Video URL: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IErO3RuGTXE
Joe Rogan podcast. Check it out. >> The Joe Rogan Experience. >> TRAIN BY DAY. JOE ROGAN PODCAST BY NIGHT. All day. >> Okay, Joe Rogan. Andrew, how are you? >> Um, splendid. How the devil are you, sir? [laughter] >> I think it's the first time anyone's answered splendid when I ask him how you doing. [laughter] >> So, um, tell me about your book, man. Let me see the cover of it first of all. >> Death by a >> death by astonishment, which is the famous Terrence McKenna quote, right? >> Yes. He was >> The only thing you have to fear is death by astonishment. >> Exactly. Yeah. >> You know, the first time I did DMT, I literally heard his words. >> Do not give in to astonishment. I literally heard those words. Well, it's almost like whatever's over there wanted me to hear that >> so I could like sink in or whatever cuz I had already heard it before, you know, like so they wanted to say it to me as well. >> It was very weird. >> Yeah, it's sage advice I think because >> Oh, it's the only way. >> It's the only [laughter] way >> cuz if you freak out Well, it's like that's a good thing. It's good advice in most of life. >> Like don't give in to the freak out. >> Yeah. Yeah. Um, confronting the mystery of the world's strangest drug. How did you get involved in this? >> DMT. >> Yes. >> Oh, so you have to go back to my teenage years really. So I mean I first heard about DMT through Terrence McKenna, a friend >> like most of us. >> Yeah, like most of us. But this was like this was during like the dawn of the internet, >> right? Long before you were a scientist. >> Long before I was a scientist, right? So, a friend gave me this magazine who had this interview with this bearded cheeky looking bearded fellow on the back called Terrence McKenna. And um he spoke about this thing called DMT. uh which of course I didn't know what that was but you know the stories that he was telling that you were going to
meet these insecttoid aliens and transdimensional machine owls jabbering in an indecipherable tongue and singing impossible objects into existence. I mean it sounded ridiculous. Um but I was kind of I was hooked. I thought this is it. This is this is the most [ __ ] incredible thing I've ever read in my life. Uh, and so I was I was like 15 16 years old and there was one computer in the school that was hooked up to the the worldwide web. So all of like >> What year was this? >> 96. >> Oh, >> giving my age away here, but >> early days of the >> early days. Yeah. Yeah. So I spent all my time just, >> you know, going on to Alter Vista. You remember Alta Vista? >> I do. >> Yeah. >> I didn't I didn't remember it till you brought it up. >> Yeah. I was just kind of trying to find out as much as I could about this and that was what triggered my decision to study chemistry and pharmarmacology. My kind of academic journey was was triggered by I want to know you know it's such a cool thing the idea that you can you can put a molecule in your brain and it it doesn't just change how you feel but it completely changes the entire structure of your reality. Mhm. >> Your entire world is is is obliterated and replaced with one that is completely alien. There's no relationship whatsoever to the normal waking world. That's incredible. And I kind of wanted to try at least to understand how that actually works. >> Well, the weirdest part about that molecule is that your brain makes it. And so then you have to go why and what's the purpose of that? And what are we really? You know what is what is consciousness and what is what is normal consciousness? What's the purpose of it? And why does this chemical exist? What does this molecule exist that's produced by the brain that changes everything and seems to transport you to a place that's more real than this physical reality that we find ourselves in right now. >> Exactly. And that is kind of the great mystery. And I don't I think
most people who even people who've kind of learned about DMT even scientists I mean I I speak to scientists um I I engage with scientists um neuroscientists often and they will say oh this is just hallucination this is just your brain kind of making it up. Uh and I don't think most scientists realize how confounding and how difficult to explain the DMT state is. I think it is one of um one of life's true mysteries. It is not simple to explain uh the DMT state. >> Well, I think it's almost irresponsible to try to explain it without experiencing it. It's not going to kill you. It's not going to kill you. It lasts 15 minutes. Stop being a [ __ ] >> Just do it and then tell me it's just [laughter] hallucination. That's it. >> Just do do a big one. >> Three giant hits. Come back. Tell me this is normal. Yeah. >> Tell me this is just a freak out because it does sure doesn't seem like it, does it? >> No. And um I mean that was what I mean I first learned about DMT as I said when I was 15 or 16, but my first experience was probably well close to a decade later. Um and I thought before I took it, I thought I kind of knew what to expect. I mean I'd listened to all the Terren McCann lectures I could find. I'd read all the books. I read all the trip reports and I thought, "Okay, I'm kind of ready for this. I kind of know what's going to happen and I wasn't ready and I was shocked. I was uh horrified in a sense. I was appalled. I mean, this was like this is impossible. This was an impossible experience. I was confronted with an what seemed to me to be the the undeniable hand of some kind of intelligence. um and not just any kind of intelligence, but a supremely advanced ancient um and yet highly technological intelligence. And that was undeniable to me in those first few moments within sort of 30 seconds of that drug hitting my uh my my brain. I knew that this is this is something else. And I was at first horrified. I was shocked. Uh I just thought this what is this? And then when I finally kind of came back, I was I was I remember lying on my bed on my back like shaking to my very bones and
all I could say was, "Oh my [ __ ] god." >> Because I was completely confounded, you know? I mean, by then I was a chemical pharmacologist. I was a scientist. I should I should I should know what's going on here, but I had no idea what was going on. And I thought, "This is this is it. This is what I need to get to grips with." It also gives you a very like an an unusual understanding of the mechanisms that you interface with the world like of like ego and logic and reasoning and rational thinking. It gives you like this understanding that those are kind of just these weird tools that you use to get by and you're left without them in there. It just they they evaporate and dissolve and then when you come back you're like what am I doing? >> Yeah. the way I talk like what what is my what's my purpose of interacting with people like what how much of the way I talk to people is this weird social dance weird um ego performative sort of like the way I structure sentences the way I communicate it all seemed so clunky >> when when you come back and you just go wow we're a mess like collectively as a species we're so without some sort of awakening or some some kind of experience, some sort of a psychedelic profound breakthrough experience. Like you're so hampered by your physical existence and this sort of ancient tribal programming that we have that we're running through this maze of life with. And you come back, you go, "God, this is so weird." >> Yeah. I think what DMT does is is show you that everything everything you thought you knew about how reality is structured and what's what's real and what's not real, what is fantasy, what's possible and what's not possible, all of that is is completely kind of extrapated in an instant. Uh and you realize actually we don't we don't have a [ __ ] clue about the way things really are. Um, I think DMT just demonstrates that whether you understand it, whether we can we can really understand what's going on in the brain and why and how this experience is even possible, it just shows you how little we really understand about the nature of of reality.
>> So, you've done some like legitimate studies with uh DMT, >> right? Yeah. I mean I work um mainly kind of I guess you could say theoretically uh in that I do more quantitative and qualitative analysis of the DMT state uh and try to understand try to use the tools of neuroscience to try to understand um how DMT elicits its its effects. So we can kind of get into if you want if you want to go really deep >> I can give you a kind of a a neuroscience lesson and you can talk about >> so so you know if we want to understand DMT we kind of have to start with the the basic observation uh you know before you take DMT um you are experiencing a world right whenever you're awake and conscious you're experiencing a world the normal waking world this is the world that's kind of familiar to us and you take DMT that world is transformed. It disappears. It's obliterated and it's replaced with one that is um altogether stranger, shall we say. Uh and so so what I want to do is kind of understand first of all how that happens, what's actually going on in the brain to cause that transition and why that happens. Um, and you can't do that unless you have a a decent understanding of the normal waking world. So what is the normal waking world? It's a model. It's an interface generated by your brain. So you have this worldbuilding machinery on the outer layer of your brain called the cortex and this is generating your world all the time. uh all the features of the world that you're experiencing are represented within um the cortex. Um and that applies whether you are just normal waking life, it applies in dreaming. Uh it even applies in the psychedelic state. The world you experience is is always constructed as a model uh by the brain. And so what that means is that psychedelics what they're doing is they're they're perturbing the brain. they're manipulating the brain um and altering that model. Now, for example, with let's say psilocybin from magic mushrooms. Um psilocybin binds to this receptor in the brain called the 5HT2A receptor which you probably familiar with this serotonin receptor.
>> And so this is a it's uh it's called an excitatory receptor. It stimulates these neurons of which your cortex is constructed from and makes them more excitable. makes them more likely u to fire and share information between uh to other neurons. You get this kind of loosening up of the the world model that your brain is constructing. So the walls start to breathe. Objects seem to kind of change their identity. Everything becomes more fluid and dynamic. And if you put someone into an MRI machine, for example, you can actually see that in the normal waking state, you can see the neural activity. It's it's dynamic, but it's it's kind of organized and well orchestrated. You give someone psilocybin, let's say, or LSD, uh, and you start to see the activity becoming sort of more random and fluid. Um, so you get this this state of slightly increased disorder as if the the the kind of the tuning dial between order and disorder in the brain has been slightly nudged towards disorder. But then with DMT, something remarkable happens. In the the early stages of the experience, you get this um kind of quite chaotic state suggesting that the brain is entering this more disordered um state, but then it kind of collapses into this brand new order. So you go from the order of the normal waking world to this disordered state and then you collapse into this completely different type of order. So the brain is effectively constructing an entirely different model of reality. It's no longer the normal waking world model which acts as kind of an interface uh with the environment but it's constructing a a completely different world model. >> When you say constructing, why do you use that term? Why why do you use the brain is constructing? Because your well okay so so if you think about you know how does the brain interact with the how do we interact with environment using our senses right so light information comes through the eyes uh the retina and it stimulates the the very back of the brain you have an area oh >> oh you brought slides >> I brought slides >> here we go >> yeah maybe the next one Jamie is a bit easier to see there we go so at the
right the back of the brain here you have an area called V1 which is the primary visual cortex that's your interface with the world. Um, sensory information comes and strikes. It activates patterns of neural activity in V1, but it's very very messy. It's like lines and patches of color and, you know, lines moving in certain directions. It's a mess, right? It's very noisy. It's very messy. It's incredibly dynamic. Doesn't make any sense. And so, what your brain does is it has another level above V1 um that kind of has a bird's eyee view. and is looking for patterns uh within this neural activity in this lowest level. So it's looking saying, "Oh, those lines kind of could be a triangle or this could be a circle." It's trying to find patterns to try generate uh order from this messy level in V1. >> Can I ask you this? How do we know it does that? >> That's a good question. Um well, there are a number of things. So the earliest evidence came from a uh one of the earliest forms of evidence came from a guy called Wilder Penfield. Are you familiar with >> No. >> So Wilder Penfield, he was interested in um um treating epilepsy and he invented something called the Montreal procedure where he would remove a part of the brain that was the focus of epileptoform activity. Um the idea being that it would kind of cure someone's epilepsy. But before he could do that, of course, he needed to make sure that he wasn't removing, you know, important parts for someone's function. So what he would do is he would cut the top of their skull off [laughter] when they're still awake. >> Yeah. And kind of expose their brain and then he would zap different parts of their brain and say, you know what's happening? >> Oh my god. [laughter] Can you imagine? >> Isn't it crazy that that's how we have to find out what works? >> We have to like it's the aliens probably look at us and go, "Oh my god, you guys are still doing that." >> Yeah. Nowadays things have moved on a bit, right? >> I'm sure. But I mean this is not that long ago, right? How long ago is this?
>> 1950s. >> Yeah. Okay. Yeah. >> Not even 100 years. So 100 years ago they were literally taking your skull and turning into a hat. they would >> popping the cap off and just uh okay yeah let's see what this does >> exactly they would zap it and what he noticed is that when he would zap right at the back of the brain so this is the this primary visual cortex that's receiving information from the environment they would this his patients would say oh I see flashes of light I see lines I see colors with very simple kind of things >> but then he would move forward >> um to kind of higher levels that we know now are kind of higher levels and then they'd say oh I see triangles or I see an orange circle, things like this. Then he keep going higher and higher and then they'd say, "Oh, I see people or I see cops and robbers." Uh, and then right at the top you reach an area called the hippocampus, which you may have heard of involved in memory. Mhm. >> Uh, and the hippocampus basically keeps an eye, it's got a bird's eye view of the all of this world model your brain is constructing and it's kind of following and looking for, you know, interesting or important patterns. Um, and when he stimulated that, um, his patients would actually report memories. They would say, "Oh, I hear somebody talking to me. You know, this happened this morning when I was leaving the house. My mother was telling me something about, you know, you've got your coat on backwards or something like this. Um, so you have these levels of the cortex that go from very simple um um kind of very fun low-level uh visual data at at the bottom end and then at the very top you've got kind of higher order things such as you know faces or people. This is sitting at the top. Um now interesting have you ever when you are dreaming right so when you let's think about dreaming for a second it's quite instructive I think when you're dreaming right the brain is actually constructing the world in basically the same way as it does when you're awake dreams are kind of selective simulations of the waking world of course is that there's no sensory inputs so if you scan someone's brain
while they're having a dream, you'll see that this back of the brain, this primary visual cortex is kind of quiet. The brain is kind of using what it's learned about building the world in the normal waking state to construct uh the dream world. So the dream world is built in exact it's built from exactly the same stuff um as the normal waking world. However, there's there's some interesting features. If you've in a dream, have you ever um tried to use your cell phone or >> No, not many people have. Um what about read a book in a dream? >> I don't think so. One one thing I have learned to do is to I think I saw it in a movie. If you knock on a door, you'll realize that you're in a dream. and this waking life. >> I don't remember what movie it was, >> but it was a a guy who was instructing how to lucid dream that if you make a habit of walking through a doorway in your home and every time you walk in through a doorway in your home, tap on the door the doorway, knock on it with your hand and say, "Am I awake? Knock knock knock." >> And then >> you'll get in a habit of doing that every time you go through a doorway. And if you go through a doorway in your dream, you will do it. You'll say, "Am I awake?" And then as you go to knock knock, you're like, "Oh [ __ ] I'm dreaming." >> There we go. >> And then you realize, and >> if you don't give into astonishment, you can maintain that dream, right? It's that's the thing. It's like, "Oh my god, I'm dreaming. I can't believe this." And then you wake up, right? You get too freaked out and you wake up. But if you don't >> do it, and I've only been able to do this a few times because I don't really knock. I did it for a while after the movie. I saw the movie. I tried it for a while and I did have a dream like that where I went through a doorway and I said, "Am I dreaming?" And I'm like, "Oh my god, I'm dreaming." And then I realized I was dreaming. And then I was like flying. I was doing a lot of weird stuff, >> but then it went away and then I stopped doing it. >> And I've always been like, "Why [sighs]
don't I practice lucid dream? I've always I've thought about it like a dozen times at least. >> Like, why don't I just get a book on lucid dreaming and really try to attempt to learn the techniques and and I never do." >> Yeah. It takes commitment. But now there's actually a simpler way of that kind of reality tests. Um a simpler way now is to just get out your cell phone occasionally, open up the the calculator and do a do a few calculations and just check everything's working >> right or open up a book um and and try to read it. Because the thing about the dream world is again just like the normal waking world it's it's it's constructed over kind of levels of a hierarchy from the highest level models. So your brain can construct a highle model of a uh a cell phone quite easily but all of the fine details of how it functions that's all represented at the lowest level of the cortex that's really dependent on sensory inputs. So you can dream of having your mobile phone in your hand and doing with it. But as soon as you try to do something uh with it to actually your brain has to kind of construct that function and it it can't do it unless it has access to sensory inputs. And so that's how you can test if you're lucid dreaming. >> Okay. >> Yeah. And and which is why the DMT state is so fascinating is because it's it's nothing like the dream state. People say um you know that that perhaps DMT is released um when you're dreaming and that it actually triggers. I mean this this goes back to um the 1980s. There's a theoretical paper published by a guy called Jacece Callaway and he said oh maybe DMT could be produced uh during RM sleep because it's closely related to melatonin structurally both kind of tryptoamine structures. Um but when you analyze the the phenomenology you know the actual experience of DMT it's nothing like dreaming. You dreaming is generally the brain making use of what it knows about how to construct the world in the waking state and doing so in the dream state. So that's why if you ask people um you know many studies have on dreaming have shown that people when they dream they dream about people they
dream about dogs and cats uh they dream about you know that the amount of time they spend talking on the telephone or watching TV is actually similar to what it is in waking life. Um so dreaming is more like a selective simulation of the waking world. It's not that difficult to explain. Um because your brain from the moment you were born, your brain was learning to construct the world as a model of the environment. This is this world is the only world that your brain knows how to build or should know how to build. And yet when you introduce this molecule dimethylryptoamine into the brain, the brain suddenly starts constructing a world it never learned to construct. It's like the brain is build uh speaking a language it never learned to speak and doing so flawlessly. These worlds are of beautiful crystalline clarity, perfectly finessed, staggeringly complex narrative complexity um that I think is very difficult to explain. There's no simple explanation of why the brain should should suddenly become capable of constructing these worlds unless unless and this is where things become more contentious. Uh we are indeed interfacing with some kind of intelligence. That's my that's the explanation that makes sense to me is that somehow DMT is gating access to some kind of that the flow of information from some kind of intelligent agent that is directing um the DMT experience. So it's not a sensed world. It's not a kind of a dreamt world. It's actually a directed world. I always say you don't break through um into the DMT world. The DMT world breaks through into you. It's like this intelligent agent has commandeered your neural machinery, the worldbuing machinery of your brain >> and is is directing um everything that you see. It has complete control. [snorts] >> It's interesting that you use the word construct rather than observe. >> So you're using you're using terminology that seems to indicate that you believe that you're constructing reality. >> Yes. >> Not that you're just observing reality. No, because it's not if you think about perception in the same way of like looking like a video camera,
just take taking imagery images of the world. That's not how it works. Um the brain must actively construct a model of of of the environment. That's all what it's always doing. It's always constructing a model. um and it is constantly using that model to make predictions um about um the way that kind of predictions about the the evolution of sensory information. It's constantly saying okay if this is if this model that I'm currently using is good then this should happen next. This is the pattern of sensory information that I should receive next. So, if I, for example, um, move this bottle of water across your your perceptual field, even if you close your eyes, you could probably tell me where the water's going to be in a couple of seconds because it's it's moving. Your brain has a model of the water um, and it is using that to make predictions. And it's only when something surprising happens, you know, if the water if I do this and your brain detects um that there's something its predictions start to fail and you get these error signals and these are what flow into the brain and the brain uses then to kind of update its model until the errors decline. So you'll never you never have direct access to the world or to the environment should I say. You only have direct access to this model that your brain is constructing. H that's where it gets weird >> because I'm assuming your model and my model are very similar, >> right? >> That would be if we could ever get to a a point where we could at least temporarily enter into someone else's consciousness and see how they see the world. Yeah. >> I think we're going to get a lot of answers. >> We're going to be like, "Oh, you guys live in a totally [clears throat] different [ __ ] world. No wonder why you think we should be communists and we should, [laughter] you know, >> Well, it's true. Yeah, >> I mean every whatever your chemical makeup is, your life experience, your biology, whatever contributing factors, I I'm always assume that your construction of the world is the same as
my construction of the world. But every now and then I'll get a text message from a friend about some world event and their take is so crazy that I'll just go to go, "Wow, this person is living in a completely different world than me." >> I mean, they are. I mean, yeah. I mean that their brain the structure of their brain the organization of their neural networks and it's all different in everyone everyone has a unique brain and so in a sense everyone has to construct an entirely unique model of reality but we agree on certain things we reach this kind of consensus about what we call things but we you know if I point you know something that that yeah I can say that oh there's I can describe the colors I can describe the people um but again we're all using our own personally constructed model and that's what we experience Well, that's what's weird, you know, because we again it's just this assumption. >> So, your your take is that when you're dreaming, you're trying to construct this world and that you don't really have the tools to leave a book where you can read. You don't have the tools to use a calculator. You just know what a calculator is. And so, if you're in in the absence of an actual calculator, your brain's not capable of creating one. >> Yeah. So, so, so again you have at the highest level you have a calc a calculator model which is kind of a broad idea of a calculator. It doesn't have all the details. All the details are at the lower end. Uh, actually we can show this. Can Sorry, Jamie. Can I use Jamie like this? >> Sure. Anytime. >> Um, can you go to the picture of Margaret Thatcher? >> Yeah. The problem I was going to bring this up in some way. I think it's supposed to play a video maybe. >> Not yet. >> Well, the videos don't seem to be playing in the keynote. There's three or four of them and none of them play. >> Oh, really? >> Yeah. I figured you were gonna get here at some point. >> Oh, okay. >> I don't know how to >> It's It's just a >> Is it formatted for Windows?
>> No, let me go back. Go back. >> I didn't know that was going to happen. Okay, so >> perfect. >> Okay, so go back one. >> Okay, this is kind of really interesting, right? >> Yeah, I've seen this. >> You've seen this, right? This is really >> not with Margaret Thatcher, but I've se seen it with other faces. >> Yeah. So the original was with Margaret Thatcher. >> All right, let's explain it to people that are just listening because there still quite a lot of people. >> So this is called the Thatcher effect. So when you're looking at this image of Margaret Thatcher or anyone, your brain is constructing a model of this person, right? A model of their their face. And as I said, it's constructed over a hierarchy. So you have the overall idea, the overall concept of Margaret Thatcher, right? The whole face, the whole thing, >> right? And then you have at a lower level you have the eyes and the mouth and the nose and they're kind of separate. And then going further still within the eyes you've got circles and patches of color and all this stuff. And right at the bottom you have this really messy system of lines and things that don't make any sense, right? Um and you can actually show how this hierarchy is constructed. At the moment it's it just looks like Margaret Thatcher and you can't really break it down. Uh but if you flip uh over like this. So just leave it there for a second, Jamie, please. Yeah. So now you see uh what we've done is we've basically we've weakened this highest level model, right, of the whole face because the brain isn't very good at building models of faces that are upside down, right? >> Okay. >> Uh and so this looks there's something wrong with the image clearly, >> but it looks like Margaret Thatcher up. looks like Margaret Thatcher, but it's actually what's happened is the whole face has been flipped over, but the mouth and the eyes are actually the correct way up. >> Right. >> Right. But to the brain in this configuration, it's not that surprising because the eyes kind of look as they
should. The mouth looks as it should. You're seeing the whole image in its pieces if you like, right? >> You're seeing that lower level fragments and it's only when you flip it that it becomes >> horrific. >> Horrific. Right. So now you've reestablished that highlevel model um of Margaret Thatcher and the brain goes, "Fuck, this is completely wrong." And this is why you get that that it's immediately obvious >> with the upside down eyes and the upside down mouth. It looks completely insane. She looks like a demon. >> She looks like a demon, right? >> Which is really weird. >> Which is really weird. It's called the Thatcher effect. >> It's so Was she the original person that they used this idea? Who came up with this? Who? >> Oh, good question. But this is fairly old now. now I think at least a couple of decades old. >> It's so funny that they figured that out. That's a a great insight into how the mind works because the upside down Thatcher with the upside down with the correct eyeballs and mouth. >> The second one, Jamie, >> that does not look crazy at all. That's what's so weird about the third image >> cuz the third image really looks psychotic. Like if it was a monster movie and then someone got bitten by a zombie and then that was what they looked like and then they came running after you be like, "Oh [ __ ] she got bit." >> Yeah, exactly. >> Her eyeballs are upside down. Her mouth is upside down. Cuz that's what it looks like. >> Yeah. >> Weird. Like the for people listening, the big teeth, your above teeth, they're they're below and the little tiny teeth are above and the eyeballs are the eyelids, the top part are on the bottom. And it really looks like a monster. >> Yeah. And it's weird that it looks like a monster because it looks so damn normal upside down. >> Yeah, >> exactly. >> Weird. >> So, yeah, it's just it's it's it's
revealing this hierarch this structure of of this world model that your brain is always constructing. You see, >> that's a good way to describe why it's constructing rather than observing. Right. >> That's clearly an example of you're constructing normaly and that upside down face. It's not normal at all. >> It's not normal at all. Right. >> Yeah. Yeah. Okay. Yeah. >> So, >> do we know what's going on when you're dreaming? Is it potentially is there a release of DMT? Because DMT is exogenally, it's produced in the brain. >> It's produced in the liver and the lungs, right? It's produced a lot of other areas. So, we know the body makes it, right? >> And we also know that melatonin plays a role and there's a lot of other things going on. Is it possible that DMT is one of the ingredients in the soup? This episode is brought to you by Squarespace, the platform I used to build my website. Thanks to their design intelligence, you can create a stunning personalized website tailored to your needs. It's like having two decades of design expertise and cutting edge AI in your corner. Need to manage payments? Squarespace payments makes it simple with options like Apple Pay, CLA, and more. Go to squarespace.com/rogan for a free trial. And when you're ready to launch, use the code Rogan to get 10% off your first purchase of a website or domain. >> Well, um, so I think the problem is, um, as I said, is that yes, it's possible biochemically. Um, now the pineal gland is what people often refer to, right? >> Mhm. uh because the pineal gland has this long history and mystical traditions, the seat of the soul, the third eye, all this kind of stuff. So, everyone wants DMT to produce to be produced by the pineal gland. >> Yeah. >> Um the problem is is first of all is that the pineal gland is very small. It's about the size of the end of my my pinky. Um and it's designed or evolved to produce nanograms, micrograms of melatonin. Very small amounts you need. Um, so the idea that this gland can suddenly start pumping out milligrams of DMT to achieve
a kind of psychedelic state in the dream state is is quite an ask. Um, there have there have been some studies or one study in particular actually looked at DMT levels. So we've known since the 1950s that DMT is produced by uh is a product of mamalian physiology and is produced by humans. um in in those days they tried to kind of pin schizophrenia on DMT, >> right? >> Uh the idea that if there was some uh fault, some problem with tryptoamine metabolism, instead of producing serotonin, which is five hydroxyryptamine, um the brain could instead start producing elevated levels of NN dimethylryptamine or DMT. And so they started looking for differences in DMT levels in uh psychotic patients, schizophrenic patients versus normal people. And there have been more than a hundred studies that have looked at levels of DMT in the in the blood, in urine, in cerebral spinal fluid. But there's there's no convincing consistent evidence um that suggests that DMT is um the cause of psychosis or dreaming. In fact, >> can I in end indogenous production? Yeah. >> What what are the what's the mechanism like what is producing it? >> Okay. So, it's actually produced from tryptophan. So, DMT is an alkyoid and alkaloids are all produced from amino acids. So, tryptophan uh is first um converted to tryptoamine. This is called de decaroxilation. You remove a carbon dioxide molecule and you got tryptoamine. >> Now, here you can go in a number of different directions. You can go to serotonin which is five hydroxytoine or you can go to DMT. You just simply add two methile groups two carbon atoms. >> And so what is adding these things? >> So there's an enzyme called uh indolethylamine nmethyl transferase or inm for short. This is the key um enzyme for DMT production. It adds these two groups, these methile groups to tryptoamine which is produced from tryptophan to produce DMT >> and tryptophan is produced from >> so it's tryptophan is one of the essential amino acids. So it's it is something you consume. >> Do you do people take tryptophan as a
dietary supplement in order to increase the potency of their experiences? >> Um some people do. uh I I don't think it would have an appreciable effect but people take tryptophan for for lots of reasons. >> So this process what makes you think that this is a size dependent process because if just because this gland is so tiny why can't it do it? >> Okay. Well there's a number of things. First of all it's it's it's just there's orders of magnitude. I mean, a gland that is designed to produce nanogs or micrograms of something to ask it to produce a thousand times more of an entirely different molecule is quite an ask. However, that's not the only reason that there's actually been a study recently in the last I think three or four years that looked at DMT levels in uh rat brains in real time. So, not in humans, but in rat brains. They actually have a technique now called microdialysis where they can basically measure in a wake uh an awake moving you know normally behaving rat they can measure the levels of DMT in its brain and what they found was that the levels of DMT first of all were surprisingly high. So similar levels to things like serotonin and dopamine um >> which is unusual >> which is yes which makes you think that it must have some kind of function but importantly they also in some rats they remove the pineal gland they kind of cut it out >> and found that it didn't affect um so we don't need the pineal in other words all brain cells all neurons can probably produce um DMT the lungs can almost certainly produce DMT >> why do you think that the pineal gland and had this role in ancient mysticism. Why why did they have this appreciation of it as being this very sacred organ that I mean is I mean it's the eye of Horus, right? >> Right. >> I mean certainly looks like it. It look like the eye of Horus looks exactly like a cross-section of the pineal gland. >> Yeah. I mean it sits right in the center of the brain as well. Um so it >> and it looks it's kind of unusual as you say. It looks like a little tiny pancake.
>> Like how did they where did they come up? It's whenever there's I mean it's very easy to dismiss like ancient mysticism and ancient ideas of what what things are sacred about you know the human body and what what areas of the mind are producing these the third eye like that's how it was always described. >> But I I don't want to I I it's too weird. So I I I go wait a minute before you dismiss because it's fun to dismiss things like ah they didn't know anything like >> how do we know that they weren't on to something like maybe there is a role that that plays in not normal DMT production but in the big dump that you get before you die >> right >> when you have a near-death experience maybe that has to be maybe that's the kill switch maybe that's the big dump switch [laughter] you know what I mean like if >> no one's ever put it that before >> because if you think about it's the seat of the soul, right? If that is where the soul is like connected, that's where the soul is like anchored into this physical reality. And if you're going to die, if you have a near-death experience, something has got to go, "All right, boys. This is not a drill. Let her go." And then, I mean, that's what a lot of people think is happening. When people have near-death experiences, there's a lot of very bizarre aspects of it, but one of them is the uniformity of their experiences. There's a lot of very similar experiences. Very similar. Um, you know, you have with anything, you have variables that people may or may not be adding on to their own because people love to tell a good tale, you know, and why miss out on a chance when you've had a near-death experience that was profound to maybe add a little to it, make it a little bit more exciting, >> but the overall kind of framework of the experience is very similar. And I often wonder like what is that? Like I I have a friend who was in a car accident and had a near-death experience and said that when they came back they had no fear like for that moment. I mean they can fear now but like no fear at all about dying, no fear at all about life and that this was this very weird transformative journey where they went to another place and then they returned.
>> But it was very real. It felt very to the point where all their anxiety even about the car accident being knocked unconscious and all that stuff all went away. >> Yeah. I think the the the near-death experience connection to DMT is is very interesting because Rick Strasman of course in the '9s when he wrote DMT the spirit molecule he hypothesized that in fact the point of death DMT is released by the pineal and it kind of acts as the conduit by which you you the soul exits the body and enters the afterlife. And of course that was, you know, largely speculation. It was just a hypothesis. But in recent years, there's been some really fascinating work showing that DMT actually if you if you take some neurons, a culture of neurons for example, brain cells, which are very sensitive to oxygen levels. So if you deprive neurons of oxygen, they die very quickly. This is why strokes can be so rapidly devastating. If the brain becomes deprived of blood and oxygen, then the brain cells start to die. But in the presence of DMT, they live a lot longer. So they kind of protecting the the the brain against hypoxia. Now when does the brain enter a hypoxic state during the dying process, right? This is when as your cardiovascular system starts to collapse, your respiratory system collapses, the brain becomes deprived of oxygen. And this is precisely the time when you want the brain to be flooded with DMT just in case you come back to protect the brain u from um the lack of oxygen. So that suggests a clear and obvious link. And if you kill rats actually again I was referring to this microdialysis experiment. If you kill a rat whilst measuring DMT levels as the rat dies the DMT levels spike. Um, so it suggests that the rat is also maybe having a >> tripping balls, >> an actual death experience. >> I wonder if they come back as a person. >> Yeah, come back. [laughter] >> But it does suggest, right, it does suggest that >> there is maybe some link there. But what it doesn't explain, of course, is why you would need why this molecule would be does why this molecule would be so
profoundly visionary, >> right? >> Um, that's still kind of a mystery. you know, are you being kind of given access to wherever you go after death? You know, is is it a vision of of what happens to you later on? >> That's But the question to me, my question rather, is not is are we sure it's a vision or is it a gateway? Are is it are you entering into a non-physical space that has its own laws that it's very different but it is a reality and it's not that it's a vision that not that it's a hallucination or a visionary representation or that you're even constructing this reality but you're you're entering into a completely different dimension that has laws that are very different than the dimension that we find ourselves in right now. >> Okay. So what I think is that I don't think with DMT that you're going anywhere as such. Um I think you know as I said the the world you experience is always represented in the brain and that must apply I think in the DMT state. If you if you're experiencing an altered world, there must be some reput uh representation of that within your uh cortical machinery, within your cortex, within your brain. I think that has to be the case. Um, however, I don't think uh and I think it's a a great mystery is is how the brain is actually capable of constructing that on its own in the same way that the brain constructs the dream world because the brain knows how to construct the waking world. So it's it's simply using its stored models. The same with hallucinations. If you look at um case reports of hallucinations in psychotics, you go through the psychiatric literature, the vast majority of hallucinations are normal appearing, normalsized people, normal animals. It's like waking dreams if you like. >> But with DMT, it's not your the brain is somehow constructing a world that has no relationship whatsoever. >> Nothing is taken from the normal waking world. It's like the brain is is suddenly has switched to speaking a language that it never learned. And I think that suggests that actually what's happening is you're not going somewhere, but you are in this more kind of fluid and dynamic state that psychedelics
induce. You're kind of you're making the brain much more sensitive to being commandeered. I think it's a I think what you're seeing uh is what this intelligent agent as I recall as I tend to call it. I don't call it spirits or aliens or anything like that. I think there's some it's clear to me that there's some kind of intelligence and that intelligence is interacting with our brain in some way and and showing us kind of what it wants us to see if you like. Does that assume that consciousness resides in the brain though or is I mean when you take into account the possibility of consciousness being something that the brain tunes into and that it forms its own version of reality based on its biology, it life experiences etc etc. But that it is just a radio and it is just forming its version of consciousness. but that it it is actually tuning into consciousness and that consciousness is sort of a universal thing that exists not just in people but maybe in other life forms as well certainly animals and maybe plants. So one of the weirder things about people who trip I'm sure you know this is they experience communication from plants >> like tree hugging becomes a real thing. >> Yeah. >> Like tree hugging is a very different thing. It's like, "Oh, you're alive. Hello." You know, and we know that trees and plants in general, like especially house plants, when people interact with them, they grow better. They they they're healthier plants. Like, you can prove it. It's interesting. Play music for them, communicate with them, say nice things. We also know that plants in like abusive households or people are alcoholics and cigarette smoke, they're they're going to do terrible. >> Yeah. I think that as soon as I start talking about first of all I I I think consciousness is absolutely fundamental. I don't think that the brain generates consciousness. Um I think consciousness is in some way the only thing that really exists. You know I think that it's the absolute ultimate reality is consciousness itself. >> Do you think everything is conscious? >> I think everything is consciousness.
>> Everything is consciousness. Interesting. >> Yeah. Um, do you think that there's a state that maybe inanimate objects achieve that is very different than our interpretation of consciousness, but yet they're still conscious? >> I think in in in >> which is why cuz I say this because Jamie has OJ Simpson's golf clubs and I feel like they have uh some consciousness attached to them. [laughter] >> I mean I mean >> it's probably bad, right? >> Didn't exist in the 90s. They're like only 10 years old. >> That's bad voodoo, bro. You got [laughter] >> Yeah, you got to watch out. Um I think you know what do we mean by when something's conscious in in in Buddhism? They have this the they have this idea of things that exist from their own side, which I really like. You know, >> from their own side. >> Yes. So you exist from your own side. In other words, presumably I can never prove it. there is someone a subjective perspective there >> that's actually model you know that's experiencing me and I'm and Jamie as well everyone has is like a perspective um you know I exist from my own side whereas does this >> skull exist from its own side is is does it have its own unique perspective I would say probably not but I don't know and consciousness is kind of like the interaction you know uh reality kind of emerges by by the interaction of all of these perspective these conscious as agents if you like everyone all these points of subjective perspective I think that's probably closer to what ultimate reality is um but I think it's very difficult you know I'm a neuroscientist so I focus on not consciousness per se but on what I can get my teeth into I can get my teeth into the content into the structure um the actual meat and potatoes >> right >> um um of never used that phrase before uh the meat [laughter] yeah the meat and potatoes of the DMT experience things that I can talk about and analyze that's you know what I'm trying to do I think
is I'm I'm not trying to tell people what I think DMT is I'm just trying to convince them that it's not what they think it is that it's not just hallucination that it's not these are not dreams um that kind of thing >> I really feel like to be talking about the subject you should experience it like I said before I think it's so silly that there's very serious people that are academics that are brilliant people that are dancing around what this thing is without doing it. >> Right. >> I've never met anybody who's done it who comes back and goes, "Eh, >> yeah. No, it's impossible to do. >> No big deal." [laughter] I was I was interacting with a guy on Twitter and um X um who referred to entity encounters as elucory social events is which to me was just the most absurd watered down I mean this guy had obviously never encountered a [ __ ] DMT entity or you wouldn't but the idea that this is just an elucory social event just seemed to me absurd and >> had he had any experiences >> I I I very much doubt he was a prominent neuroscientist >> but here's the thing sometimes people have low dose experiences. Like I talked to a friend once that had a very I'm like, "How many hits did you take?" And they're like, "One." I'm like, "Oh." >> Yeah. You need two more. >> You need two more. [laughter] >> Take the third hit. >> Yeah. You missed the gate. >> You didn't hit the gate. You're on the outside [clears throat] going, "This place is kind of weird." Yeah. But if you go through, it's a lot weirder than you think. >> It's a lot weirder than you think. Yeah. I think it's a lot weirder than Terrence McKenna always say, you know, stranger than you can suppose. >> Can suppose. [laughter] Yeah, he had a really amazing video that I think I posted it on my Instagram, uh, of McKenna like in the 1990s, I believe it was, talking about the upcoming decades >> and what's going to happen in terms of how weird the world is going to be with technological innovation and what we're going to be seeing, artificial intelligence, alien contact. I mean, he basically nailed it. I mean, [ __ ]
nailed it. He nailed it to a tea. I think he might have predicted time travel, but here's the thing. If they are capable of time travel, when are you going to find out about it? When are they going to if if let's say DARPA is working on some defense project and uh part of it involves like, you know, one way to stop a war would be literally to go back in time five minutes and kill everybody who's about to start the war. >> Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. >> Right. You know, >> kill Hitler. that kind of >> or or stop a bomb from being switched on. You literally go back in time and stop the bomb stop the missiles from launching. >> Would you when would we learn about that? When would first of all it very highly unlikely that it exists outside of the quantum stage right now, right? I get it. But if it did, if we're talking about a hundred years from now or 200, would we know? We would not. Do you want me to play it? >> Oh, yes. This is it. This is it. This is amazing. I love this. First of all, I just love his voice. Had a guy had the best voice is going to rise excruciatingly even beyond the excruciating present levels of contradiction. So, uh, I think it's just going to get weirder and weirder and weirder and finally it's going to be so weird that people are going to have to talk about how weird it is. And at that point, novelty theory can come out of the woods. Uh, because eventually people are going to say, "What the hell is going on? It's just too nuts." It's not enough to say it's nuts. You have to explain why it's so nuts. I look for the invention of artificial life, the cloning of human beings, the possible contact with extraterrestrials, possible human immortality and at the same time appalling acts of brutality, genocide, race baiting, uh homophobia, famine, starvation because uh the systems which are in place to keep the world sane are in utterly inadequate to the forces that have been unleashed. Uh the collapse of the socialist world, the rise of the internet, these are changes so immense nobody could imagine them ever happening. And now that they have happened, nobody even bothers to mention what a big deal it is. Uh, the mushroom
said to me once, it said, "This is what it's like when a species prepares to depart for the stars." You don't depart for the stars under calm and orderly conditions. It's a fire in a mad house. And that's what we have, the fire in the mad house at the end of time. This is what it's like when a species prepares to move on to the next dimension. The entire destiny of all life on the planet is tied up in this. We are not acting for ourselves or from ourselves. We are we happen to be the point species on a transformation that will affect every living organism on this planet at its conclusion. >> Nailed it. I think that's exactly what's going on right now. The only thing that he didn't quite get is the artificial intelligence aspect. how much of a factor but I mean how could you predict all that in 1998? I think with you know um we we live in a very thin sliver if you look at the development of an intelligent civilization right over hundreds of thousands of years. Um we live in this this thin sliver this kind of technological phase. Um, and once you enter that phase that we're in now, you know, the computer age, the information age or whatever it is, you're probably only a few hundred years away from departing for the stars uh or something like this of complete or even completely transcending our biology. And this isn't a crazy idea anymore. You know many sensible astrobiologists and other um intelligence theorists think yes probably what's going to happen in the next few hundred years is that we will become post-biological. Um, and so if you think about the universe more broadly, if we're looking for aliens, quote unquote, aliens, as being kind of wetrained, wet-bodied biological beings, we're probably only looking for a tiny fraction of the intelligence in the cosmos. And the vast majority of intelligence in the cosmos is likely to be post-biological, to have completely dispensed with the biological form. Now, what's interesting about that, uh, Jamie, sorry. Um, there's an Are you heard, you've heard of the Cardesev scale, right? >> I don't think so. What is it? >> So, the Kardashev scale was generated by
a guy called Cardev. I think it was Soviet guy. And he kind of h theorized of as intelligences progress and develop, they go through a number of phases. >> Um, so you have a type zero. >> Okay. I have heard scale. >> You've got it right. So we're kind of a type zero level one on the cardf scale. Then level two um sorry we're level zero. So level one would be when we for example are able to harness all of the energy from our neighboring star. Uh and then the next level when we can harness all the energy from the galaxy etc. So it's it's it's an expansionist way of thinking about it. The idea of climbing the cardf scale. There we go. You see? >> Yeah. But in the 1990s, a a British cosmologist called John Barrow, he said, "Actually, if you actually look at how an intelligent civilization such as ourselves, the only one we know, we actually spend a lot more time going not to larger and larger scales, but smaller and smaller scales, right? we go down to, you know, doing chemistry, the Large Hadron Collider, we're looking at the structure of atoms and then the structure of subatomic particles and that kind of thing. We're actually spending more time and more energy and more money going deeper and deeper. Now the reason that's significant is because if you take um the um the human sits in the middle. If you take the scale of a human and then you compare the scale of a human to the scale say of a hydrogen atom and then you compare it to the scale of the observable observable universe. Humans sit almost exactly in the middle of that scale from the hydrogen atom to the observable universe. But below the hydrogen atom, there is probably a 100 million to a billion times more scale deeper and deeper down. Richard Fineman, the Nobel, you know, the legendary physicist, always used to say there's there's plenty of room at the bottom. There's much more room at the bottom. Um, in other words, as an intelligent species, an intelligent civilization progresses, they're not likely to kind of become space fairing as such, you know, and kind of exploring the cosmos. They're much more likely to go deep down and kind of instant instantiate themselves at the lowest levels of reality. That's where all the space is.
It's not out there, surprisingly. All the space is downwards. Now once an intelligence achieves that and you have to imagine that probably um there are probably billions of these civilizations that had already achieved this before we even popped into existence before we you know evolved as a species. Um they would effectively disappear. They would they would become effectively part of the fabric of of spaceime itself. um exploiting the fundamental computational structure of the lowest level u of of reality basically and that's where they reside. Um, and there are probably far far more probably millions or billions more of those types of civilizations than there are ones like I say you and me like us as humans, right? Um, and so then you ask, well, if that's the case, you know, if we're interested in contacting so quote unquote extraterrestrials, why are we focused on this tiny subop of beings that are likely to be, you know, floating around in metallic discs or whatever. We should in fact be focusing on the the much more abundant ones that are perhaps at the deepest levels of reality. And how would we do that? How would an intelligence that has completely transcended its biology and even completely transcended its physical form entirely? How would such an intelligence communicate with us? It would do it through our brain. That's the most obvious thing. uh because the brain is how we interact with the environment. It's how we interact. It's the interface by which we interact with what there is. Um and I think DMT uh I'm not saying that these DMT entities are necessarily these post-biological beings, but it's not out of the question. I'm not straying too far from fairly standard now modern scientific discourse when I say that it's perfectly possible that there are very large numbers of these supremely intelligent civilizations that are everywhere and nowhere and that we can somehow interact with using our brain and that DMT generates this kind of highly susceptible, highly sensitive um neurological state that allows us to interact with them. This is why perhaps when you go into the DMT space, it's immediately obvious, it's undeniable, undeniably apparent that you are interacting with some kind of supremely
advanced intelligence. Could that be some intelligence that has existed long before we arrived on the scene and that we're now kind of discovering this technology? And I I consider DMT to be some kind of technology that we have discovered that we are now learning to use to interact with these um intelligent agents that perhaps have been here for forever in human terms. >> It's an interesting term, the term go there, >> you know, because that's what it feels like. It feels like you're you're traveling somewhere, like you're going somewhere. But the reality is that place you're going is probably right here. >> Yes. >> That's where it gets weird because it's around you all the time. You just don't have the ability to tune into it all the time because you wouldn't be able to function if you did. >> Exactly. And and these beings, they probably don't even have a true form that you could represent visually. Right. So when you see an insecttoid alien um or a machine elf, you're probably not seeing or >> I've never seen a machine elf. >> Really? >> Have you? I've seen I don't know if I've seen the the archetypal kind of McKenna McKenna McKenna described it was very odd >> but I've seen certainly a multitude of beings very very kind of screechy squeaky >> like jabbering jabbering >> you know I saw once a bunch of jokers giving me the finger >> they were all giving me the finger and they're going [ __ ] you and they were jokers with like little tassels on with the bells in the end of it >> and it made me very aware that I was taking myself too seriously. And they were like, "Yep." And they said it to me and they pointed their finger at me like that. And I was like, "You're right." >> Yeah. It's interesting. Actually, it reminded me of something. Um there's this weird effect um that people who who use DMT a lot. They get this, you know, they might use DMT regularly. Uh and and and one day um they they take a hit as they normally do with the same batch of DMT and they get a joker or a jester and it wags its finger and says not today. Um
>> you've done too much. >> Yep. Exactly. And it shuts off. Um a guy wrote to me and says that he he saw a jester um as he often does and it [ __ ] punched him in the face and he felt it. he felt and it knocked him back into this world and so the the effect was gone instantaneously. Now that is not easy to explain because it this is not tolerance. DMT first of all doesn't exhibit subjective tolerance unlike the other psychedelics. It's kind of weird. You can inject someone with DMT every 30 minutes perpetually uh and they will the intensity of their experience will always be the same. It's not a tolerance and tolerance anyway is a gradual thing. it increases gradually over time. So, it's not an off switch. >> Um, I was speaking to someone, we we're probably going to talk about DMTX later, which is kind of my thing. Uh, but she was undergoing DMTX, which is this infusion where they they keep the brain level of DMT constant. Um, and she >> tease to the big buildup. Yes. DMTX. >> There we go. Yeah. And she was in the DMT space interacting. you the infusion machine was running pumping her brain with DMT a constant rate keeping the DMT levels in her brain constant she's interacting with these entities uh and then at some point after maybe you know 30 minutes or whatever when the machine was still running they said to her or impressed upon her they said okay we're done we're done today um and the visions stopped >> wow >> but the machine the brain was still being pumped with DMT and yet the visions stopped so what that suggests to me is that they do indeed as I said before they have control. They are directing the information into the brain. Uh and people you know describe things like downloads. In Graham Hancock actually in his book Supernatural in his first DMT experience he described this um this download of highly complex entirely nonhuman uh information into his brain as if he locked in to some kind of advanced computational processor that was that was beaming information into his his brain. And many people describe that as like a download >> and of of of complex mathematical structures and strange geometries, entirely entirely nonhuman stuff. Uh as if there
kind of not that they expect you to understand it, but as if to say, you know, we know a lot more about reality than you do. We know a lot and you don't knowing anything. And that's the message they're kind of trying to impress upon you by directing it. And they can control it. They can they can shut it off if they so decide. >> They >> Well, [laughter] you picked up on the they. >> Yeah, that's a weird one. Whatever it is. >> Whatever it is. >> Yeah. Um this idea that we all evolve along a similar pathway is strange to me. that um the concept is uh we assume that intelligent life everywhere else evolves along similar pathways and that most of them eventually become some sort of a biological digital hybrid if not completely digital and then most of them uh probably figure out how to harness the power of the star and the suns. One of the the weird thing about us is that not just that we are evolving and that we have evolved but yet we have this but that rather we have this insatiable desire for technological innovation technological innovation >> and um to make things better. We're constantly improving upon everything we make. We're making better versions of every computer, every phone every year. Even though it's not really necessary for most people, you're always buying them. It's a very strange desire that we have that I think sinks handin glove to materialism because materialism is also still so stupid for an intelligent life form that has a finite lifespan >> to not be aware that collecting things does you no good because you're going to die >> like but yet you want to collect things more than anything and you want to show people the things you've collected. Well, what better way to facilitate innovation and growth than to have a builtin instinct for purchasing better things all the time and possessing better things all the time, which will force people to work literally into the grave in order to get these things done. >> Yeah, I think it's it's psychotic. It is. >> But that that's just us. Like it doesn't have to be like that. If you think about
the hundreds of billions of stars just in this galaxy, the hundreds of billions of galaxies in the known universe, the the endless possibilities of when intelligent life emerged, if in fact it did emerge anywhere, if no evidence it emerged anywhere else but here, right? We're just guessing. We assume. >> But if we were right, like it could have taken infinite number of forms. It could have evolved completely non-physical. >> Yeah. >> Like intelligent life that's completely non-physical. That's not it's not contained to a cellular structure and bones and organs. That it's plasmabased. That it's some sort of an intelligence that communicates with some sort of a universal language. We We don't We're just guessing that everything's a monkey. >> We're just guessing everything's a curious monkey that keeps making a better spaceship. >> But that might be true. Which, by the way, I went to the SpaceX. Jamie and I both did. How dope? >> Pretty dope. We went to see the SpaceX launch. >> We were How far do you think we were? Were we a half a mile, quarter of a mile? What do you think? >> I call it a mile. A mile and a half, maybe. >> Oh, you think a mile? More than a mile. >> Yeah. >> Really? Okay. So, let's say we're a mile away. Let's just guess. Well, it's just uh throw it in Perplexity. >> I can look. >> Throw it in Perplexity. Ask our sponsor, Perplexity. How far is the distance between Star Base and the SpaceX rocket? >> Between the Star >> and the SpaceX. >> Yeah. Launchpad. >> Texas just to be specific. >> Yeah. Because there's one in Florida as well. [clears throat] So they have their own town down there. It's like a legit town. It's like a military town. Like they took over a place like a a military installation. These little tiny houses. [ __ ] security everywhere. There's so many cyber trucks. If you have a cyber truck, you're [ __ ] You can't figure you have no idea. You better remember your parking [laughter] spot, [ __ ]
Everybody has a goddamn cybert truck. >> Estimated at less than one mile. >> Let's see. Okay. >> Right here. >> Okay. main entrance, Star Base. The actual launchpad infrastructure is estimated less than one mile. [snorts] Public viewing sites. Okay, there's public viewing sites, but we were there. We were at Starbase. We were in like a public viewing site. We were at the actual rocket factory >> and when that thing takes off, >> you feel it in your chest. It's nuts. So, it's roughly a mile away and you have to wear earplugs. It's a mile away and you got to wear earplugs and you feel it in your chest and Elon's son was like, "I want to go home." [laughter] Like there was a video there's a video that I put and you can hear him in the background. It's so funny because my wife was like, "Are the babies okay?" Cuz women that have children like they they that's immediately what they go to. Not wow, that rocket's really cool. It's like, "Oh, are the babies okay?" Cuz she could hear him going, "I want to go. I want to go." He was like, "I want to get out of here." because it's that freaky. The power of it is just so nuts you that you feel and then you see it and you realize like, God, how many people have seen a rocket launch like how crazy this thing's going into space. >> And then I went upstairs and I got to sit in the command console or whatever you would call it, the command center. And I get with me and Elon and all the engineers and we get to watch it land in Australia 35 minutes later. So we watch >> 25 minutes. Yes. >> From Yes. From from Texas >> to Australia. Wow. >> It's crazy. And we're watching all these cameras in real time that are all connected to Starlink satellites. So there's dozens of cameras. >> So you're watching >> two miles is what this says. >> Oh, two miles >> straight across. >> Okay. >> It seems so close. >> It seemed really close. Okay. Two even crazier. So two miles away and you feel it in your chest. >> It's nuts. I mean, it's really nuts. It's uh the power that it has is so
nuts, but it's so old school, right? It's just >> It feels oldfashioned in a weird kind of way. >> It's the most modern version [laughter] of like a V8 muscle car. >> It's crazy, right? If you think like a 100 years ago, like the end of the beginning of the 20th century, um how different we would be in a hundred years as we are now. Um it's it's unfathomable when you compare the rest of human history. It's it's it's like an exponential thing. You know, we we gradually been developing and technologically improving and then we hit some point in the last century uh where we reach this kind of technological computer informationational age and everything is accelerating exactly like Terrence McKenna was saying things speed up >> very very quickly and it feels like we're on the cusp either of killing ourselves which is one option >> right >> um or undergoing some profound transformation information as a species. Whether it be whether it means becoming a space fairing nation uh sorry a space fairing civilization or whether it means going in the opposite direction and becoming some kind of post-biological civilization that um exists beyond space and beyond [clears throat] time perhaps um and kind of joining the crowd uh of these intelligences that have made that transition um perhaps billions of years ago, you know. Um, >> do you think that this chaos is the only way that things get done? See, this is this is my my thought. If everything everything's perfect and everything's wonderful and fine, there's very little motivation for radical change. And radical change is what you need to escape the primate instincts that we have. >> Yeah. the as McKenna had the great quote of that we're territorial apes with thermonuclear weapons. >> There we go. >> Such a perfect way to describe us. Um that is what we are right. So in order to escape that things have to almost be so chaotic that it demands radical change. It it demands like you we were literally like and this is how we look at many things we even things that
aren't totally warranted like climate change or COVID or anything like we look at it like oh my god it's an existential crisis like we have to do something right now and this is how also we approach political disscent or political disagreements. If the left wing wins, the world is over. If the right wins, the world is over. And it's like this like it's almost like this is how we have to function in order to really get things done. And as things are getting more and more crazy in in terms of technology and in terms of the consequences consequences of our actions post nuclear bomb, post fusion, post Hadron Collider, post AI is where it gets really weird. We have to kind of be like we we really got to get going, guys. We really got to do something. We have to figure out what's the right way to proceed >> in order to not blow ourselves up. like how and I feel like this is maybe the only way that you motivate this kind of extreme change which seems like our destiny. Our destiny is some sort of a very bizarre extreme change that seems to probably be happening within your your in my lifetime. >> Something's happening right now that is going to be different than anything that's ever happened before, which is the birth of artificial general super intelligence right in front of our eyes. some sort of a digital supreme being is going to exist and we're gonna we're we're going to have to figure out society. We're going to have to figure out everything. It's going to be a complete this idea of like having [ __ ] congressional candidates that are full of [ __ ] and paid off by these companies and they're going to make laws that screw you over and get all that's out the window when no humans control anything anymore. And that's entirely possible inside of our lifetime. And I think more likely than not because if you look at all the harm we've done to the rivers and the ocean and the world and all the stupid [ __ ] we do on a daily basis. If artificial intelligence comes along and says all of this is completely unnecessary. Just let us take the reigns and we'll solve all of your energy problems, all of your inequality problems, all of your famine. We're going to solve it all very quickly and we're going to stop all wars. You'd have
to be a fool to say no. I value freedom more than I fear nuclear war. There'll probably be some fat, sweaty right-wing guy who's on TV with an American flag on his lapel and he'll tell you that >> freedom is more important. We have gotten to 2025 because of fre. >> You sound like Alex Jones. >> Alex Jones is right about most things. Um, I feel like maybe that's the only way things get done is through chaos. Like that we have to have a motivate. Like what is the best motivation for success? I think it's poverty. When you when you grow up poor, people that grow up poor have an extra gear. >> They get things done. Like as terms of like athletes, certainly in terms of fighters, I would I would say the vast majority of elite MMA fighters had a bad childhood. Not all of them. There's a lot of really great guys and really great fighters that have wonderful parents and they just love competition and they just have it in them. >> But that's that's the outlier really. >> The the common one is someone who was beaten up a lot as a child. gangs, beaten into gangs, like been around violence a lot, had older brother, maybe abusive fathers. That's a big one. And those people because of that have a motivation to do something that other people don't. They can push harder. They can they can solve complex combat sports problems that other people don't solve as quickly. I wonder if that's the case with everything that like in order to really get things done like you have to have a chaotic society that would even accept AI like in order for AI to if we were a some peaceful Buddhist civilization that was living completely in harmony with the earth with regenerative farming everywhere, no use of plastics, all fossil fuels are either eliminated or reduced down to some sort of bioavailable recyclable material that we then, you know, put back into the mulch or whatever the [ __ ] we do. And then someone came along and said, "We're going to develop artificial intelligence and these nerds in Seami Valley are going to control it." You be like, "What? What are you talking about?" >> Yeah. I think >> I'm going to have some Silicon Valley guys with autism and they're going to be
the ones that are in charge of the destiny of the human race because they're going to create a digital god. you'd be like, "No, no, >> slow down. Hold on." But if you're in a place where you look at Gaza is getting destroyed and you you'll see what's going on in Ukraine. They're putting 60-year-old guys on the front line and Russia and they're using drone bombs with monofilament line behind them because they they don't want anti- drone technologies. They're coming up with new ways to kill each other. Like [sighs and gasps] maybe AI is the solution because it's so crazy. Everything's so nuts. You look at India and those rivers that are completely choked with plastic plastic bottles and garbage. And you look at China, the places where they make blue jeans where the entire river is blue from our stupid [ __ ] jeans that they manufacture for us. And you go, "Wow." Like maybe it kind of has to be this [ __ ] Maybe we have to in order to accept the fact that we need help. >> Maybe we have to [ __ ] it up first. Maybe we have to [ __ ] it up so bad on our own that if we didn't [ __ ] it up, we would never have the need for it. We'd be like, well, as a person, my goal in life is to achieve enlightenment and to be a better version of me. And that's not having something that's digital that has no emotions and feelings and no empathy whatsoever unless I program it into it. Like have that have supreme control over all the available resources on Earth. Yeah, I'm going to pass on that. That sounds like a bad idea. Yeah, I mean I think that generally there's a there's a a fundamental principle that the most interesting things happen at the edge of chaos, >> right? >> You know, and this applies it applies to the brain. The brain actually sits at the edge of chaos. You know, it's complex systems. We have lots of interacting parts. They can they can they can display behavior from perfect order all the way to complete chaos. Now, perfect order is boring. nothing happens. Um, complete chaos is useless because it's it's it's not actually technically random, but it's complete it's a complete mess. Whereas, when you get that balance right, you reach a point that's called the edge of chaos
where order and disorder are perfectly balanced. Psychedelics, they they, as I said before, they nudge the brain into that slightly disordered state. Um, but all things, all cells, all living organisms, uh, complex society, ant societies, they oper operate at the edge of chaos. So, I think what you're saying kind of resonates with that idea that that interesting things happen globally within civilizations. Not when everything is perfect, right? >> But when things are have are close to going out of control, but they don't. and you you have to push it as far as you can push it without it descending into we're always on the edge of everything collapsing and we're probably closer to that than we we we actually realize right >> um and so I think that's kind of what happening and I think with when it comes to super intelligence there's an interesting idea which I've been playing with is >> well if if there is some kind of super intelligence that does emerge and that might be the fate of all intelligent civilizations u The astrobiologist uh Steven Dick um um conceived of something called the intelligence principle which basically says that any civilization uh will try to maximize intelligence because when you maximize intelligence you improve education, you improve technology, everything improves and and ultimately the intelligence that the civilization have leads to the generation of super intelligences. you know, the artificial intelligences that we have now that then become super intelligences. And of course, this super intelligence isn't going to be kind of running on the kind of transistor architectures that we're familiar with. A super intelligence will find a way to instantiate itself um using the the fundamental computational substrate of spaceime itself. That's where it's going to learn how to go. And that might be the fate uh is that this super intelligence when it emerges in on earth uh it instantiates itself into the fundamental substrate of reality perhaps usurps us or swallows us up or maybe just destroys us and then that becomes part of the that vast population of uh of super intelligences that permeate the cosmos. And that might be what we're interacting with
>> when you smoke DMTs. you're interacting with one of these super intelligent which would explain why it seems so technological and so inorganic right the DMT space it's like you're interacting not with um other living beings like us but you're interacting with what seems to be thoroughly alien intelligences and and and that could be what's where we're heading uh I don't know whether that's a a good thing or a bad thing uh whether we're going to merge with this super intelligence in some way and that's our ultimate destiny or whether it's simply going to destroy us and be we're just going to be lost. We're basically we're kind of like the tools that the intelligence is used is to create new versions of super >> intelligence. That's the theory that a lot of people have in terms of like why human beings exist in the first place >> that human beings exist because we're designed to work really hard until we develop artificial life and then artificial life takes it from here. Yeah. Like we got it. You guys are so flawed. Yeah. >> And then it also coincides with a drop in sperm count, drop in fertility rates for women, increase in miscarriages, microlastics in the in everybody's body and their diet that disrupt the endocrine system and keep you from reproducing as as as easily. All those things are happening simultaneously. Yeah. >> And it's quite fascinating. I mean, you would look if you thought of it as a pattern, you'd be like, "Oh, it's happening right now. Look, there's this dip in testosterone. this this rise in miscarriages, this fertility rate issue, chaos at the border, all this stuff is happening at the same time. It's all happening while this artificial life is being generated and may already exist. It might already be here. This hasn't announced itself. >> There's such a minimal understanding of how these things even work. >> It might exist, but is still relying upon a power source that's insufficient for its needs. >> Got it? You know, because that's the thing about it, right? Mitioaku uh was talking about this and and also Avi Lo was actually talking about this the other night. The amount of power that the human mind uses to make computations
is so minimal in comparison to the amount of power that these data centers need to run AI. It's kind of extraordinary. And Avi Lo was pointing out the other day that they're they're building nuclear power plants specifically to fuel these AI centers that they're creating, which is really not. I think Google has one AI built, one AI project where they're building three separate nuclear power plants to power this one AI data center. What is what does that mean? Like how much that's the thing that the what people don't understand about AI itself is the power demands are insane. Yeah. >> And if everything goes artificial general super intelligence with this grid that we have right now, this grid sucks. This grid is designed for toasters and recharging your cell phone. It's not designed to power AI centers. And so that it might already be here, but it might be like you guys got to figure out power before we announce ourselves. >> Yeah. And I think that eventually it will it will discover or learn how to instantiate itself without requiring this massive I mean obviously as you said the brain is >> uh is able to perform massive parallel computations you know obviously uh with very little energy and so eventually this artificial intelligence will uh discover the means of instantiating itself without requiring that and I think that's where we start looking downwards that's where we start looking deep down at the lowest levels That's where it's going. It's going to zero energy. >> Yeah. >> Yeah. >> I mean, this is the theory about aliens or UAPs, like how they travel here that they're they're using something that's I mean, the Elon stuff, the SpaceX stuff is so impressive, but so old school >> and that what they have done is figured out a way to use all the power and power that's around you all the time. And Hal Putoff talks about this. He talks about the concept of them harnessing zero point energy. And this is also something that Bob Ozar referred to when he was working allegedly on those back engineering of UFOs at Area 51 site 4. He was saying that they essentially are creating a void of gravity and pushing
they're folding space essentially or they're like the way he described it is as if you took a really heavy object like a bowling ball and you put it in a soft cushion like a mattress. It sinks in there and that that's what it would do to spaceime that it would essentially cause this bubble and put you in another place. So instead of pushing yourself there with jet fuel that's burning Yeah. you just get sucked there and almost instantaneously. >> And so what we're thinking of is you know amazing rocket travel is super old school. >> Yeah. >> And I mean amazing rocket travel if you showed that to people a thousand years ago you'd be like what the [ __ ] is that? That's insane. And to to us it's just cool. Or cell phones which is even probably more impressive. show a cell phone to someone just 200 years ago and they'd be like this is sorcery. Like this is absolutely insane that you're able to. So we could imagine a world 200 years from now where gravity travel is completely normal where they've harnessed this and they've figured out how to make a stable version of element 115 or whatever it is. This is his idea that he said they were trying to back engineer from these alleged crafts was that they had this stable element of 115 um that they bombard with radiation and it creates this sort of gravity hole and then they can use this and aim it and propel this craft to various places with that. >> Yeah. I think um are you familiar with um John Mack? >> Yes. Yeah. >> Um, and I think, you know, when we talk about aliens, how you're kind of describing it, this is, I think, how most people actually think about aliens is, as I said, as these beings that are that are ve very much physical and and the abduction phenomenon that John Mack, of course, I mean, John Mack was, as you might be aware, I mean, he was the top of his game, you know. I mean, this guy was the head of the Harvard School of Psychiatry or something like this. And >> so when he w, you know, first heard about people being abducted, I mean, he assumed that they were just hallucinating. Carl Sean
>> famously told Mack that um abductees were just hallucinating and John Mack said, you know, what the [ __ ] do you know about hallucinations? uh because John Mack knew a lot about hallucinations and he knew that this wasn't um easy to explain. It wasn't you people were describing the same kinds of experiences. People who have no interaction with each other were describing exactly the same scenario. >> Are you familiar with Jacqu Valet's work? >> Yes. >> So Jacqu Valet one of the more interesting things about um some I've read four or five of his books or listened to four or five of his books now. Uh but one of the more interesting things is when he gets into historical accounts >> and that these historical accounts with they there's no way they could have somehow or another been sharing information but they're the same. They're very very very similar >> right >> within a realm within a a range of not having the vocabulary to be able to adequately describe something completely novel and alien to another person. Yeah. Yeah, >> within that range, when you take into account the similarities that they're describing, they're very similar in the 1700s, in the 1800s, all the way up to Betty and Barney Hill >> when when that one which we became probably the most popular uh of all time, but one of the most famous ones. >> Yeah, for sure. >> That one was just like all these stories from the 1700s, which is really weird. >> Yes, it is. And I think what you're seeing is the same phenomenon that as you say is obviously how you describe is influenced by your worldview. You see the same thing with with DMT. So there there's a tribe called the the Anomami >> um in in the Amazon and a very large uh indigenous group and they describe uh beings when they they take these um plant-based preparations that contain DMT. Yopo is probably the most wellknown. It's like a snuff. Have you heard of yopo? >> I've heard of it through McKenna that they they blow it up each other's nose. Yeah, like that. >> Supposed to be horrible.
>> It's horrible. But when they take it, they they describe seeing these beings, tiny beings that are lively, they're affable, they're colorful, they operate in great numbers, they're dancing and singing. Um, and these sound like >> elves. >> They sound like elves, right? Um, when when DMT was first injected in a human, pure DMT in in the 1950s by a Hungarian physician called Steven Zara, he was the one who discovered the psychedelic properties of pure DMT. One of his first subject described seeing small beings that moved around very very quickly. Um, and the Yanamami, they also have these beings they callinari, which are like insect beings, uh, which are kind of fearsome. Um, so again, you're seeing the same kinds of beings that people now describe being operated upon. Yes. By highly advanced manted like beings. >> They're the scariest ones apparently. >> They're the scariest ones or certainly one of them. And then when you look at John Mack's reports of abductions, again, they often describe the same types of beings. They describe going to a world that is higher dimensional that seems to subsume this reality. Um, and many of the reports, there's one report in his first book, Abduction, John Mack's um, first book about the abduction uh, experience. Anyway, uh, where one of his subjects describes these small lively beings that bound around. I mean, bound around, that's a kind of phrase. He talks about the elves bounding uh, into the room. Um, and so I think there is clearly some >> connection there. Uh it's it's we're not talking about I don't think the abduction experience is is kind of separate from the DMT experience. They're different aspects of an ancient phenomenon which is humans interacting with normally invisible unseen >> beings advanced intelligences nonhuman intelligences and how that manifests >> varies but ultimately I think it's the same thing. Now, of course, in the past, they might describe them as spirits. We might describe them as, you know, non-human intelligence or discarnate entities or intelligent agents or post-biological aliens. Doesn't matter what we call them. I think it's the same phenomenon. And we've spent our lives uh so kind of the entire history of human
um development, this phenomenon has been occurring and and in the Amazon rainforest, they developed these tools, these technologies. Iawaska is a technology. It's not just a mixture of plants. It is a true pharmacological technology um that they use to uh as kind of visual prostthesis as one anthropologist calls it. Uh that allows them to to to to see and interact with and develop long-term relationships so to speak with these um otherwise invisible hidden ones. And now in the 21st century, we've got perhaps the the ideal tool, which is actually pure DMT itself. And we're kind of learning how to use that now in our own kind of um with our own kind of modern twist, if you like. >> Yeah. I wonder what the relationship is between the DMT state and this alien abduction phenomenon. and not just abduction but encounter you know because there aren't they're all there aren't they aren't all abduction experiences a lot of them are just encounters and that you know maybe if you wanted to think about the role that human beings have on this planet we perhaps we're an intelligence farm and that like any good farm like if you're a farmer and let's say you're a sheep herder you're raising sheep well you have to keep make sure the wolves stay out. So, you have to have sheep dogs and make sure they have good grass to grow on and then eventually you'll get a nice crop of sheep >> and then you get some wool out of that and you get some meat out of that and that's the whole purpose of the whole thing. Maybe that's the reason why we exist in the first place is that we're here to farm intelligence >> and that what we're doing biologically, what we are biologically is just a kind of a crude, clunky, shitty, patched together version of these territorial apes with thermonuclear weapons that have figured out a way to make something far superior than itself. And that's what our goal was all along. >> I always talk about us. I say that we're we're some sort of a biological like we're we're like a caterpillar and we're making a cocoon and we don't know why but we're going to turn into this technological butterfly. But I think Marshall McLuhan even said it better
than me. >> He said uh human beings are the sex organs of the machine world. >> How great is that? That's a great great quote. >> Yeah. I think um [laughter] you know with as regards the connection between the abduction phenomenon and and the DMT state for example I think the DMT state as I said is when the DMT state creates this neurological state where this intelligence can interact with our brain directly and I think that the abduction you know John Mack towards the end later on at least he he left behind the kind of the nuts and bolts idea that we're talking about physical beings that were landing on the lawn sneaking in through the window and plucking people from their beds but actually that that the intelligences might well be entirely non-physical but were interacting with their brain in the same way I think is happening with DMT uh that they are interacting directly uh and inducing them effectively into this altered state uh and directed them to some end I don't know what the purpose is um directed them into their you know a vision of their reality or or for some other purpose. I'm not sure, but I think it's it's it's it's all about interaction between uh your brain. I think >> maybe being abducted and being taken aboard a physical object and examined is easier to handle than what's really going on. >> Oh, yeah. [laughter] >> Maybe that's what it is. Like in a dream, how you sort of formulate these things that make sense, you know? You formulate a calculator. You formulate a book. You formulate a bed that you're lying in. All that stuff that you understand that makes sense. Maybe that's what's happen. Maybe it's so weird that it's like, let's just let's just say you've been abducted >> by an alien because you probably can't handle the truth. >> Yeah, I think that's probably that's probably true. >> Maybe that's why the experience is so similar. Yeah. >> Not that because otherwise you would say, "Well, damn. Aren't these [ __ ] UFOs evolving quicker than us? Cuz if they're doing the same [ __ ] in 1950,
whatever it was when Betty and Barney Hill were abducted that they're doing in 2025, that doesn't make sense. Because in 2025, like we have way better cars than we had in 1955 or whatever year it was when they got abducted. Well, our car I drove here in a Tesla. That [ __ ] thing's a spaceship. Like, I think about it sometimes when I'm in these things. Like these are so advanced in comparison to anything that existed before. Why aren't the spaceships more advanced? Like why why are they still like just showing up like that looking like a flying saucer? Don't they have a better model of this? Why are they sending us this old shitty tech? >> Well, I think it might have been they might have perfected the technology a million years ago. >> Boohoo. How's that possible? [laughter] >> So, you wouldn't expect necessarily a change in the last 50 years. >> They perfected it. It would be non-physical. It wouldn't even have to like come here in some sort of a [ __ ] alloy disc. That seems so clunky. That seems old school to what's coming, you know, like if artificial intelligence continues to make better versions of itself and then somehow or another figures out how to run on quantum computing architecture. Okay. Well, then you have digital god. And why would digital god need a spaceship to fly around in? >> Exactly. It's the whole thing is is baffling and paradoxical and none of it kind of makes sense. I think if we were able to view this phenomenon from a god god god's eye view, it would all kind of oh right that makes sense. >> Well, it's also you throw in simulation theory >> in with all that. >> Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. >> And then you go, okay, well, what is this then? What is this really? >> Right. What is this really? Like maybe all the weird stuff like Bigfoot and all all this weird stuff. Maybe it's it's like a part of the weirdness of it by design >> that it's supposed to be goofy enough that you figure out eventually that this is a simulation. >> I think yeah, I see reality as a kind of game in a way. Um I I get the feeling that that reality is in some sense playful. That's an ancient idea. I mean
that goes back to the ancient kind of Hindu philosophy, the idea of Brahman, the ultimate reality. uh playing at creating the universes. They call it Leela. Um the idea that creating, you know, Brockman is the ultimate reality. He or it or they um doesn't have to create reality. It could just exist in perfect, you know, but uh in pure unadulterated perfection, uh you know, complete unending bliss. But instead it decides to kind of uh to create realities um to to get lost for fun to get lost and we we're kind of we are part of we know everything is Brockman as they say everything is the ultimate reality and and we're kind of lost within. We're tumbling in through this crazy world that seems really real and really important and and fun and terrifying and all of those things. And it's it's it's a great ride. Uh but then eventually we realize, oh actually this is it's just a game. It's all illusion. Everything all of all form is illusion. And and I think DMT ultimately is is an expression of that. You know it it shows us actually that reality is far stranger than we we could possibly imagine. Yeah. and that actually we don't know anything about what's the true nature of reality and this world isn't so solid and important and serious. It's actually all part of this cosmic drama, this cosmic game that we're playing. And we we've forgotten that we're playing. And perhaps one day we'll realize that, oh, we kind of wake up from the game or or or work out, you know, maybe there is some um maybe it's like a puzzle and DMT is one piece of that puzzle um that allows us to figure out, you know, how to complete the game uh in a sense. And then we kind of ah fantastic, we've we've we've done it. And then everyone's, you know, this is why I think when people smoke DMT, they there's this great celebratory uproar. You know, the lights are flashing. Yay, he's here. He's back. Woo! You know, and they they real they know. It feels like you're interacting with an intelligence that really knows what's going on. >> Um and and and it's kind of excited that we we're we're popping in temporarily just for a few minutes, but we're getting close. It feels like, you know, we've discovered the technology because because DMT is kind of it's weird, right? Uh it's everywhere. It's like in
probably all plants. You know, Dennis McKenna likes to say nature is drenched in DMT because it is. >> That's a good impression of him. >> Yeah. Really, [laughter] >> you got out of your accent. You did the whole thing. >> Yeah. >> You know, and and and yet at the same time, you can't just kind of munch on plants, >> right? because it's not oral >> aminoxide. Yeah. >> Right. So you >> you're aware I'm sure of those scholars from Israel that think that the burning bush that Moses encountered was probably the acacia bush that contained DMT. >> Yeah. This is I know Strasman, one of his books, The Soul of Prophecy. >> Boy, he was blowing my mind last time he was here. He thinks the the Bible is real. That it's real stories that may have happened in parallel dimensions. >> Wow. >> And I was like, >> it's exotic. [laughter] And I'm like, we're both I'm like I'm trying to like be on his wavelength. I'm trying to tune in which [laughter] because he's so out there. That guy's so he's so out there. Do you know he learned uh ancient Hebrew self-taught for 16 years so that he could read the Bible in its source language. >> That's that's out there. That's a dude in New Mexico. Like he's got plenty of time and he's just out there. That guy's out there. But that's a very interesting take that they're true stories. You know, I was watching this very bizarre um YouTube video last night. I got sucked in. I clicked on it and it was all about the Sumerian kings list and that the Sumerian they they found a tablet uh in is ununiform tablet that um it shows this list of kings and how long they reigned. And then there's the great flood. And these some of these kings reign for like 40,000 years, 30,000 years. And then and the the the total timeline of all of them, I think, is like 200 plus thousand years. And then there's the great flood. And then after the great flood, >> there's a very small lifespan. There's like 50 years. They run for 40 years. But all of the post flood kings are correct. They're all like historically they resonate with other historical
texts, other uniform tablets, other different depictions of when this king ran, you know, Mesopotamia and this king ran Sumere and >> but their old versions are these like really weird like pre flood. It's real weird. It's like what are you talking about 40,000 years? Like what do you what does that [snorts] mean? Are you just making it up? Is it just a myth? Is it did were was there a different thing here then? Like were we just assuming that this lifespan that human beings have of 120 years is normal? >> Like is this what we always had or are what we are today a very bizarre version of what used to exist? Are we like a [ __ ] Chihuahua and we used to be a wolf? >> Is was were we something very different at one point in time? And are we the remnants of whatever survived whatever cataclysmic disaster that every ancient civilization depicts as a great flood? Like multiple different civilizations talk about this one event that seems to be a real event. Like what what are they trying to say? And why is that also in the Bible? Like why was Noah like 600 years old? Like what why were these people so old? Like what does that mean? Did you just get a Did you guys suck at calendars or or are we talking about a very different reality back then? >> Because if the great flood is true, let's let's imagine there is a spectacular civilization. This this is my most romantic view of of ancient history. There's a spectacular civilization that exists. It exists in ancient Egypt. They have technology that's far beyond anything we've achieved today. It's just gone down a totally different path. And what they're really into is making these insane stone structures that defy any modern construction methods, any transportation methods. Everything's out the window. We have no idea how they did it. And they did it way before anybody was doing anything remotely like that. How old are those things for real? We don't really know. Like what what if there was some insanely sophisticated society where if you want to figure things out, you probably it's probably hard to figure things out if you only live to be hundred years and then if everybody else has ego and everybody's like that is not true. The laws of
thermodynamics cannot be and like you have all these egos involved in universities. You have all these egos involved in the technology companies. And then of course political people like Zawi Hwas who's in charge of the Egypt antiquities. He's the gatekeeper of all the information about Egypt. So you have all these kind of egos. Wouldn't it be like way easier to get past that if you lived 50,000 years? If you lived a 100,000 years like you would think that kind of a human being or that kind of an intelligent creature would be able to accomplish way more. It'd probably get over all of its [ __ ] by the time it's 150 and then it would be starting to figure out some things that I mean if it had no cognitive decline and if it does live to be thousands of years old that's not insane cuz we're just randomly living to be 100 in 120 years like wow you made it to 110 grandpa what a great life though they would probably look and go that's a [ __ ] life you can't figure anything out and maybe that's part of the design >> that's part of Maybe that's part of the design to ensure chaos. >> Like if you want to ensure chaos, you can't live long enough to recognize the hustle, >> right? >> Cuz if you live long enough to recognize the hustle, you'd be like, "Why are we arguing?" >> Like, >> right? Yeah. >> I argue way less at 58 than I ever did at 28. >> And I argue less at 28 than I ever did at 18. [laughter] As you get older, you realize like this is nonsense. This is a complete waste of time. And you could get through most disagreements with just cordial communication. And like you don't really need to argue as much as people argue, but they feed off of it. And I think it's a stupid way to communicate. And I think if a society figured that out, like if a society is consists of people that live a 100,000 years, if you have 30,000y old people living amongst you that are far more intelligent than we are today, and that possibly communicate telepathy through telepathy, which there's some evidence that we do today. >> Oh, yeah. at least a little bit. We do, you know, we're not the best at it, but
there's some evidence that it takes place. We might be like the rejects. We might be the stragglers. We might be the the the [ __ ] the preppers that survived whatever the hell happened 11,000 years ago. And we're just a shitty version of what designed all the pyramids, built the world, had some sort of bizarre technology that we still haven't figured out yet. >> Yeah, I think we we definitely live life on kind of hard mode. Um, you know, it's it's like as you said, if if if you if you only live for a hundred years or less, then it is very difficult to work things out in that >> it's a Formula 1 race. It's not a lovely stroll through the neighborhood where you're like checking out the houses. Look at that beautiful hill like you know it's [screaming] >> so maybe it is part of it's part of the game is that >> it might be >> yeah that we only live for >> it might be or it just might be this is the shitty version of humans and this is what the shitty version of humans makes. Like the really good version of humans makes pyramids like when a person can live to be 30,000 years old that's what they make. They make spectacular like homages to the cosmos on the ground. Yeah. Or it could also be that like um the the philosopher Alfred North Whitehead, he once said that uh you you cannot prove that the world didn't appear 5 minutes ago. Um you know, you really can't true with all the memories and everything. So in fact, all of that stuff >> 10,000 years ago, it literally didn't happen. and that the world popped into the simulation was kind of booted up with all of that preloaded to kind of keep us occupied about the great the grand mystery of of ancient history. Like, you know, we we get excited about it and fascinated. Oh, all those incredible things that were happening. It never happened. It was just it [laughter] was just preloaded into the game to keep us occupied. >> That's what's nuts from your own personal perspective. If you weren't in World War II, you don't know it's real, >> right? >> Yeah. And I think about that every day when I wake up because when I wake the
weird thing about waking up is you're just assuming that you've been awake before. >> Yeah. And that you're the same person. Yeah. >> I assume. >> Yeah. >> I kind of know what it's like to be me. So every day when I wake up, I'm like, "Look, I'm me again." And I go, "But how do I know that this is not my first run through this?" >> Yeah, exactly. [laughter] >> My first run through this with a a shitty memory of the past or an induced memory that facilitates my motion. It it keeps me moving in the same direction. It keeps me >> pushing towards whatever I'm pushing towards. >> And that's what Sam Alman gets every day when he wakes up before he creates his digital god. >> It's like, I guess I'm awake. I guess I'm doing it. [laughter] >> Yeah. You know, there is this fascinating Terrence McKenna. He he often spoke in my head at least about these what seemed to me as completely conflicting uh trajectories for humanity. In one breath, he'd talk about us returning to the archaic, of returning to the forests, of becoming one with nature again. And then in the next breath, he'd talk about us setting off for the stars. It seems like there's this this tension. U part of us wants to go, we all want to live in an old rustic house that's made of wood in a forest uh and and cook on an open fire. And yet there's this other part of us that wants to live in these machinic um buildings and and and be operated, you know, operating these highly complex technological machines. And it's like, you know, which way, >> you know, do we allow ourselves to be pulled back into the archaic or do we push past and transcend and become um posthuman, you know, or postbiological? Uh and and maybe that's that's kind of part of the game, you know. Are we going to be dragged back or which wouldn't be bad to be dragged back into that more you you imagine the bucolic life in a in a in a in a beautiful um kind of forest scene with with the nice old houses and we all love that, right? We all we all we all kind of yearn for that I think. I mean I do. I think ah there's part of me
that wants to live in Tokyo where I do now. Uh, and this just this incredibly cyberpunk technological city that's that seems like it's been secreted out of you know metal and glass an entirely unnatural structure that's kind of emerges from human intelligence. I mean that's a weird thing but in a way these structures that we see they they seem entirely non-human. They see it's like we are tapping into something else, something non-human and and we can't help ourselves and and our cities that we build and these highly complex technological and computerized machines feels like they are being kind of secreted by our intelligence and and pulled out of the earth, you know. >> Well, maybe that's why they're all so similar too, right? Yeah, >> they're similar and they're they differ obviously in the way they look, but they're similar in the structure and they're similar in the density. >> You know, when you get I mean there's enormous ones like I was watching this video of the largest city in the world, which I believe is in China. What is the largest run that into perplexity? What's the largest city in the world? >> I hope they're going to say Tokyo. I thought it was Tokyo. Greater Tokyo. >> I don't know. The most populated. I should >> populated. When I say largest, I should probably say the most populated. >> I think they were saying it's 36 million people. >> Okay. Is the >> Tokyo is more >> is it? >> Yeah. >> Tokyo is more than 36 million. >> I looked it up the other day just cur I was curious like 37 or 40 million of the greater Tokyo area. >> Interesting. >> Yeah, >> that's crazy. >> Is so Tokyo's number one. >> Okay, there we go. >> So, um this was probably the most populated in China. Well, okay. So that's uh followed by Delhi, India which is 30 34 rather 34 million >> 665,600 people. How do they know it's just 600? [laughter] There's probably a few people snuck in there that they don't know
about. You can't say that. Don't round that out. [laughter] And then there's Shanghai. Well, it wasn't Shanghai. It was another city in China that they were talking about. Maybe they just exaggerated the numbers, but okay. So Tokyo is a perfect example then. Yeah. Like it's weird how like New York City, Tokyo, and to some extent LA, although LA is just so [ __ ] up. Like the downtown is the most useless part of LA. It's really weird. Like downtown LA. Have you been LA? >> Uh I've been a couple of times, but I've not really explored. >> Nobody goes downtown. >> Okay. >> Okay. Downtown is like they tried to revive downtown for a while before the pandemic and then everybody gave up. But downtown, it's not like there's a bunch of like like everybody has an apartment downtown. No, most people live in the other areas of LA. And downtown is like there's some banks and some businesses, but there's also Skid Row. The downtown is crazy. It's like a really [ __ ] up place. A lot of abandoned buildings. Like downtown is where we did a lot of Fear Factor stunts back in the day because we can get an abandoned warehouse to set up like a set there and and do the show. So, it's it was it's a very weird place. It's not like a no like downtown Chicago is booming. You know, it's downtown Chicago, downtown New York City. Like, whoa, you're in Manhattan. This is crazy. Downtown LA is not like that cuz LA's broken. So, when you go to LA, it's like downtown is like the most bizarre version of a downtown ever. Nobody wants to be there. >> Yeah. Poor city design. I I guess >> I don't know what it is. [laughter] I think some of it has to do with what they did um when they made Skid Row. So Skid Row is an entirely constructed thing. And what they did was all the vagrants in Beverly Hills and in Hollywood like listen, get the [ __ ] out of here. You pick them up, you take them, throw them in the wagon, bring them to Skid Row, and then keep them there. Don't let them leave. Contain them in an area. And that's essentially what they did. There's a documentary on that hotel. What is that hotel again, Jamie? Cecil >> Cecil Hotel where it talks about Skid Row itself. Like it's the documentary is
about this girl who was >> they thought that she was missing that someone had kidnapped her or something but she was schizophrenic. She got off her medication and she apparently climbed into the water system and drowned. But the point of the documentary was not just that. It's like this lady came here not knowing what downtown was. And so she got a room at the hotel downtown thinking, "Oh, get a nice room at a hotel downtown." But like it's [ __ ] zombie boulevard. It's crazy. Show him what um what Skid Row looks like. Show him a video of what Skid Row looks like. Now when we were filming Fear Factor, this was like 2004ish, something like that. >> I accidentally drove through Skid Row or drove to Skid Row. I was driving home. back then. I think I probably had navigation on my my my car, but it probably sucked or I wasn't paying attention to it. And this is Skid Row. Skid Row is nuts. This is close up. When you when you have like a like when you see it from a distance, you get a chance to see how completely insane it is. When we were filming, there was another Fear Factory we filmed there where one of the uh contestants was like, "Look, they're smoking crack." And we look down and there's people we were like on a rooftop or something and then we looked down. People were smoking crack right in front of us right on the street like chaos. Like Skid Row is nuts. And this is this is not even where the tents are set up. The where the tents are set up. It's the craziest thing you've ever seen. It's like these shanty villages that go on for blocks and blocks where there's no cars going through. The streets are filled with homeless people. just everyone's on drugs and there's just tents everywhere and you're like what a failure of society. What a failure of society that you've allowed this to [snorts] reach the level that it's at now. That's LA. >> Have you been to Tokyo? >> Yes, I have. >> Yeah. I mean, Tokyo is the complete opposite. >> Complete opposite. Super clean, very orderly. People are very polite. Even though there's so many people on the street, everybody sort of navigates, moves around of each other in a very
polite manner. Uh, beautiful architecture. It's stunning, like cyberpunk, as you said, very Bladeunneres. You're like, yo, I was only there for one day for the UFC, >> so I didn't spend a lot of time there, but I got a I had dinner there and I hung out there for a little bit. I was like, this is great. >> It really shows you that it is possible to have a very large, densely populated city that is safe and clean and functioning. Doesn't have to be. People say, "Oh, you know, I got robbed. it's just part of being in a big city or I was stabbed last night or my car was broken into and it's like this is just what happens when you live in a big city man and it's like actually no it is possible [laughter] to have safe and clean and and and Tokyo is fascinating because it's it's an example of what's often called an emergent city. Uh they don't have this very strict zoning where oh here it's got to be offices, here it's got to be houses, here it's got to be small businesses or anything like that. It's like you it's all mixed together and and different kind of neighborhoods kind of just emerge. You know, there's a knife district, for example. >> People who sell knives, they all gather together. There's a bookshop district. Um there's a, you know, districts for all different things because they not because someone has decided, oh, only bookshops can be here. It's just that they tend to gather together, right? And so you know you walk around Tokyo and you might you'll find yourself in some quiet alley and you'll have little houses and then you'll have a little store often very very tiny stores that have been perhaps operating for for decades and that if in the UK or I guess in in the states as well they would have gone under decades ago. You know the city would have just crushed them. But it's it's it seems very easy in in Tokyo to kind of open a small if you have a house and you own it in Tokyo. You can by law you can you can convert the the first floor into a store. You'll get these little old ladies uh who will they bought their house decades ago. They're retired and they think, "Oh, what can I do with my time? I know I'll open a cafe." Uh and they say they they open a little cafe. Hardly anyone goes. Maybe
it might be could be in the countryside. It could be on the outskirts or whatever, but it doesn't matter because they own it and they're not being raped by, you know, taxes and stuff and all and and all this kind of red tape. Um, they don't have to deal with it. So, they just have this lovely little cafe, entirely unique. They might fill it with things they're interested in. So, it's it's a completely unique thing uh that you can go in and she'll serve you tea and maybe the cakes that she she made this morning. Um, and there are thousands of these throughout Tokyo. Not just little old ladies, but young people who own uh who will rent very cheaply. They have these, have you seen in Tokyo when you see the buildings, you often see these these neon >> um signs coming down the sides of the building. These are called Zakio uh which is basically miscellaneous use buildings. And and what they are is just very tall buildings. Uh, and each floor, um, you will have some kind of business. Could be anything. It's often bars or, um, you know, pool rooms or that, anything you want, little restaurant, anything like this. Uh, and and of course, they can't they don't have the the frontage on the ground floor. And so, they instead they will put their um their sign, neon sign, telling you what they are, um, down the side of the building. And that's what gives Tokyo that unique look is because it's all these Zakio buildings. And sometimes if you go uh a friend uh took me to this bar. Well, it was it was like a a building. It was inh Kabuki Cho which is right in the center of uh Tokyo. Uh and it was but it was on a side street and there was this tall building, gray building. You would never look at it. No signage or anything. And you look at the the elevate when you go in to the elevator on each floor there's like a a name of a business you know top hat eightball enigma you have no idea what these are they're not on Google maps right so and he just took pressed the button for the eighth floor he went up and it was just this little bar run by this one guy um and it was you know it played darts and had a drink and a few people came in not many because no most pe most people 99 point 99% of the population of Tokyo have no idea that this bar exists. Nor could they ever
know because it's not on Google Maps. There's no reviews of it. It doesn't exist. And I couldn't find it again unless I call my friend and say, "Take me there." I can never go to that bar again [laughter] ever because I I don't know where it is. >> Right. >> And there's thousands of these. It's like >> that sounds amazing. >> Yeah. >> I want to go right now. >> Yeah. [laughter] But you got to take a risk because if you just go if you don't know, right, and you just press the button, you could be some weird >> girls bar, you know, host bar, you know, and they they kind of rip you off and stuff. There's a lot of danger in going to these places. >> Well, there's a lot of yakuza, right? >> There's a yakuza in Kabuki show. Yeah. You got to be very careful. >> Uh because they will drug you and then they will take you to a cash machine and you >> take your liver. [laughter] >> Yeah, >> there's a lot of crazy stories. Um what when you uh see that and you live like that like what keeps the rest of the world from having a city like that? >> That's a really good question and I don't want to get well I don't know but I think culture is everything. You know obviously a city is all about the people. Um you of course you've got to have the infrastructure and you've got to have it's got to be properly funded but you also need uh the people that are going to take care of it. If you people are trashing it and don't have respect for the city, then obviously it's going to fall apart. Uh but it's all about the culture. [ __ ] Japan >> is fascinating. Uh the culture, I always say to people when you go to Japan, you have to switch your mindset. So normally as a westerner, I'm thinking about me. When I'm out in public, I'm thinking about me. What do I want to do? Uh where do I want to go? It's all me. In Japan, you flip that. Um it's about you should the first thing on your mind should be everybody else. Um when you hear Japanese people talk you will uh about people who cause problems in cities they use this word mewaku which means often translated as nuisance. So people who
come from the west often America but not just America. I'm not blaming everything on Americans, but it is often um and they come with their own, you know, they're the main character, this kind of main character syndrome. So, they, you know, they're talking. They often, you see these Instagram videos of people on on the the metro on the train and they like it's so quiet, >> you know, nobody's talking or nobody's kind of listening to music. And that's because they're always thinking about the people around them. Um they are thinking, you know, am I obstructing anyone? Am I getting in anyone's way? Am I annoying anyone? Am I making anyone feel uncomfortable? You're always thinking about those around you. And that leads to this very respectful, polite society where you can have 40, you know, 37 million people, whatever it is, crammed together in this relatively small area of land and they're not killing each other. um they learn I was told I'm not sure if this is true uh but there's kind of a I don't know if it's a myth uh but Japan is very mountainous and so back in the old days um villages were isolated so when you lived in a village to get to the next village you have to climb a mountain right um so you're trapped in your village and so you have to learn to get along with the people around you can't run away >> um and and so the Japanese culture has developed in the sense that you're you always have to be aware of the people around you. Um and and that's that's been passed down into the modern age that the culture is always one of thinking about others and and and and respect from a from an early age. >> That's what's so fascinating is like how come no one else figured that out? [laughter] >> And also what's really strange is Japan itself right now is in the midst of population collapse. >> Yeah. >> Sadly. So that's what sucks. It's like you could lose this and it could be overwhelmed by the west like because of the fact that they aren't having enough people to reproduce successfully to maintain their population. >> It could just be taken over like in terms of immigration like Americans could just move there and Europeans can move there and then all the beautiful
aspects of this very interesting and very unique culture >> could go away >> and they are really concerned about that. When I was when I was first uh when I first arrived in Japan like 10 years ago, I was worked at a university and I was stood on on campus outside just talking to someone and I saw a couple of like they look like high school students probably on a a campus visit uh out of the corner of my eye, Japanese high school students and they they caught my eye. They they they saw that I was looking at them and as soon as that happened, they both like on a dime stopped and bowed to me. And I thought, "Wow, >> wow. >> We're not in Kansas anymore. [laughter] >> Wow." >> You know, and that that having that >> teaching children about respect from a very and and training them, you know, the idea of respect your elders. This is, you know, we have this in the West as well, but we kind of lost it a little bit. And it's kind of drilled into them about respecting the people around you and respecting people who are older than you. And this probably goes back to the samurai, you know, these these hierarchies. >> Yes. I'm sure. >> I'm sure. just and then you you think about like how crazy feudal Japan was and that it eventually evolves to what it is now. This incredibly safe society. >> Yeah. Exactly. >> Which is really kind of nuts. Do you think about one of the most warlike cultures of all time? >> Yeah. >> The culture that fought off the Mongols successfully, >> you know, pretty nuts. >> Yeah. Yeah, it is. and uh and but you see it you see the remnants of that kind of the ancient societal structure uh even in the language when you learn Japanese u there are several levels of politeness um >> right you have so it's really complicated but um you have something called ko uh which is kind of formal or polite speech and if you are talking to if you're lower down and you're talking to someone above you you have to speak in a Even the words, the verbs are different, the words are different.
>> And if you're speaking about them, >> then you have to use what's called honorific like you're elevating them. If you're talking about someone up higher up, you have to elevate them. Use honorific language. If you're talking about yourself to someone who's higher up, you use um humble language. So you lower yourself down. So >> So it's very difficult, you know, it's still I still kind of struggle with it. Uh but and and it actually causes some problems because um it's very difficult for junior people um to communicate with um senior people um to communicate honestly at least. So they just you get a lot of it like yesmen yes I agree you know ah yes I agree with that you kind of agreeing with everything that the senior person says and that's not a way to make good decisions is by just agreeing. uh and so they have something called um nomunication. So this is formed from two words communication of course plus nomu which is the Japanese word to drink and they're talking about alcohol. So Japan in Japan alcohol is king. Uh and so society is actually lubricated by alcohol and functions because of alcohol. They have things called in in Japanese companies they have these kind of semi-obligatory you know semicompulsory events uh called nomikai which basically translates as drink meetings. >> Oh boy. >> You might have heard about these. And then basically the senior people and the the more junior people they all go together. They'll go to a bar uh with this express purpose of getting drunk. Not just to like have a drink with your colleagues but to actually get drunk become intoxicated. Um and that allows more free flowing communication. It allows you to everyone is brought to the same kind of level. This is this is nomunication and so it's facilitated by alcohol. Communication facilitated uh by alcohol. So it's a society that is dependent on alcohol in a in in a strong way. >> What is their approach to other drugs? Like are what like even casual drugs like marijuana and stuff like that? Are they highly illegal over there? >> Yeah, it's complicated I would say. Um, it's weird because, okay, so when when it comes to the law, people always say,
"Oh, Japan, it's got, you know, the strictest drug laws in the world." First of all, no, it hasn't. Go to Singapore. Uh, [laughter] >> settle down. >> Settle down. Yeah. Um but when it when it comes to drugs, cannabis for probably for you know after the second world war when I think it was MacArthur that was drafting the the Japanese constitution and was basically controlling you had it he was occupying Japan of course after the second world war uh and and America was in the um what's that movie called? Um that 1950s movie weed madness. Reefer madness. >> Ree for madness. It was America was in the kind of reef for madness phase. Um, and they they passed that on to the Japanese and the Japanese have never really gotten over it. >> So, but and then there's meth, of course. I mean, meth came from Japan. Meth was invented in Japan. It was used during the Second World War. The Kamicazis, they actually used these little >> green tablets uh that were called storming tablets. Oh boy. They were mixed with green tea and stamped with the crest of the emperor. So they became like sacraments. >> Oh my god. >> They would pop those. Uh yeah. >> Yeah. >> See how that worked out. >> Yeah. Exactly. But then at the end of the second world war when um they had stockpiles of these methamphetamine and it started to um it spilled out into the black market basically and large very large numbers of people became addicted to to meth. And there were actually in Osaka in I think around 1954. I forget the exact year but in one year the police raided I think around 50 meth labs in in one city operated by you know one or two people like mom and pop operation. It's like Breaking Bad, right? You know like you imagine meth labs in uh you know Arizona or something. Now, this was happening in Japan in the 1950s and it scared the [ __ ] out of the Japanese government because they were a defeated nation. They thought that they were, you know, it was the end of their civilization and they thought that meth addiction was the symptom. It was going to actually perhaps catalyze the the end of the the
Japanese, it was an existential threat to the Japanese civilization. So, they hit it hard legally. Um, and so now when you know, Japanese law, they're really focused on cannabis because of probably the American influence and meth. Uh, but psychedelics, most people in Japan probably don't know much about. There's a psychedelic subculture in Japan. There are circles in Japan um that operate in a gray area of the law. It's not explicitly illegal. Uh, it's discouraged, uh, but it's not explicitly illegal. Uh I know people who import Iawaska raw Iawaska drink from uh from the Amazon and operate Iawaska circles. >> You didn't did you do the DMTX experiments in Japan? >> No. >> Where did you do them? >> So okay, so we're going to get into DMTX. Yeah. >> Yeah. >> Um so DMTX came from an idea that I had in 2015. I worked with Rick Strasman on this. Um, so DMT is kind of unusual. It has these weird pharmacological peculiarities. It's, as I said before, it doesn't have subjective tolerance. So Rick Strazman showed in the 90s that you can inject someone with with DMT repeatedly and they have the same intensity effect at each time. But it also has another kind of a number of unique peculiarities. Of course, it's very very brief. It's it's it enters the brain extremely rapidly. It's metabolized rapidly and cleared very rapidly. It had all of these pharmacological peculiarities. And it occurred to me that these were precisely the characteristics you need of a drug uh that's used in anesthesiology. So in anesthesiology, uh when they want to put you to sleep, make you unconscious, what they don't do, uh they don't just inject you with a drug and kind of hope that it keeps working uh whilst they've got you under the knife. What they do is they use a very short acting drug um and they use an infusion machine uh which delivers the drug the anesthetic drug into your veins and goes to your brain uh and holds the brain level of the drug constant over time so that they can keep you in the anesthetized state unconscious for as long or short a period as they like. Uh and so it occurred to me that well DMT has the
right drug properties. It's like it's almost like it's designed for that uh that kind of technique called it's called target controlled introvenous infusion. Um and so I thought you know if we start if we take the DMT state seriously um and we treat it as a new world to explore um and you know intelligent beings with whom we can establish communicative relationships then 3 minutes of a breakthrough trip is nowhere near enough. Um, and so I thought, well, let's take this technology from anesthesiology, target controlled introvenous infusion, and let's repurpose it. So, instead of an anesthetic drug that's delivered by programmed infusion, uh, we instead deliver DMT by programmed infusion and induce somebody into the DMT state, um, and stabilize their brain DMT levels. Um, so you can hold them in the DMT state for 30 minutes or potentially for several hours uh and have complete control in real time over the depth of the experience. That was the idea. So I worked with Rick Strazman. I used his data, blood sampling data that he acquired in in the 90s. You know, fortunately had this old Excel file which he sent to me and I built this mathematical model of DMT's metabolism and distribution throughout the body. Uh and then we wrote a paper basically saying we think this should work. We think we should be able to extend the DM and stabilize the DMT state for many hours. Uh but we didn't actually it wasn't kind of human ready so to speak and it actually took um about five years before um it was actually implemented in humans. So that was actually done by the Imperial College London team. So they were the still are in a way um the leaders in in psychedelic research and a guy called uh then a PhD student I think Chris Timberman worked to make this proof of principle model that myself and Rick Strasman had developed uh and and get it human ready and actually test you know does it actually work do the do the predictions that we had myself and Rick Strasman do they actually work in humans and they found out that in fact that it does you can induce somebody into the DMT state and you can actually stabilize the experience. So rather than just being a um oh um Jamie
since I'm talking about this um I can show you actually what DMT trips or the kind of the time course of a DMT trip looks like over time. So normally what happens is the blood level will rise very very rapidly. you inject them with DMT, blood levels rise, they reach the brain um and then almost immediately they start collapsing down again exponentially and and that brief period when the brain levels are high is the breakthrough state. However, if you when the brain DMT levels reach a kind of a peak, you then start an infusion, you can basically compensate for the DMT that's being lost by metabolism. It's a bit like if you have a um a bathtub full of water and you pull the plug, the water drains, but if you turn on the taps, yeah, >> you can keep the level constant, right? >> And so that's the infusion. Um so you you you stabilize the state and our our hope was that the actual experience itself rather than that initial roller coaster phase that you get with DMT where it's all very very disorienting and he's like, you know, what's going on? That's for most people that's that's kind of it and then you're dragged back out again. But our hope was that actually over time if you stabilize the DM the DMT in the brain that it would actually stabilize the experience. Then people can actually navigate and explore the space and even perform kind of experiments within the space. And this is what's become known as uh DMTX. >> And how was that? What did they describe? >> Well, so this first study that was done just a couple of years ago, um, as I said, by Imperial College London, it was really a it was like a pilot study. They wanted to show that it w that it worked and that it was safe, that it was tolerable, that people weren't going crazy. Uh, you know, that they could handle it basically. Um, the very first person to do it, uh, was a guy I'm now working with. I work for a nonprofit called New Nautics out of Florida and we're very interested in designing um experiments using DMTX to actually study the DMT space and and the intelligences within them much more uh kind of formally. And on the board I work with a guy called Carl Smith who was the the very first person to undergo DMTX. He was also the only person to
complete I think there was five sessions over several weeks. He was the only one who boy handled it, so to speak. >> Boy, what's his name? >> Carl Smith. >> Shout out to Carl. >> Shout out to Carl. >> You [ __ ] [laughter] pioneer you. >> You know, but what's interesting is that the as we hoped and predicted um the the DMT state, it does stabilize. It's like the brain is settling into constructing this alternate world model, interfacing with this this this intelligence. And um he found that as he went back every time he was interacting with the same entities and they became aware of the fact that he was coming back so often and they were like you know what he not you again uh you know you're back um and and one time they were scanning him the the Imperial team in like a I think like an MRI machine or something and the entities were gathered all the entities he said as soon as they started scanning me in quote unquote real world. The entities were gathered and they seemed like curious or confused like what are they doing? >> What is the signal? >> Yeah. Right. It's like maybe it's the signal or something or they were like you know we're the ones that normally do the scanning. You know we're supposed to scan you. You know what's going on here? Um so there's this, as I said, it was just a pilot study, but there's a real taste that you can enter into these um um these kind of relationships with these entities. >> Um and actually we, as I said, I I I work for this I'm a a board member of this nonprofit called New Nautics. Um and our vision is really to design experiments with DMTX. like what what does a research organization look like uh that isn't simply trying to explain away uh DMT explain it but actually says okay this is a uncharted land that's that's fascinating that's inordinately complex and vast and filled with intelligences let's treat it like that >> as explorers what does a research organization aimed at studying that look like you know and and we imagine I imagine that you're not just sending you know for example let's take um the structure of the DMT space right it's this highly complex
geometrically and topologically strange um domain so we send in people who are experts who are mathematicians we send in a mathematician to study the topology of the space to study how the space is structured um the entities they often try to communicate they they use strange symbols and strange code. Oh, let's send in a uh a linguist who can study their language. And so you're you're sending in people with their own specialities um to actually formally study uh the DMT space. And what's even better is we now have a venue for this. So we're actually um we have a I work with a company called Elusis. We have a special license [snorts] from a a country in the Caribbean, St. Vincent and the Grenardines. And we we are setting up a retreat center, stroke research center uh to provide DMTX that is 100% legal um that is safe. You know, you've got anesthesiologists, psychiatrists, and nurses. uh you know a perfect setting that's also being designed in part by Carl Smith as well um that allows you um to perform these kind of um research um uh research studies aimed at analyzing and studying the DMT space but even better is it's also going to be open to anyone so if you think about um >> prepare for the freaks >> prepare for the freaks coming >> but like you know in in the '9s Rick Stasman he did the biggest study of its mind. You only had 60 people. Um, so you got 60 people worth of trip reports. What happens if you can bring in 300, 400, 500 people a year? >> How will you vet people to make sure they're not crazy before they do it? >> There will be a screening process of an initial screening process and then ultimately you would have a psychiatrist uh who would sign them off. So it's not just anyone, but anyone can in theory they can sign up. They can go to elucismind.com and they can put their name down and sign up to fly to this island, Beckway, I think it's called, um, and in a beautiful perfect um, setting spend a week on the island and undergoing a number of DMTX sessions and, you know, being able to explore this world um, using the DMTX technology and of course they will all be providing trip reports. So you you start to amass a vast data set of highly controlled verified you
know this isn't this isn't like posting online where you don't know what drugs they've taken really it's like you know exactly what they've taken um um it's pure pharmaceutical grade DMT um and um they they will generate this vast data set that could be used uh we're also working to develop a uh an AI powered um model that would take in this verbal data and in real time generate imagery. So someone can talk to the the model, the AI model, and it will generate the image and then you say, "Oh, no, this isn't quite right. This needs to be more like this." And so you're converging on the >> you're making a map of the territory. >> You're making a map of the territory. So you you end up with this vast library not just of textual trip reports but also of uh of imagery. >> And is this available now? >> It will it's opening. We're kind of we're building it's being developed now. Uh it should be open officially on March 1st next year. So go to Yeah. elucismind.com. >> That's soon. >> You can sign up soon. >> Just enough time for people to prepare. >> Yeah. And it will be the first I mean it's going to be the first of its kind you know a totally legal safe medically supervised um location where people can endure I say enjoy can experience DMTX. >> That's the thing about these ancient civilizations >> whe whether it's Egypt or whether it's uh ancient Greece where Ulysus was from >> um they all were using psychedelics. There's there's evidence of psychedelics in all these ancient civilizations. It's just our completely twisted sick society that's decided that the most beneficial drugs should be the ones that are the most illegal. >> Yep. >> Which is And you lump them in with the ones that destroy lives. They're they're categorized with meth. >> Yep. >> Which is completely insane. And the sign of a twisted sick culture. It's the sign of what McKenna was talking about with the chaos the chaos of a species that's preparing to leave for the stars. >> Yeah, I think so. And [laughter] uh but things are changing. You do see positive changes the attitude. Well, people understand it now. And I
think there's also a >> a giant shift towards uh people on the right accepting it because so many soldiers have come back from war and used it uh and and had great benefits. >> Yeah. Precisely. Yeah. So facts perhaps things aren't as bad as things things in some ways are getting better. They're getting worse in other ways, but they're getting better in other ways. >> They they're moving, right? >> Yeah. They're that's it. >> And I think you need bad in order to inspire good. Yeah, >> that's unfortunate, but I think that just historically that's always been the way >> that we figure things out. >> Yeah, I agree. >> Andrew, it's been so much fun. >> I really enjoy this. Uh, let's do it again. Let's do it again when the place is open. And when you get some trip reports, >> are you interested in doing DM? >> Allegedly. [laughter] Allegedly. We'll talk off air. But, um, this book that you wrote is available now, Death by Astonishment. Um, is it in audio form as well? >> Yeah, read by myself. Beautiful. You got a great voice for it. Perfect. I'm so happy that you read. >> I love when authors read their own work. It's so important. I think >> they wanted to get an actor. [ __ ] those actors. Cuz I was in Tokyo. I said, "No, no, no. >> You get some weirdo who doesn't know what he's talking about." Yeah. No, you need you. >> Um, thank you very much, man. It was really fun. I [music] enjoyed it. My pleasure. Bye, everybody. [music] >> [laughter]