02x02 - The Psychedelic Experience

[bunniefuu]

[Michael]
This is Iquitos, Peru,

the world's largest city
inaccessible by road.

The only way in and out
is by air or by river,

the Amazon River.

I'm about to head up the Amazon
to a remote jungle retreat

called Refugio Altiplano,
the Refuge on the Higher Plain.

There, I will meet
with local shamans

to drink an ancient
psychedelic drug, ayahuasca.

Ayahuasca contains
dimethyltryptamine, DMT,

a molecule shaped
very similar to serotonin,

a neurotransmitter
in our brains.

Ingesting ayahuasca and flooding
the brain with DMT

leads to what many describe
as spiritual experiences--

strong, vivid visions,

a sense of oneness
with the universe,

even a sense
of one's self dying.

But mystical,
magical language like that

doesn't really seem relevant
to scientific inquiry.

It can often scare away those
who are scientifically minded.

However an understanding
of the human mind

isn't complete unless
it considers

everything the brain
is capable of.

What does it mean to feel
at one with the universe?

Why should our brains even
be capable of such a feeling?

This isn't about having fun
or taking a risk

or doing something extreme.

I want to learn
what my mind is capable of.

I'm about to embark
on a journey.

[theme music playing]

Psychedelics are chemicals

that are structurally similar
to neurotransmitters

already used by our brains.

When we ingest them,
they bind to receptors

and alter cognition
and perception

in ways we're still trying
to understand.

When many people think
of psychedelics,

they think about people
challenging societal norms

and recreational
thrill-seekers,

but that only attends

to a particularly narrow slice
of human history and culture.

Fossil records, cave drawings,
and archaeological digs

have all provided evidence
that humans

have been using
psychedelic compounds

for thousands of years, and
by "used," I don't just mean

in the stereotypical
"trip out" sense.

[screaming]

For instance,
among the indigenous peoples

of the Amazon rainforest,
psychedelics were and,

in many places, still are
a normal, common,

and totally
mainstream experience.

As a member of these groups,
believing psychedelics can heal,

give visions of the future,
and connect you with deities

is not some weird
or New Age idea.

It's the way things are.

But when psychedelics
became associated

with certain
counterculture movements,

the United States banned
research on them in 1970.

Most other countries followed
suit shortly afterwards.

From then on, testing on humans
was essentially gone,

but recently, restrictions
have begun to loosen up,

and a few researchers
have started

to investigate these substances

in what some have described
as a psychedelic renaissance.

Research universities
are conducting

comprehensive studies
on the beneficial effects

of psychedelics on addiction,
depression,

and cancer-related trauma.

By approaching
psychedelics scientifically,

what we find could
fundamentally transform

our understanding
of the human mind.

[trimmer buzzing]

When I go to Peru,
I will be accompanied

by Dr. Robin Carhart Harris,
one of the first

British researchers
in over 40 years

to investigate the effects
of psychedelics

on the human mind.

He and his colleagues
have found that psychedelics

don't increase brain activity,
as previously thought.

Instead, they decrease activity
in certain areas.

And the greater the decrease,

the greater
the reported feelings

of what is called
ego dissolution or ego death.

Your ego is your self-identity.

It's the part that separates
you from everything else,

the part
that creates narratives about
the outside world

and your story in it.

When the ego dissolves,
your sensations

and feelings don't cease
like when you're unconscious.

Instead, your attachment
to your identity does,

and all that's left
is naked perception.

Ego dissolution is a concept

that I find difficult
to wrap my head around,

but people who take psychedelics
say that it can be

an extremely
frightening experience,

but also a profoundly
transformative one,

one that makes them feel
more connected

to others and to nature.

Now, I knew that I might feel
ego dissolution on ayahuasca,

so to make sure I was ready,

I decided to speak
to some experts.

Before setting off to Peru,
Dr. Carhart Harris traveled

from Imperial College, London,
to meet with me.

This will be one
of the first times

that anyone has scanned
a healthy person's brain

with FMRI before
and after ayahuasca.

-Yeah.
-It's quite pioneering work,
really.

The thing that's on my mind
right now is intention.

-Yeah.
-I've heard you should know why

you're drinking ayahuasca.

Yeah, I would suggest
that you think

about an emotional intention.

To make it emotional is
a lot more frightening to me.

-Yeah.
-Partly I think I'm quite happy,

and I don't want
to ruin that, right?

I don't want to drink
ayahuasca and then
think, "Oh, my gosh,

I'm not close enough
to my mom,

or I don't show my wife
I appreciate her enough,

and now
I just feel terrible."

There's something to be said
for sitting with those thoughts,

-being mindful of them.
-Right.

And in so doing,
they become less of a thr*at.

-Hmm.
-You look them in the eye.

All of a sudden,
they reveal things to you,

and their scariness
seems to dissipate.

I hope I can embrace
that while I'm surrounded

by people who are
all filming me, you know?

Yeah, the most important thing
is that intention to go in.

-You dive in--
in and through.
-You don't resist.

You don't resist.

Yeah, I think that'll
really be important

while I'm on the trip.

[Michael] Robin has
arranged for a number
of scientific tests

to be done in order to measure
brain activity,

behavioral differences,

and physiological changes
to my brain.

[Robin] Today, we are scanning
Michael's brain

with functional magnetic
resonance imaging, or FMRI.

This allows us to see
the whole brain

and how different parts connect
and talk to one another.

This way, we can compare
how Michael's brain may change

before his experience
with ayahuasca

to after
the ayahuasca experience.

I expect to see
that one network of the brain

that relates to introspection

will become more strongly
connected after the ayahuasca.

[Michael]
After meeting Robin,

I still felt some trepidation
about my trip,

but with my pre-ayahuasca
FMRI completed,

it was time to set off
for Peru.

The trip to the Refugio
Altiplano retreat

involved a flight
to Lima, Peru,

a second flight
to Iquitos, Peru,

followed by a 90-minute
boat ride up the Amazon River.

It was a long journey.

And every minute I got closer

meant that it would be harder
to turn back.

The Refugio Altiplano retreat
is in a very remote area

of the Amazon River
in the northern part of Peru,

and I thought it would be
a great setting

for my ayahuasca experience.

So, Kelly, what does
the word "ayahuasca" mean?

"Ayahuasca" means
the "vine of the soul."

Ayahuasca's been used
for possibly over 4,000 years

in shamanic rituals
and is the primary

plant medicine
for healing in the villages.

[Michael] With the ayahuasca
ceremony just hours away,

I met with José,
the shaman who would be

my guide
during this experience.

-Hola, José, Claudia.
-Hola, amigo.

[speaking Spanish]

[speaking Spanish]

[translating]
It's my pleasure
to have you here.

Welcome
to Refugio Altiplano,

where many people come
to look for a change
in their lives.

José, how do you
feel about someone
like me coming in,

who is not part
of your culture,
taking part in it

in a way
that might not come
from the same history?

[speaking Spanish]

[Claudia]
For me, there's no difference,

and for the medicine,
it makes no difference.

This medicine, all it wants
is to make your life better

and heal you.

On the very first night
with our guests,

we give them a very small
medicinal dose

to see how each person's
gonna react differently

to the medicine,
and then tomorrow night,

we'll dial it up a little bit.

[Michael] It was great
to speak with José

about what the ceremony
will entail.

I am nervous about
the emotional part of it,

and I'm nervous
about the visions and feeling

like I've been disconnected
from the real world.

Scientists know very little
about how ayahuasca works

since its illegal status
in many countries

makes it difficult to study.

We do know that
its key ingredient

is dimethyltryptamine, or DMT,
which is a hallucinogen

thought to occur naturally
in the human brain

in small amounts.

DMT can create
psychoactive effects

by acting on certain receptors
in the brain.

But normally, DMT is broken down
rapidly by enzymes in the brain.

but ayahuasca is actually
a brew made from two plants.

One contains DMT,

and the second contains
a chemical inhibitor

that blocks our brain's ability
to break down DMT,

allowing the effects to last
as long as four hours.

Dr. Carhart Harris performed
a series of tests on me

to compare how I change
during this experience.

[Robin]
Given that we're in Peru,
we're in the jungle,

and you're
drinking ayahuasca,
it has authenticity

that perhaps
sometimes you lose

when you give psychedelics
in the laboratory
environment.

-Yeah.
-Because we're
going to be doing this

after you drink ayahuasca,
we need a control condition,

so what I'm going to do now
is I'll ask you

a short list of questions
about your journey here,

and I want you
to rate how you feel
about these questions

on a scale here.

We have zero to nine.

Nine will be strongly agree,

and zero will be
strongly disagree.

So "I learned more
from my journey here

to this retreat center
about how past events

have influenced
my present behavior."

Two.

-I got ideas areas during...
-Two.

-Five. Six.
-Great.

With different
psychedelic dr*gs to ayahuasca

like LSD and psilocybin,
also DMT,

we've found some quite
consistent changes

in brain activity.

We've seen
that the brain activity

is richer and more varied.

Of course,
we can't wheel an MRI scanner

up into the jungle,
so the EEG setup that we have

is pretty much
the best possibility

that we have to do this.

[Michael]
According to Jose, this flower
bath was meant

to protect me from bad spirits
during the ceremony.

-[Michael speaks Spanish]
-[José chuckles]

I didn't believe in such
things, but I was glad to do it

because it was a symbol
of José's good intentions.

Hola.
Buenas noches.

[Michael] The initial
smaller-dose ceremony

was expected to last
about two hours

with the effects beginning
after 30 minutes.

[José speaking Spanish]

We'll begin
with our ceremony tonight,
asking God to guide us,

to give us knowledge
and intelligence.

[José speaking Spanish]

[Claudia]
We're going to bless
the medicine first.

[music playing]

Gracias.

[Michael]
The ayahuasca tasted earthy.

[speaking Spanish]

Maybe also a bit like fennel
or something.

It's hard to say.

I'd never tasted
anything like it.

After swallowing it all,

my heart started racing.

It was the most nervous
I would be all night.

DMT from the ayahuasca
was flowing

into my blood and brain.

There was no going back.

[José chanting]

Throughout the ceremony,
shaman José is saying icaros,

or chants,
which were meant to guide me

through my spiritual
experience.

[chanting continues]

[José chanting]

The initial dose was meant
to gently introduce me

to ayahuasca.

The effects began slowly
and were mild.

I began to feel
as though the room

were swinging like a cradle.

I was aware that the motion
wasn't really happening,

but it made me feel sick

and nervously off-balance
nonetheless.

My imagination was more vivid.

Images in my mind
were more detailed,

but almost always
under my control.

The ceremony ends when
the shaman lights a candle.

I was comforted by this
because it was a sign

that the effects would
only be weakening from here.

Thank you, José.

I think there were two moments
where I was actually

was surprised
by something that I saw.

One was like a very vivid--

like bamboo that had been cut
so that it was at a slant,

and I remember going,
"Wow, where did that come from?"

-But as soon as I did,
it was gone.
-Mm-hmm.

[Robin] One of the effects
of ayahuasca

is to kind of create
a sort of chaos in the cortex.

That can lead
to dreamlike visions.

The second time I was like,
"Oh, yeah, nature,"

and, like, "Do I feel more
at one with everything?"

And I imagined trees,
but only in this ring.

And all of a sudden,
they came really close,

and they were all
right here in my head.

But I was like,
"I did not think that.

I didn't intend
for that to happen.

[Michael]
I think a good comparison
for what I felt last night--

if you, in a sober state
of mind, just imagine something,

like think of a pink elephant.

Okay, now an image
probably popped into your mind,

but not like
a super detailed one.

If I asked you
a specific question like,

"How many wrinkles
are on its trunk?"

you'd have to probably
imagine it again

and then, like, basically
fill in that detail.

But under the effects
of ayahuasca,

those details were already
in these--

these imagined images.

They seemed only as real
as an imagined image,

as a daydream,

but they came with more detail,
and a few times--

I'd say maybe
three or four times,

things appeared that I did not
feel like I had put there.

But as soon as I was aware
of that, they disappeared.

I'd like to look at the stars.

Yeah, let's do that.

The morning after
my initial dose of ayahuasca,

my head was clearer,
and I wanted to discuss

my experience was shaman José.

-Hola, Michael.
-Hola.

[speaking Spanish]

You had a perfect
introduction ceremony.

Emotionally
and sort of personally,

the only sort of
revelations I had

was that I was probably
more worried

than I needed to be
beforehand

and that I let that affect
my behavior,

and now I'm not
as dominated

by what might happen
or what has happened.

I'm just kind of
in this moment right now.

Like, I feel much more open
to mystical thinking.

[speaking Spanish]

He recommends
that you complete with
more medicine tonight

so that this will help you
complete

the insight into yourself.

Last night,
I had a third of a cup?

[speaking Spanish]

Three-quarters will be
the dose for tonight.

Three-quarters. Okay.

It's weird.
I had an intention going in.

I experienced this

as a very interesting
scientific endeavor.

But I'm fascinated by how
I want it to have meaning.

I feel like I didn't hit
that oneness yet.

Tonight might be different.

[Robin] Michael's getting
the higher dose tonight,

and the experience
is very likely to differ

quite substantially
from the dose
that he had last night.

[Michael] I'm interested
in personal development.

I know that that's a big part
of ayahuasca

for a lot of people.

I'm open to it, for sure,
but I do feel still

some apprehension
for a larger dose tonight.

Hey, Michael?

I'm here to pick you up
for ceremony.

-Buenas noches.
-Buenas noches.

[Michael]
The higher-dose ceremony

was expected to last four hours

with stronger
and more vivid hallucinations.

José smoked a cigar
made of a tobacco plant

that's indigenous
to the Amazon called mapacho.

The smoke is believed to clean
the energy fields of the body

and remove negativity
from the ceremonial lodge.

[exhales slowly]

The second ceremony included
another shaman, Daniel.

[chanting]

I started to see
these very geometric,

bright squares, like,
stacked like Aztec pyramids,

moving,
and I was traveling down

through these, like,
repeating kind of, you know,

fractaled images of everything.

I mean, too many things
to really describe,

music notes and colors
and shapes and squares.

Then I started to feel like,
"Oh, my gosh,

this is going faster and faster,
and this is too fast,

and it hasn't even been
that long,"

and then I felt my body being
covered with these blocks,

and I, like,
saw my body from above

and felt like
I was disappearing.

[José chanting]

And that's when my heart
started racing,

and I said,
"Mm, this was very bad.

This is not good."

A lot of emotions I always have
were amplified

so loudly
I couldn't ignore them.

And I had to come up
with ways to console myself

so that I wouldn't
be consumed by them

and have a complete breakdown
and panic att*ck.

And I resisted,

and I successfully
brought myself back

to calmness just by saying,
"I'm fine.

I'm not going to die,
and everyone here can help me."

The visions were really,
really vivid.

They didn't feel like
they were under my control.

It really felt
like they were just there.

A note from the song
would occur,

and it would cause this image,
and that was pretty frightening,

because I wasn't--
I was, like, on a ride

that I didn't know
the path of.

[distorted chanting]

-Robin?
-Yeah.

-I can do the EEG now.
-Yeah, sure.

[Michael] I spent a lot
of the ceremony being anxious

about having to do
these tests with Robin.

I don't know how to deal
with the lights coming back on

and Robin talking to me
and asking me questions,

but the more I concentrated
on why I feel anxious,

the more I realized
it was just about me.

It was about how I felt,
but then I said,

"I'm here to do a show.
We're filming this.

Robin wants this data.

Everyone will be happier
if I do it.

So I'll just tell Robin
I'll try my best,

and that gave me
the courage to do it.

So being less selfish

basically saved me
from a panic att*ck.

[Robin] Each time
I read an item, if you
could give me a number

according to how
you see yourself
at this moment, okay?

"I see myself right now
as extroverted,
enthusiastic."

Um... one.

Okay.

[Robin] This is a big change
for Michael.

Usually,
he's very extroverted,

and on
his pre-ayahuasca answer,

he gave a higher number.

"Extroverted, enthusiastic."

Five.

[Robin] But now I'm seeing
signs of withdrawal

and introversion from him.

"I see myself right now
as critical, quarrelsome."

Uh...

two.

"I see myself right now
as critical, quarrelsome."

Six.

[Robin] The experience
has led to a change

in how he sees himself.

It's in a way reflective

perhaps
of a higher waking state.

[plucks notes]

It's interesting
to already see those changes,

and it's only halfway
through the ceremony.

[Daniel singing
in native language]

[Michael]
Shaman Daniel sang in Shipibo,

his indigenous language

spoken by only 5,000 people
in the world.

I've always been frustrated
by the difficulty people had

in explaining
what it felt like

to have a psychedelic
experience.

Now I know why.

It's a different
state of mind,

and trying to describe that
is like trying to describe

anger to someone
who has never felt it

or what colors are like
to a blind person.

[singing continues]

Oh, man.

[chuckles]

I'd say about five minutes
into that first song...

I...

really panicked.

My heart rate picked up,
and I actually touched my chest

to make sure it wasn't b*ating
as fast as I thought it was.

But that moment,
I may have left my body

or something near it
before I stopped.

I was very scared
that I was disappearing.

Michael is describing
what to me sounds like

quintessential ego dissolution,
the start of it,

that feeling
that he's disappearing,

that his control over his mind
and his body

is ceding entirely,

and he felt
some resistance to that.

With a high enough dose,

you're just forced
into that space.

My feeling is that
the intensity of his experience

was just short of that
kind of profound

transformative type experience.

I think he got a bit of that,

but I don't think
he was all the way.

[Michael] I was there
in that ego-dissolving state

for a moment,
and it terrified me.

I wish I was able
to surrender more fully,

but I definitely
got a good taste of it.

So the dosage last night
was much higher.

Yes.

Visions--
the visuals were really vivid,

and the feeling of strangeness
was really strong.

I'd be curious to know
what José was doing last night.

What was he reacting to
that he saw in me.

What plants did he call forth
and why?

[speaking Spanish]

He knew you were going through
an intense ceremony.

It was strong for you.

But he said he was very happy
because he knew

this was going to have
a positive ending for you.

I'm really interested
in what the lessons were.

I felt so small...
and so humble.

But-- but, honestly, I liked it.
I wasn't afraid of it.

I was glad to be reminded
that I'm weak.

I feel like the experience
amplified

everything I'm concerned about
way above what would be

a normal amount
to care about it.

But that made my fear
and anxiety big enough

that I could actually
relax them.

The question is
will I remember to apply that,

or will this kind of stay
in the jungle?

Before leaving Peru,

I completed one last round
of tests with Robin...

I'll place this
on your head.

...in order to gather data

after my higher dose
of ayahuasca.

-Thank you so much.
-Thank you.

I can't wait to see you
back in L.A.

and see what other thoughts
you've had with these tests.

[Robin] Being here in
the jungle, it's more organic.

Because of that,
I feel that I've collected data

that's going to tell us
something important

and meaningful
about how psychedelics

and ayahuasca specifically
work on the mind and the brain.

After returning home
to Los Angeles,

I had my second MRI
so that Robin could see

if there were any changes.

Although my ego dissolved
only for a brief few moments,

I was teetering on that edge
throughout the entire ceremony,

and I was anxious to see what
it looked like in my brain.

Robin, welcome to my home.
Thank you for coming back.

I can't wait to see
what results you got.

-Yeah.
-How did ayahuasca
affect my brain?

Okay, so we found
something quite interesting.

We found that your brain
activity became more complex,

more diverse, more rich,
more varied

under the ayahuasca
than at baseline.

What does it mean to have

more complex brain activity

in terms of how
I experience things?

Mm, I think
we can understand it in terms

of the richness of your
imagination, of your ideas.

Trains of thought
can be more varied,

more changeable,
more dynamic.

-I definitely experienced that.
-Yeah.

All right, you looked
not just at my brain

through the surface,
but you went deep inside.

-Yeah.
-What did you notice there?

We looked at a particular
brain network

called the default mode network
that seems to relate

to our sense of self or ego.

We've seen in other studies

that during
a psychedelic experience,

that network
is dramatically compromised.

It shows a kind
of disintegration and actually,

that process relates
quite strongly

to people's ego dissolution,
and yet after the experience,

the network comes back
as a kind of reset

or a kind of rebooting
of the network,

and what we found your brain
after ayahuasca,

as predicted, was
that your brain reset.

The network
became more cohesive,

more integrated, more strongly
connected within itself.

Wow. Yeah, afterwards,
I really did feel

much more interested

with my identity, my past
and my future.

-Yeah.
-You asked me a lot of questions

before and after

about my insight
into experiences.

-Yeah.
-How did those compare?

Well, actually we saw something
really nice in those data.

So your ratings of insight
for the journey,

the lower dose and then
the higher dose with ayahuasca,

what we saw was that
there was a graded increase

in your levels of insight.

Your score at baseline
was 27.

After the low-dose experience,
it was 39.

After the high-dose ceremony,
it was 49.

Wow, I definitely felt
like the larger

the ayahuasca dose,
the more I considered

-and learned about myself.
-Yeah.

Well, Robin,
I'm glad that we were able

to do such a, you know,
in-the-environment-type study.

So thank you for coming all
the way out to Peru with me.

I really appreciate it,
and I hope that I helped.

Yeah, it's been
a great experience,

and I've learned a lot.

As I look back on it now,

I feel like my experience
with ayahuasca

was one of resistance.

Instead of surrendering myself
to its effects,

I dipped in
and then got scared,

and I told myself,
"It'll be all right.

I'm not gonna die,"

but I should've just gone in
and through.

I did however learn a lot
about how to control anxiety,

that relinquishing control
and selfishness

can make it vanish,
but perhaps in doing so,

I lost the chance to experience
my mind operating

without the controls
and dampening

I'm so used to that
I'm more comfortable with.

Scientists like Robin
have managed to break through

tight legal restrictions
surrounding these substances

and have begun to find out
what they can teach us

about the mind.

Their findings so far
are just the beginning

of our understanding
of these powerful compounds,

which shows us how much
we have yet to learn

about the mind and brain.

And, as always,
thanks for watching.

[theme music playing]