Oprah and Harvard Professor Share How Psychedelics Are Actually Healing

In this episode of The Oprah Podcast, Oprah and bestselling author Michael Pollan discuss the potential of psychedelic drugs like psilocybin (also known as magic mushrooms) and LSD as a benefit to help relieve symptoms of PTSD, OCD, anxiety, addiction, or depression. Michael’s 2018 book, "How to Change Your Mind", was a watershed moment in the rising national conversation about the use of psychedelics in guided therapy. Michael describes his own psychedelic experiences as well as additional guests, including GoDaddy founder Bob Parsons, who share their stories about how psychedelics helped them improve their mental well-being, cope with trauma and grief and achieve spiritual transcendence. Pollan taught for many years at UC Berkeley and is currently a professor teaching creative writing at Harvard. BUY THE BOOK! “⁠How to Change Your Mind: What the New Science of Psychedelics Teaches Us About Consciousness, Dying, Addiction, Depression, and Transcendence⁠ https://amzn.to/4fFyR2z” by Michael Pollan “⁠Fire in the Hole!: The Untold Story of My Traumatic Life and Explosive Success⁠ https://amzn.to/4waZqS2” by Bob Parsons This episode is brought to you in part by BetterHelp. Give online therapy a try at http://www.betterhelp.com/OPRAHPODCAST For more information on The Roland R. Griffiths, Ph. D. Professorship Fund, Psychedelic Research On Secular Spirituality And Well-Being - https://griffithsfund.org/ Subscribe: https://www.youtube.com/@Oprah Follow Oprah Winfrey on Social: https://www.instagram.com/oprah/ https://www.facebook.com/oprahwinfrey/ Listen to the full podcast: https://open.spotify.com/show/0tEVrfNp92a7lbjDe6GMLI https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/the-oprah-podcast/id1782960381

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

• 0:00Oprah Winfrey?

  Hi, I am so glad that you all are here with me. Welcome to the Oprah Podcast. They are as controversial as they are fascinating. And I know many of you are really curious, as I am. So let's hop right into this question. Can psychedelic drugs like psilocybin, also known as magic mushrooms, MDMA, also known as ecstasy, and even LSD, can they heal mental trauma? Or even help people reach a transcendent, transformational, spiritual experience? Joining me is a man who's an expert on all of this, Michael Pollan.

• 0:44Oprah Winfrey?

  Great to see you again, Michael. Great to see you too, Oprah. Once again, Michael Pollan is at the forefront of a revelatory, national conversation. For newcomers, what is a psychedelic?

• 0:57Speaker 01

  Today, there's a new and growing fight to make psychedelics legal again in the United States.

• 1:02Speaker 02

  Up next on StarTalk, all about psychedelics.

• 1:06Oprah Winfrey?

  Psychedelics, once demonized as a dangerous counterculture threat, are being reexamined as a possible tool for treatment for anxiety, depression, addiction, PTSD, and for spiritual transcendence.

• 1:21Speaker 03

  It had been 49 years since the war, and I like to say this, I finally came home.

• 1:27Oprah Winfrey?

  Michael's best known for his blockbuster books about food, like The Omnivore's Dilemma and Cooked. But his groundbreaking 2018 work, How to Change Your Mind, created an opening for a new way to think about psychedelics.

• 1:42Speaker 04

  It's literally like magic. I was like, how is this possible?

• 1:45Speaker 05

  I saw God in everything. I came away just completely transformed.

• 1:51Oprah Winfrey?

  Before we begin, I just want to say this. This conversation is not intended to offer medical advice. Psychedelics remain illegal in most states. So I urge you to consult your own healthcare professional before considering any kind of treatment.

• 2:14Oprah Winfrey?

  So I read your book back in 2018, How to Change Your Mind. And when it was first published, it was really, I would have to say, eye-opening. I was surprised that you, Michael Pollan, who had done all of these wonderful books about food and the omnivore's dilemma and what we should be eating, had now stepped into another realm

• 2:37Speaker 06

  I was surprised, too.

• 2:38Oprah Winfrey?

  of the plant world. And I found it eye-opening and challenging for me because I'll admit that I have had and continue to have preconceived notions and judgments around psychedelics. And at the time, I didn't think our culture, or I, for that matter, was ready for this conversation. I thought, whoa, that's really, this is really bold of Michael to do this in 2018, which, at the time, it was. But now I've noticed, and I think you are the reason for part of this shift. I've seen, first of all, more articles about it, more stories about it, more people who have engaged with the experience of psychedelics.

• 3:22Oprah Winfrey?

  And I think something is happening in the culture. Would you agree?

• 3:26Speaker 06

  Absolutely. I mean, what's happened since 2018 is, I never would have imagined how many, you know, how many studies are going on, how much research is being done, and how many people are seeking psychedelic therapy. And, you know, in one way-

• 3:42Oprah Winfrey?

  Would you say you were part of that change, though? Because when you wrote this book, you know, which is-

• 3:47Speaker 06

  Yeah, it was pretty fringe.

• 3:49Oprah Winfrey?

  Yes.

• 3:50Speaker 06

  And I really didn't think that there was a, you know, large audience for a book on psychedelics. I was just personally fascinated. But yeah, I mean, I think the book, I hear from, especially from scientists, that it became OK to study this after the book came out.

• 4:06Oprah Winfrey?

  How to Change Your Mind is such a perfect title, too.

• 4:08Speaker 06

  Thank you.

• 4:09Oprah Winfrey?

  I love that.

• 4:10Speaker 06

  It's what it's about.

• 4:11Oprah Winfrey?

  What the new science of psychedelics teaches us about consciousness, dying, addiction, depression, and transcendence. I thought, well, if it does all that, I'm gonna read this book.

• 4:22Speaker 06

  It's a big promise.

• 4:23Oprah Winfrey?

  That's a big promise.

• 4:24Speaker 06

  But what got me really interested and making me realize that. So I had had very little experience of psychedelics personally. I was afraid of them. I didn't think I was sturdy enough psychologically to have a big psychedelic trip. And I didn't do it when I was in college. But I wrote an article about a study where they were giving psychedelics to people who had cancer diagnoses, many of them terminal.

• 4:46Oprah Winfrey?

  Was this Roland Griffiths' article?

• 4:48Speaker 06

  Yes.

• 4:49Oprah Winfrey?

  Roland Griffiths. Roland Griffiths, who I interviewed, yes. In his last dying days.

• 4:53Speaker 06

  I know, that's an amazing interview.

• 4:55Oprah Winfrey?

  Yes.

• 4:56Speaker 07

  How do we awaken and stay awake to the wonder of what our existence is?

• 5:06Oprah Winfrey?

  And he was so calm about the experience of dying, yes. And so you read Roland Griffiths' article.

• 5:14Speaker 06

  So I had, he was doing a study, he hadn't published it yet, giving psychedelics, psilocybin specifically, magic mushrooms in pill form, to people who had cancer diagnoses. And I interviewed about a dozen of them, and they told me stories of personal.

• 5:28Oprah Winfrey?

  May I just tell people who he was? He's a renowned researcher of psychedelics at Johns Hopkins.

• 5:32Speaker 06

  Yes, he really got the, what's called the psychedelic renaissance started with his research.

• 5:38Oprah Winfrey?

  Because he wrote this paper on the mystical and spiritual experience of it all, right?

• 5:42Speaker 06

  Yeah, in 2006. And that really launched the whole revival of psychedelic research, which had been a big thing in the 50s and 60s, I didn't realize it. But in the 50s, LSD was considered a wonder drug, there were six international conferences on LSD alone, there were.

• 5:59Oprah Winfrey?

  In the 50s?

• 6:00Speaker 06

  In the 50s, up till 1965, from 50 to, yeah.

• 6:04Oprah Winfrey?

  And then it just got banned and also people said.

• 6:07Speaker 06

  The drug war.

• 6:08Oprah Winfrey?

  The drug war.

• 6:08Speaker 06

  Yeah, and President Nixon, who starts the drug war, said that the drug war, there's a quote that he gave to John Ehrlichman, his domestic policy advisor, that we're going after LSD to get the hippies and cannabis to get the blacks, and those were his two enemies. And that's what the drug war was really about.

• 6:28Oprah Winfrey?

  Yes.

• 6:28Speaker 06

  And so anyway, there had been all this very promising research, LSD was being used to treat alcoholism with a lot of success. So I didn't know this whole backstory, I thought psychedelics is a 60s thing, but actually it's really a 50s thing. And there was this promising research that gets shut down, and we lose like 30 years of research that has just now resumed.

• 6:52Oprah Winfrey?

  So some people are drawn, we know, to psychedelics because they are suffering from mental illness or mental trauma, not mental illness, mental trauma, because I think if you're suffering from mental illness. A lot of people shouldn't take it if you are.

• 7:06Speaker 06

  Yeah, there are definitely people who shouldn't mess around with these substances. People at any risk of schizophrenia, you know, if you have a relative that has schizophrenia, usually bipolar, they don't, they don't want you in the studies.

• 7:18Oprah Winfrey?

  You need to leave these drugs alone.

• 7:19Speaker 06

  Yeah, but people struggling with addiction, anxiety, OCD, obsessive compulsive disorder, trauma.

• 7:29Oprah Winfrey?

  Trauma.

• 7:29Speaker 06

  Yeah, those are mental disorders that.

• 7:32Oprah Winfrey?

  PTSD.

• 7:34Speaker 06

  Yeah.

• 7:34Oprah Winfrey?

  We're gonna talk to somebody later. So some are spiritual seekers, some are suffering from mental traumas, and others are just looking for this experience or seem to be doing it for fun.

• 7:48Speaker 06

  Yeah, I mean, people, you know, people, the term recreational is regarded as a negative. I mean, to recreate ourselves doesn't seem that bad, but yeah, there are people who are just doing it for thrills, going to concerts.

• 8:01Oprah Winfrey?

  But in every single instance, isn't it about changing consciousness?

• 8:04Speaker 06

  Yeah, it does change consciousness. And but the set and setting are very important, so the context in which you do it, you know, if you do it to go to a Grateful Dead concert, it's one thing. If you do it in a room, the way psychedelic therapy is done is you're lying down, you're on a couch, you're wearing eye shades, you're listening to music. It's a very internal journey. It's very different than kids taking mushrooms and walking in the woods where it's all about the sensory thrills.

• 8:36Oprah Winfrey?

  So if you're using it for therapy, as a lot of people now are.

• 8:40Speaker 06

  It's a completely different experience.

• 8:41Oprah Winfrey?

  It's a guided experience.

• 8:43Speaker 06

  Right, and the guide is really important.

• 8:45Oprah Winfrey?

  So were you reluctant to take, I mean, you were, you know, pretty straight, straightforward guy.

• 8:50Speaker 06

  I was terrified.

• 8:51Oprah Winfrey?

  Were you, were you reluctant to take them yourself?

• 8:54Speaker 06

  Yes.

• 8:54Oprah Winfrey?

  Yes.

• 8:54Speaker 06

  Yes, I was scared for a lot of reasons. One was would I discover some deep, dark secret about myself? Because people do discover traumas that they're not looking for.

• 9:03Oprah Winfrey?

  Yes.

• 9:03Speaker 06

  That definitely comes up.

• 9:05Oprah Winfrey?

  I would be afraid of having a psychotic break.

• 9:08Speaker 06

  Yeah.

• 9:08Oprah Winfrey?

  I would be afraid of losing my mind.

• 9:10Speaker 06

  I was.

• 9:11Oprah Winfrey?

  And not getting it back.

• 9:12Speaker 06

  I was.

• 9:13Oprah Winfrey?

  You were.

• 9:13Speaker 06

  Yeah, but I also found that doing it with a guide.

• 9:19Speaker 06

  Creates this safe envelope, this container, in which you can really let go.

• 9:25Oprah Winfrey?

  Okay, so tell us about the time you tell about experiencing your parents in the trees.

• 9:32Speaker 06

  Oh, yeah.

• 9:33Oprah Winfrey?

  Yeah.

• 9:33Speaker 06

  So I had a-

• 9:34Oprah Winfrey?

  I said, "Oh, Michael is really tripping." But the realization that you had seemed pretty solid. And I am, Michael, I mean, it made me so curious because I'm surrounded by trees. I love trees. I think I have some, something is going on with me and trees. I don't know what it is.

• 9:51Speaker 06

  Yeah, me too.

• 9:52Oprah Winfrey?

  So your experience, tell, tell everybody what that was.

• 9:55Speaker 06

  I was doing a dose of LSD.

• 9:58Oprah Winfrey?

  What does it even look like?

• 9:59Speaker 06

  It's a very powerful drug. You, it's measured in micrograms, not milligrams. And you take a very, very tiny amount. And it's usually on a piece of paper.

• 10:09Oprah Winfrey?

  So is it a pill or a powder?

• 10:10Speaker 06

  No. It's usually on a piece of blotter paper. They just put a little drop and you put the piece of paper on your tongue and that's enough. And the experience was, you know, I saw my son. I saw my wife. I saw my parents. And there was this, it was like a treehouse being built, layer by layer by layer by layer. And it was a kind of a life review. And, and I emerged from it with this just surge of compassion for these people in my life. And I had this realization, which like 90% of people on psychedelics seem to have, which is the most important thing in the world, is love. Now, that's obvious, but the thing about psychedelics-

• 10:55Oprah Winfrey?

  But do you feel it or experience it in a way that you didn't know before?

• 10:59Speaker 06

  With a conviction that I hadn't had before.

• 11:01Oprah Winfrey?

  Yeah.

• 11:02Speaker 06

  Yes.

• 11:03Oprah Winfrey?

  And does that conviction stay with you after the experience?

• 11:06Speaker 06

  Yes, exactly. You really hit on it. The kinds of insights you have on psychedelics, for reasons we don't really understand, are really sticky. This isn't just an opinion or an insight. This is like a revealed truth of the universe.

• 11:19Oprah Winfrey?

  It's a knowing. It feels like a knowing.

• 11:20Speaker 06

  Exactly.

• 11:21Oprah Winfrey?

  It comes through.

• 11:22Speaker 06

  It's revealed knowledge.

• 11:23Oprah Winfrey?

  Yeah. But tell us about the, when I'm specifically asking about the parents, the father was the tree and the mother was the tree and they're both.

• 11:31Speaker 06

  Yeah.

• 11:31Oprah Winfrey?

  They were there with these two trees.

• 11:32Speaker 06

  I know what episode you're talking about. Yeah, so I, years ago, I built a little studio where I write and I've written my books. And there are, it faces two trees. And one is a very elegant white oak that's kind of leaning. And the other is this kind of stolid ash tree.

• 11:50Oprah Winfrey?

  Yeah.

• 11:50Speaker 06

  And it was, and having taken, in this case, psilocybin in my garden, I had this power, I mean, you know, I love plants. And I've been writing about plants for a long time. And I'm a gardener and you are too.

• 12:04Speaker 06

  That the plants were conscious and they were awake. I had this sense that the plants in my garden were kind of like looking at me. And there were these two trees and I suddenly realized.

• 12:15Oprah Winfrey?

  So I think that, and I'm not on psilocybin. I come in the gate and I say hello to all the trees. I go, I'm back, tell everybody I'm home.

• 12:23Speaker 06

  On psilocybin, they'll say hello back.

• 12:28Speaker 06

  So, and these two trees, I hadn't realized before, oh, that's my mother and that's my father. And, and the one that was my father, that tree had just, had, had fallen, a giant limb had fallen off and he was sick at the time. And I realized that they were both going to go eventually.

• 12:48Speaker 06

  And it was very moving and they were embodied.

• 12:50Oprah Winfrey?

  I was so struck by that because I think I'm not conscious enough to know, but I know that there is a oneness, there's a connection with all of nature. I just.

• 13:03Speaker 06

  Well, that's a.

• 13:04Oprah Winfrey?

  Don't know what it is.

• 13:07Speaker 06

  Yeah.

• 13:07Oprah Winfrey?

  Yeah, so the plants aren't speaking to me, but I know that there is life there. I know that there is something going on that is deeper than what we can see.

• 13:16Speaker 06

  Yeah, I think a key word for what psychedelics do is connect you. And.

• 13:21Oprah Winfrey?

  Yeah.

• 13:22Speaker 06

  And for me, it's about connecting to nature. It was connecting to people. And the reason that happens, I think, is that psychedelics soften your ego. And the ego is, you know, ego is a walled structure, right? It's a barrier. It's a defensive structure.

• 13:39Oprah Winfrey?

  And it's who most people think they are.

• 13:41Speaker 06

  That's right. They feel they're identical to their ego.

• 13:44Oprah Winfrey?

  But you're not.

• 13:45Speaker 06

  You're not. It's just one voice and it can get quiet. And one of the things that happens on psychedelics, and we understand this neuroscientifically, there's a structure, a network in the brain called-

• 13:57Oprah Winfrey?

  You're not the voice. You're actually the observer. You're the space between the voice and the thought. And when you can separate that, which I can do in meditation, and there's an awareness-

• 14:08Speaker 06

  It's very similar in meditation. There's a lot in common, actually.

• 14:10Oprah Winfrey?

  Yeah. But it sounds like psychedelics is a higher level of the deepest of the meditations.

• 14:18Speaker 06

  Yeah. And, but having done psychedelics, I became a better meditator because I understood, oh, this is where I'm trying to go. But this sense of, you know, your ego softening, and in one case I had completely disappearing. I had an ego death experience, which I can tell you about. When the ego goes down, there's nothing between you and nature, or you and other people, or you and the universe, and you feel like the sense of oneness.

• 14:46Oprah Winfrey?

  Yeah. Eckhart Tolle talks about that in A New Earth a lot. I'm with bestselling author Michael Pollan, and we're about to hear from all kinds of people who are using psychedelics to heal from mental trauma, including a war veteran who suffered for decades from PTSD. Let's get to it. Welcome back to the Oprah Podcast. I am here with bestselling author Michael Pollan, who is at the forefront of research and reporting on the benefits and concerns people have about taking psychedelics. A reminder, this conversation is not intended in any way to be medical advice. You will want to and must talk to your own healthcare provider if you're interested in taking psychedelics. So, you know, a lot of the new research, y'all,

• 15:31Oprah Winfrey?

  on psychedelics started with treating veterans who were suffering from chronic PTSD. This is where the real breakthroughs are, I think. And for decades, it seemed that no treatment worked. And then there were a lot of practitioners who started seeing real relief for patients using psychedelics. And you told my team about this guy named Bob Parsons, who is a Vietnam veteran. And a business mogul who founded the internet tech company GoDaddy. Y'all remember GoDaddy? Bob is zooming in. Bob, welcome to the Oprah Podcast. Hi there.

• 16:07Speaker 03

  Real pleasure to be here, Oprah. Thank you.

• 16:09Oprah Winfrey?

  Good to see you.

• 16:09Speaker 03

  Hey, Bob. You know, Oprah, this is something I gotta tell you before we get started.

• 16:14Oprah Winfrey?

  Tell me.

• 16:16Speaker 03

  Over the years, I've done, you know, a number of interviews. And every once in a while, I would get asked, they'd say, Bob, if you could share a beer with anybody or have a beer with anybody, who would it be? And my answer was always Oprah Winfrey.

• 16:34Oprah Winfrey?

  Oh, my goodness. Well, I don't have a beer, but hello, Bob.

• 16:38Speaker 03

  Yeah, all right.

• 16:40Oprah Winfrey?

  Well, thank you, because I'm so interested in knowing what was your PTSD like for you before you had a psychedelic experience? What, what, tell us how you were tormented by it.

• 16:53Speaker 03

  Well, you know, like so many of us, particularly you, I grew up tough. And, you know, I carried, you know, probably carried some PTSD from that. When I was 17, I joined the Marine Corps. And this was back in 1968. And I was, well, I was in Vietnam six months later, carrying a rifle. I was in combat for a month and I was, I was wounded. And the guy who went there was, was different from the guy who came home. The guy that went there was, you know, pretty happy-go-lucky, was, was easygoing, loved, loved being out and about. The guy that came home was none of that.

• 17:35Speaker 03

  The guy that came home had a flash temper, suffered from depression, didn't like socializing too much.

• 17:44Oprah Winfrey?

  And I just want to say, this was at a time where nobody was talking about this. Nobody was saying, oh, you know, you're probably suffering from depression or PTSD. You just had to figure it out yourself. And your family and everybody around you is like, what has happened to this guy?

• 17:59Speaker 03

  Exactly. Well, they would call it shell shock.

• 18:02Oprah Winfrey?

  Yes, yes.

• 18:03Speaker 03

  So anyhow, you know, this went on. It cost me two marriages. Both my wives, which were wonderful women, you know, they tolerated me as much as they could. Then they gave me, you know, my walking papers. And eventually I was married to my third wife Renee, and I read Michael's book when it first came out.

• 18:25Oprah Winfrey?

  What made you read it?

• 18:29Speaker 03

  Well, the title, How to Change Your Mind.

• 18:31Oprah Winfrey?

  Oh, okay.

• 18:32Speaker 03

  I thought it would be, you know, be very helpful because I knew I needed to do something different. And back then, the dialogue for PTSD had started.

• 18:41Oprah Winfrey?

  Yeah.

• 18:41Speaker 03

  And, you know, and I

• 18:42Oprah Winfrey?

  Could you feel that there was something wrong with you, Bob? Could you feel that whatever this is, it's not normal or not right?

• 18:51Speaker 03

  Absolutely.

• 18:52Oprah Winfrey?

  Had you tried other therapy?

• 18:54Speaker 03

  Yeah. Well, you know, a little bit of talk therapy, which I don't, I don't think works too well. And, you know, the only things that would ever help would be if I connected with the guys I served with during the war.

• 19:10Oprah Winfrey?

  Yeah.

• 19:11Speaker 03

  And, you know, spent time with them, I would come away just feeling just wonderful.

• 19:16Oprah Winfrey?

  Yeah.

• 19:17Speaker 03

  But that would only last for a while.

• 19:19Oprah Winfrey?

  Yeah, because you'd be validated.

• 19:21Speaker 03

  What I did was, when, after I read Michael's book and I learned about psychedelics from that, you know, before that, I had never taken anything like that, you know. You know, I, like most people, thought that, you know, if you took psychedelics, you had to worry about jumping off a building.

• 19:41Oprah Winfrey?

  Right, right, right.

• 19:42Speaker 03

  You know, Michael dispels that pretty quickly in his book. And so, so reading the book was like reading a novel, Oprah. I mean, this thing just reads so quick and it just pulled me right through it. So I told my wife I'd like to try it. She had me hooked up with two guides within two weeks. And I met with them in Hawaii. And I did three, three different types of psychedelics over four or five days. And after I was done, my wife could not believe the change in me. She was the first to notice it. Man, I was, I was, now I was happier. You know, I, I like, I like going out and about.

• 20:26Speaker 03

  That my temper was far less. And, you know, I was, I was a better guy.

• 20:33Oprah Winfrey?

  From, from, from these, from four experiences. So what happened on the, during the experience? Did you see yourself differently? Did you experience the trauma? Did you relive the experience? What, what actually happened? Can you tell us?

• 20:51Speaker 03

  All that, all that. You know, I, you know, there's, you know, the first day I took ayahuasca.

• 20:58Oprah Winfrey?

  Uh huh.

• 20:59Speaker 03

  And, and, and a lot of tears, a lot of reliving and a lot of, you know, sin. And then I took, the second day, I, I took psilocybin. And when I did psilocybin, the guy fixed a teapot. And he says, you know, this teapot holds three cups. And I made it strong so you're only going to need one cup. Well, Oprah, I swear this is true. I drank all three cups and I ate the teabags.

• 21:30Oprah Winfrey?

  Whoa.

• 21:31Speaker 03

  So I was, I was righteously stoned. I flashback, I actually seen things that happened. And then.

• 21:41Oprah Winfrey?

  Righteously stoned.

• 21:42Speaker 03

  The next day, we took off. And my wife and I went and played golf. And when, when I was out on the golf course, it was like, to get back to your earlier conversation, it was like the trees knew I was there. The plants knew I was there. And, you know, I could, I could feel like a kinship there.

• 22:02Oprah Winfrey?

  Yeah.

• 22:02Speaker 03

  When I, when I put it on, on the greens, you know, it was like the grass said, hit it here, Bobby. And I did. And then.

• 22:11Oprah Winfrey?

  So, so Bob, can I ask you this? Uh, one of the, one of the things Michael shared with us is that, in one of his experiences, he came away with this feeling that love is everything. Did it open you up to experience love, loving, being loved differently?

• 22:27Speaker 03

  Yeah, yeah, 100%. And, and, and, you know, and it's not finding love, it's knowing how to be loved.

• 22:34Oprah Winfrey?

  Oh.

• 22:35Speaker 03

  Because when, when you suffer from PTSD, man, that's a, you know, that, that's, you don't feel that way at all.

• 22:44Oprah Winfrey?

  Yeah.

• 22:44Speaker 03

  And so, so that was, that, that was big.

• 22:48Oprah Winfrey?

  So you and your wife Renee now have donated millions, I understand, to research, even funding a center on psychedelic healing at Mount Sinai in New York. What are you hoping for?

• 22:59Speaker 03

  I am hoping that, you know, we're, we're, we're going to see this gradually made legal everywhere and becoming a normal treatment. Uh, because when we do, I think it'll, it, it, it will be a renaissance in the country. I mean, we could have people in jail getting out better than they went in. Um, if they're, they're, they're, they're treated with psychedelics because it'll hit at the root causes, whatever, all the ugly stuff that is causing them to be like they are.

• 23:31Oprah Winfrey?

  So Bob, can I ask you, do you continue to try various forms of psychedelics or other drugs? Or was that experience that four days enough for you?

• 23:43Speaker 03

  Well, you know, I, I, I have went through the process another time, uh, with two guys that I served in Vietnam with, the squad leader and the machine gunner. And, um, so I went through it again, which reinforced what I did the first time. And, uh, you know, I'm happy to tell you that, you know, when, when I, when I, when I did my, uh, had my psychedelic experience, it had been 49 years since the war, and I like to say this, I finally came home.

• 24:11Oprah Winfrey?

  Oh.

• 24:12Speaker 03

  And, um, you know, I'm going to tell you that when I went through it with the machine gunner and, and the squad leader, they both came home. And I'm aware of a number of others who have went through it that I had nothing to do with. And, you know, they're totally different people afterwards.

• 24:28Oprah Winfrey?

  Yeah, that's why you and Renee have created the center.

• 24:31Speaker 03

  Oh, absolutely. I, I, I cannot think of a better gift to give the United States or the world than to fund this stuff.

• 24:42Oprah Winfrey?

  Thank you, Bob, for joining us in sharing that story, and maybe one day we'll have that beer.

• 24:47Speaker 03

  All right, maybe we'll have a shot of beer, Oprah.

• 24:52Oprah Winfrey?

  A shot of beer. Okay. Thank you so much. Thank you, Bob. The best to you and Renee. The brilliant Michael Pollan is here with me on the Oprah Podcast, and we're about to meet a father and daughter who've used psychedelics for different reasons to help unlock childhood trauma and to help ease symptoms of OCD, anxiety, and depression. We're going to hear their experience next. You may be hearing a lot these days about the use of psychedelics to help heal mental trauma, and that's why I thought this would be a very interesting conversation for the Oprah Podcast. We heard from viewers and listeners who have questions for bestselling author Michael Pollan, who's with us today, who wrote one of the definitive books on this topic. Let's meet Dave and his daughter Reagan. They are zooming in from Utah. Dave,

• 25:36Oprah Winfrey?

  you say psychedelics help you unlock childhood trauma and even is giving you a greater sense of purpose. Tell us, how is that so? That is so interesting.

• 25:48Speaker 08

  Thank you. It's great to meet you, Oprah. It's such an honor. And just want to thank you for all that you've done and do for humanity. And, Michael, it's so great to meet you. I'm a huge fan. But, yeah, so I, I kind of found myself, as I was transitioning from my late 40s into my 50s, I had a pretty big basket of existential questions and also these personal questions that were really burdening me from, from some childhood traumas. And, and so I received some advice from a trusted person in my life. And he said, you know, you should try psychedelics, and specifically psilocybin. I think it'd be a really great

• 26:32Speaker 08

  experience for you. And I thought about that. And actually, in the past, when I was about 17 years old, I had a recreational experience with psilocybin. And it was, it was great. I was with all of my dear friends, and we were up in the mountains, my favorite place to be. And-

• 26:51Oprah Winfrey?

  Did the trees talk?

• 26:54Speaker 08

  Yeah, everything talked.

• 26:57Oprah Winfrey?

  Okay.

• 26:58Speaker 08

  It was really incredible. I saw grids. It was, it was great. It was, it was really, really great. But anyway, the memory of that experience and being so positive, I thought, wow, I never thought that that could be a modality to, you know, really focus on getting some answers. And-

• 27:19Speaker 08

  I had this very intentional set of questions and I had such an incredible and specific experience, one that, I mean, I can put myself back there at any moment and it just, it resets my life.

• 27:34Oprah Winfrey?

  So can I ask you this? Can I ask you this? Because I don't know anybody who, or maybe I do know somebody who's done it, but I'd never asked this question. Are you, you're able to ask questions and people can ask you questions while you're doing it? You're conscious enough to be able to do that?

• 27:50Speaker 08

  Absolutely.

• 27:51Oprah Winfrey?

  You can hear what other people are saying? So I always thought it was like you're off into your own world and you're having your trip. And then you're not a part of whatever this world is.

• 28:03Speaker 08

  I had a combination experience where you can be, you can be out and in communication with your guide.

• 28:10Oprah Winfrey?

  Okay.

• 28:11Speaker 08

  I recommend a guide. I agree, Michael, 100% and be very thoughtful through that process.

• 28:16Oprah Winfrey?

  That the setting and the-

• 28:18Speaker 06

  So important.

• 28:19Oprah Winfrey?

  Setting is so important.

• 28:20Speaker 06

  Yeah, I mean, we want to control ourselves and our environment. And if we're not completely, if we don't feel completely safe, we're not going to let our minds travel.

• 28:30Oprah Winfrey?

  Yeah.

• 28:30Speaker 06

  And the guide is looking out for your body. Roland Griffiths used to say, you're going out, you're going out to outer space. Don't worry, we're right here. We're mission control. We'll keep an eye on your body.

• 28:42Oprah Winfrey?

  Yeah.

• 28:42Speaker 06

  So your mind can travel.

• 28:43Oprah Winfrey?

  Reagan, you're nodding. Did you have a similar experience? I heard you tried just for fun and then it turned out to be more than that.

• 28:51Speaker 04

  Yeah, so my experience was actually quite different. I actually had watched, Michael, your documentary on Netflix. And it completely changed my view on just psychedelics. And then I had also spoke to my dad about his experience. So abroad during college in Amsterdam, I was like, you know what? This is a great time. I'm on vacation. Let me just do a little bit, see what it does. And just a little bit of background, I have struggled with OCD, anxiety, some depression symptoms, kind of my whole life. And at first, when I took the-

• 29:32Speaker 04

  Substance, I didn't really notice anything and I thought, okay, maybe I didn't take enough.

• 29:37Oprah Winfrey?

  What was the substance? Was it?

• 29:39Speaker 04

  It was mushrooms.

• 29:40Oprah Winfrey?

  Silas, yeah.

• 29:41Speaker 04

  And then as the day went on, I realized it was the first time in my life that my intrusive thoughts and my racing thoughts and all of them completely went away. It was the first time in my life I was able to be grounded and in the moment and just enjoy my own company and not be scared of what's gonna pop in my mind. And it really opened my mind to, you know, going and experiencing it with a guide and kind of using it as a replacement for some other methods that I have tried in the past.

• 30:19Oprah Winfrey?

  Any questions you have for Michael? Here's your chance.

• 30:23Speaker 04

  Yes, so do you think that we're approaching a new frontier in medicine regarding these experiments? And is it a way that we could potentially help individuals like myself who struggle with anxiety?

• 30:39Speaker 06

  Yeah, I'm very hopeful that that is happening. Um, we have a lot of research, we need more. Um, but all the treatments we have, SSRIs, et cetera, really only deal with symptoms. They don't deal with causes. We have no drugs that deal with causes of mental illness and, and actually provide cures. And this, at least in these initial studies, uh, and these are trials with a couple hundred people, they're not huge yet, um, we're seeing positive and lasting results. You asked about OCD.

• 31:12Oprah Winfrey?

  Yeah.

• 31:12Speaker 06

  Obsessive compulsive disorder. There was a trial at Yale, uh, using psilocybin and, um, people had permanent relief. And, and, you know, one of the questions that I, I had myself is, wait a minute, this is a little suspicious. This one substance works on OCD and anxiety and depression and addiction and anorexia. This seems a little too good to be true. And I posed this question to a very well-known psychiatrist who'd been head of the National Institute of Mental Health. And I said, is this a panacea? Is this for real? And he said, well, how do you? How do you? Why do you think all those different things are different illnesses? They may be different manifestations of the same kind of brain,

• 31:57Speaker 06

  a brain that is stuck in patterns of behavior and thought that it can't get out of. And maybe what the psychedelics are doing.

• 32:05Oprah Winfrey?

  Ah.

• 32:06Speaker 06

  Right? It was like the light bulb went off.

• 32:08Oprah Winfrey?

  That's a light bulb moment right there.

• 32:12Speaker 06

  We are, and we are victims of our habits.

• 32:14Oprah Winfrey?

  And it's all just the same. It's the same thing.

• 32:16Speaker 06

  And it may be, they may just be different symptoms rather than different disorders. So that, that I understood because.

• 32:23Oprah Winfrey?

  All stemming from the same thing.

• 32:24Speaker 06

  Yeah, from a rigidity of thought. And what psychedelics do in adults.

• 32:29Oprah Winfrey?

  I saw Reagan, you had that aha moment too, right? Yeah.

• 32:32Speaker 04

  Definitely. And it's, I mean, I've done talk therapy and a bunch of other therapies, but I think coming out of the experience, I realized, oh my gosh, it's your point, Michael. It's all a manifestation of this one quote unquote disorder that I have. And this drug, it's literally like magic. I was like, how, how is this possible?

• 32:56Speaker 06

  Yeah, I know. It, it does feel like magic.

• 32:59Oprah Winfrey?

  Yes.

• 32:59Speaker 06

  But I, so I think that what psychedelics seem to do is make the brain more plastic, able to learn. There's a beautiful metaphor that a scientist gave me once that think, think of your mind as a snow covered hill and your thoughts as sleds going down that hill. And over time, the grooves get deeper and deeper and you can't go down the hill without falling into one of those grooves. The psychedelics are like a fresh snowfall. It fills all the grooves. You can take a new path down the hill.

• 33:27Oprah Winfrey?

  Ooh, I love that metaphor. Dave, did you have a question?

• 33:30Speaker 08

  So, Michael, your book and your research, it just, it gets into the tradition and history of these drugs so well. And I just wondered, how do we integrate psychedelics into the mainstream mental health treatments?

• 33:44Speaker 06

  Yeah, that's great.

• 33:45Speaker 08

  You know, how do we preserve the spiritual aspects while we're mean, kind of trying to segue it into mainstream medical?

• 33:52Speaker 06

  Yeah.

• 33:52Speaker 08

  That's been a big question.

• 33:54Oprah Winfrey?

  That's a great question, Dave.

• 33:55Speaker 06

  It is a wonderful question. And there's a lot of kind of suspicion and hostility in, among scientists and medical professionals. At the word spiritual.

• 34:05Oprah Winfrey?

  Yeah.

• 34:05Speaker 06

  Yet, you can make a case that many things we call mental disorders are spiritual diseases. I mean, addiction is a spiritual disease. And what is at the root of a lot of these disorders is a lack of connection. A sense of isolation, separation, you know, you're encased in your ego. And so, I think we have to educate medical professionals that spiritual approaches have medical value. And that's not the way they think.

• 34:36Oprah Winfrey?

  And I think the word spiritual always hangs people up too. I mean, I got so much criticism back in the 80s and 90s and early aughts by just using the word spirit.

• 34:47Speaker 06

  Oh, yeah.

• 34:47Oprah Winfrey?

  On broadcast television. I think the word consciousness is a better word.

• 34:51Speaker 06

  Yeah.

• 34:51Oprah Winfrey?

  I think consciousness, the altering.

• 34:54Speaker 06

  Sounds more scientific.

• 34:55Oprah Winfrey?

  Yeah, it sounds more scientific. And that is actually what is happening in the spiritual experience. You're elevating, enhancing, opening your consciousness to experience life and yourself differently. That's what I think.

• 35:08Speaker 06

  And there's one other difficulty about incorporating this in our medical system. And that is that psychedelic therapy is not just about taking a psychedelic. It really should be called, and often is, psychedelic assisted psychotherapy. Because the support of the guide or the therapist.

• 35:27Oprah Winfrey?

  Yes.

• 35:27Speaker 06

  Is critical to its success. And the FDA, which regulates drugs in our country, does not, only regulates drugs. They don't regulate therapy. So how are they going to deal with this thing? It's a square peg in a round hole.

• 35:43Oprah Winfrey?

  I know.

• 35:43Speaker 06

  And that's going to be a challenge. I think we can work through it.

• 35:47Oprah Winfrey?

  That's why I don't think we're here yet. We're certainly not here yet. Because like everything, once people start using it, it's just like the, you know, anti-obesity drugs. Then people create their own pharmacies for making the anti-obesity drugs. And people are doing it, you know, on the side. And it's not, you know, authorized and stuff. And I think it's dangerous for people to have these kind of explorations without a guide.

• 36:16Speaker 06

  Yeah, I mean, I, I think if you're gonna use a high dose of psychedelics, you, you need to use a guide. Um, I mean, people can take a, you know, a couple mushrooms and wander in the woods and they'll be fine. But, um, at a high dose, there are risks. There, I mean, we should be realistic about it. There, and some people do have serious psychological problems. Bad trips that last a very long time. Um, guides can help you work through that. Um, they give you very specific advice when things get very dark. Because I think we should not under, underplay the fact that these experiences can be very challenging, frightening, um, and that can be productive. But in the process, you can encounter demons.

• 37:01Oprah Winfrey?

  Knows what they're doing to help you.

• 37:02Speaker 06

  Yes.

• 37:03Oprah Winfrey?

  Especially if you're a person who has demons.

• 37:05Speaker 06

  Yeah.

• 37:06Oprah Winfrey?

  Yeah, and you, you're taking it because you know you have demons.

• 37:08Speaker 06

  That's right.

• 37:09Oprah Winfrey?

  Yeah.

• 37:09Speaker 06

  And, and the guides know exactly what to tell you to get through that. I mean, they're very specific. They call them flight instructions.

• 37:15Oprah Winfrey?

  Mm-hmm.

• 37:15Speaker 06

  Um, and they'll tell you, if you see a monster, don't turn and run away. Go right up to it and say, what do you have to teach me? Why are you in my mind? And you will pass through that dark into a lighter place.

• 37:28Oprah Winfrey?

  Um, that is my favorite phrase on earth. Like, I wanna cry right now because anytime there is a challenge in my life, that is the first question that I ask.

• 37:39Speaker 06

  Really?

• 37:39Oprah Winfrey?

  What are you here to teach me?

• 37:40Speaker 06

  Yeah.

• 37:41Oprah Winfrey?

  What is this for? Or if I'm in the middle of a bad dream.

• 37:43Speaker 06

  Yeah.

• 37:43Oprah Winfrey?

  I'll say, okay, what are you here to teach me? So.

• 37:47Speaker 06

  And that attitude of curiosity.

• 37:48Oprah Winfrey?

  Yeah.

• 37:49Speaker 06

  Rather than fear and anxiety, changes everything.

• 37:51Oprah Winfrey?

  Yeah. It's not even just curiosity. It's like, I wanna know what it is so I can get out of it.

• 37:56Speaker 06

  Yeah.

• 37:57Oprah Winfrey?

  Yeah.

• 37:57Speaker 06

  Right.

• 37:57Oprah Winfrey?

  Yeah.

• 37:57Speaker 06

  In and through is the other thing guides are always saying.

• 38:00Oprah Winfrey?

  In and through. Well, thank you all. You are sharing here today has, has really been informative for all of us. Thank you so much.

• 38:08Speaker 06

  Yeah, wonderful to meet you.

• 38:09Oprah Winfrey?

  Wonderful to meet you, Dave and Reagan. Thank you.

• 38:12Speaker 06

  Good luck.

• 38:12Oprah Winfrey?

  So you hear a lot about microdosing. If the Oprah Show was still on, we'd be doing shows, I think, on microdosing moms and parents.

• 38:22Speaker 06

  There are a lot of them.

• 38:23Oprah Winfrey?

  Microdosing and parents in the suburbs having shroom parties. What is your take on that? What is that, microdosing?

• 38:30Speaker 06

  So, microdosing is a very different approach to using psychedelics. It's not guided. It's a very tiny dose. It's like a 10% of a normal dose. And people do it, not every single day. They'll do it a couple of days and then a day off because you build up a tolerance. And many people report relief from depression from it. There is not a lot of science yet on it. It's very hard to study because no university institutional review board is going to let you give any amount of LSD to somebody and let them drive off in their car. It's a dose that you don't even feel. It's subperceptual.

• 39:15Oprah Winfrey?

  Where is everybody getting this stuff, anyway?

• 39:17Speaker 06

  Well, that's a good question. I don't know. I don't know that. But it's around and people are selling gummies with psilocybin, even though it's not legal. They're around, they're on the internet. So, microdosing may be a placebo effect. It may be, and the placebo effect is real. Make no mistake, people get better. If you have back trouble and I hand you a sugar pill, you will feel better. It's a very powerful effect and it multiplies when you are microdosing something like LSD, which already has this magic aura about it. So it may be that, but we don't know yet. The science is not in yet.

• 40:00Oprah Winfrey?

  Natalie's joining us from California. Natalie, I hear you turn to psychedelics to cope with grief. How did that go for you? How did that work out for you?

• 40:09Speaker 05

  Oprah and Michael, it is an honor to be here. Thank you. And Michael, I have to say that when my son and daughter-in-law heard that I was going to be on the show, they're big fans of yours on the podcast, and they literally squealed when they found out that I was going to be you and Oprah. And Oprah, I just have to tell you that you have been a guiding light on my path to purpose and a being of service for eight, and I just want to thank you.

• 40:41Oprah Winfrey?

  Oh, thank you for that, Natalie. Thank you. Thank you. So I hear you. What's your question?

• 40:48Speaker 05

  My question is, Michael, what is your advice for someone going further with this experience legally? So my experience was I knew I was aware about the use of psychedelics for mental wellness, but never seriously considered it for myself until I experienced my life's greatest fear, and that was losing my father back in 2018. And he was my rock, my solid place. And initially, when he passed, I felt his presence all the time. He was

• 41:29Speaker 05

  right there with me, and it was amazing. And then gradually, that presence started to dissipate. And I went into a deeper level of grief and just couldn't really seem to get out of it. I tried other things. I tried going to a float tank, which was kind of like a sensory deprivation experience, which made it actually worse. And my son suggested psilocybin, and I went for it. And it was out in nature. And it was an incredible experience.

• 42:10Speaker 05

  It strengthened my level of faith. The colors in nature were brighter. I saw God in everything. And I just had this... Incredible heart opening of just

• 42:29Oprah Winfrey?

  I love that.

• 42:31Speaker 05

  And similar to you, Michael, where you mentioned doing psilocybin to deal with the grief of your father.

• 42:41Speaker 06

  Who passed in 2018, in fact.

• 42:45Speaker 05

  For me, is I'm a mother, I have three adult children, two adorable grandkids and a wonderful husband. And they all came up. It was, it was just so much gratitude, so much peace. And I came away with it just completely transformed. And the way that I could say that that transformation occurred is that there was a stark contrast between the truth of who I really am, which is love as well. And my ego, the ego. Dark.

• 43:23Oprah Winfrey?

  I think, I think, I think one of the things that Michael emphasizes in the book is that the ego and who you believe yourself to be are not identical. They're not. And that, that separation, that is the biggest thing that happens with most people, I think.

• 43:39Speaker 06

  Such a valuable lesson because you don't, it teaches you, I'm not identical to my ego. So I don't have to listen to that voice in my head. It's like, all right, that's that voice.

• 43:49Oprah Winfrey?

  Yeah.

• 43:50Speaker 06

  Disregard.

• 43:51Oprah Winfrey?

  Yeah.

• 43:52Speaker 05

  Yeah.

• 43:53Oprah Winfrey?

  And so your question is, was about what is the advice for going deeper in the journey? Is that the question?

• 44:01Speaker 05

  Yeah. Going further in the journey.

• 44:03Oprah Winfrey?

  Further into the journey.

• 44:05Speaker 05

  Legally.

• 44:06Oprah Winfrey?

  Legally.

• 44:06Speaker 06

  Legally, well, there is a way to do it legally. Well, there are two ways. One is there are many, many trials going on around this country, universities and other institutions. And you can go on trials.gov and, and, and search psilocybin or MDMA and you may find a trial that you qualify for. The other way is to go to Oregon or Colorado. These are two states that have made guided psilocybin experiences.

• 44:40Speaker 06

  I can't say legal because it's still a federal crime, but it's state legal and fairly safe from a legal point of view. And there are people there who are, have to get licenses as guides. The growers are licensed, the facilities where they're administered is licensed. So you could search both those states and those would be places where you could have a legal guided experience.

• 45:08Oprah Winfrey?

  Thank you, Natalie.

• 45:09Speaker 06

  Yeah, thank you, Natalie.

• 45:10Oprah Winfrey?

  Thank you, and thanks to your kids who squilled when they heard you were talking to Michael. I have not heard that before.

• 45:15Speaker 06

  Give them my best.

• 45:18Oprah Winfrey?

  Thank you. One of my favorite questions to ask on this podcast is, coming up, we're going to talk to Michael Pollan about what it means for him to live a well-lived life. He always makes you see things in a new way. You'll want to hear his answer next. Thank you for listening to us today to the Oprah Podcast. Welcome back to our conversation on psychedelics with Michael Pollan. In the book you write that you had, you quote, you say, "some kind of spiritual experience." Do you think that there, obviously, I'm just asking the question, but I already know the answer, there is a difference between a religious spiritual experience and one induced by a drug's chemical impact on the brain? And that's the first question.

• 46:03Oprah Winfrey?

  And does the spiritual experience depend upon what your religious belief is or is not?

• 46:10Speaker 06

  You know, I always saw myself as not a spiritual person. And I also had a misunderstanding of what spiritual meant.

• 46:17Oprah Winfrey?

  I was going to say, how could you be that when you're so connected to plants?

• 46:21Speaker 06

  I know. Well, because I thought to be spiritual meant believing in the supernatural.

• 46:27Speaker 06

  And I was, you know, not, I was very grounded, you know, I had a very material view of reality. But I realized that was wrong, that you can be spiritual without believing in the supernatural and that the essence of spiritual.

• 46:42Speaker 06

  Is connection, deep, profound connection with something other than yourself. And, and so when I redefine it that way, yeah, these were powerful spiritual experiences. And I came to understand the opposite of spiritual is not, is not material or materialistic. The opposite of spiritual is egotistical.

• 47:03Oprah Winfrey?

  So darn true. That is so darn true.

• 47:09Speaker 06

  Ego that stands in the way of our spiritual development.

• 47:12Oprah Winfrey?

  And I think we have to explain what ego is because until 2008, I always thought that ego was, you know, you were being arrogant or you were, you know, overly self-assured. Now I know it's that voice in the head that is constantly going, we all have it. It's constantly, it's a, you know, a gajillion thoughts today.

• 47:33Speaker 06

  Judging and measuring.

• 47:34Oprah Winfrey?

  Judging and it's measuring and it's, yeah, it's that part of you that is separate from the real you.

• 47:40Speaker 06

  And it's important to us. There's a reason we evolve these egos. It, you know, it gets books written and it gets TV shows produced. But it also gets in the way of connecting to others.

• 47:50Oprah Winfrey?

  Do you think it's possible to, that we can reach these same levels of revelations and consciousness and understandings about our connection to the universe, to ourselves and to each other without psychedelics?

• 48:04Speaker 06

  Yeah, I think people do it through meditation.

• 48:06Oprah Winfrey?

  Yeah.

• 48:07Speaker 06

  I think psychedelics in some way are a shortcut. A lot of people have trouble meditating. They're not sure they're doing it right. They can't, they can't.

• 48:14Oprah Winfrey?

  They can't, and if you've got anxiety, you can't even sit still long enough to do it.

• 48:18Speaker 06

  That's right, that's right. Or if you have OCD, you're going to have intrusive thoughts when you're meditating. So I think it kind of, it kind of breaks people through to a place where they can meditate successfully, but without question. And people have had these mystical spiritual experiences without drugs. Experiences of nature can, can do it. Experiences of art can do it. The mystical experience, which is what this technically is called in the, in the literature, is, can be approached from a lot, you know, there are a lot of different doors. Psychedelics are just one of them.

• 48:51Oprah Winfrey?

  You know, I'm really grateful to be able to talk to you today because you've, because first of all, you're so smart and you've written so many books about what our society is collectively.

• 49:04Oprah Winfrey?

  Wrestling with, and I'm wondering, actually, I was at a seminar this summer, and the head of Stanford was talking about a class that they were going to start there. And the class was going to be called, "What Does It Mean to Have a Well-Lived Life?" And I thought, wow, I would love to teach that class. I'd love to teach that class and be a part of that class. And so, I love that as a question. What do you, when you, with all the things that you now know, as you sit here about to enter a new decade?

• 49:40Speaker 06

  Yeah.

• 49:40Oprah Winfrey?

  Come on in, the water's fine. It's gonna be all right.

• 49:43Speaker 06

  Yeah.

• 49:44Oprah Winfrey?

  What, to you, defines a well-lived life?

• 49:51Speaker 06

  I think being present for it.

• 49:53Oprah Winfrey?

  Yeah.

• 49:53Speaker 06

  We spend so much of our time worrying, thinking about the future, thinking about the past, that we let the present go by. And for me, that's one of the, not to say I've mastered this at all, but my psychedelic experience, and which has been followed by a meditation practice. That's kind of, psychedelics are not a practice. You can't, you're not going to do it that many times. But you need a practice to reinforce it.

• 50:23Oprah Winfrey?

  And for some people, it seems to be the tool that helps you open the door.

• 50:28Speaker 06

  Exactly, exactly. But after the door is open, you want to keep this, this way of thinking and these memories alive. One of the things I meditate about very often are psychedelic experiences I've had. They're, they're, they're, the stories of you, and they're endlessly, you can replay them endlessly. One of the interesting things about psychedelic experiences, it's not like dreams, which are hard to remember. You remember these. These, these experiences are indelible. I can, I can summon images from my experiences on psychedelics.

• 51:03Oprah Winfrey?

  You see your parents as the trees.

• 51:04Speaker 06

  Yeah.

• 51:05Oprah Winfrey?

  Listen, you wrote that so vividly, I see your parents as the trees, okay? Well, thank you. Michael's book, How to Change Your Mind, as well as all of his other thought-provoking books, are available wherever you buy your books. So, thank you to all of our guests for zooming in here with us with your own fascinating experiences on psychedelics. I think the fact that Bob lived for 49 years. I know. And I love that line, Bob, when you said, "And I finally came home. I finally came home." I thank you all for listening. And it's my hope that these conversations help to inform and enhance your life in some way. You know, I've always tried to go through life

• 51:48Oprah Winfrey?

  with a curious, open mind. So, I thank you all for taking the time to spend your time with us here. And be sure, if you can, to subscribe to the Oprah Podcast on YouTube. That is, if you don't want to miss an episode. And follow us on Spotify or Apple Podcasts or wherever you get your podcasts. Go well. Bye for now. How to Change Your Mind. You can subscribe to the Oprah Podcast on YouTube and follow us on Spotify, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you listen. I'll see you next week. Thanks, everybody.