Translator: Beatrice Carpi Reviewer: Peter van de Ven
Hello.
It's an amazing pleasure to be with you here today.
Unfortunately for some you, I will be talking in English,
but there are, you know, the little things that you can use for translation,
so I hope that everyone will be with me for this talk.
What we're going to talk about today concerns each and everyone of you, really,
because we're all humans, we all have brains.
And even though we might be coming from different religions,
different backgrounds, different professions, different colours,
our brains function pretty much the same way.
At the centre of the topic are psychedelics.
But I want to get one thing very clear from the very outset of this talk:
it is not my purpose to promote the use of any legal or illegal substances -
at all.
It is my purpose today
to poke at your childish curiosity that has been asleep for so many years,
and seek to lift the stigma surrounding these substances
because I believe, and science believes as well,
that there is so much potential in both medicine, research
and in terms of, you know, of personal development -
they can be used as personal tools.
So even before we begin to discuss what psychedelics are,
we need to look at the human brain and how it normally operates.
See, the adult brain is largely run on automatic software.
What that means,
you might know that you've got, you know, billions and billions,
around 80 billions of neurons in your brain
and these exchange signals.
They exchange information, and they process stuff for you.
That's how you feel, that's how you think, that's how you memorise, etcetera.
And no single structure of the brain is responsible for your human experience.
Your human experience is dependent on
multiple neurons firing together simultaneously,
perfectly synchronized in time.
And that's how you think, that's how you perceive.
Unfortunately though, as we age,
adults tend to think only in set neuronal networks.
When a child is born, the child's brain operates very differently.
The child uses a much larger neurological potential and capacity of their brain.
They use very different signals, in comparison to adults,
very different neurological paths, in comparison to adults.
And that produces some weird effects - we should all agree children are weird.
They could fall a lot, they could ask weird questions and all that.
And that's why they are weird,
because they use very different neurological paths,
in comparison to adults.
And I'm going to focus on one particular such neurological network in your brain.
This is the default mode network,
and as you might have guessed,
it is your default functioning mode inside your brain.
That is a default functioning network of neurons in your brain
that is largely responsible for your human consciousness
and perception as well.
So this network is situated in your medial prefrontal cortex,
which is somewhere around here, you can see in the picture,
and your posterior cingulate cortex, which is somewhere around here,
and they connect with the angular gyrus.
Now, this network is active pretty much all the time.
It's active anytime you're not engaged in a particular task.
It's active when you are thinking about yourself,
when you're thinking about other selves,
when you are engaging in detailed memory recall and moral reasoning.
When you are giving judgements and labels and evaluations to yourself and to others
and, you know, to society and all that,
and whenever you think about the future or the past as well.
So you tell me how often you use this network;
it's active pretty much all the time.
And the thing with this network is that it's active by default.
And after the ages of 6 to 12, it gets so reinforced in your brain
that you are not really able to think outside of this neurological network.
You're not really able to just go ahead and say "I'm going to avoid that now,
and I'm going to use my extra neurological potential."
It's just not how it happens,
because with age we tend to just fall within these networks.
And whether we like it or not,
they will process stuff for you and for me and for us, in a specific way,
whether we like it or not.
So, why am I telling you all of that?
Well, because of this loopy automatic network, we are kind of the way we are.
And psychedelics have been found to have an absolutely profound effect
on this network and these two brain areas.
And we are looking at psychedelics today.
What are psychedelics?
Well, first of all, "psychedelic" is a word, it's a concept.
It's derived from ancient Greek:
"psyche" means mind or soul, and "delein" means to show or to reveal.
So that translates into "mind revealing," or commonly used as "mind expanding."
So, there are many, many, many different substances
that could be, you know, classed as psychedelics, out there.
And I want to stress, really, really put emphasis on something here:
they are a completely different category of things
in terms of qualitative experience,
compared to anything else you might have come across in the street,
or you might have heard of from your friends,
you know, smoking ganja, maybe taking some cocaine and ecstasy;
this is completely different;
this is a whole separate category of things.
And I'm going to focus particularly on one specific kind of them today,
and these are called the serotonin receptor agonists:
LSD, psilocybin mushrooms, and DMT, also known as ayahuasca.
Out of these three, I'm going to focus on a particular one,
and that is the psilocybin mushroom.
You might see psilocin underneath;
well, psilocin is the active ingredient in psilocybin.
When you consume a psychoactive, you know, mushroom,
psilocybin breaks down in your stomach, and psilocin is what does the magic.
So that's where the magic in magic mushrooms comes from.
And I said that they are serotonin receptor agonists.
Well, what that means
is that they don't agonize your receptors or do harm to them.
What they do is that they bind with them,
the psilocin molecule - there is a picture for you here -
the psilocin molecule is an exact replica of your serotonin molecule,
which you produce by yourself.
It's an exact replica in nature.
It's as if nature was playing copy and paste with that.
And they way it binds with the receptor is absolutely magnificent,
because it doesn't do any harm to the receptor,
it does't cost your tissues anything, no tissue damage and all that,
and is the exact same copy of serotonin.
It's pretty brilliant, isn't it?
And magic mushrooms or the, you know, the psilocybin mushrooms,
they grow in almost any climate zone.
There are over 200 species of them around the world.
And they've been used up to 6,000 years before Christ came,
they've been used for a long, long time,
only in religious and spiritual setting, not recreationally;
this is not a recreational substance, and it should not be treated as such
because the effects, in comparison to other recreational substances
that we are more acquainted with, are completely different.
The effects are something that you can't really put into words,
as it will become apparent in a bit.
So, I want to focus on two specific researches, here,
to see how psilocin, the magic mushroom, affects the human brain.
After we've already established
the psilocin molecule binds with the serotonin receptor,
what actually takes place in the brain is something spectacular,
something incredible.
The first research that I'm going to talk about
was conducted way, way back in - not actually that way back, it was 2012.
It was London, a team of researchers led by Professor David Nutt, amazing fella,
Professor in Medicine, Imperial College London.
What they did
is that they administered psilocybin to adults in a controlled environment,
and they observed what the effects were.
So what happened was that when psilocin met the serotonin receptor,
blood flow to your default mode network -
that area that is constantly responsible for your thoughts of self and others
and future and past and overthinking stuff,
it's always active, almost anytime you are not engaged with anything -
they noticed that the blood flow of that area was severely reduced,
and the brain was put down in a sort of sedated dream-like state.
So far, so good.
But in 2014, the same team,
joined by an Italian mathematician, by the way -
so at least, to me, that tells me that the results should be correct -
they found that parallel to this decrease in blood flow,
there was also a decrease in neuronal activity
within the default mode network of the subjects.
So the neurons of the DMN, that normally exchange signals to process stuff for you,
were now kind of in a decreased functioning mode,
almost deactivated, in a way.
So one would ask, well what happens to all the stuff that the DMN normally processes,
they would still need to process while you are under the effects of this substance.
Well, you see, your brain is pretty, pretty awesome;
it's got this quality called neuroplasticity.
So that means whenever a signal in your brain,
you know, an emotion or a thought, which normally runs down a specific path,
is not able, for some reason, to run down the same path, in this case the DMN,
your brain will automatically create new connections,
it will create new junctions between neurons,
and it will find alternative ways to exchange information,
that same information that would normally be, you know -
oh, cause this is changing, something happened, OK -
yeah, that same information that your DMN would normally process
was now being processed through alternative ways, alternative paths.
And not only that, not only that.
What they observed was that the overall communication of neurons within your brain
was spectacularly enhanced.
The long-range effect, as it's called in science,
the long-range effect is when areas of the brain separated from each other
which do not normally cooperate to process information and stuff,
they were now establishing new connections under the effects -
when the DMN was deactivated.
And that is spectacular.
There was dramatic temporary reorganisation of the communication
and great enhancement in neuronal activity and communication.
And the new connections were perfectly synchronized in space and in time.
It's almost as if your brain knows how to do that stuff by default,
but it's forgotten it.
That's when you grew up, and that's kind of nasty.
So far, so good.
The brain was not breaking a sweat, the brain was not troubled,
it actually resembled a brain under meditation.
The brain scans were pretty much identical to those of a brain in meditation.
And meditation kind of affects the same neurological network,
that's the default mode network,
and it switches down your feelings of self and your self talk and all that.
And that's when things really, really start to come up.
And yeah, so it is pretty, pretty crazy
how much potential for communication between neurons we've got inside here,
that's the most complex apparatus known to man, the most complex thing,
and we barely use it, we barely use it.
So, this is an illustration of your brain connectivity
under a placebo and under psilocybin.
It's absolutely incredible.
And this is not half of your neurons,
the right side is not half of your neurons at all.
Your brain is not put under pressure. Your brain is doing its natural course.
It's doing what it does best, you know, transferring signals between neurons.
And your brain was not troubled by this substance at all.
So, it's fair to say that when we switch off all the resources
going for processing of thoughts about the self and evaluations
and pondering on the future and the past,
when we switch that off, your brain kind of unlocks itself.
It kind of reoccupies its own neurons,
which are otherwise not used,
and had not been used since you were all children,
because children use that stuff.
Children use alternative neurons, new neuronal paths all the time.
And adults don't, and that's kind of sad.
I can't - OK.
So, so yeah, you might be wondering,
how does that all feel in terms of non-scientific, normal, human kind of talk
and effects, subjective effects.
And you might've heard of the subjective effects of psychedelics as "the trip."
Some of you might be familiar with it,
some of you might have been down the, you know, the rabbit hole.
But what the trip is -
before I tell you what science says about emotional and perceptional changes,
I'll give you my own piece of mind of that, OK?
The trip is a trip to your subconscious mind,
it's a trip to your subconscious self, a trip to something that you've long lost
and you're not able to attain and reach and get into
while you are awake and, you know, normal and conscious and all that.
The trip is a trip to discovering your subconscious self,
and it's very scary, trust me on that, it's very scary, and it's very weird,
and it's life-changing in a way.
It's eye-opening, people have said.
So I want to very briefly mention something about psychedelics here.
It's very important to acknowledge the set and setting that you take them in.
Set refers to how you feel in life at the moment,
whether you feel loved, whether you feel accepted,
whether you're at peace with yourself.
And setting refers to your instant environment
and the comfort of that and the safety of your instant environment.
So these are critical for your experience.
You should not approach them lightly,
you should never approach a psychdelic substance lightly.
These have been used only in spiritual and religious environment,
and these have no place on our recreational table.
We've got enough stuff out there anyway.
So, in terms of perceptional changes, people have reported amazing stuff,
ranging from, you know, a complete level on which colors are perceived,
colors are actually felt during these experiences,
you are not seeing them with the eyes, you feel the colors,
and that's something very difficult to put into words.
The whole "trip" is very difficult to put into words.
These are just references that we are using here.
In terms of perception, people have reported open-and-closed-eyes visuals.
So what that means is that you can't really get away from the experience
and what you're seeing by closing your eyes,
because you will still be seeing stuff when you close your eyes.
And what you're going to be seeing
is going to be taking the form of very complex geometrical patterns,
symbols and very, very vivid imagery.
Memory recall on these substances is absolutely ridiculous -
absolutely ridiculous.
And what people have also mentioned
is that they had a feeling of loss of self,
and that's kind of normal when the DMN is not active.
All concepts of self are blown out of the window,
and you realize how little the self really means.
And we are so attached to our selves, aren't we? It's really bad.
And people have also reported losses of concept of time,
and that's something that you can't really put into words,
just explain to people, you know: I can't feel time anymore.
It's mind-blowing what happens to your brain
when you take the time perception out of the equation;
it's absolutely mind-blowing.
And in terms of emotions,
people have felt, they reported actually, extremes of emotions,
so people either felt extreme love, happiness, euphoria, connectedness,
acceptance of themselves and everyone and all that,
and at the same time,
you could get severe panic attacks, you could get paranoia,
you could get just unpleasant feelings, but really bad ones,
during the experience.
And once the experience is gone, you're pretty much back to normal,
but with a new perspective.
You've gained something that you can't really see the rest of the time.
In terms of general well-being and impressions, people have reported
a very deep spiritual understanding of themselves and of others,
and they've finally come to peace
with who they are and what they are doing in life.
So it kind of gives you this amazing perspective
on objective reality and reality's purpose and functions
that you can't normally perceive, really.
Feelings of enlightenment, feelings of awe, feelings of transcendence.
This may sound like a recreational substance,
but these are just words,
these are the experiences that people have reported.
That's indescribable, these are just references for you to get hold on.
And feelings and thoughts of impeding death,
that goes back to what I said about loss of self,
and it goes back to deactivation of the default mode network in the brain.
So far, so good.
Moving along.
These stuff have been found to have long-term effects on you.
That's not something I am going to hide, they do have long-term effects on you.
And from my own opinion, they are extremely positive.
Openness to experience a new perspective on life,
a completely new perspective on life,
have been reported up to 14 months after a single administration,
and that's not due to the substance, not due to the chemistry of the substance,
it's due to the psychological experience that you get
through ingesting this substance.
So that's that.
People with depression and anxiety
have reported that after a single administration of the substance,
depression and anxiety were gone for up to six months after one use,
after one experience with the psychedelic.
And it kind of becomes obvious, by now, why these are illegal,
and why pharmaceuticals, and especially antidepressants,
in the western world are such a big thing.
Because you see, most antidepressants out there, and anxiety relievers,
they affect the exact same area of the brain, the serotonin receptor.
But instead of binding with it and then exciting the receptor,
they regulate the way you re-uptake serotonin,
and this is just not good - this is just not good.
It causes toxicity, it causes harm to tissues,
and none of those pharmaceuticals can provide long-term effects
after a single use, absolutely none of them.
So that kind of makes it obvious why these have so much stigma around them
and why they are still kept illegal, which is ridiculous,
they've got nothing to do with an illegal recreational substance.
There is also no evidence of addiction to these,
so that's kind of another reason to not look at them as a recreational thing.
You can't get addicted to that experience, trust me,
it's so profound and so intense that you can't be addicted to that thing.
They've actually been found to treat addiction.
DMT, ayahuasca, is being confirmed to treat heroin and cocaine addiction.
You imagine that? Heroin and cocaine, that's pretty heavy.
LSD and magic mushrooms have been discovered to treat drug and alcohol,
lighter drugs, and alcohol and tobacco-smoking addiction,
and funnily enough, marijuana addiction.
So, yeah, you can't really get addicted to anything like that.
And I want to show you this really exciting table
to illustrate how they're not even in the same category, really.
This was done by the Independent Scientific Committee on Drugs
- 2014, London -
and examined the 20 most commonly used recreational substances.
What they discovered, in terms of overall harm done to the user and to society,
was that LSD and magic mushrooms, as you can see at the bottom of the table,
are a whole separate category of things, that they shouldn't even be there.
It's a shame to put them down there, look at that.
You've got alcohol, you've got heroin, you've got cocaine, tobacco, cannabis,
and they are just incomparable in terms of harm done to user and to society.
So there is absolutely no harm done to anyone, reportedly.
So yeah, there are very interesting effects,
there are very interesting effects with autism patients,
you can research that for yourself, there's tons of information online.
There are instant effects with ADHD patients and OCD patients;
these are major disorders in the western world.
Every third or every fourth child has ADHD, can you imagine that?
And those children get put on pharmaceuticals from day one,
and you can't really expect them to grow as normal children.
So that's absolutely ridiculous there.
And I want to leave you with probably my favorite research here.
That was conducted way back, 2006, and it was government sponsored.
It was sponsored by the US government, OK?
They wanted to know what this stuff can do to you, apparently.
So, they pooled like 40 people, 40 adults, aged between 40 and 45 -
I can't see many people above 30 in this hall,
but you can probably relate by thinking about your parents and all that.
Adults, 40 of them, aged 40 to 45,
all had college degrees, all had children, all had families, all had jobs.
So that's your definition for a normal person, right there.
And they administered the regular dose of psilocybin to those people.
And they discovered that 1 in 5 could be expected to have a bad trip -
that's the one where you feel panic and paranoia and all that -
for a good 4 or 5 hours, for as long as the instant effects last.
But I want to tell you something, a bad trip is only scary for 4 or 5 hours.
The amount of things that you are going to learn about yourself
and about the world and about others
and about your time and space that you live in through a bad trip
is something that you can't really put a value on.
So is kind of worth going through one of these,
and it's only 1 in 5, and that's a very, very rough estimation there,
and it's not something bad, it's not something that you should dread,
it's something that you then need to work with and integrate,
in terms of experience and thoughts that you need to integrate
after such an experience.
But what's funny, 1 in 3 of those adult people reported
that this was the single most spiritually significant event of their life.
Can you imagine that?
Adults, 40 to 45, with jobs and all that.
Taking mushrooms was the single most spiritually significant thing for them.
They might have been stupid, I don't know.
But 2 out of 3 reported that this experience
was in the top 5 of significant experiences at all,
not just spiritual.
And they were lined up pretty much with the death of a family member
and a child being born in the family.
That's how significant they rated this experience, can you imagine that?
That's research, that's not me making stuff up.
OK?
Many people in the past and in the present have spoken out about psychedelics.
There's so much stigma that shouldn't be there.
It's just up to us to educate ourselves.
And as I said, and I want to really stress that,
it is not my purpose to promote, or propagate use of any substance.
It is my purpose to make you curious again and make you go out there
and read what's being currently dealt with under the scientific umbrella.
I would never tell you to take a substance,
that's not something for me to tell you, really.
But what I firmly believe in,
and what I really want to get across to you guys today,
is that we, as conscious beings on this planet,
we've got the genetic obligation to never stop exploring
and never stop learning about ourselves.
So thank you so much.
(Applause)