Michael Pollan

They're not huge yet. We're seeing positive and lasting results. You asked about OCD, obsessive compulsive disorder. There was a trial at Yale using psilocybin and people had permanent relief. You know, one of the questions that I had myself is, wait a minute, this is a little suspicious. This one substance works on OCD and anxiety and depression and addiction and anorexia.

They're not huge yet. We're seeing positive and lasting results. You asked about OCD, obsessive compulsive disorder. There was a trial at Yale using psilocybin and people had permanent relief. You know, one of the questions that I had myself is, wait a minute, this is a little suspicious. This one substance works on OCD and anxiety and depression and addiction and anorexia.

This seems a little too good to be true. And I posed this question to a very well-known psychiatrist who'd been head of the National Institute of Mental Health. And I said, is this a panacea? Is this for real? And he said, well, why do you think all those different things are different illnesses?

This seems a little too good to be true. And I posed this question to a very well-known psychiatrist who'd been head of the National Institute of Mental Health. And I said, is this a panacea? Is this for real? And he said, well, why do you think all those different things are different illnesses?

This seems a little too good to be true. And I posed this question to a very well-known psychiatrist who'd been head of the National Institute of Mental Health. And I said, is this a panacea? Is this for real? And he said, well, why do you think all those different things are different illnesses?

They may be different manifestations of the same kind of brain, a brain that is stuck in patterns of behavior and thought that it can't get out of. And maybe what the psychedelics are doing... Right? It was like the light bulb went off.

They may be different manifestations of the same kind of brain, a brain that is stuck in patterns of behavior and thought that it can't get out of. And maybe what the psychedelics are doing... Right? It was like the light bulb went off.

They may be different manifestations of the same kind of brain, a brain that is stuck in patterns of behavior and thought that it can't get out of. And maybe what the psychedelics are doing... Right? It was like the light bulb went off.

And we are victims of our habits.

And we are victims of our habits.

And we are victims of our habits.

And they may just be different symptoms rather than different disorders. So that I understood.

And they may just be different symptoms rather than different disorders. So that I understood.

And they may just be different symptoms rather than different disorders. So that I understood.

Yeah, from a rigidity of thought and what psychedelics do in adults. I saw, Reagan, you had that aha moment too, right?

Yeah, from a rigidity of thought and what psychedelics do in adults. I saw, Reagan, you had that aha moment too, right?

Yeah, from a rigidity of thought and what psychedelics do in adults. I saw, Reagan, you had that aha moment too, right?

I know it does feel like magic. Yes. But I, so I think that what psychedelics seem to do is make the brain more plastic, able to learn. There's a beautiful metaphor that a scientist gave me once that think, think of your mind as a snow covered hill. and your thoughts as sleds going down that hill.

I know it does feel like magic. Yes. But I, so I think that what psychedelics seem to do is make the brain more plastic, able to learn. There's a beautiful metaphor that a scientist gave me once that think, think of your mind as a snow covered hill. and your thoughts as sleds going down that hill.

I know it does feel like magic. Yes. But I, so I think that what psychedelics seem to do is make the brain more plastic, able to learn. There's a beautiful metaphor that a scientist gave me once that think, think of your mind as a snow covered hill. and your thoughts as sleds going down that hill.