Book summary of How to Change Your Mind

“What the New Science of Psychedelics Teaches Us About Consciousness, Dying, Addiction, Depression, and Transcendence”

The word “psychedelic” was coined in 1957 by Humphry Osmond. It means “mind-manifesting” in Greek.
“One good way to understand a complex system is to disturb it and then see what happens.”
“Compared with other drugs, psychedelics seldom affect people the same way twice, because they tend to magnify whatever's already going on both inside and outside one's head.”
“Carl Jung once wrote that it is not the young but people in middle age who need to have an ‘experience of the numinous' to help them negotiate the second half of their lives.”
Humans have had relationships with psychedelic substances for thousands of years, using them in spiritual and healing practices across various cultures. However, the use of psychedelics (e.g., mushrooms and morning glory seeds by the Aztecs, peyote by Native American tribes) was actively suppressed by the Roman Catholic Church, which viewed it as communion with the devil and a threat to the spread of Christianity. Despite these attempts at eradication, the long history of human psychedelic use suggests they may have played an important role in the development of religion and human consciousness.
“...whether occasioned by drugs or other means, these experiences of mystical consciousness are in all likelihood the primal basis of religion.”
While psychedelic mushrooms have a long history of use, foraging for them in the wild is extremely dangerous and potentially deadly without the guidance of specialists.
Psychedelics can treat society as a whole by promoting greater empathy and connection with others and with nature.
Psychedelics have the power to disrupt societal norms and power structures, which some argue is needed to address pressing issues like the environmental crisis.
Psychedelics can induce "depatterning" -- the disruption of ingrained thought patterns and the stimulation of new creative solutions -- which is crucial for adaptation and survival during times of rapid societal change.
In 1938, Swiss scientist Albert Hofman synthesized the first LSD (lysergic acid diethylamide-25/LSD-25) when trying to create a respiratory and circulatory stimulant from the ergot fungus for pharmaceutical purposes. He accidentally absorbed it five years later and documented its powerful effects.
As medical researchers in the 1940s and 1950s investigated LSD, they initially believed it mimicked psychosis, prompting them to question whether mental illness had a biochemical basis rather than being purely psychological, revolutionizing psychiatric research and leading to widespread experimentation with LSD as a treatment.
1. While some subjects reported negative experiences, many described positive effects like feelings of transcendence, heightened senses, and new philosophical understandings, leading researchers to consider much broader therapeutic applications (e.g., depression, addiction) for the drug.
Along with LSD, the discovery of psilocybin mushrooms in the 1950s, spurred by R. Gordon Wasson's widely publicized experience with the Mazatec people of Mexico, which became the first popular Western publication on magic mushrooms, brought psychedelics to the attention of researchers and the public, and sparking enthusiasm among the youth.
In the 1950s and 1960s, prestigious American institutions conducted extensive research on psychedelics, publishing over a thousand scientific papers and using them successfully to treat various mental health conditions, until the uncontrolled experiments by prominent Harvard researchers Timothy Leary and Richard Alpert led to their dismissal.
1. Alpert, who changed his name to Ram Dass, became a major counterculture figure.
2. Leary advocated for widespread availability of psychedelics to induce a societal shift, leading many youth to reject corporate culture and conscription.
3. President Richard Nixon called Leary “the most dangerous man in America.”
The socio-cultural effects of psychedelic use, particularly LSD, were perceived as too disruptive, leading the U.S. government to crack down and wage a moral panic against psychedelics, banning their use for research and recreation by the end of the 1960s, despite evidence of their medical potential.
The suppression of psychedelics reflects a fear among power figures that these substances undermine hierarchical control.
Lessons and mistakes from early researchers like Leary are now being applied in the current phase of more rigorous, controlled psychedelic research.
In 2006, a seminal study by neuroscientist Roland Griffiths from Johns Hopkins demonstrated that psychedelics can induce mystical experiences with lasting personal and spiritual significance, helping to reframe them as substances with therapeutic potential beyond just treating mental illness.
1. Griffiths renewed the scientific dialogue about psychedelics, distinguishing them from toxic and addictive recreational drugs.
2. Griffiths showed that psychedelics are safe and not toxic if taken correctly, and they have inherent value for human spirituality and well-being.
3. The study paved the way for the current renaissance in psychedelic research and clinical applications.
The therapeutic value from psychedelics may lie not solely in the brain's chemical reactions, but in the subjective mystical and revelatory experiences produced by the psychedelics.
Psychedelic research from the 1950s to today has had conflicting conclusions, with some studies showing significantly higher success rates than others. A key factor contributing to these disparities is the difference in "set and setting" -- the mindset of the person taking the psychedelic and the environment in which it is taken.
Psychedelic studies are typically conducted in comfortable, tranquil clinical settings with a trained guide to direct the subject's experience and mitigate the risk of a negative "trip." While some have challenged this priming as creating an expectancy effect, researchers argue it is unavoidable for subject safety and aligns with the objective of inducing healing or mystical experiences.
Psychedelic experiences are notoriously difficult for participants to describe, often sounding hallucinatory, dreamlike, spiritual, or cliché. Common descriptions include feelings of communicating with or becoming God, dissolving one's sense of self, realizing death is an illusion, connectedness with nature, and encounters with loved ones.
Psychedelic trips involve vivid sensory experiences, with those in non-clinical settings often perceiving the outer world, especially nature, as particularly beautiful and awe-inspiring.
Pollan presents two possible explanations for psychedelic experiences -- that the chemicals trigger hallucinatory brain activity, or they open our perception to real things we normally don't perceive. Either way, the insights and psychological effects of the experiences are undoubtedly real, regardless of their origin.
Brain scans of people undergoing psychedelic experiences show reduced activity in the "default mode network" responsible for our sense of self and filtering external information. This suppression of the default mode network means the brain is allowing in more unfiltered sensory input, leading to experiences like perceiving colors and music more intensely.
1. There is a strong correlation between unhappiness and high activity of the default mode network.
Our everyday consciousness is itself a kind of "hallucination," as the brain only lets in and processes a limited set of information necessary for survival. The altered states produced by psychedelics may reveal alternative modes of perception that are normally filtered out, suggesting our typical waking consciousness is just one of many possible ways of experiencing reality.
Psychedelics cause the brain to become more interconnected, with normally independent regions starting to communicate and interact in novel ways. This cross-talk between different brain areas is believed to underlie the altered perceptions, emotions, and insights that people often report during psychedelic experiences, such as synesthesia or vivid hallucinations. The enhanced brain connectivity can lead to transformative insights and a more flexible mindset, potentially helping people break out of unhealthy habits or rigid thinking patterns.
“I think of childhood as the R&D stage of the species, concerned exclusively with learning and exploring. We adults are production and marketing.”
As part of his research, Pollan decided to personally experiment with psychedelics for the first time.
1. Pollan's own psychedelic trips, involving psilocybin mushrooms, LSD, and 5-MeO-DMT, mirrored the transformative experiences described in the research.
2. Pollan's trips led to profound insights, such as feeling a deep connection to nature, processing of emotional issues, being free from fear and judgment, and experiencing a sense of reconciliation with death (of loved ones and his own) and "ego death."
3. Pollan's major revelation was that consciousness exists beyond one's individual sense of self, and the loss of ego is not inherently frightening, which suggests its benefits of psychedelic therapy for terminally ill patients.
“The usual antonym for the word ‘spiritual' is ‘material.' … Now I'm inclined to think a much better and certainly more useful antonym for ‘spiritual' might be ‘egotistical.' … When the ego dissolves, so does a bounded conception not only of our self but of our self-interest. What emerges in its place is invariably a broader, more openhearted and altruistic -- that is, more spiritual -- idea of what matters in life. One in which a new sense of connection, or love, however defined, seems to figure prominently.”
Researchers question why plants and fungi evolved to produce mind-altering chemicals, with some proposing a symbiotic relationship where these substances aided early human development.
1. Ethnobotanist Terence McKenna's "Stoned Ape Theory" suggests psilocybin mushrooms catalyzed human cognitive evolution and resulted in traits like language and symbolic thought, though the theory is unsubstantiated.
2. Mycologist Paul Stamets argues the psychoactive compounds are more likely attractants than deterrents, with fungi using humans to spread their spores. This theory is also contested.
Astronauts' profound "overview effects" from seeing Earth in the vastness of space are similar to the perspective-shifting experiences reported by people who have taken psychedelic drugs, which can induce a sense of global interconnectedness and lead to personal growth and insight.
New evidence shows psychedelics have unprecedented success rates (80%) in treating otherwise treatment-resistant mental health conditions like anxiety, depression, addiction, and fear of death.
1. Terminal patient Patrick Mettes underwent two psilocybin sessions, and had a profound and emotional experience that allowed him to come to terms with the cycle of life and death.
2. A 2016 London's Imperial College study involving chronic, treatment-resistant depression patients found that a week-long psilocybin treatment led to an improvement in symptoms in 80% of patients and complete remission of depression in over 60% of patients. The patients stated that psilocybin made them feel more connected to the world.
“A happy brain is a supple and flexible brain, he (neuroscientist Robin Carhart-Harris) believes; depression, anxiety, obsession, and the cravings of addiction are how it feels to have a brain that has become excessively rigid or fixed in its pathways and linkages -- a brain with more order than is good for it.”
As more evidence of psychedelics' effectiveness in treating mental illnesses emerges, we need to continue to overcome regulatory and financial hurdles to make safe psychedelic therapies widely available.

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