22Speaker 03

  Yeah.

• 45:23Blindboy Boatclub?

  But that is, that's almost psychotic thinking. It's mad shit, that in terms of patterns.

• 45:30Speaker 03

  It's not, that's having insight into capitalism.

• 45:33Blindboy Boatclub?

  Yeah. Well, capitalism is a bit paranoid if they're doing crack like that.

• 45:37Speaker 03

  Well, they, you know, I don't give my information away, I'm not paranoid, but I don't give my information away. My information is worth something.

• 45:44Blindboy Boatclub?

  Mm-hmm.

• 45:45Speaker 03

  You know, if I have to have an app and if they have to have the information, I will give it, otherwise, no one, no one gets it. And I've always, you know, I've always had that belief, there's a, yeah, I mean, they, they will do everything. And artificial intelligence is, I see it as something very positive, and I see it as work we don't have to do, in the same way that I see a calculator as work we don't have to do. Why use up all our brain power for this, um...

• 46:12Speaker 03

  Kind of menial cognitive work when you can release it for creative work like

• 46:17Blindboy Boatclub?

  Yeah.

• 46:17Speaker 03

  We want everybody to be creative, you know, use your brains for nice things. So I think it's the way it's being misappropriated by capitalism and abused by capitalism. That's the problem. It's not the artificial intelligence.

• 46:33Blindboy Boatclub?

  That's a good point, actually. Um, I have to check the time, right? But I have the rudest watch in the world. It which it opens with kinetic energy. So the only way for me to look at the time is to go like this.

• 46:43Speaker 03

  (laughing).

• 46:44Blindboy Boatclub?

  So I just needed to tell you beforehand, or else I look like a prick. You know what I mean? Sorry for the children here for saying the word prick. Um.

• 46:55Blindboy Boatclub?

  Um, are you comfortable speaking about your experience on the Gaza flotilla? Is that okay?

• 47:00Speaker 03

  Yeah, yeah.

• 47:01Blindboy Boatclub?

  Tell us the crack. I'm autistic, leave me off.

• 47:09Speaker 03

  Um, when I was, it was the best of times and it was the worst of times. Uh, I was very frustrated as I'm sure most people here are and were. Um, but for the first year, you know, I made myself watch the news.

• 47:26Blindboy Boatclub?

  Mm hmm.

• 47:27Speaker 03

  Um, I howled at the TV. I covered my face with my hands. I went to marches. I spoke. I did everything I could do. You know, it became a full-time job in a way once I retired. And, you know, I. As the months went by, as the years have gone by now, we've realised that, um, our governments are not on the side of the people.

• 47:54Blindboy Boatclub?

  No.

• 47:55Speaker 03

  So I did it partly for myself because I needed to do as much as I could to express my outrage and as much as I could to intervene to change the situation. So there was an opportunity to go on the flotilla, a medical flotilla, to bring, potentulate the people of Gaza. And, um, I was thrilled to be able to go on it. And I felt I was bringing a voice from Ireland.

• 48:26Blindboy Boatclub?

  Mm hmm.

• 48:26Speaker 03

  And I think, you know, people here were very distressed. I felt.

• 48:32Speaker 03

  The government, we, we gave the government, our mandate was, we want to oppose what Israel is doing Gaza. We want to oppose the genocide. So it was good for me and it was good for me to meet like minded people. And we had such crack.

• 48:48Blindboy Boatclub?

  Mm hmm.

• 48:49Speaker 03

  It was like, it was one of the most positive experiences of my life, being on that boat with a hundred, almost a hundred medics and journalists. And it was fantastic. The, the sense of

• 49:09Speaker 03

  of meaning and of determination and of resolve. You know, we were, we were determined. We were going to get as far as we could. And yes, there was an element of danger to it, but.

• 49:23Blindboy Boatclub?

  Yeah. Did you feel, at what point, like you're talking about Western highly qualified medics. So that's a high position of, we say, international privilege, privilege in that situation.

• 49:34Speaker 03

  Yeah.

• 49:35Blindboy Boatclub?

  Did you feel protected or did you know what was going to happen?

• 49:39Speaker 03

  I felt protected, yes, by that, as we all do.

• 49:43Blindboy Boatclub?

  Yeah.

• 49:43Speaker 03

  You know, uh, you know, I, I suppose the more solid your position is in society, the more comfortable you feel and more confident you feel. Yes. So I did. But at the same time, I was also at a point where accidents happen.

• 50:02Blindboy Boatclub?

  Yeah.

• 50:02Speaker 03

  And if you're on a flotilla to Gaza and you know you're going to be intercepted and imprisoned in Israeli jail, well, you know, accidents are more likely to happen.

• 50:12Blindboy Boatclub?

  Accidents. And well, didn't the fucking one of the boats go on fire because they'd

• 50:17Speaker 03

  Yeah.

• 50:18Blindboy Boatclub?

  fired fireworks or flares at it or something.

• 50:19Speaker 03

  That's right. And I mean, a lot of people, I knew the IOF were going to be droning us the whole way. So when people were freaked out about that, I was like, well.

• 50:31Blindboy Boatclub?

  It's, you could see that you were being followed. You could look in the sky. Yeah.

• 50:34Speaker 03

  Yeah. So there was a drone watch every night and we were quite well prepared, but nothing quite prepares you for, you know, the descent of the helicopters and.

• 50:48Speaker 03

  You see when they're coming down and they've laden with armaments, it's like a Hollywood movie.

• 50:54Blindboy Boatclub?

  Mm hmm.

• 50:54Speaker 03

  And it's, it's like this is, it's America, you know.

• 50:58Blindboy Boatclub?

  Yeah, yeah, yeah.

• 50:59Speaker 03

  It is, it's, it's not Israel, it's, it's like the whole, it is America. Israel's an outpost.

• 51:07Blindboy Boatclub?

  Yes.

• 51:08Speaker 03

  Of America.

• 51:09Blindboy Boatclub?

  Yeah.

• 51:09Speaker 03

  And it's, it's, um, you know, it's, it's, it, it's just there guarding the Middle East. And, um, yeah, it's a military outpost. So you see that and you see the, I mean, I don't use words like evil. Um, so, but it, it's very dark. It was very dark being in Israeli jail. And it wasn't just the discomfort and the dirt and the abuse verbally and physically. It was the, the people. It was just the people where they, they were dehumanized.

• 51:49Blindboy Boatclub?

  Jesus Christ.

• 51:50Speaker 03

  Yeah, it was, it was, it was, it was very shocking. Experiencing it firsthand really mattered to me. It really, there's a difference between reading something and experiencing it this early.

• 52:03Blindboy Boatclub?

  Did you have your psychiatrist hat on?

• 52:06Speaker 03

  Uh, well, I, I manipulated as well as I could. I did, I did get under the skin of one of the screws.

• 52:13Blindboy Boatclub?

  Were you being interrogated or?

• 52:15Speaker 03

  No, they, what they were, it, it, it was very interesting. We all, we all took different positions of defense and offense against the abuse we were experiencing. And some of the sailor women were, were very strong.

• 52:32Blindboy Boatclub?

  Yeah, yeah.

• 52:33Speaker 03

  As good as they got. And some, some of the women were very verbal and some were quite physical. Um, that, that, uh, I, I was more.

• 52:42Blindboy Boatclub?

  Do you mean, were, were women, are you saying that the women IOF officers were physically hurting prisoners?

• 52:49Speaker 03

  Totally.

• 52:50Blindboy Boatclub?

  So that's what they, they got the women to do it? And was there a reason why they were doing it or was it just sheer intimidation for the sake?

• 52:56Speaker 03

  Oh, intimidation. I mean. They were trained in tactics of intimidation. We were woken up every hour during the night. Um, and they'd come into the cell and they'd make us all stand up. Um, a lot of women began, I mean, this was a particularly nasty aspect of it. A lot of the women began menstruating from stress and they were denied sanitary products. Um, we sort of had to ask for basic um hygienic, like toilet roll, you know, they. It was, it was very dirty and unpleasant. And I've, I've found that. Like, we all find it difficult. We're very used to cleanliness here. We don't know. We don't know how accustomed we are to it.

• 53:40Speaker 03

  And um so it, it's at every single level that they can deprive you, levels that you wouldn't have an awareness of.

• 53:48Blindboy Boatclub?

  Did you?

• 53:51Blindboy Boatclub?

  Did any part of you start to, what, what is the point of that? I mean, like I said, you. Are now back home in a safe country with a microphone able to tell everybody about this and party is going. Why would you do that? That's bad press. And maybe that's the point. Don't come here. Don't try and do this flotilla shit again, because it's gonna get worse. Like intimidation, knowing that you're gonna go back to your, to Ireland and say, look at what they did.

• 54:20Speaker 03

  Yeah.

• 54:20Blindboy Boatclub?

  And sometimes they say about Israel is that they flaunt for the sake of it. Look at what we can fucking do. Try and stop us. Trump will let us do whatever we want.

• 54:29Speaker 03

  Yeah, but I could see the cracks, blind boy.

• 54:31Blindboy Boatclub?

  What? Go on, tell us about the cracks.

• 54:33Speaker 03

  I, I could see them. I mean, you, they don't want to make eye contact with you. So what do you do? Uh, you just keep looking and not looking in hate, not looking. Uh, just looking in puzzlement, just. Wondering what's going on, um, as one would.

• 54:52Blindboy Boatclub?

  Wow.

• 54:52Speaker 03

  Like, I don't understand this, so I'm looking at it. And you, you can see the cracks. I mean, everyone is human.

• 55:00Blindboy Boatclub?

  Yeah.

• 55:00Speaker 03

  Everyone wants to be loved.

• 55:02Blindboy Boatclub?

  Yeah.

• 55:03Speaker 03

  Ultimately, we all want to be celebrated.

• 55:05Blindboy Boatclub?

  Yeah.

• 55:05Speaker 03

  So I think that society is going to crack. I, I think it's going to implode in itself. They, you know, the, the people in Israel, they don't want conscription anymore. They're running out of.

• 55:16Blindboy Boatclub?

  Yeah.

• 55:17Speaker 03

  People and, uh, you know, I think there's going to be a generational shift.

• 55:24Blindboy Boatclub?

  Were these young people, were the soldiers that were the prison officers, young people or older people or?

• 55:30Speaker 03

  Well, it's interesting because the elite soldiers who came down treated us the best, even though they had machine guns.

• 55:39Blindboy Boatclub?

  Yeah.

• 55:39Speaker 03

  They pointed them at us, but they didn't scream. They they did scream actually. But it was in the lower, as we went down to the lower echelons. And the prison guards were clearly not as well educated. They didn't speak English. And they were they were the most unpleasant to us.

• 56:03Blindboy Boatclub?

  Mm hmm.

• 56:03Speaker 03

  Because I think they had less confidence and uh they probably, it's a very stratified society, it's a very racist society. And there was a difference in skin color as you went down.

• 56:15Blindboy Boatclub?

  Yeah, the the.

• 56:16Speaker 03

  And, you know, it was, it's really repulsive to us. The idea of institutionalized racism. And and that is what that society is. Because Palestinians, like they they can pick out an Arab man from a Jewish man. To most of us, if you saw ten of them in a row all dressed the same, we wouldn't be able to do it, but they can do it. And the Arab men, they treated the worst. The next worst were the Arab women. Black women, black men, black women. And so on and so forth. So if you're if you've got skin like I have and our sort of coloring, you know, you were treated the best.

• 56:55Blindboy Boatclub?

  And then also you have to reflect that. Yeah. Your country would probably stand up for you more. It's it's it's not just their racism, it's that the system itself is racist. So the lives of the white people have more value, generate more headlines if something terrible was to happen. So it's racism all around, not just the Israelis, but the whole system itself.

• 57:18Speaker 03

  Totally. I I mean, you know, we were very upset at the way our Arab comrades were treated.

• 57:25Blindboy Boatclub?

  Yeah.

• 57:25Speaker 03

  It was really difficult to watch. And also there was a young man and it really got to me actually, um because we'd become we'd had quite a few good conversations on the boat and he was Israeli. He had renounced his citizenship and he was quite a small man.

• 57:45Blindboy Boatclub?

  Mm hmm.

• 57:46Speaker 03

  And they they really mishandled him. I saw him being.

• 57:50Blindboy Boatclub?

  Because they knew that he was an expat or whatever you'd call it, yeah.

• 57:54Speaker 03

  And they they I they knew who we all were when we got off the boat, but they.

• 57:57Blindboy Boatclub?

  Go away out there, your dad and everything and fucking knew your names and all this crack.

• 58:01Speaker 03

  Absolutely, yeah.

• 58:03Blindboy Boatclub?

  Bastards. But that's just sneaky, isn't it?

• 58:07Speaker 03

  I know, I know. Yeah, well.

• 58:10Blindboy Boatclub?

  Mind games that they're playing there.

• 58:11Speaker 03

  Oh, yeah. And they hated, oh, you know, they they had they had a particular hatred of Germans because they see Germans as having persecuted them.

• 58:21Blindboy Boatclub?

  Yeah.

• 58:21Speaker 03

  So I was standing beside a lovely German doctor that was, you know, that I'd become friends with. And one of them jumped up from behind his desk and spat, I hate fucking Germans into her face. And I don't know how she stood. She managed to hold her ground. I, you know, I staggered backwards. I was so shocked by, you know, the suddenness of his leap, you know, so everything is stratified. You're a German woman, you know, I hate you more. You're a black woman, you're less than me. So it's a society that's completely based on inequality.

• 58:59Blindboy Boatclub?

  Were they trying to trigger a response? Were they trying to trigger the type of response that they could get at? So if

• 59:07Blindboy Boatclub?

  if if someone then decided, okay, you're calling me names, I'm gonna hit the prison officer. Now a crime has been committed and now you can actually be arrested and put into jail. Do you think there was an element to that? Whereas what he had done is like, we're delivering aid. You like, you're not doing anything illegal.

• 59:21Speaker 03

  Yeah.

• 59:22Blindboy Boatclub?

  And you're making them look like dickheads by imprisoning you. But if, well, I'm gonna push you and push you. Now you're gonna have a crime. Now it's a different story. Do you think there might have been an element to that? Or was it just an irrational?

• 59:34Speaker 03

  No, I I think they were they were clever in their approach. Yeah, I think they were, yeah. Definitely, and there's some people respond to antagonism and I I feel you know people resist in different ways. And I thought that, you know, the bad girls I thought were great. I'm not a bad girl. I was, uh, I'm, you know, I I brought up obviously if somebody, you know, I'm trained if somebody is violent to me to de-escalate.

• 59:59Blindboy Boatclub?

  Yeah.

• 59:59Speaker 03

  But some of the girls were bad girls and I would, I was like, yeah, go on, you know, they were fabulous. And, um, you know, they were giving as good as they got. So I I think people resist in different ways and yeah, it takes a lot out of one. Yeah.

• 1:00:16Blindboy Boatclub?

  Um, at what point are there like people from the Irish consulate showing up? I mean, I don't know how it works in Israel. I mean, you're completely and utterly alone. Did anyone show up?

• 1:00:26Speaker 03

  Well, one thing I feel very bitter about is the fact that here we were, a group of a hundred medics and media people in the middle of the ocean, you know, a hundred nautical miles off the coast of Egypt.

• 1:00:41Blindboy Boatclub?

  Yes.

• 1:00:43Speaker 03

  Um, heading towards Port Said. We weren't heading towards Israel because our captain was clever, Madeline was her name, and she was saying, they're coming, so I'm going to change direction. I'm going towards Egypt. Nobody's going to catch me on the way to Israel or Gaza. So she went towards Port Said and you're there in international waters. And, you know, something becomes very real when they are allowed with impunity to descend from these helicopters and capture us all and kidnap us. And that's something that.

• 1:01:20Blindboy Boatclub?

  It's not supposed to happen.

• 1:01:22Speaker 03

  It's not, I mean, they are, if if we lose international law, if we lose, but you know, at what point have we lost everything? I mean, that's, that was a very, um, tangible feeling and experience there. So when I saw the Irish consulate, I was like, yeah, like, thanks.

• 1:01:44Blindboy Boatclub?

  Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah.

• 1:01:45Speaker 03

  You know, thanks very much. You're doing your job. I was pleasant. They were helpful. Um, and, you know, they were on our side, but I don't believe the government is on our side.

• 1:01:57Blindboy Boatclub?

  No, no, no, no.

• 1:01:58Speaker 03

  They're not. They're not enacting the will of the people.

• 1:02:01Blindboy Boatclub?

  They're in the pocket of Facebook. You know what I mean, we're in the pocket of the big tech companies and you look at where the big tech companies, it's America, it's Israel, the whole shebang, you know.

• 1:02:09Speaker 03

  Yeah, and they're taking our water.

• 1:02:11Blindboy Boatclub?

  Yeah, yeah.

• 1:02:12Speaker 03

  And they're, yeah, and they're taking our electricity and they're bringing money into the country. And, you know, we need, we need to make big decisions in Ireland about what side we're on.

• 1:02:25Blindboy Boatclub?

  This has been a fucking unbelievable chat today. It's been really, are you liking this? And you're okay, you can hear everything as well, can ye? Um, I might, do we have audience questions, Eminem? We do. This is Eminem, ladies and gentlemen.

• 1:02:43Blindboy Boatclub?

  Uh, I might take a few questions from the audience because I'm, I'm time conscious.

• 1:02:49Blindboy Boatclub?

  Throw up an old hand there and ask a question about whatever you want.

• 1:02:53Speaker 05

  Aye, uh.

• 1:02:54Blindboy Boatclub?

  What's the crack?

• 1:02:55Speaker 05

  All good. Just when you're talking about paranoia, um, and you're saying you're touching the handle all the time.

• 1:03:01Blindboy Boatclub?

  Yeah, what if a door handle is a door? Get me started on door handles, man.

• 1:03:05Speaker 05

  I have, I had a similar thing and I thought it was superstition. And I wondered, are they related?

• 1:03:10Blindboy Boatclub?

  Oh, there's a fun one now. Because you know what I did? I, I, I started going with the, we've all done the Saint Anthony shit, yeah? Because it works, unfortunately. I was doing Saint Anthony for ages, but then I thought about it. Do you know why I think Saint Anthony works? Because it's a little mindfulness exercise. Any, anytime I need to use Saint Anthony, right? Because I'd not, you know when you lose your fucking wallet, lads? You know when you lose your wallet and you're in that position of, is it lost and I need to cancel all my cards or is it behind the couch? Because you don't want to, you ever cancel all your cards and it's behind the fucking couch? Worst feeling in the world. So when I get there, then I'm like, fuck's sake, all right, so Saint Anthony, come on, all right.

• 1:03:50Blindboy Boatclub?

  I haven't spoken in about six years, but find my wallet for me. So I go into Saint Anthonyland and give him an old prayer and then lo and behold, there's my wallet. All along it was there. And it kept working and it would challenge my fucking faith, you know, I'd be like, ah shit, maybe there's something going on here. But no, it's just mindfulness. When, when I, when it's something that's like, if I lose this wallet and I cancel the cards, that is a huge inconvenience. This is making me anxious. Now because of that, I'm not thinking rationally. I can't find it. I'm not really present around me. But then I go for old Saint Anthony's, say a little prayer, I'm breathing differently. Now I'm calm. Oh, there it is all along. I think that's the crack. Do you, do you think that's the crack there?

• 1:04:34Speaker 03

  Uh, yeah.

• 1:04:36Blindboy Boatclub?

  Yeah, yeah.

• 1:04:38Speaker 03

  Definitely. I agree with you, blind boy.

• 1:04:41Blindboy Boatclub?

  Paranoia versus superstition, because that's a great question.

• 1:04:43Speaker 03

  It's a great question. And I would say some superstition is, you know, it's based on sound, sensible thinking. Don't walk under a ladder.

• 1:04:54Blindboy Boatclub?

  Yeah.

• 1:04:54Speaker 03

  You know, um, it's there in a sense to keep us safe. I mean, I, I have all sorts of, you know, magical thinking is part of, in a way, of the lore and the way we're brought up. You know, one for sorrow, two for joy. Who doesn't look at magpies? And if there's one there, look for a second one. Um, you know, I love.

• 1:05:19Blindboy Boatclub?

  All of Irish folklore is actually telling us something about systems of biodiversity and telling us about the early farmers before they had writing. Like there's one I love around the start of April about, um, the old Brindel cow, it's called. And it's a story my ma used to tell me about an old cow. And it's like, it's gonna be freezing cold for the first 10 days of April. And I go, how'd you know, ma? She goes, well, the story of the old cow who mocked the winter. And then the winter rent and borrowed some days from the summer and killed the cow. But like, the first 10 days of April actually are dodgy because the, the land heats up from the bit, the extra days. And then we get that cold Atlantic wind, so it's unpredictable. But our ancestors used to use that in Ireland to know when to do, we had a thing called boating, which existed pre-monastic times.

• 1:06:04Blindboy Boatclub?

  People in Ireland would move with their cattle and they would take the cattle to the hills, to the better grass for the summer. Some people were like, like the way Germans are at a resort where they wanna put the towels down. Do you know, you get the towels down early. Irish people used to do that, like, nearly a thousand years ago. I wanna get that spot up there on the hill with my cows first, so I'm gonna leave early on the first ten days of April. And then the cows are killed. So we have this wonderful story. But that there, that's not superstition, that's folklore, that tells us something important about biodiversity, nature and systems in the absence of a language system, writing system.

• 1:06:39Speaker 03

  Yeah, and, and there you have it. I mean, we shouldn't touch door handles. You know, in a way during Covid.

• 1:06:46Blindboy Boatclub?

  Oh, fucking, I didn't connect those two things. Fucking hell. Oh shit, the whole messaging on the news was fucking door handle. Ah, that's what it is. Sure, she's a psychiatrist, this is free. You're fucking right. Of course I'd be afraid of door.

• 1:07:04Blindboy Boatclub?

  How did I not spot this? The news was telling me fucking door handles, man. You need hand sanitizer. And now I'm afraid, of course it wasn't the hash at all. Excellent.

• 1:07:17Blindboy Boatclub?

  I'm fucking smoking again. Eminem, sort me out tonight, will you?

• 1:07:22Blindboy Boatclub?

  Sorry. Any other questions?

• 1:07:28Blindboy Boatclub?

  Yonder here. How's it going there? I have a quick question there. What's your opinion? You mentioned psilocybin psychedelics. What's your opinion now as a psychiatrist of the future for, for that, for treating depression, anxiety, all that kinda stuff?

• 1:07:43Speaker 03

  Well, the studies on depression are in their very early stages, but I, I reckon psilocybin's going to you know, it's, at the moment it's going for a cure-all for everything, for every human condition from pain to um, sorrow, to bereavement, everything.

• 1:08:05Speaker 03

  Psychosis even, but I think psilocybin for certain people, my experience, my opinion, uncorroborated, okay, this is from my experience, I think it's particularly good, particularly good for people who are caught up in an internal loop of neurosis. And sometimes it's very difficult for these people to engage in therapy because they actually cannot get outside of their own heads.

• 1:08:38Blindboy Boatclub?

  Do you mean like rumination loops and stuff?

• 1:08:40Speaker 03

  Yeah, yeah.

• 1:08:41Blindboy Boatclub?

  Okay.

• 1:08:42Speaker 03

  So I think for most depression, I wouldn't say it's going to be a great treatment for most depressions, but for some people, I do think the effects that it has on consciousness are very impressive. But if you're going to expand your consciousness, you've got to know where you're starting from. So if you're in that kind of paranoid bad place, I don't, you know, you shouldn't go to psychedelics. Or if you have a kind of predisposition towards, you know, being a bit paranoid, I wouldn't do psychedelics. But if you're in a safe place and you're all neurotically tangled up in yourself, and

• 1:09:25Speaker 03

  I think they could have a place for you, you know, but you need, the wrong people to take psychedelics are people who have paranoid tendencies. And I, again, we're kind of coming back to this point the whole time of there is no awareness out there of, you know, the softer forms of psychosis, that 10% of the population experience.

• 1:09:51Blindboy Boatclub?

  Well, I'd imagine no one fucking talks about it because I've never heard anyone. I've never heard someone say to me, I think I heard half. A voice there yesterday. But you know what I mean? But like no one says that. You if someone is experiencing heavy psychosis and they need to get treatment, but no one is like, oh yeah, there's a fellow called Paul and I heard him, yes. But this must be what you're talking about. Someone hears a little bit of a voice here and there.

• 1:10:14Speaker 03

  Yeah, yeah, a whisper or very commonly people, children hear their name being called. And that's.

• 1:10:21Blindboy Boatclub?

  Or maybe it's ghost stories.

• 1:10:23Speaker 03

  Yeah.

• 1:10:23Blindboy Boatclub?

  But no, but seriously, maybe you do hear a lot of people of I was in bed and I heard a voice or I heard laughter next door.

• 1:10:30Speaker 03

  Yeah.

• 1:10:31Blindboy Boatclub?

  Maybe with that soft paranoia that you're talking, it could be represented in paranormal experiences, maybe.

• 1:10:37Speaker 03

  Absolutely. Or when people are waking up or going to sleep, particularly when they're waking up, they're called hypnopompic hallucinants.

• 1:10:47Blindboy Boatclub?

  Oh, they're awful. What are they? They're the worst in the world.

• 1:10:49Speaker 03

  Yeah.

• 1:10:50Blindboy Boatclub?

  Is that the one where you experience someone sitting like kind of not sleep paralysis, but I had it once, actually. This is the last question I'm going to ask you, right? Because you're the only person who might be able to answer this. Um, I was at a time of extreme stress. It was my dad had just died and I was 21 and it was unbelievable grief and stress. But I had that waking up in the middle of the night and reality dissolved into a universe of shapes. And it was nothing but pure terror and it was minus crack. Is this what we're talking about?

• 1:11:24Speaker 03

  Uh, yes. And that would have been one aspect of it.

• 1:11:28Blindboy Boatclub?

  I'd woken up in the middle of the night and it's just, I'm not in my room. What the fuck is this? Get me out. It's grey hell.

• 1:11:34Speaker 03

  Yeah, that's what we would, I guess that would be a kind of a nocturnal panic attack.

• 1:11:41Blindboy Boatclub?

  Sounds about right, yeah.

• 1:11:42Speaker 03

  Yeah. And they are particularly, particularly unpleasant.

• 1:11:48Blindboy Boatclub?

  A devil's wet dream, we'll call it. Go on. Sorry.

• 1:11:55Blindboy Boatclub?

  It's a good name, it's a good name. Shout out to Debbie's Wet Dream.

• 1:11:59Speaker 03

  Okay. I mean, the other thing that happens commonly is night terrors, and I don't know.

• 1:12:05Blindboy Boatclub?

  Oh god. Who's a fan of the old night terrors, lads? Hands up. Very mentally healthy. Oh, two at the front, fair play to you.

• 1:12:13Speaker 03

  I've had them.

• 1:12:14Blindboy Boatclub?

  They're not great.

• 1:12:15Speaker 03

  No, you're in the stage of sleep where your limbs are paralyzed, because you go through a stage of sleep where you're dreaming. And so your eyes are looking all around the place, and you think loads of things are happening, but your body can't move. But something very bad happens in your dream, and you want to wake up your body to counteract it, like you want to run away, or you want to fight back against somebody, and your body isn't working, and your voice isn't working. So typically, you wake up with this, what's called a strangled cry. You're trying to cry for help, or you're trying to move, and that's a night terror. And they're quite common, and they're extremely unpleasant.

• 1:12:56Blindboy Boatclub?

  Is that normal, or is that...

• 1:12:59Speaker 03

  No, it's normal.

• 1:13:00Blindboy Boatclub?

  Just what happens?

• 1:13:00Speaker 03

  Well, I've had them anyway. Not very many, but... They're normal, and so are hallucinations when you're waking up. They're normal.

• 1:13:08Blindboy Boatclub?

  Yeah.

• 1:13:08Speaker 03

  And it's normal, it's not utterly abnormal to be a voice hearer. It's when it becomes something that is bothering you and interfering with your life, that it becomes psychosis, really, and, you know, somebody like me needs to come in.

• 1:13:27Blindboy Boatclub?

  I could have chatted to you all evening. That was one of the best chats I've had in a long time. Veronica O'Keane, thank you so much for coming along.

• 1:13:35Speaker 03

  Thanks.

• 1:13:36Blindboy Boatclub?

  And thank you to Ollie.

• 1:13:39Blindboy Boatclub?

  Go and enjoy your magic mushrooms.

• 1:13:43Blindboy Boatclub?

  Thank you for listening to that. What can I say about Dr. Veronica O'Keane?

• 1:13:49Blindboy Boatclub?

  Fascinating person, a courageous person and an inspirational person, full of integrity. Someone with high self-esteem, very high self-esteem, a lot of self-worth. Who really is connecting, connecting with our values and acting on those values. And we could all learn a lot from listening to people like Veronica. So thank you to Veronica for coming on. Thank you to ye for listening and thank you for your patience this week. My chest is fucked. This is what happens. I get sick. I attended a children's party, all right, and then I picked up a chest infection.

• 1:14:33Blindboy Boatclub?

  I get sick and it's not a radio station, so I can't ring someone in to pop in and do my fucking job. So I figure out ways to deal with it as it happens and make sure that I get a podcast out every Wednesday. So that I'm not leaving any of ye disappointed or jilted. But I have a lovely hot take written and I'll be back next week with that. In the meantime, rub a dog, wink at a swan, genuflect to an owl. And enjoy the fucking splendor of nature out there. To my listeners in the, in the northern hemisphere, I know of a lot of listeners in Australia and you're entering winter now.

• 1:15:17Blindboy Boatclub?

  But here in the northern hemisphere, it's the beginning of summer. It's the most fucking beautiful time of the year because the leaves are young.

• 1:15:27Blindboy Boatclub?

  And we haven't gotten into it yet, about a week away from it maybe, about a week away. When the evening air is pregnant with life. The most beautiful.

• 1:15:43Blindboy Boatclub?

  The middle of fucking, the end of May, end of May as it tips into June. Nature sweats with this intoxicating effluvium. And you'll smell it in an evening walk. Go for a fucking evening walk, lads. Don't get caught in the doom scroll. Go out and get an evening walk into ya. At the end of May, and do it with the mindful purpose of noticing all the different smells. It's the best time of the year for smells. Everything wants to fuck each other. You just get the, the, it's life. It's the smell of life. Alright, dog bless.