Adventures Through The Mind – Détails, épisodes et analyse

In this episode of Adventures Through the Mind, we interview Nick Sun, stand up comedian, former psychedelic facilitator, and now the author of "No Mo Trippin".

We discuss Nick's personal experiences with psychedelics, including his high usage and how it led him to both become a facilitator and to stop facilitating; his criticisms of Western psychedelic culture; the concept of spiritual bypassing; and the challenges of integrating psychedelic experiences. We also touch on the potential of psychedelics for cultural change, the importance of responsible use and integration, and where comedy and humour fit into our navigation of the modern world and its many crises.

Enjoy.

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For links to Nick Sun's work, full show notes, and a link to watch this episode in video, head to bit.ly/ATTMind190

*** FULL TOPICS BREAKDOWN BELOW**

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*** Huge thanks to my patrons on Patreon!

In particular, my $23+ patrons; Andreas D, Ian C, Alex F, Eliz C, & Joe A

Episode Breakdown

• (00:00) Opening
• (01:07) Guest bio and introduction
• (04:20) Interview begins; a book of initiations
• (10:28) Self-critiquing our self-obsession and saviour complex in the West world
• (15:34) Neoteny, “adult” as a verb, and the Hero’s journey as an initiation for children
• (21:10) Self-initiation through psychedelic excess, the potential harms and opportunities
• (28:11) Spiritual bypassing through high dose psychedelic experiences
• (30:37) Are we disrespecting the plants when we take too much, too often?
• (33:00) Clarifying the harms of such an excessive use of psychedelics
• (36:42) The value of undergoing a rite of passage and getting a teacher before we begin our psychedelic explorations
• (42:18) Patreon Thanks
• (44:12) The risks of becoming a facilitator inspired by psychedelics plants alone
• (52:30) Differentiating between messages from the plant and psychedelically-inflated egoic projections
• (55:53) “Tread carefully, my friend”; advice to new psychedelic facilitators
• (01:00:31) The risks of becoming a facilitator with a degree but no psychedelic experience
• (01:04:12) Can we use psychedelic to heal culture, or will psychedelics be used as bandaide for a failed system? (01:14:47) Comedy for personal and social healing; comedy for dissociation and bypassing
• (01:21:58) The role of comedy to help us stay in our heart while commentating on society
• (01:28:57) The role of humour to help us stay in our heart and not fall into pessimism
• (01:31:52) Follow-up links
• (01:33:40) Outro

We welcome Greg Wrenn to the show to share his experience of complex post-traumatic stress disorder (cPTSD) and how it was that his explorations of coral reefs and journeys with Ayahuasca turned the tide on his lifelong struggle with the condition.

Additionally, as both his experience of and healing from cPTSD is intertwined with his journalism on climate science, we also explore how the ecological and psychological effects of the climate crisis weave into our personal and collective experiences and expressions of trauma.

Enjoy

...

For links to Wrenn's work, full show notes, and a link to watch this episode in video, head to bit.ly/ATTMind189

*** FULL TOPICS BREAKDOWN BELOW**

SUPPORT THE PODCAST

• Become a member of my Patreon: https://patreon.com/jameswjesso
• Toss me a tip on PayPal: https://www.paypal.com/biz/fund?id=383635S3BKJVS
• Toss my a Tip on Ko-Fi: https://ko-fi.com/jameswjesso
• Buy some merchandise:  https://www.jameswjesso.com/shop/
• More Options: https://www.jameswjesso.com/support
• Newsletter:  https://www.jameswjesso.com/newsletter
• Telegram Channel:  https://t.me/jameswjesso

*** Huge thanks to my patrons on Patreon!

In particular, my $23+ patrons; Andreas D, Ian C, Alex F, Eliz C, Joe A;

Episode Breakdown

• (00:00) Opening; Guest Bio
• (3:28) Our favourite Star Trek TNG characters and why
• (8:05) An explanation of complex post-traumatic stress disorder (cPTSD)
• (16:01) How cPTSD manifested in Greg’s life
• (22:43) The struggles faced when trying to heal cPTSD
• (30:02) The intersection of personal trauma and the climate crisis
• (43:19) Patreon Thanks
• (44:45) The damage and healing in our relationship with Nature
• (51:33) Neoliberalism and the fallacy of “self-care” in the context of the climate crisis
• (55:13) Being tricked to feel personally guilty for the climate crisis
• (1:00:45) How to find our personal way to do deeply meaningful good
• (1:05:47) The role of being in the living world in our wellbeing and sense of purpose
• (1:11:32) Where grief fits into navigating trauma and the climate crisis
• (1:19:19) Healing cPTSD with ayahuasca through healing our attachment wounds
• (1:27:27) Healing with ayahuasca requires an opportunity to apply your healing after the ceremony
• (1:30:05) The role psychedelics are playing in supporting our collective response to the climate crisis
• (1:37:23) Why it is important to ask ourselves: “What is it like to appreciate an ecosystem that will collapse in our lifetimes? To be moved by beauty that we’re pushing toward extinction?”
• (1:42:32) Follow-up links and contact details

Dr. Adele Lafrance joins us to explore psychedelics and the healing power of Love.

Our conversation begins with an exploration of emotional processing and how difficulties and deficiencies in emotional processing both our mental health, our relationships, and our general wellbeing. We then step into psychedelics and the role they play in supporting our emotional processing capacities.

From there we turn towards Love, what it is and all the accidental ways we conflate it with things that can include love but aren’t love itself: romance, lust, infatuation, attachment, obsession, etc. We talk about the healing power of Love, both in our day-to-day lives and in various forms of healthcare, and why as a society we need to better learn how to wield and integrate that healing power of love. We then talk about encounters with Love as a transpersonal force during psychedelic experiences, the role of love in supporting people in their psychedelic experiences, and even the strange phenomenon of being harmed by too much Love on 5-MeO-DMT.

Of course, although love itself is not sex, with any mention of love we evoke consideration of sexuality, sexual dynamics, and sex itself. Thus, we also talk about sexual healing, the complexity of sexual energy and behaviour in therapy, and even the risks, challenges, and opportunities of having sex while on psychedelics.

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STUDY SURVEY HERE: https://psychedeliclove.org/survey-study

For links to Lafrance's work, full show notes, and a link to watch this episode in video, head to bit.ly/ATTMind180

*** FULL TOPICS BREAKDOWN BELOW**

SUPPORT THE PODCAST

• Patreon: https://patreon.com/jameswjesso
• Paypal Donation: https://www.paypal.com/biz/fund?id=383635S3BKJVS
• Tip Me on Ko-Fi: https://ko-fi.com/jameswjesso
• Merchandise:  https://www.jameswjesso.com/shop/
• More Options: https://www.jameswjesso.com/support
• Newsletter:  https://www.jameswjesso.com/newsletter
• Telgram Channel:  https://t.me/jameswjesso

*** Huge thanks to my patrons on Patreon for helping keep this podcast alive!

In particular my $23+ patrons: Andreas D, Ian C, Yvette FC, Alex F, Eliz C, Nick M, Joe A, James S, Heather S, & Heartwood Mushrooms —— 

Episode Breakdown

• (0:00) Opening
• (1:35) Episode overture and guest bio
• (5:45) Patreon thanks
• (6:43) Interview begins
• (7:44) Emotional processing and the damaging impact of poor emotional processing
• (12:49) Culturally conditioned deficits in emotional processing
• (19:50) Learning to own triggers, rather than project them
• (22:14) The role of psychedelics in emotional processing (and vice versa)
• (28:02) Our emotions are the most reliably true aspect of our psychedelic experiences
• (31:18) Disambiguating “Love”
• (37:01) Love as a transpersonal force
• (40:01) Love in psychedelic experiences
• (44:08) Being harmed by too much love on 5-MeO-DMT
• (48:03) Our sociocultural context can negatively impact our psychedelic integration
• (50:05) The role of love in our healing journeys
• (51:48) The role of love in supporting people in psychedelic experiences
• (53:59) We need to acknowledge love is a transpersonal force
• (56:40) The complexity of sexual energy and behaviour in therapy
• (1:05:11) Psychedelics and sexual healing, and sex on psychedelics
• (1:15:57) The Love Project: what it is, how it came to be, and how you can get involved
• (1:23:33) Closing regards
• (1:24:25) Outro

Adam Strauss is on the show for this episode to dive into the painful lived experience of Obsessive Compulsive Disorder and what it was, exactly, that psychedelics did for him that helped him regain agency over his life.

**full episode breakdown below**

***SPOILER ALERT: Ender's Game / Xenocide Novel Series ***

--LINKS--
For more psychedelic content like this and/or to access this interview on youtube, head to https://bit.ly/ATTMindEp106

*** Big thanks to my patrons on Pateron for helping keep this podcast alive! Especially, Thomas & Melanie H, Clea S, Steven B, James R, Dean H, Joe A, Andy D, Stephen B, Angela & James J, Ian C, David W, Don J, Yvett FC, Ann-Madeleine, & Cornelius Phlegmbottom

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SEE ADAM STRAUSS' THE MUSHROOM CURE AND/ATTEND MAPPING THE MIND, BOTH IN TORONTO

The Mushroom Cure
Thursday, September 19 @ 8:00 pm - 10:00 pm
The Grand Gerrard, 1035 Gerrard St E,
Toronto, ON M4M 1Z6 Canada + Google Map
https://mappingthemind.ca/event/mushroom-cure-adam-strauss/?tickets_process=#buy-tickets

Mapping The Mind
Satruday, September 21 @ 9:00 am - 6:00 pm
Earth Sciences Center, 5 Bancroft Ave
Toronto, Ontario M5S 3B3 Canada
https://mappingthemind.ca/event/mapping-the-mind-2019/?tickets_process=#buy-tickets

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• a general overview of what inspired The Mushroom Cure
• the patient-shaming  tone of the term "treatment-resistant"
• the structural biases that prevent the growth of psychiatry as a field of medicine
• the common failings of psychiatric drugs to treat mental illness
• SPOILER ALERT: Ender's Game / Xenocide Novel Series
• an intimate look of living with OCD
• how psychedelic surrender/humility helped Strauss overcome his OCD
• psychedelic lessons vs. the learning (referring to my talk from Breaking Convention)
• feelings vs stories in our heads - the profound value of feeling as a skill
• how psychedelics helped Strauss track the origins of his OCD
• the challenge of our nervous system's ancient defense system living in the modern world
• do psychiatric pharmaceuticals fundamentally change how we experience psychedelics?
• how psychedelics taught Strauss how to face profound fears of feelings
• the context that gave rise to the psychedelic experiences that made his OCD worse

Stephen Jenkinson joins us to discuss arguments against psilocybin for the dying, death as a god, the failures of hope, the cowardice of misanthropy, and the dangers of being arrogant when facing the divine.

**full episode breakdown below**

--LINKS--
For more psychedelic content like this and/or to access this interview on youtube, head to https://bit.ly/ATTMindEp105

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SEE STEPHEN JENKINSON WITH GREGORY HOSKINS AND BAND FOR NIGHTS OF GRIEF & MYSTERY

Kitchener, ON
Date: Thursday, September 12
Venue: The Registry Theatre
EB link: https://www.eventbrite.ca/e/night-of-grief-mystery-concert-kitchener-tickets-66229555383
FB link: https://www.facebook.com/events/686962731767381/

London, ON
Date: Saturday, September 28
Venue: Wolf Performance Hall
EB link: https://www.eventbrite.ca/e/night-of-grief-mystery-concert-london-on-tickets-63091197470
FB link: https://www.facebook.com/events/36870378376202

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• death is a god
• death is like matrimony
• death is your most faithful companion
• your death means you no harm
• the divine is not there to benefit you
• the consequences are encountering the divine aren’t supposed to be good
• the dangers of being arrogant when facing the divine
• arguments against psilocybin for the dying
• the losses of going mainstream
• arguments against medically assisted suicide
• (why I have not and will not read Michael Pollan)
• hope does not serve us as we face the environmental crisis
• proceed as if your actions have consequence
• the meaning of understand
• misanthropy is a complete unwillingness to learn

Maria is an integrative psychotherapist and systemic constellations facilitator in private practice in Brighton, UK. She has given talks and published articles on the sacramental and healing properties of entheogens, supporting their re-introduction in psychotherapy. She is co-editor “Psychedelic Mysteries of the Feminine”, and is developing T.R.I.P.P. network, a U.K. wide psychedelic psychotherapy integration database.

This post contains a discussion on suicide, psychosis, and abuse of power. It might be best to look at it at another time if you are not in the headspace to explore those topics right now.

***

As many of you heard in my intro to episode 102 with Are Thoresen, kambo facilitator and former guest on the show, Tobias [last name removed on request of the family] died on July 11, 2019.

I mentioned in that intro that the context around his death was bizarre and that I would make a statement about it. I made a video about it, this is the audio track.

More details and content here

~{TL/DR: Tobias killed himself during a psychotic episode that was most likely brought on by, primarily, the excessive (daily) use of Bufo/5-MeO-DMT. This video discusses the context that led to and surrounds his suicide and why it's relevant to us as a psychedelic culture.}~

Comedian Shane Mauss is on the show to talk about the context that led up to his drug-induced psychosis, his time in a psychiatric institution, and why he still sees psychedelics as valuable tools for mental wellness in general, but comedy culture in particular.

**FULL EPISODE BREAKDOWN BELOW**

--LINKS--
For full blog entry, all relevant links for this episode, and to watch this episode in video: https://bit.ly/ATTMind103

• A little bit about prohibition preventing the very medicine that would help heal the people tasked at propagating prohibition
• Behind the scenes of his documentary Psychonautics: A Comic's Exploration Of Psychedelics
• How Shane Mauss’ psychosis influenced the final product of the documentary
• How excessive mushroom use set him up to fall into psychosis with ayahuasca
• Mental health issues in comedian culture and the potential of psychedelic to help
• The ayahuasca trip that pushed him over the edge (this story continues from the trip through his return to his home, all the way into his psychosis)
• What it was like to be admitted to and stuck in a psychiatric institution
• The difference between wild ideas and delusions
• How the care providers engaged his ideas during treatment
• What type of support might have prevented his progression into psychosis
• What happened with the ideas he was having during his psychosis after he recovered
• Shane’s relationship to psychedelics now

This episode seeks to explore the phenomenon of spiritual forces, demons, and disease. But not so much from the "are spirits real?" perspective but from the position of assuming they are real and thus an exploration of what are they and how they operate on the human being. 

For this exploration, we welcome Are Thoresen, a veterinarian, acupuncturist, and scholar of anthroposophy. Are is also recognized as an expert in spirit entities and demonic possession, with a particular focus on their role in illness and healing.

(...FULL EPISODE BREAKDOWN BELOW...)

Of course, the ongoing skepticism of the "realness" of all this is present throughout this discussion as I, your host and interviewer, am not sold on the whole thing. At least not in the beginning, my heavy skepticism waning towards responsible ambivalence by the end of it all.

*** That said, I invite people to please keep their higher reasoning intact fo this interview as, real or not, getting obsessed with the presences of "demonic forces" and "battles between good an evil" can take us down dangerous roads psychologically. ***

--LINKS--
For full blog entry, all relevant links for this episode, and to watch this episode in video: https://bit.ly/ATTMind102

• An introduction to Are’s work with spirits and the spiritual healing
• The dangers of “translocation” of sprits in healing
• "We are an expression of the spiritual reality"
• Icelandic elves
• Belief doesn’t necessarily make something real
• “the spiritual world is not energy”
• How spirit entries are created
• What qualifies some spirits as demons
• The different between translocating  and transforming demons in the healing process
• Bacteria and fungi are/have spirits
• Are spirits/demons “intelligent”?
• “I consciousness” and protecting yourself from spirits/demons
• What it feels like to be in “I consciousness”
• How to see spirits
• What psychedelics do to the body/mind insofar as encounters with sprits
• Why psychedelics, eventually, hold you back
• If disassociation / loosing “I consciousness” is dangerous to the soul, what about the positive benefits of ego dissolution and mystical encounters with psychedelics?
• How to tell the difference between benevolent and malevolent spirits and how to tell the difference
• What does any of this even matter if it can be proven one way or another?

***Music during intro:  Navajo Night by Audionautix is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution licence (https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/)

Artist: http://audionautix.com/

Dr. Andrew Gallimore. Neurobiologist, chemist, and the author of 'Alien Information Theory: Psychedelic Drug Technologies and the Cosmic Game' joins us on the show to talk about extended-state DMT, the structure of reality, hyperdimensional alien intelligences, and the implications of dying while tripping DMT.

***Full Episode Breakdown Below

--LINKS--
For full blog entry, all relevant links to this episode, and to watch this episode in video : https://bit.ly/ATTMind101

Want to see me at The Spirit Plant Medicine Conference 2019? Get your ticket through my affiliate link https://lt352.isrefer.com/go/SPMC/jameswjesso/

***Featured image is courtesy of the insanely talented, SALVIADROID
Check out his work here: http://www.zensages.com/ 

• The fundamental structure of reality
• What DMT shows us about reality
• The brain is our world-builder
• The difference between dream reality and waking reality in the brain
• What makes reality, “real”? (psychosis vs baseline vs psychedelics)
• True vs hallucination
• What is meaning and where does meaning fit into the structure of reality
• Psychedelics and the increased perception of “meaning”
• What exactly are psychedelics doing to your brain?
• What makes DMT different from other psychedelics
• Is the DMT space a place somewhere?
• Some critical pushback against Gallimore’s theory
• Entities, aliens, and elves: are they extrinsic phenomena?
• how to tell between DMT” hallucinations” and experiencing “real” phenomena of the DMT space
• If DMT space is a “real place”, what does that mean for our baseline reality?
• “Where” is the DMT reality?
• DMT’s redemption and entry into citizenship in hyperspace
• The meaning of life and the role of DMT
• If life is a game (Gallimore’s claim) where we win when we get to DMT, what about our responsibility towards climate change, war, poverty. etc?
• The extended-state DMT protocol: what is it, how they will do it, and why?
• If extend state DMT works, how might be used it to communicate with entities?
• Could extended-state DMT present a risk of brain damage?
• Is it possible that if we go to the DMT space into a long time, could we return permanently psychotic?
• What if they die under the DMT?
• Reality is strange, far stranger than we may realize.