The Everyday Trippers Podcast Episode 5: Lucas

Lucas - In this episode Brian talks with Lucas, an aspiring scholar, musician, and martial artist about his personal experiences with psychedelics and the role they may play in impacting people's lives.

Music by Howard Goldbach.

Transcript

SPEAKER_00 0:00

Welcome everybody to the Everyday Trippers Podcast. My name is Bryant, and I'm coming to you from the Pacific West Coast, the ancestral lands of the Lakwangan speaking peoples, the deep forests, a thick moss, an endless coastline, the land of the mushroom. I'm so thankful to live my days in this little bit of paradise. The Everyday Trippers Podcast is a place of conversation where I talk with everyday people about the psychedelic journeys they've taken, why they went, and what they brought back. Today I'm talking with Lucas, a scholar, a musician, a martial artist, and someone I'm looking forward to getting to know much better over the next hour that we're together. Lucas, an honor to have you join me in this conversation. Anything you want to mention about yourself as a way of introduction before we get started?

SPEAKER_03 0:45

Well, I uh I'm super glad to be joining you here today, Brian, and I think that introduction is wonderful. It may be giving me a little too much credit, but I I appreciate the description. Uh, I'm also uh very happy to be here in this wonderful uh part of the coast that we live on. Uh very thankful to be here, and uh yeah, to be joining you today.

SPEAKER_00 1:05

Well, I'll add the word aspiring to all of the uh that's all of the descriptive terms they used for sure. But I've got to know you a little over the past uh year or so, and uh certainly, as I said, I look forward to getting to know you more over this conversation and many more to come. Lucas, I'm used to speaking to people that are, well, uh for one, a little bit older than yourself, so that's uh interesting component. And uh also I'm used to having shared some experiences with folks, uh, and that's not something that we've shared is any opportunity to uh indulge together. Uh so uh very exciting to uh have you here to talk about it and yeah. I like to get started uh right at the beginning, Lucas. It's a little segment that I've uh termed the chicken or egg, uh, in which we explore what came first. Uh were you born to trip? Were you always a little curious and open to big experiences? Or did tripping break you open and free you of the shackles of normalcy that may have held you down?

SPEAKER_03 2:04

Yes, it's a wonderful question. I think it's something maybe that's unique about uh my generation or people that are sort of emerging in today's world with all the knowledge we have about these topics. Um in the past, I think these things were a lot more stigmatized, and obviously the that's still there's a component of that that still persists in some in some places, but there's such a wealth of knowledge that was available to me growing up. I think naturally, from a disposition point of view, I was just kind of one of these uh kids that was very curious about everything, you know, uh in every possible way. I was very interested in science and literature and art and creative experiences and things of that nature. And as I got older, I think, with the sort of wave of media that became available to people uh, you know, as we were growing up, there was this wealth of information that became available. And with that, I was the type of kid who was, and I still am like this to some degree, very analytical in the sense that if I heard about something, if there was something that sparked my interest, I needed to get my hands on all the material I could about it. So I think I was definitely destined to kind of looking back, I was destined to encounter these experiences, but at the time it was kind of a perfect storm. You know, this is around the time, you know, when I was probably around even 12, 13, coming into adolescence when uh people like Paul Stametz and other people uh were rising to prominence and and gaining a lot of popularity for their discussions of these topics. And then, of course, through people like that, you encounter, you know, all sorts of legends of this kind of space that we come to appreciate now. So I I it was sort of an intersection of my own personality, which I think is definitely naturally inclined towards these types of creative experiences, and then kind of combined with the the sort of luck of being at the forefront of a whole movement in that sense.

SPEAKER_00 3:49

Right on. Uh it's very insightful, and I can relate to some of that, uh, but of course I am from a couple generations older than you, and uh it was much more stigmatized when I was young uh and uh really felt like I was discovering something that was well we were operating a bit clandestine, you know, sneaking around. Um can you tell me just a little bit about where you grew up and what that looked like for you?

SPEAKER_03 4:18

So I grew up on the island, and I think it's funny when you're a kid you don't really put the pieces together because you're so siloed by the environment you grew up in, so you don't really put together the sort of the aspects of your culture or your geography that are gonna kind of predispose you later on to certain experiences. But there's certain certainly something about the West Coast in general, and I think the island in particular that has a culture that is sort of adjacent to uh whether it's psychedelics or just even drug culture in general, I think it's you know it's a West Coast kind of phenomenon. And so um growing up, I grew up on the island, I grew up in Ladysmith, which is a relatively small town. Uh and the types of these types of experiences weren't something that people were talking about all the time. It wasn't something I don't think I was exposed to by the people around me. It was although it was part of the broader culture, I would come to realize that later. I I remember being the first among my friends to bring up this topic. Uh and I think it was I I don't really know where I first would have heard about it. I sense it was something I probably read. I was an avid reader when I was a kid. And so these types, and I was very interested in, you know, there being sort of an adventure to life or some sort of, you know, as you are when you're a kid, that there's always something more there, if there's something more to experience that um that you're not in your little small town where things seem kind of limited. So um I don't know whether it was something I read or something of that nature, but I was drawn to this, and immediately, like I was saying, I think it reflects some aspect of my personality that persists now. I was drawn not to go and continue reading people's personal accounts, but to go right to the literature, which at the time was developing. I remember being like 13, and I have friends of mine now who will laugh about this with me. Or I would I would come to them and be like, you guys gotta read these studies. And it's funny now because I think we both relate, we spend so much of our time reading studies, and you get used to it over a period of time, but they're really not straightforward to read. And I remember some of the f early struggles of trying to make sense of what these papers were, and most of my interest in it was wondering a few questions. One of them is, are these things actually safe? That was something I was really concerned with because I was like, well, of course, there's a culture around, you know, um, these are illicit drugs, these are things we that are that are that they, you know, regardless of the changing times, there's always a a somewhat of a stigma around these things. And so I was concerned, is this a you know, people are reporting these experiences which seem overwhelmingly interesting and positive, but is this a is this something dangerous? So I remember that being an initial question that I wanted answered really methodically. Give me a study that shows that someone did this and nothing bad happened. And I was you know, probably left a little not very satisfied by the literature at that time, but it was still interesting to be able to read some of those early studies that were coming out around that time from John Hopkins and from other places when you started to see some of the really fascinating uh results of the R.

SPEAKER_00 7:04

Such a different approach. Like uh I would say, you know, certainly at that age, 13, 14, but uh really before one has had their own experiences, even just reading uh about other people's uh first hand accounts can be confusing and enlightening and uh certainly uh draw one's curiosity. And those can be hard to read when you don't when you have an experience that you don't know what the actual feeling is. So uh you're reading someone else's first hand account is very different than having your own first hand account. But to go even further than that and attempt to make sense out of academic articles uh as a as a relatively young person.

SPEAKER_03 7:42

Um interesting approach, interesting gateway into Well, you sparked something in my mind that I forgot about altogether, which is that I maybe the element that I'm because of course you're drawing back in your memory trying to remember exactly all all these pieces fell together, but uh I'm forgetting a huge component to this, which was a musical aspect of it, which now that I look back is almost probably it's definitely the source of a lot of the initial intrigue. Uh, as I got older and started to be exposed to pieces of culture, specifically music, that you could see and you would come to find was influenced heavily by psychedelics, heavily influenced by a whole culture that was associated with that kind of thing, that was incredibly intriguing to me. I've always been a person who was very obsessive about music and always wanted to know the story behind music. And uh when you start to unveil the stories behind some of those classic uh tunes from the 60s, you very quickly realize that uh there's an infusion of uh psychedelic culture into them. So as I as I come to think about it now, and uh that was undoubtedly an aspect that was very important, even at that age.

SPEAKER_00 8:45

Yeah, that's that's something we share for sure. Um I had an older brother who he's eight years older than me, and um I had some awareness of what he was doing, uh or at least I knew that he was doing drugs. I didn't quite have an understanding of what drugs or what they might be doing, but I knew that that was part of his culture. And then as I got into my teenage years and really started discovering music with all of my friends also discovering the same music, that uh that our curiosity really piqued. And and you can't ignore it. Um I I think of myself as being somewhat unusual in that I had very little awareness of contemporary music when I was growing up. I was really focused on music that came out of the 60s primarily, and uh one of the first things that drew us together was I noticed uh Big Grateful Dead sticker on your laptop. That was our first introduction. So it left a very positive impression right off the bat. But uh other than the dead, uh like what what was it that really what artists I guess were drawing you in uh that had ties to this psychedelic culture?

SPEAKER_03 9:51

Yeah, some of the first music I remember listening to, I was very influenced by my grandfather, who was a musician in the 19 uh sixties and seventies, and he played uh he played rock music in that era, and so I was exposed to, you know, all the classic names we think of, but I think particularly I was influenced at that time, if I was to look back at around 14, 15, 13, uh was definitely the Beatles were a huge influence, and to me it was it was there was an emotional element to it that was it was mystical. It was there was sort of something that was just larger than life, and I think this is you know, I'm not unique in this sense. They've obviously appealed to just about everybody in that way. So that was an incredible revelation to hear their music for the first time. It's one of those things you really never get to do in life again is hear classic music like that. But after that, I started playing an instrument, I started playing guitar around that time, and so I became fascinated with guitar players and what it meant to be a good guitar player and who uh I wanted to influence my playing. And it wasn't just my grandfather, but other people around me who would, you know, sort of feed me influences and again tying back into the technological element. This is right at the precipice of the development of a huge technology and music, which was the availability of basically all music that you could ever want to listen to at your fingertips for you know next to nothing in terms of cost. And that's something that I uh very few people in history had the access to. So um this is a point where you know uh you find Led Zeppelin and then you find The Beatles, and then you find this, and then you find that, and there's no limit to uh the musical influences you can draw upon if if that's what you want, and that's certainly what I did want to do. So uh aside from from and The Grateful Dead came a bit later. I think I was heavily influenced by uh uh Pink Floyd, probably before before that, and then even a lot of blues artists and things like that uh came into play, and it wasn't until I was probably a little bit older, probably around 15 or 16, that I found the dead. And originally I wasn't it it it takes a lot of patience, I think, to appreciate that music. So it it took some time to build. But yeah, yeah.

SPEAKER_00 11:51

Yeah, for sure. I I agree with you. I think that there you know, depending on where you start, there's some immediate appeal, but at the same time to really understand what's going on, it takes uh it takes a lot of listening. Yes. It really does. Good for you for coming upon it so early in life. It gives you a lot of runway to get the most out of it. It does, yeah. That's funny. I don't I don't usually think of the Beatles uh when I think about psychedelics. Um and that's that's uh just like a little bit wrong, it seems. But one of the unique things about the Beatles, especially in that era around Sergeant Pepper's and Magical Mystery Tour, is how playful uh their imagery is. Very psychedelic, but like loosing the sky with diamonds, it's uh completely different than well, Pink Floyd, I guess some early Floyd was kind of playful as well, but where it goes, uh I find I I love Floyd, but um very different.

SPEAKER_03 12:50

Well, I want to pick up on that actually because it it draws me to something else, which I think is really at the heart of my interest in this topic and has always been it's something that really drew me to it. I mean, I was drawn to the sound of the Beatles. There's something indescribable about it that's just like blows your mind. You know, I remember the first time I heard some of those songs where it just you can never re-experience it. But the real fascinating thing, the thing that drew me in, the thing that still does is the fact that there was such a transformation. There was a there was a there was a Beatles before something happened, and there was a Beatles after something happened, and it was completely evident that something had changed. And that is that psychological transformation was like, what on earth has gone on here? What went from uh Love Me Do to Lucy in the Sky with Diamonds in a series of two years, and yet you know still managed to tie in all those masterful creative influences that they obviously were predisposed to have. So that was something to me as a as a even as a kid that was like, wow, what happened here? Because something something certainly did.

SPEAKER_00 13:50

It's undeniable for sure. Uh what a transformation. And they led the way, uh, I think for a lot of British rock especially, but um because they gained so much ground in North America too, they just left their influence everywhere they went. Um and yeah, I I remember learning about the I got into the Beatles quite a bit earlier than The Dead and even other bands of that era. And uh I was uh interesting thinking back on my own relationship with that music and when I transitioned from somebody that was, you know, really into a hard days night and can't buy me love. And then like that transition from the red album to the blue album. Yeah. Right on. Well, that's that's really all very interesting. Um I'd love to test your memory a little bit, Lucas, and see do you recall your first trip?

SPEAKER_03 14:45

Well, that is a yeah, that is a tough one. Okay, so I should pref preface this by saying uh there's a whole other angle which uh draws in a little bit of history, and I wonder if this will this will be dated one day to look back on. But there actually is a time when it was quite difficult to find uh psychedelics, if this was something you were interested in doing, which it was. And I and I don't know if I I think I had purchased a copy of Paul Stametz's book uh uh psilocybin mushrooms of the world before I ever did a trip. I believe I I had purchased a copy of the book. So I I had gone through the whole book and earmarked every page I could find that had some local species or something thinking I was gonna be out in the woods gallivanting around finding mushrooms. But this was a bit of a this was a bit of a step too far at that time. So to be honest, I don't remember where I ended up acquiring them. Uh I'm sure it was a friend of mine or someone that I had heard about, but I can remember it was definitely a commodity. If you knew someone who had access to something like that, it wasn't, it was it it was unusual, uh at least at that point. And so I I was f I believe I was fifteen years old and I but I was also still apprehensive, not from a psychological perspective, I was apprehensive because of course there's all the cultural connotations, and you know, you don't there's something vulnerable about the experience, just I think to anyone from the outside or from the inside. So I I I was apprehensive. Uh, and I and I was educated to a degree, but I was still young and uh as I am now, and I was not um well, I guess I was a little worried. But I I did eventually acquire some, and I remember taking a very small amount the first time I ever did. And it was psilocybin was the first uh trip that I ever had. It was a very small amount, and I don't remember it being particularly memorable outside of maybe thinking that the experience was going to be more extreme than it was, which I think is kind of a typical experience of some people. Um but it was shortly after that that I I don't know if I sourced them from the same place or how it how it came to be, but um I had more of a full experience and this and I don't know if it was intentional because I don't remember, but uh I remember doing it alone, which I think is probably not a bad thing in retrospect, because uh, you know, the nature of the experiences can be quite overwhelming, and so I'm sure I was I was alone and um and this was the first experience I can recall that was quite substantial in the sense that it was one of these experiences, one of these sort of classic experiences uh that we hear about. I don't I can't rem recall specific amounts or anything of that nature, but I do remember that it it was quite overwhelming, initially quite terrifying. Uh it was it was uh very fear-inducing, and I can remember I was I was sitting outside actually my house, I'm sure no one was home at the time, and I was sitting next to a tree, and I kind of thought to myself, this experience, you know, more or less I wasn't I wasn't convinced that it would based on my previous experience, I wasn't convinced it was gonna be this overwhelming psychological experience that I had read about. I was kind of anticipating it to be somewhat similar to the last one. And I was sitting there and all of all of a sudden uh this tree that was next to me sort of took on a mind of its own and kind of started to grow over towards me. And I remember that being quite uh fear-inducing. So I left outside, I went inside and laid in my bed, and and there's sort of that initial period of where you're sort of coming up and experiencing a lot of anxiety, uh, I think, and a lot of fear and and and confusion, and the world around me transformed into something like it had never transformed into before. And I was kind of caught in a tidal wave of whatever was happening, and after probably around 30 minutes or something like that, the wave sort of crescendoed into more of a general just feeling. It settled into something, and it was it was like something I had never experienced before. Suddenly I had these sort of this rush of of insight and feeling of understanding like I had never had in my life. I had a and I I'm pretty sure I was listening, that's right, I'm recalling now, the first piece of music I put on once I had settled down after the initial uh sort of anxiety experience was uh I sat down, I put on Sergeant Peppers, and I just remember from the opening track onward was the rest of my experience. And uh and it was it was beautiful, it was emotional, it was uh it was it was everything that you would classically think of when you think of a a psychedelic experience and a first psychedelic experience for that matter, and it changed me. I I I certainly remember uh waking up the next day and thinking that things had things had drastically changed. And and it wasn't a bad feeling, it wasn't a scary feeling, it was just a feeling of looking around the world and and feeling like things were a little different. Um if I had to say what specifically it felt like, I think it it it this is another kind of c uh stereotypical experience, but the mundane no longer felt mundane. Uh the things that you looked around at in the in the world sort of had a valence to them that persisted, like I said, even to the next day, where you started to appreciate the beauty of the natural world and and your inner psychological world for what it was, for all the the elements that you could feel had gone into creating them or something like that. And so that was the initial piece. And I do remember thinking to myself afterwards, for better or worse, this was a this was a drastic change. Something has changed. I remember thinking that.

SPEAKER_00 20:04

Yeah, well, so much to dig into there. Uh one of the one of the things I like to get at is that I think what separates psychedelics from from let's just classify them as other party drugs is that uh like I think there's a a general feeling when you're in an altered state of um insight. I'm I'm seeing things new, I'm seeing things different than I ever have before. And one of the differences I found with psychedelics is that next day and the day after that some of that is still there. It's still lingering around. And um you know, we've we've brought this up throughout the conversation, but I grew up in a world where it was strictly stigma and taboo. Uh there was no getting your hands on research that was talking about people's experiences. There were qualitative uh accounts written in rock and roll biographies. And I remember coming across um a book written by anonymous uh called Go Ask Alice, which was meant to scare people for sure. It was the tale of a young girl who grew up uh and I think at about 13 or 14 had never done anything and did acid for the first time. And I remember being the kind of kid who recognized that this was supposed to terrify me, and instead it was like i incredibly alluring. Like I was like, wow, what what's going on in here? Um so yeah, and we'll we'll dig more about that as we continue talking, but that notion of coming back and seeing the world differently, recognizing things are different now, um, is something that uh well, it's a reason that I keep coming back. I keep thinking that there is more. Uh listening to you talk about that first profound or or both of your little trips there that you were describing. It struck me that uh So much of the way that we experience the world is dependent on what we anticipate is going to happen. It's incredibly true. But you anticipate something's happening and not as much happened. And then that's really what you've got going into the second one. And something bigger happens. Certainly not when you have yet to ever experience it. No, no, certainly not.

SPEAKER_03 22:50

I think those early experiences are are they very interesting. I think it's like anything else, even like any other substance, you you might say, because you come to learn what the experience is like, and after that you sort of you you can never really car compartmentalize an experience like that because it's very otherworldly, but you you you start to appreciate it in a different way, and you start to think about the insights you're having in a different way, especially as this kind of led me on, and I I won't jump ahead, but it it sort of, you know, it it it sparked a curiosity with, well, what is the what is the substrate of this? What is the what is happening on a mechanistic level that's causing my because I I think growing up I was always very or I attempted to be very empirical in the way that I looked at the world. This was just a dis a disposition that I always, for better or worse, tried to have. You know, I think it's interesting uh to think that when I was young, I was very I was very scientifically oriented. I always wanted to be at work in science, to have uh to do something in science. I always loved uh sort of a very rigorous methodological description of the world, maybe because it had some level of certainty. And I think this experience was so outside of that that I was I was kind of blown from whatever slats I had keeping me into reality and thought, well, this is this is indescribable in whatever worldview that I that I came to it with. Um But yeah, yeah, it's it's it's a unique experience, and your expectations really do play into it a tremendous amount, not just based on that first experience, but also I think your disposition in general. Like later on, as I came to appreciate these experiences uh in a different way, there were those around me who also, you know, as you get older, your friends were around you who interpreted them very differently than I did. Certainly. And I think a strong element of that is just dispositional. It's what you what you bring to the situation, what you bring to bear on it. A strong component is education. Um but yeah, certainly there's an influence of your pre-existing thought process or your or your your just your disposition.

SPEAKER_00 24:46

Well, you definitely bring yourself to the table, regardless of what changes uh you come and go as yourself, I think. And um, you know, you brought up the word vulnerable vulnerable earlier, and there has to be a willingness to be vulnerable to step into these places. And again, one of the things that I explore a little bit uh or I like to talk to folks about is you know, you you already brought up how within your first really powerful trip you were dealing with, uh, at least initially as you were going up, a lot of that anxiety and fear, and that's uncomfortable. There's no denying it. And um, you know, as kids, we like a lot of a lot of childhood is just struggling to deal with our emotions and um learning right and wrong in the outside world, but also right and wrong in the inside world. What feels good, what doesn't feel good, and to choose to re-enter a world that didn't always feel good is uh a big decision, and I think it's a decision that separates some from others. Uh those that keep coming back for more experiences, more psychedelic experiences are choosing to go back somewhere that they know has not always been a friendly place. Sure. Uh even if it's just a few minutes. Yeah. So I would imagine, you know, like uh when I think back on the people that I initially explored it with, some of them are continuing. Uh, you know, we're well into our adult years and uh we've got families and careers, and some of us are pushing harder than we've ever pushed before into this new world, trying to continue going back, learn more about ourselves, learn more about the world. For other people, it wasn't for them, and they moved on. And that's you know, this the purpose of this podcast isn't to convince anybody that uh they should be doing psychedelic drugs. It's really to explore what is there and uh for those that are interested or intrigued to give them the opportunity to hear experiences. Uh so again, thank you for talking about yours.

SPEAKER_02 26:47

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 26:47

I guess do you have anything to say to that uh about that notion of like going back to the scary places?

SPEAKER_03 26:52

Well, I think that's when I said the thing about just yeah, and I think you were building on that, the disposition you bring into the experience I think it's something that rings true from a whole, if you look in a whole different perspective from a like a psychoanalytic perspective or something like that. A fear or something that you're encountering involuntarily can often be something that cripples you or something that traumatizes you, depending on the degree of the experience. Something that happens to you without you being able to deal with it, without you having the skills in place to deal with it, without you anticipating it at all, can be one of the most, you know, horrible or destructive experiences in someone's life. But if you flip that whole dynamic around and you think of um sort of the cornerstone of psychotherapy, you know, uh exposure therapy, taking someone and showing them that they are able to face their fears is one is one way of looking at it, but it's not that the they learn that they're capable of dealing with the fear for what it is. You know, whether they've overblown it in their mind, which is certainly possible, or whether it is really as scary as they think, they're the type of person that has the fortitude in their soul or something like that, for maybe lack of a better word, to overcome it. And I think um, you know, I won't claim to be always the most fearless person on the planet or anything, but I do think one thing that psychedelics teach you, and some of those early early experiences in particular really hammered home for one reason or another, was that I I could go to this place where I was inevitably, not always inevitably, but often going to experience some really difficult uh emotional experiences uh or memories or visions or whatever you want to say, there's lots of different experiences that can happen. But that I was also the type of person that could come out on the other side, or the type of person that could handle themselves emotionally in that state uh enough to persist. I think oftentimes just the nature of being uh being young, and I I'm certain you can probably relate to some of this experience, uh, you don't use these substances always in the most responsible way that you learn to later on. And so you find yourself yourself in a situation where you uh, well, you need to sort of work your way through it in maybe a less than ideal conditions that we would present now. Uh these are experiences that can be very anxiety-inducing in the comfort of your own home with a a bit of a support system in place. If you throw a whole other dynamic, I mean, this is again kind of cliche thing of set and setting, but if you kind of throw the other two out of whack, it can be it can be quite uh quite interesting to say the least. So I think what a lot of those early experiences, they were kind of like classic coming-of-age stories. You know, like you felt like you went into the scenario, something kind of horrible happened, or you felt really emotionally, you know, taken aback, and you managed to kind of wank your way through it. On the other side, you're a little bit stronger, for better or worse. And a version of that persists, at least for me, I should speak for myself, has persisted on as I've gotten older in a different way, you know, maybe in a slightly more controlled environment, I would hope. But I do think that's a really important lesson of those early experiences.

SPEAKER_00 29:49

Yeah. Yeah. I mean, again, the I I don't know you super well, but in my introduction, I referenced a few things that I do know about you. And I think that they all speak to having courage to uh face fears. Um choosing to be a musician is choosing to do something difficult. Uh and learning an instrument isn't easy. It takes devotion and commitment. Uh and I don't know you to be a performer, but uh certainly stepping in front of people uh with your instrument again puts you in a very vulnerable place. Trevor Burrus, Jr. It certainly does. Yeah, definitely. And also um it's it's judo, right? That uh is your martial art of trying to do that. Brazilian jujitsu. Brazilian jujitsu.

unknown 30:31

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 30:31

So again, you know, stepping into that circle, um it takes courage.

SPEAKER_01 30:36

Aaron Powell Certainly.

SPEAKER_03 30:37

Uh I would say, you know, I don't know, it's uh everyone's a little bit different, and to some people that's the most nerve-wracking thing they could ever do. To other people it's just another thing, just another hobby. So I I don't think there's anything uh inherently, you know, uh like courageous about it per se. But everyone comes at it with a bit of a different disposition, and uh it would be totally fair to say that some of those experiences, although others as well, everyone has experiences in their life that contribute to their sort of feeling of s ability to overcome things that are outside of just the self-psychedelic sphere. But later on, when I got to be older and and decided to pursue things like that, it was certainly a component that that played into it. And I think just a general a general belief that if it's something you're kind of scared of, it's gonna have an intense benefit. Or it might have an intense benefit anyway, where there's where there's anxiety and fear and chaos on the other side of there's potentially structure, potentially benefit, potentially uh transformation, I guess you would say.

SPEAKER_00 31:39

Transformation is a great word. Real value in um confronting these places. Um I'd love to get back to something you were talking about earlier, namely like you you described yourself as someone that's uh got a real imperial focus. Uh you're you're a scientist, you have a scientific mind, you like to look at the evidence and I guess I think of you as a social scientist. You're very interested in psychology, and I I know that you've started to do your own writing and explore on um some of the potential benefits of psychedelic drugs. Uh which we'll get to a little bit more, but I love the fact that you don't know how much you ate uh on either of those first two trips, but I'm curious if you started to do more precise uh exploration of yourself, knowing more of what you were consuming.

SPEAKER_03 32:32

Aaron Powell Yes, I certainly did, and uh it's funny you you say that because as time went on, I became more and more you know, you can't have an itinerary for an experience like that. I always say that's a kind of hilarious thing. Like to think you would have an itinerary for an experience like that is to kind of not understand what the experience is at all. But there are things you can do, and I think it's in there's an interesting corollary in the idea of ritual that I think has kind of come into play as I've gotten older, where, first of all, like you say, I'm much more rigorous now. Uh, and as time went on, I became much more rigorous about okay, what is the nature of the substance I'm taking? Where is it sourced from? How much is it? What's the dosage? Uh, there's all sorts of questions that that can be answered there, and and you know, there's not always perfect answers, but you can get better, and that's part of just responsible use, I think, of any substance. But also in the terms of what are the types of strategies I'm going to employ to get garner the most benefit from this experience. What are my goals and and what is the context I'm gonna do it? Like I said, when I was younger, I think this is common to a lot of people, you're kind of frivolous in your in your approach and not very responsible. And so as you as you get older you start to think about all sorts of other considerations, and you kind of build a bit of a ritual to it. I think it's very personal. I don't know what you think about this, and maybe you can talk about your experience. But for me, I have developed sort of a if this is something I'm gonna embark upon, which I I don't really do that often, but when I do, there's uh certainly there's a I don't want to say a checklist, but there's a few things I'd like to have available. Typically an instrument is one of them. I like to have that. It's kind of my home base. I think it's kind of similar to a meditative practice or something like that that other people will talk about uh incorporating. It's a good way to ground yourself. Uh, I think a source of music is often is often useful. Almost always is an experience I embark on alone, which I I I know other people have different opinions, and I think that's you know, there's no right way to use a substance necessarily in this context. But for me, I've always found that I garnered the most the most ability to move inward or to self-reflect when I was not sort of burdened to or beholden to the out external world sort of pulling me outside of myself. So but there and there are other things as well, you know, again, cliched, but set and setting. Part of mindset is is what stage of life are you in? What are you doing? And typically these this is something that I'll incorporate at a transitionary period of time, purposefully, you know, and it doesn't always render the result you expect, but there's there's often a there's often a time. You can almost kind of sense it, so I guess it's maybe not that analytical as I want to make it seem, but uh you can kind of just sense it. There's a and there's a wrong time to do it. You can sense when there's a wrong time to do it as well. Totally.

SPEAKER_00 35:15

I don't know if that answers your question, but that's just kind of uh well it just brings up more questions for sure, more things to talk about. Um there isn't necessarily the right way, but there is certainly the wrong way. That's a perfect description. And um, I love that you talk about both like the benefit of ritual and uh you've used the word cliche a few times, but like you know, there's nothing shameful about cliches when they represent truth. And um if you're stepping into this world, it's important that you're taking care of yourself, and set and setting are very important things to know about. You're right. Like uh as young people um experiencing experiencing these things for the first time, we don't always make good decisions or responsible decisions. Some of the best trips I've ever had came out of foolish decisions, that's for sure. Uh and it has also it's given me some courage and uh to step into uh unpredictable places. But uh when I know I want to step into a place, I'm very I'm much more aware now, uh and I create an environment for me, or or I know what I'm doing. Um I didn't start using psychedelics alone until until I was probably in my forties, so quite a bit older. Um and after quite a bit of time of not really doing a lot of psychedelics, uh when I was raising my kids, they weren't finding me very often. I think I could have benefited from them, but as you say, like now they're just so attainable, but uh that's really relatively recent.

SPEAKER_02 36:44

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 36:45

And uh some of my experiences from recent use has really been uh informative to me and uh confirming to me that I know myself uh better than I used to. I know how to take care of myself. So I will use them in social situations at a much lower dose. And when I feel like I need a bigger dose uh and I'm uh preparing myself for stepping into the unknown, I'm typically by myself or with very close friends who have the same intentions that I have. If I'm inside, I'm thinking a lot about that environment, um, perhaps having my keyboard there. Uh typically lately, part of my ritual is putting on a dead show and listening through to the end. That seems to provide me with a nice runway to um build up and then also to come down. Uh and then it usually the the show ends a little bit before my trip, but uh I mean if we're looking at something in the early 70s, it might actually be as long as the trip itself. But certainly that's only a sometimes thing because as anyone that's ever tripped next to a river before or uh somewhere outside where they can sit against a tree, kind of think that's the best environment that there is, is just being outside in a safe place.

SPEAKER_03 38:02

Yeah, I agree completely. And I think that I'm those are experiences for me that came later when I had more of a a knowledge that more or less I could I could could persist in even in a bit of an an unconventional, maybe not an unconventional is not the right word, but more of an unpredictable environment, which I think being outside just kind of inherently is. But I would agree with you fully that I think there's something that's really indescribable and something that's uh you know, like you say, there's no right way to do it necessarily, but i there's d it's definitely not the wrong way, I don't think.

SPEAKER_01 38:34

Yeah, totally. Totally, definitely not the wrong way.

SPEAKER_00 38:37

We've been talking a lot about mushrooms. Have you explored any other psychedelics?

SPEAKER_03 38:40

No, and my my my psychedelic experience has been has been limited to to psilocybin alone, and I you know, I think there's several reasons for that. One that I always thought to myself when I was younger was that the sourcing of other psychedelics is a bit more questionable. That's kind of an obvious reason. Uh it's a lot easier to vet your source of a mushroom because it's a natural product and you can there's all sorts of ways of attaining it that are more verifiable than a chemical that's synthesized, you know, totally externally from uh yourself. And so that was that's the main contributing factor. Uh over time, I don't I haven't really been drawn to explore outside of that domain. Perhaps one day it'll it'll become a possibility, but I I guess uh another way is that I haven't really felt like I needed it necessarily. And I and I psychedelics in general are something that I think I especially at this stage in my life are have become more and more sparing over the over the time. You know, when I was younger I definitely indulged a lot more frequently. And now I think it's part of a sort of a general practice that has kind of like I say has become much more infrequent. And so as a result, I haven't really been drawn to sort of there hasn't been a novelty associated with trying something else because the experience itself hasn't become mundane by doing it very often, if that makes sense.

SPEAKER_00 40:01

It does, yeah. Yeah, so that's my answer to that. Yeah. That's another thing that separates it from some of the other drugs uh that people uh use and use frequently is that moderate and sparing use is often just just naturally what people do. Yeah, I remember I actually went and saw Paul Stam at the speaker a couple years back and him just talking about how odd the experience is. Like he doesn't know people who the next day just want to go back to that place. So often you're the next day is a quiet day, and you're kind of just thinking through everything that's been going through your mind to the day before. Yeah, certainly. We're gonna cut the conversation in a not too distant future, but I wanted to give you just a moment to chat about some of the research that you're undertaking. Not that you're involved with primary research. I think it's really fascinating that you've talked quite a bit about your own use and how I guess it ebbs and flows. Uh, now is a time where you're not feeling a great need uh to be tripping out. And yet you're spending time here uh on a university campus thinking quite a bit about psychedelics. And uh would you mind just mentioning a little bit about some of the work you've been doing?

SPEAKER_03 41:15

Yeah, so I like I said, when I was I was younger, I became very interested in okay, how does this fit into my uh other world, other worldview of how to how do you explain this from a mechanistic perspective, or what is the substrate? And I don't think you know that might be a fruitless pursuit in and of itself. There are people who certainly think that uh in the psychedelic space, that you shouldn't try and reduce the experience, and that's you know, I think everyone is you know entitled to explore the topic on their own because no one really knows the answer to that question. So uh but regardless, um it's been a really incredible opportunity to spend some time with some researchers at UVIC who sort of parallel in their interest and and you know personal experiences will often influence people to be drawn towards these areas of study, but they don't necessarily have a place in the in the research itself, but it always kind of motivates you a little bit. It's always kind of in the in the background. And so, yeah, the recent stuff we that we've been looking at is thinking about the therapeutic potential of psychedelics in particular contexts, and and the most recent uh area of study that I was looking at was in the context of ADHD, where there's been some recent work. It's difficult, the research space of psychedelics is a tough one because there's so much excitement around it, which can often be uh not a it can be a good thing because it can drum up uh opportunities for funding for people to get projects on their feet, but it can also be tough to sometimes separate the wheat from the chaff, so to speak, as far as what's good literature and what's not, and not to throw any shade at the wonderful researchers who are pursuing these things. But uh lately there's there's I shouldn't say lately, but in general, the around the specifically around the topic of ADHD and psychedelics, there hasn't been any really great studies thus far. They haven't been controlled, randomized, controlled clinical trials or um were really dose-dependent or even substance-dependent. So it's been very hard to sort of parse apart uh apart what's going on. Uh so that's kind of why I was interested in taking the two topics kind of separately in their own right. You know, what do we know about psychedelics totally independent of something like ADHD, which is a very complicated uh neurodevelopmental disorder? And then on the flip side, what do we know about ADHD? What do we understand about it from a mechanistic perspective? Um ADHD is something personally that is uh very prevalent in my family, so I'm very uh acquainted with uh individuals uh in this space, and so it's a it's a topic that hits close to home and is very interesting to me. And so I didn't go into it necessarily assuming there would be any any uh super interesting result. I tried to stay empirical, like I was saying, and try and think, okay, well, these are two topics that are pretty much independent, and and what is the possible intersection. And I think the outcome of that research was that I developed a much better understanding, although by no means a complete understanding of both topics. And uh it's very fascinating. Uh, psychedelics have a very peculiar impact on the human brain that very few substances. Is do. People might know the term psychoplasen, which is a substance that induces neuroplasticity in your brain, which probably should be differentiated from something like neurogenesis, which I think is a term people throw around a lot today. Neuroplasticity is kind of just any change in the wiring or the structure of your brain that can be measured a variety of ways. And so as opposed to neurogenesis, which is like the creation of new brain cells. So these are substances which have now pretty much been relatively well established to be psychoplastigens. They induce neuroplasticity in particular brain regions. They enhance the plasticity of your brain, the ability for your brain to change in response to stimulus, in response to experience, and in response to the external environment. And so something really fascinating about psychedelics that we've kind of drawn on throughout this conversation is how they can have these transformative effects on your personality almost unlike anything else that we experience in our day-to-day lives, aside from maybe, you know, really transcendent experiences. And so the sort of start of an answer to why that is is that they induce these neuroplastic changes in these core structures of your brain. And it's not your entire brain, it's there's specific areas where the receptor for psychedelic drugs are more densely expressed. And the particular region that I focused on in this report was a region of the brain called the anterior cingular cortex, which is a really fascinating brain region that I don't have time to go into all the details about. But one of the things it's associated with is mediating goal-directed behavior. So one thing that individuals with ADHD will often struggle with is uh picking a goal, an immediate goal, uh, or if if you have a sort of a goal space around you, picking the goal that has the most long-term benefit versus the goal that has the more short-term benefit is often a struggle, and just evaluating goals in general and assigning the appropriate value to one goal over another, again, oftentimes ties in things like uh time scale. And so this brain region is very important for doing that type of cognitive processing, and it's often a brain region with a lot of deficits in individuals with ADHD. It also, interestingly enough, happens to be the brain region where there is a very dense expression of the receptors for psychedelic drugs. And so to maybe clarify a little bit, that means that this is a brain region that is going to be particularly targeted by these psychopaston plastogenic effects of these drugs. So that doesn't mean necessarily that psychedelics will cure somebody with ADHD or that the psychedelics will be, you know, sort of this panacea for these types of things, but it does mean that these are drugs that induce um the possibility for change in structures that in some cases have developed lasting patterns of behavior and and and psychology that can be detrimental to people's lives. So it's a it's an emerging area of research and uh there still needs to be a ton of work on it, but the bottom line is uh they have a tremendous potential therapeutic benefit uh given the sort of neurological corollaries.

SPEAKER_00 46:50

That's incredibly fascinating, Lucas. Um I know that um we hear a lot about I mean I hear a lot about it because I'm interested in psychedelics, but I'll hear quite a bit about um therapeutic uses of psychedelics to help people who are uh experiencing depression and um anxiety disorders or PTSD. Not so much or ADHD. That's not something that I'm hearing a lot about. I do know folks with ADHD and I can hear from from my experiences. It seems like things can't easily be pulled apart. Often people's ADHD uh creates anxiety, can create depression. So these things are related, uh but certainly it's incredibly uh beneficial to uh r remove some of the stigma so that uh we can actually uh research and look into the impacts and effects and see if there are uh ways that these drugs can be used to positively impact people and help them get through either get through some of the trauma they've experienced in the world or just help them reach some of those bigger goals, help them open their minds to new experiences. And um again, you're young and your brain is still uh quite elastic. And as we get older uh and our brains calcify to a certain degree, having something that can help us loosen it up a little bit uh to me it seems quite beneficial, but uh again, like uh we can do the research, or we're getting closer anyway to being fully accepted that we can explore uh in a scientific way and uh come to conclusions. We don't have to just be riding on, well, this worked for you, I'll try it, will it work for me? Maybe so. Uh certainly approaching it with uh a greater understanding of how it's impacted large numbers of people is gonna be helpful for folks going forward.

SPEAKER_03 48:46

Absolutely. Yeah, for sure. And just one little point I'll just say there is it's uh something that I really struck home about the research I did is not that, you know, no one really knows, and I don't want to s claim that uh the sort of research I did was anything exhaustive or anything. There are people who know far more about this, and even those people will tell you that this is the beginning of uh an understanding of this topic. But definitely. Uh regardless, something that becomes kind of obvious is even if these are substances that can sort of induce changes in these parts of the brain that maybe have a relationship to to mental illnesses of a variety of kinds, you know, there's not necessarily just having change isn't necessarily a good thing. And I think the important aspect that is really hammered home by the really hallmark studies on these substances as aspect of integration, which is such an important point uh of uh of a psychedelic experience, is not the experience itself, but the period of time afterwards. And who are the individuals you have around you during that period that will help you integrate the experience to create positive benefits for your life afterwards. And so just as a little aside, I think it's important to mention that sometimes it's easy to get focused on the substance, but the substance can be the catalyst for a change given conditions, or it be can be the catalyst for somebody who has a very negative experience and takes away nothing from it as a result of that because of some other factor that's missing. So anyway, I just wanted to add that little thought.

SPEAKER_00 50:04

Yeah, that's a really important point. Um I went and saw a film not too long ago called Music for Mushrooms, and uh one of the takeaways for me there had to do with this discussion and uh the the discussion was approached. Um, does music enhance the psychedelic experience make it more therapeutic? And people spoke to that being the wrong way to think about it. And it's really that music is the therapeutic experience and the psychedelics enhance that. And I just draw that parallel to what you're saying because certainly to I mean, you've spoken about how your practice involves doing it alone. Well, at this point, you know yourself a little bit better, you know to trust what you're how you're going to integrate it. Uh you choose to do it this way because it works for you. All the power, that's excellent. So a lot of people who are going to be experiencing it for the first time or know themselves and know that they need people around them or what have you to help them with that integration process. And again, it's the this is all in the name of learning more about ourselves and getting to know ourselves better. Um if the psychedelic is a tool to help in that process, fantastic. Uh but it's it's more about the entire experience and certainly integrating it. Absolutely. Yeah. Well, Lucas, I have a sense that we could talk for another hour, uh, but we have been going for a little while now. Is there anything else that you'd like to say before I close up shop here today?

SPEAKER_03 51:34

Well, I think I'll just say that uh I'm super appreciative for you having me on, and it's incredible to think that we live in a in a world today where we're able to have a conversation like this uh openly. It's uh an incredible privilege to be able to do that, and uh it's an incredible privilege to continue to see the directions that these disciplines uh move us in. Thank you very much, Brian.

SPEAKER_00 51:55

Amen. I share in that appreciation. Well, listener, you've made it through to the end of another great conversation on the Everyday Trippers Podcast. These conversations are meant to be informative and entertaining. Choosing to take psychedelics is a personal choice and not for everyone. Indeed, no medicine is right for all of us, and I encourage you to think carefully about whether mushrooms, LSD, or any of the other mind-opening and altering substances that we've spoken about in this episode and those of the past are right for you. If you are considering it and you have a doctor you trust who is open-minded, I suggest speaking to them. That may be hard to find, but hopefully you can connect with a friend or loved one with experiences of their own to share. And if not, please keep coming back to hear from our guests and let our stories help you decide. If you're interested in being a guest on a future episode, or if you have something friendly and constructive to share, please send me a note at the everydaytripper at gmail.com. Much love, listeners. Till the next time.