The book is titled “How to Change Your Mind: What the New Science of Psychedelics Teaches Us About Consciousness, Dying, Addiction, Depression and Transcendence.”
Looking at what we call “drugs” as not being so evil and having their benefits in treating diseases like depression and helping even terminally ill cancer patients face their future with greater equanimity, Michael Pollan in his new book says “drugs” have acquired more negative connotations than warranted.
Pollan says, “Most people...have probably used a plant to change consciousness today, whether it was smoking a cigarette or having a coffee or eating a bite of chocolate. Or something more serious. I’ve always found that to be a very interesting and universal human desire worthy of explanation. So when I heard about this research going on using psilocybin, the chemical in magic mushrooms, to treat people and to induce so-called mystical experiences, I thought, it’s time to get a harder look at that whole subject.”
“Psychedelic is a word that was coined in the 60’s...they amplify mind processes in a profound way...they act on serotonin receptors in the brain. They have very little influence on the cardio vascular system and there is no lethal dose. They are physiologically almost non toxic....there are many drugs in your medicine cabinet that you bought over the counter without prescription that have a lethal dose...LSD doesn’t...Some misguided researcher once managed to kill an elephant with LSD once....they had to give the elephant a large dose of tranquilliser so it is not clear that the elephant actually died of LSD,” says Pollan.
He continues, “Animals do not like psychedelics so much...if you give a rat in a cage a lever to drug itself, and you put cocaine in one box, it will keep pressing the lever for more (in preference to food), till it dies. If you put LSD there the rat will press it once and then never again....if we use these drugs everyday, they lose their effectiveness too. So they are actually anti addictive if anything. It gives a lot of recovery time....”
Pollan cautions, “We need trained guides and the proper context in which to do it...The experience is completely different when it is guided because you have a sense of safety...there is someone looking after your body when your mind is travelling. Psychedelics dissolve our sense of self, and the potential mental health benefits they bestow as a result. Psilocybin gives you such a powerful psychological experience that it kind of reboots your brain, your mind. A lot of depression is a sort of self-punishment...They disconnect us from other people, from nature, from an earlier idea of who we are. The mystical experience, as it’s sometimes called, or the experience of the dissolution of the ego, gets us out of those grooves and gives us a break from the tyranny of the ego, which can be a very harsh ruler.”
Pollan tells many interesting stories about how guided use of psychedelics, helps.
