Latest / White Fox Talking / E92: Beyond the Ceremony with Dave Gallagher – Ayahuasca, Trauma and the Science of Healing

Transcript

E92: Beyond the Ceremony with Dave Gallagher – Ayahuasca, Trauma and the Science of Healing · White Fox Talking

• 0:01
  SPEAKER_03: Hello and welcome to the White Fox Talking Podcast.
• 0:04
  SPEAKER_03: I'm Matt Charlie Valentine, and back in the studio next to me is Seb.
• 0:08
  SPEAKER_03: Hi Charlie.
• 0:09
  SPEAKER_03: Hi Seb, how are you?
• 0:10
  SPEAKER_03: Yeah, good.
• 0:11
  SPEAKER_03: We haven't been in here for a while, have we?
• 0:12
  SPEAKER_03: I know.
• 0:13
  SPEAKER_03: Summer do we call it summer recess?
• 0:15
  SPEAKER_03: Summer recess.
• 0:16
  SPEAKER_03: It looks like no one else has been in here either.
• 0:18
  SPEAKER_03: That's good, cat that's because it worked when you first came in.
• 0:20
  SPEAKER_03: It did.
• 0:21
  SPEAKER_03: So yeah, back after a little summer break, not as many uh podcast recordings.
• 0:25
  SPEAKER_03: But some getting ready for a new season.
• 0:27
  SPEAKER_03: Yes, but we don't call them seasons.
• 0:29
  SPEAKER_03: No, we don't.
• 0:29
  SPEAKER_03: Are you fit and fit and ready to go?
• 0:31
  SPEAKER_03: Uh for today?
• 0:35
  SPEAKER_03: Fit and ready to go for the next few months recording tales of we call them inspiration and information and inspiration, don't we?
• 0:42
  SPEAKER_03: Yes.
• 0:43
  SPEAKER_03: I'm ready for the recording.
• 0:44
  SPEAKER_03: I'm not ready for the editing.
• 0:46
  SPEAKER_03: Let's put it on.
• 0:47
  SPEAKER_03: Right, okay.
• 0:47
  SPEAKER_03: Well, it's alright for you.
• 0:48
  SPEAKER_03: I mean, you would have to do the social thing, yeah.
• 0:50
  SPEAKER_03: Well, that's true.
• 0:51
  SPEAKER_03: Yeah.
• 0:51
  SPEAKER_03: Anyway, on that note, shall we introduce our illustrious guest?
• 0:56
  SPEAKER_03: Hmm.
• 0:57
  SPEAKER_03: Yeah.
• 0:57
  SPEAKER_03: I I guess it's welcome back again.
• 1:00
  SPEAKER_03: I don't think he's been in the studio.
• 1:02
  SPEAKER_03: There you go.
• 1:03
  SPEAKER_03: So welcome.
• 1:04
  SPEAKER_03: Dave Gallagher.
• 1:05
  SPEAKER_03: The White Fox Talking Podcast is sponsored by Energy Impact.
• 1:10
  SPEAKER_01: I feel honoured and privileged to be here in person.
• 1:13
  SPEAKER_01: Plus it helps because my computer speakers are on the fritz.
• 1:17
  SPEAKER_01: And I think if I did it online it would uh be a bit um not not the best quality.
• 1:21
  SPEAKER_03: Right.
• 1:22
  SPEAKER_03: Well, obviously, you are our what sort of Shanghai do you into uh resident psychologists.
• 1:27
  SPEAKER_03: So it's great to have you actually in the studio rather than online.
• 1:30
  SPEAKER_03: My massive pleasure.
• 1:32
  SPEAKER_03: You are welcome.
• 1:32
  SPEAKER_03: Long time no see.
• 1:34
  SPEAKER_03: Yeah.
• 1:35
  SPEAKER_03: It is quite a while, quite a few hours.
• 1:36
  SPEAKER_03: Yeah, since yesterday when we recorded our previous podcast.
• 1:40
  SPEAKER_03: Which I suppose well that would be a good point to start, really.
• 1:44
  SPEAKER_03: So for those of you listening or watching, it'd be good to catch up with the previous podcast when we welcomed Matthew Morton and his Wow, what a story from where he came and the I suppose the effects with that would be as they're sort of outstanding things, is these effects of childhood trauma and leading into what are now sort of textbook out, the standard behaviours really, I suppose.
• 2:10
  SPEAKER_03: What people see as bad behaviour and criminality and drug taking and things that people don't approve of, but they don't sometimes they're sometimes quick to judge.
• 2:19
  SPEAKER_03: And then we find out his backstory, which was wow, it nearly knocked me off my chair, I'll be honest.
• 2:23
  SPEAKER_03: Going on to what he's doing now.
• 2:25
  SPEAKER_03: Um he's tried the plant medicine and he's going on to be a facilitator to help other people.
• 2:29
  SPEAKER_03: So big up to Matthew for coming in and telling us that and talking talking so openly.
• 2:33
  SPEAKER_03: So can we ask, Dave, your involvement with that?
• 2:37
  SPEAKER_03: Because it goes back before Matthew's trip to Columbia, doesn't it?
• 2:40
  SPEAKER_03: It does, it does.
• 2:41
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah, it's it's actually a major part of my my background interest uh scientifically, to be honest.
• 2:47
  SPEAKER_01: Uh I've been interested in psychedelics from the scientific perspective, actually, going way back to university time, you know, we're talking decades in fact.
• 2:56
  SPEAKER_01: Back in the the darker days when psychedelic science was still a kind of a no-no, it was still very much a taboo.
• 3:03
  SPEAKER_01: And it's only really been in what the last ten or so years where you know there's been a groundswell of uh backing and support and policy change potentially towards certainly addressing what can psychedelics and the science behind that kind of offer for for healing, healing trauma, um and so on.
• 3:23
  SPEAKER_01: So, yes, I have a very long-standing interest, which does dovetail with my other interests in the kind of adventure space, the extreme stress space as well.
• 3:32
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah, in one sense, my background interest in that does go back a very long time.
• 3:38
  SPEAKER_01: But in the last year or so, I've been working with uh organizations that support the science around the the use of plant medicines and uh doing this in native um parts of the world where it's part of the indigenous traditions.
• 3:52
  SPEAKER_01: So uh of South America primarily.
• 3:55
  SPEAKER_01: That's where things like ayahuasca, which are the kind of I guess the well-known um psychedelics that are plant medicines that are used in in those cultures.
• 4:04
  SPEAKER_01: So, yes, I've been involved in some work in the last year.
• 4:08
  SPEAKER_01: It's been a very busy year.
• 4:09
  SPEAKER_01: I'll I'll kind of come on to some of the other aspects of what I've been doing.
• 4:12
  SPEAKER_01: But I've been to Peru and I've been to Colombia uh with the organisations, been looking at veterans, uh military veterans, and you know, obviously the post-traumatic stress disorder side of things there and what these interventions and these programmes, these therapeutic programmes have been doing for them.
• 4:30
  SPEAKER_01: And then the athlete's journey home, which we talked about with Matthew, uh, athlete's journey home, it's very close to my heart, actually, because it's it's it mixes that kind of performance side of elite performance in sport with the aftermath of the athlete's journey.
• 4:44
  SPEAKER_01: You know, when the athletes kind of finish their career, this very high demanding, high performance, high achievement, high stress type of environment.
• 4:53
  SPEAKER_01: Often what people don't see is the aftermath of that, the the loss of identity.
• 4:57
  SPEAKER_01: And in the case of certainly contact sports, such as Matthew's part of that fighting world, where we have concussions, we have the aftermath of traumatic brain injury, which can be severely debilitating and often can result in total tragedy, you know, we're taught in suicide.
• 5:13
  SPEAKER_01: So the organizations that I've managed to get involved with, which I'm very privileged and happy to be involved with, are also pushing the science.
• 5:21
  SPEAKER_01: So very interested in the indigenous practices and that they that indigenous holistic sort of approach to health, which a lot of these traditions still maintain that maybe we've lost uh to a degree in the West with Western medicine, which often treats the symptoms, not necessarily the wider cause in a more integrated way.
• 5:40
  SPEAKER_01: So, yeah, these organizations, such as Athletes Journey Home, are really kind of pushing that programme uh and and especially the science behind it.
• 5:48
  SPEAKER_01: So it's a great place to be putting cutting-edge neuroscience, psychology, uh, and other associated fields to the to the test.
• 5:55
  SPEAKER_01: And in from my personal interest, as I've talked about in previous podcasts, I'm I'm all about getting out there and experiencing things in the real world, often the extreme side of the world, uh, and and then figuring out ways to to gather scientific information and insight out of the lab or taking the lab, if you like, into the field.
• 6:14
  SPEAKER_01: So that's that's a real passion of mine.
• 6:16
  SPEAKER_01: So there's a a colleague of mine called Nige, Nightsband, who's very much instrumental uh in bringing together these worlds, uh, a scientist himself, uh a psychopharmacologist.
• 6:26
  SPEAKER_01: And in my network, which does involve some really interesting people uh in the kind of science and performance world, I I came across him as many things, many connections I make is through LinkedIn, uh, you know, just super interesting uh network of people that I have in my wider sort of field.
• 6:45
  SPEAKER_01: And and I got talking to Nigel about um bringing some of my interests uh in stress, performance, uh to bear in the kind of psychedelic space that he was very much part of.
• 6:56
  SPEAKER_01: He was going to um he was partnering with someone called the Ath um the Ayahuasca Foundation in Peru, actually.
• 7:02
  SPEAKER_01: And and just through the conversations and the the shared interests, and then we got on to uh UFC and um MMA, and he actually said to me uh during a conversation, he said, Oh, we've got this uh this this project we're building, it's a bit of a splinter project, but it's gathering steam.
• 7:16
  SPEAKER_01: Uh I don't know if you're interested in martial arts and the UFC.
• 7:19
  SPEAKER_01: I'm like, I've literally followed the UFC since day one.
• 7:22
  SPEAKER_01: In fact, I was watching pre-UFC videos sourced from Brazil back in the early 90s.
• 7:28
  SPEAKER_01: Uh, you know, I've I've been training in martial arts for 40 years and it's a massive been a massive part of my life, especially the pioneering side of that.
• 7:35
  SPEAKER_01: So I was bought in straight away.
• 7:36
  SPEAKER_01: I'm like, absolutely.
• 7:38
  SPEAKER_01: I I know a lot of the the old-timer UFC people uh I know of them that is, and I'm very versed in that world.
• 7:44
  SPEAKER_01: So it was just a a real great opportunity with a shared passion for me to kind of be invited on board and come along and help collect data and be part of that uh research fraternity, which did involve going to Peru last year, which was quite an interesting experience, which I can unpack along with the Colombian stuff as well.
• 8:02
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah, I can I can go into more detail about the the journey that I've had in that as well and where the science kind of comes to bear on it.
• 8:09
  SPEAKER_03: Yeah, I suppose uh the uh I was just thinking then when you said about so the Peru one was more veterans.
• 8:14
  SPEAKER_03: Yes, so then the others.
• 8:16
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah, the bit basically they've done quite a few uh retreats already, generally in Peru, but there's other retreats in other parts of the world and other parts of South America.
• 8:26
  SPEAKER_01: Uh there's uh an organization called Heroic Hearts, which was a US non-profit.
• 8:31
  SPEAKER_01: There's also a Heroic Hearts UK, I believe Nigel and other people are involved with that as well.
• 8:37
  SPEAKER_01: Uh and that's basically uh had some funding to date uh with with uh with veterans, combat veterans.
• 8:44
  SPEAKER_01: So the cohort I was involved in uh last year in Peru were a bunch of American, primarily Americans, there was some Canadian, I think they were primarily North Americans, who were all being through combat stress.
• 8:56
  SPEAKER_01: Some pretty horrendous uh things come out in these these uh sessions, these programmes.
• 9:02
  SPEAKER_01: But also common childhood kind of traumas always come to the surface.
• 9:07
  SPEAKER_01: Yes, people might be fed into this pipeline through having suffered concussive injuries in explosions or in various war-torn parts of the world and in their service, but often the common thread is childhood trauma.
• 9:20
  SPEAKER_01: Because and and much as we found with say Matthew's journey and and often many fighters' journeys into fighting comes from almost reenacting the trauma of childhood in a very public way, in a very brutal way.
• 9:33
  SPEAKER_01: And maybe you get some of that you know going into the military as well.
• 9:37
  SPEAKER_01: So there's some kind of commonalities between you know the different populations and and these cohorts and the programmes that it's a fairly common sort of protocol to the both types of um populations.
• 9:49
  SPEAKER_03: For anyone that's not heard of ayahuasca, if they've listened to Matthews, psychedelics is like it's labelled as a drug.
• 9:56
  SPEAKER_03: That's it, it falls under this banner of drug and it's class A in this country.
• 9:59
  SPEAKER_03: And it's you know, I think what spiked my interest of psychedelics was when it got moved up from class B.
• 10:05
  SPEAKER_03: And you're thinking, down something that grows naturally.
• 10:08
  SPEAKER_03: Yeah.
• 10:08
  SPEAKER_03: How can it become a class B?
• 10:10
  SPEAKER_03: And also because we're hearing stories of people self-medicating for their own mental health, and then a lot of army veterans are becoming quite public, which I don't know if it has that driven the uh research, especially in the US?
• 10:23
  SPEAKER_01: Because originally it's US that it were the US that sort of closed it all down and now it's like it's a very it's quite a complex backstory.
• 10:31
  SPEAKER_01: There there's a lot written about it, a lot talked about it.
• 10:33
  SPEAKER_01: I mean uh a pot quick potted history, I'm not quite conversant with all the timelines, but I mean back in the fifties LSD was being researched quite heavily.
• 10:42
  SPEAKER_01: Uh it was being experiment experimentally used by psychiatrists.
• 10:46
  SPEAKER_01: Uh and it was implicated in the discovery, I believe, of serotonin, which is a key neuromodulator of mood and and obviously to do with antidepressives and and all that side of conventional medicine.
• 10:59
  SPEAKER_01: Serotonin, SSRIs and so on are very much part of that.
• 11:02
  SPEAKER_01: Uh it was quite heavily researched initially, and then at the end of the sixties, all sorts of cultural things came to pass which meant the government effectively closed down, you had the war on drugs, and a fascinating period of creativity and cultural turmoil with that in the mix as well.
• 11:21
  SPEAKER_01: So basically for 40 maybe 50 years almost, um, you know, research into the science around psychedelics was suppressed, which is kind of tragic in in terms of where it could have, you know, been taken.
• 11:34
  SPEAKER_01: But in the last 10-15 years, maybe even 20 years, slightly more into the early 90s, uh late 90s and early 2000s, there were uh places like I think Johns Hopkins in the US were pioneering uh studies.
• 11:48
  SPEAKER_01: I mean dimethyltryptamine DMT, Rick Strassman is a quite a well-known name in that in that sphere, uh, was running uh studies.
• 11:56
  SPEAKER_01: So gradually in the last 10-15 years, uh certainly uh a real hub of psychedelic research is in Imperial College London.
• 12:06
  SPEAKER_01: That's where Robin Card Harris, uh who's become a big name in that field, uh sort of emerged from the world's first study in an fMRI scanner of LSD, psilocybin being looked at in in kind of brain imaging as well.
• 12:18
  SPEAKER_01: So the technology to actually unpack what's going on in the brain in conjunction with psych psychedelics has kind of emerged also actually in the last 20 to 30 years.
• 12:28
  SPEAKER_01: So it's kind of interesting that the technology's just kind of coming to fruition in the last 10-20 years, and actually before that it you know there wouldn't have been such an opportunity to study these drugs anyway, if we want to call them drugs or compounds or whatever you want to call them.
• 12:43
  SPEAKER_01: So, yeah, it's a very it's a fascinating history and very much tied into the you know discoveries in the sort of networks of the brain that are mainstream in terms of our understanding of how we form identity, how we perceive the world, how we think, how we act on the world.
• 12:58
  SPEAKER_01: So there's a very interesting interweaving of psychedelics with the the science and the unpacking.
• 13:05
  SPEAKER_01: And I guess that psychedelics have been described as kind of like a a microscope on the brain.
• 13:10
  SPEAKER_01: It's technology for almost perturbing the brain and seeing what happens and how our sense of reality is is kind of formed, constructed by the brain by disrupting it with these compounds which have profound effects on consciousness and perception and experience.
• 13:26
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah.
• 13:26
  SPEAKER_01: Quite a an interesting timeline that's happened throughout that period.
• 13:31
  SPEAKER_03: Let's go to the Peru one.
• 13:33
  SPEAKER_03: Yes.
• 13:33
  SPEAKER_03: So would the would these two studies be totally different, the Peru and the Columbia one?
• 13:38
  SPEAKER_03: Apart from obviously you were you was in ayahuasca, you could I think was the Peru one for PTSD and the the other one for brain injuries.
• 13:45
  SPEAKER_01: I mean you could sort of conceptualise it or characterise it like that, and I guess you might theme a a retreat to a certain kind of element uh which might attract a certain cohort of people such as veterans.
• 13:58
  SPEAKER_01: But to be honest, it's it's a broad church and and at the end of the day it's about trauma, it's about healing and trauma and holistic integration and well-being at the end of the day.
• 14:06
  SPEAKER_01: So yeah, I mean uh in and we you know, we we could get into discussion what is PTSD, complex PTSD.
• 14:13
  SPEAKER_01: Again, it's hard to pin down what these things are and and all the other um things associated with that.
• 14:18
  SPEAKER_01: And and traumatic brain injury can mean many things as well, from stroking parts, certain parts of the brain to to much broader kind of concussive.
• 14:26
  SPEAKER_03: So this can be like a physical trauma, like someone getting punched in the head coming from concussion, and then the trauma of a childhood trauma.
• 14:33
  SPEAKER_03: Exactly.
• 14:34
  SPEAKER_03: Right.
• 14:34
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah, and and these things, you know, w when someone sits in a sharing circle and tells you the story, or like Matt Matthew did, you know, there's there's so many convoluting factors in there.
• 14:45
  SPEAKER_01: And and you may have genetic predisposition within from childhood or from familial genetic predisposition to I don't know, depressive symptoms or whatever.
• 14:54
  SPEAKER_01: So that there's so much in the mix, it's it's a lot to unpack.
• 14:57
  SPEAKER_01: But yeah, that these processes are designed to kind of have a common thread of of dealing with trauma in a kind of integrated way.
• 15:04
  SPEAKER_01: And and integration's a very key word in that.
• 15:07
  SPEAKER_01: As we touched on in the discussion with Math, Matthew, it's not just about having a a profound experience going off and everything sorted, it's about the work you do to integrate what's happened, and your brain needs that kind of coaching afterwards to integrate those kind of transformed, you know, rewiring for want of a better word, that can happen from from that, from that process.
• 15:31
  SPEAKER_00: I remember something really interesting you mentioned yesterday, and I think it was after the podcast, so it was off air, but you said you should always give it 30 days before you make any rash decisions.
• 15:39
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah.
• 15:40
  SPEAKER_00: Can you collaborate on that?
• 15:41
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah, exactly.
• 15:41
  SPEAKER_01: Because I mean some people will go on these uh sessions and they'll have a profound shift in their perspective on on everything, on reality, on their past.
• 15:51
  SPEAKER_01: And that can lead them to want to make quite you might call it rash decisions, as in let's change our lives now.
• 15:59
  SPEAKER_01: You know, people can go home, quit their job, leave a relationship, you know, make some massive change.
• 16:05
  SPEAKER_01: But again, that's that's doing a bit of disservice to the process of of kind of reflecting on why these changes have uh uh have been made in your kind of perception and and what you should do moving forward with a strategy rather than just make a rash decision.
• 16:20
  SPEAKER_01: You know, that's not always the best thing to do.
• 16:22
  SPEAKER_01: Because like anything, I mean, you know, you can go on a fantastic trip, holiday, whatever, and suddenly you feel everything's different, but actually life carries on when you come back.
• 16:31
  SPEAKER_01: And what's quite interesting, especially if you have, say, I don't know, a veteran who's had uh their own experiences which were very personal and traumatic in their past, and then they have this profound revelation and they feel completely different and they go home.
• 16:45
  SPEAKER_01: Well, their families are gonna still know who they were before and be used to that person and they won't have had the same experiences.
• 16:53
  SPEAKER_01: So it's you also have to integrate with the people around you and the life that you've gone back into and then make the changes within that life in a kind of a strategic and a and a considered way, rather than just pulling the the rug from under everyone that it will have an impact on.
• 17:10
  SPEAKER_01: So that's part of that is is integrating with with life and other people.
• 17:15
  SPEAKER_01: But the other thing is just give your your brain a bit of time to settle down and kind of get over the the the rosy effect of of the fact you've had some kind of revelation and then just you know let it sink in before you start to make some kind of m sort of major life decisions.
• 17:31
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah.
• 17:32
  SPEAKER_03: Just thought then.
• 17:32
  SPEAKER_03: I suppose people going like we were talking to Matthew and I've heard of other people doing ceremonies or doing their own experiments with psychedelics because they've they're for one reason or another, and not for a party side of it.
• 17:44
  SPEAKER_03: Because obviously the ayahuasca's far from a party tri side of it.
• 17:48
  SPEAKER_03: I suppose some pe it it can pull like pull the p-scab off something that's happened that's horrendous.
• 17:54
  SPEAKER_03: That might be so it might not all be a positive effect.
• 17:58
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah, you're opening a Pandora's box there.
• 18:01
  SPEAKER_01: And and that's part of the thing is that, well, people and I've been in several ceremonies and I've seen objectively you know the the the trauma that people are basically reliving.
• 18:11
  SPEAKER_01: And you know, in some ways it can be more traumatising.
• 18:14
  SPEAKER_01: I remember one person said what they went through was a thousand times worse in the the reliving of it than being in combat or whatever the situation they'd been in, and they'd been in some pretty awful situations.
• 18:28
  SPEAKER_01: So it can amplify you know what you went through.
• 18:30
  SPEAKER_01: Now that's a lot of trauma to have to sort of deal with afterwards.
• 18:34
  SPEAKER_01: And you you know, i it's like the there's an analogy of shaking a snow globe.
• 18:39
  SPEAKER_01: I think Robin Carl Tarris actually came up with that himself.
• 18:42
  SPEAKER_01: You know, you shake the snow globe and uh the fragments fly up in the air and then eventually settle down.
• 18:47
  SPEAKER_01: You've got to let them settle back down, but you need to know how to manage those revelations, you know, otherwise you could be heading into dubious territory yourself, you know, if if you're not managing that or having some kind of guidance, which is why these programs are kind of longitudinal and there's an aftercare kind of package for want of a better term, you know, integration sessions, weekly sessions, as as you would get in many forms of therapy, you know, you don't just have a breakthrough and then off you go out the door.
• 19:14
  SPEAKER_01: You you need to manage that process into your life, sort of a coaching sort of process.
• 19:19
  SPEAKER_03: Because I've not done ayahuasca, and I probably would be interested.
• 19:22
  SPEAKER_03: But one sort of example from my own PCSD is when I was doing some therapies, first of all with counselling and talking therapy, and then EMDR, is that memories are coming back to me that I'd not thought about because they've been unpicked.
• 19:35
  SPEAKER_03: And I suppose if you go and do this ceremony and these memories come out, it's like, well, the brain's already suppressed them or boxed them away somewhere, and then we're like you say, we're opening a Pandora's box.
• 19:45
  SPEAKER_03: Do we know how and why that can that happens?
• 19:48
  SPEAKER_03: Yeah.
• 19:49
  SPEAKER_03: Because I can understand it with the talking and like with the EMDR, because it's like, you know, it's sort of in coax, but if you you go take this plant medicine and lay down and do whatever you do, you know, with a purging, but then next thing these memories are coming out.
• 20:00
  SPEAKER_03: So do we know any science is stuff on that?
• 20:03
  SPEAKER_01: I mean, what I can say on that so our sense of identity is it's quite fragile, but it's also quite entrenched.
• 20:10
  SPEAKER_01: And and this is where the neuroscience is quite enlightening.
• 20:12
  SPEAKER_01: Um, I've taught before on podcasts about the default mode network.
• 20:16
  SPEAKER_01: So that's these set of brain regions which are kind of our default setting when we're not engaged particularly in a productive task.
• 20:23
  SPEAKER_01: We might be ruminating, mind-wandering, daydreaming, you know, just not engaged in something productive, so we're not focused on a particular thing.
• 20:31
  SPEAKER_01: But this is said to be the seat of the ego, the self, whatever concept you want to use, an identity.
• 20:37
  SPEAKER_01: And it's that I call it the autobiography of self.
• 20:41
  SPEAKER_01: We write our own autobiography, we create our own identity, how we are perceived in the world, how we act on the world, how we perceive ourselves.
• 20:49
  SPEAKER_01: And the default mode seems to be the the kind of the seat, if you like, of that, where all these memories and experiences are kind of coalesced and form this network.
• 20:58
  SPEAKER_01: And that that has a massive influence on how we see the world.
• 21:02
  SPEAKER_01: And the thing is in trauma, in things like PTSD, uh depression and so on, often what's happening is fragmentary memories are intruding which haven't been slotted into some kind of meaningful narrative.
• 21:15
  SPEAKER_01: That's one kind of way of saying it.
• 21:17
  SPEAKER_01: And they've looked at different the different elements of the default mode and seen there there is some connectivity issues there in PTSD where these memories are are just not consolidating.
• 21:27
  SPEAKER_01: So a lot of the therapeutic interventions which can what's called remediate, remediate means comes from remedy, uh to restore ordinary or functional, good function, if you want, instead of dysfunction.
• 21:40
  SPEAKER_01: So there's a whole element within the science around that to do with identity and and creating that coherent narrative.
• 21:47
  SPEAKER_01: So that's why talking therapy is is good because you're expressing these things which are intruding on you, and you come to a sense of meaning of you know, there's still bad things have happened, but they make sense within the broader narrative.
• 22:00
  SPEAKER_01: So there is a whole area there which suggests from the the psychological and the neurological that yes, bringing those memories back into a semblance of coherence is is really what it's about.
• 22:12
  SPEAKER_01: And like you kind of alluded to, if these memories are just coming out of nowhere that you've suppressed for so long, you need some kind of guidance to to bring them back into the story of yourself.
• 22:23
  SPEAKER_01: Otherwise, yeah, you that Pandora's box could potentially lead to all sorts of things down the line.
• 22:29
  SPEAKER_01: And this is where the set and setting, that again we touched on it brief briefly with Matthew, is very important because if you were to say to go to a rave and drop acid or take mushrooms or whatever you're gonna do, it's probably not the most supportive of uh environments to do that, and you might have a blissful experience, but you might just be opening Pandora's box, and then that can have a severe kind of aftermath on your life and and how you experience it.
• 22:56
  SPEAKER_01: But the integration side of these programmes is designed to manage that therapeutically, you know, so there's a lot of vulnerability, and like you said, I like the idea of a scab being picked, or you know, you're revealing yourself in all the vulnerability, and you know, we're seeing big burly men absolutely devastated in tears, and you know, it strips down the veneer of our projected self.
• 23:20
  SPEAKER_01: Um, and we need to then manage how to bring that back into our own agency as well.
• 23:25
  SPEAKER_01: So there is a science to it, but a lot of this is still very exploratory and just figuring it all out and how it relates to more conventional sides of science of behaviour and psychology.
• 23:38
  SPEAKER_00: When you went to these retreats, if we go back to Matthew's story, Matthew knew what has happened in his past and that he had some issues.
• 23:45
  SPEAKER_00: Were you in the surroundings with the group?
• 23:48
  SPEAKER_00: Were you around people who actually felt okay with themselves and didn't think they had anything happened in the past and then when they did the Ayahuasca retreat, something came out that they didn't even expect.
• 24:00
  SPEAKER_01: It may be a case of this is a self-selecting group.
• 24:03
  SPEAKER_01: I mean they're designed for people who are in need of coming to a an intervention that needs to happen.
• 24:10
  SPEAKER_01: I mean you could argue pretty much everyone at some level will or if they are in tune with themselves and have an interest in exploring things which are going to be quite traumatic anyway, that they will have something they want to kind of address within themselves.
• 24:25
  SPEAKER_01: So I would say kind of no, basically, to that question, um, that it's it's not necessarily revealing.
• 24:31
  SPEAKER_01: People are going there fine and coming out kind of like, what the hell was all that about?
• 24:34
  SPEAKER_01: And and I don't think any kind of therapeutic programme y you'd have to be pretty naive to be going into that with no real expectation, uh thinking, oh you know, why are you there?
• 24:45
  SPEAKER_01: So there's a calling to some to do plant medicine and to travel across the world.
• 24:50
  SPEAKER_01: And you know, you would think you'd have done some research and know that it's gonna be pretty interesting experience uh to say the least.
• 24:57
  SPEAKER_01: I mean there there will be, I suppose it's becoming much more widespread doing these experiences, and I guess the flip side perhaps gets towards what you're saying is the kind of psychedelic tourism, which has also sprung up in South America because travellers, oh, we're gonna go and do ayahuasca, wouldn't that be really cool?
• 25:16
  SPEAKER_01: And that's where you can get some danger of you know things, you know, you're confronting things without really understanding what it is you're about to go and do.
• 25:24
  SPEAKER_01: And there are some th there's quite a few cases of where that's gone wrong, terminally wrong for some people.
• 25:31
  SPEAKER_01: You know, you can't have psychotic episodes.
• 25:33
  SPEAKER_01: So it and it has to be quite medically um screened.
• 25:37
  SPEAKER_01: Any of these retreats will have very rigorous, uh the reputable ones I should say, will have a very rigorous medical screening, a psychiatric uh you know, GP screening type of process to make sure you don't have any of the contraindications which would be very bad, you know, to start messing around with with your brain function uh in these contexts.
• 25:57
  SPEAKER_01: So things like I mean, if y if you're on SSRIs, so you you're on depress antidepressive medication, you need to come off it well in advance of going on these retreats.
• 26:06
  SPEAKER_01: Because there's a serotonergic uh element, very much so that's what the psychedelics, the classical psychedelics, act on the serotonergic system, particularly the the two-way receptor.
• 26:15
  SPEAKER_01: And if you're already on SSRIs, you've got a danger of getting what's called serotonin syndrome, too much serotonin in your system.
• 26:22
  SPEAKER_01: So it has to be very carefully managed, and again, that's where the the science comes in to have those checks and balances and to to understand that interaction with other kind of forms of medication, other types of conditions that people have.
• 26:35
  SPEAKER_01: Because there is a chance of psychosis, you know, if you're predisposed to psychosis, you have a family history or whatever, certainly schizophrenia, you wouldn't be going down that route.
• 26:44
  SPEAKER_01: You know, so it's a very it's you've got to navigate it very carefully.
• 26:48
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah.
• 26:49
  SPEAKER_00: I guess it's not for everyone.
• 26:50
  SPEAKER_00: No, not to be a good idea.
• 26:51
  SPEAKER_00: You need to do your research, you need to understand what's gonna happen to you.
• 26:55
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah.
• 26:55
  SPEAKER_01: And it's you know, there's a the the instant gratification society was seemed to live in, uh, like is looking for magic pills and life hacks and biohacks.
• 27:04
  SPEAKER_01: And you know, you've got to take a step back and just be realistic.
• 27:09
  SPEAKER_01: Uh nothing in life is ever gonna be a magic pill.
• 27:12
  SPEAKER_01: It's funny, I was on um on the the retreat in Peru, there was lots of elements to it, it wasn't just about the ayahuasca.
• 27:18
  SPEAKER_01: There were ayahuasca sessions every other day.
• 27:21
  SPEAKER_01: Now on the days off, when you'd imagine if you again went in there with a certain predis uh preconception that oh I'll have a day off and I'll chill and do yoga or whatever.
• 27:30
  SPEAKER_01: No, they were uh giving other types of plant medicines.
• 27:34
  SPEAKER_01: Plant medicine means well the Amazon rainforest is a massive medicine cabinet with so much in it.
• 27:42
  SPEAKER_01: And basically curanderos, they are the the the sort of medicine men and women, if you like, the shaman people, they will have knowledge of different plants that can potentially heal different ailments or holistically kind of you know help your system.
• 27:57
  SPEAKER_01: And I remember I went in for a consultation, everyone went for consultation for physical symptoms, and I'd kind of heard that everyone was going in and then getting prescribed certain quite nasty things.
• 28:08
  SPEAKER_01: Oh you tomorrow you're gonna drink bees pollen, fermented bees pollen, and I'm I'd heard about this, and uh it's meant to be horrendous, and you're gonna have a terrible time, not on your day off as well.
• 28:18
  SPEAKER_01: So I I went in there and I thought, I d I don't really need a consultation, I'm fine, but everyone else is doing, so I'll go along.
• 28:24
  SPEAKER_01: It's in this thing called the Moloca, which is this big ceremonial hut, like a temple iconical sort of roof, almost a thatched roof, and there's the the lady who's the shaman, and she speaks in Spanish as well as uh the the native language that she also has.
• 28:39
  SPEAKER_01: And she was speaking to one of the facilitators who was I think he was American, but he was speaking Spanish.
• 28:44
  SPEAKER_01: So I was kind of having this consultation translated through through him.
• 28:48
  SPEAKER_01: I think the question, well, how are you?
• 28:50
  SPEAKER_01: What what what's wrong?
• 28:50
  SPEAKER_01: Oh I'm fine, there's nothing wrong with me.
• 28:55
  SPEAKER_01: Masking a few.
• 28:56
  SPEAKER_01: I mean, I've got a bit of arthritis, I've had a new op and what have you, but uh you know, for my age, I'm not in bad form.
• 29:02
  SPEAKER_01: And uh okay, sort of stroked their uh sort of chin.
• 29:05
  SPEAKER_01: And then ultimately I was prescribed bees pollen.
• 29:08
  SPEAKER_01: Oh god, look obviously everyone gets bees pollen.
• 29:11
  SPEAKER_01: And then the the the cruncher was uh the the the chap he says um oh and the shaman said uh she sees your aura, you are strong.
• 29:19
  SPEAKER_01: You can have twice the bee pollen.
• 29:23
  SPEAKER_01: I was double double session, six o'clock, I think it was seven o'clock the next morning, just got up and I'm not a morning person.
• 29:29
  SPEAKER_01: And the first thing I want to drink is basically this double it's like mustard mixed with vinegar, this bright yellow thing in it in a the j you know a a glass, and you've got to down it in one and not throw up.
• 29:40
  SPEAKER_01: Basically, they they said oh yeah, so the the point I was gonna make was as they were prescribing me this, I was very sternly told by this facilitator chap.
• 29:49
  SPEAKER_01: He says, Well, you know, if you want to get the reward, you've got to run the gauntlet.
• 29:54
  SPEAKER_01: There's no free passes in this life.
• 29:56
  SPEAKER_01: And that kind of sums up some of the indigenous kind of attitude.
• 29:59
  SPEAKER_01: That particular area in Peru and that particular tradition is quite no nonsense.
• 30:04
  SPEAKER_01: You do your preparation for three weeks or so of abstinence of all sorts of nice things that you would normally perhaps eat, especially my poor diet.
• 30:13
  SPEAKER_01: And you know, you're you're already strung out from the discipline of that and and the the depletion of your system if you're not great at kind of eating normally like that.
• 30:22
  SPEAKER_01: And then you run the gauntlet uh by having these uh these sorts of compounds and plant medicines.
• 30:27
  SPEAKER_01: And and and the funny thing was, and it uh you've got to kind of laugh, it took about an hour to kick in, and then I was off to bed, and I basically had the flu for about three hours, and it was a very uh severe onset of flu.
• 30:40
  SPEAKER_01: But you know, I didn't suffer actually as bad as uh some of some of the guys they were like twice my size, ex-marines, whatever, and they were like in bits for days on on half a dose.
• 30:50
  SPEAKER_01: So maybe I am strong.
• 30:51
  SPEAKER_01: I don't know.
• 30:52
  SPEAKER_03: Do we know what the purpose of the beeswax was?
• 30:55
  SPEAKER_03: It's is it a purging thing?
• 30:56
  SPEAKER_01: Um well I think if memory serves, we had a few different things out there, but if memory serves correct, I think it's meant to basically inflame your system and bring back all the like aches and pains and things which you're trying to hide or mask or you know that you've adapted to, or and and and inflame all the areas of your body to like almost you know amplify what you had before and then it'll just recalibrate you.
• 31:22
  SPEAKER_01: Um I must admit it, you know, I I'm a bit disgruntled by it because for days afterwards I had a I had back trouble that I'd got rid of like before I went, I was like, brilliant, I'm not suffering from back trouble.
• 31:31
  SPEAKER_01: Now it's all now it's come back.
• 31:32
  SPEAKER_01: Thanks.
• 31:33
  SPEAKER_01: For science, Dave.
• 31:34
  SPEAKER_01: For science.
• 31:35
  SPEAKER_01: Oh yeah, I do everything for science, it's just like, oh my god.
• 31:38
  SPEAKER_01: But yeah, I mean yeah, so so we did a lot of these uh different things.
• 31:43
  SPEAKER_01: I mean, I I I should, while I'm on the subject, I might as well tell an anecdote or two.
• 31:48
  SPEAKER_01: But the first morning after we got there, so the the evening of the first day was the first ayahuasca ceremony anyway, so everyone's straight into that ayahuasca ceremony without a kind of a build-up in a way.
• 32:00
  SPEAKER_01: So reeling from that, you're up at the crack of dawn the next morning, and I think that finished about midnight, and you're up at uh 6 30, I think.
• 32:08
  SPEAKER_01: We had to meet in um this kind of space where we had uh quite a few uh things like planned baths and and steam sort of baths and things like that.
• 32:18
  SPEAKER_01: So outside in the this is all in the jungle, by the way, deep in the jungle, two hours by speedboat down the river from somewhere that's already quite isolated.
• 32:26
  SPEAKER_01: And yeah, so we we did the um sangre de grado, I think.
• 32:31
  SPEAKER_01: I've probably murdered the Spanish pronunciation, but it's the it's the dragon's blood, I believe.
• 32:36
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah, either the devil or the yeah, the dragon's blood.
• 32:38
  SPEAKER_01: Basically it's tree sap uh or fairy liquid, if you prefer like the more kind of what it tastes like.
• 32:45
  SPEAKER_01: And it's this again, it's a a a glass, probably half full typical glass, with this kind of red sludge.
• 32:52
  SPEAKER_01: You have to raise a toast to each other and then chug this thing straight down.
• 32:56
  SPEAKER_01: But the clincher is you've got to hold it in your stomach for five minutes.
• 32:59
  SPEAKER_01: You're not allowed to vomit.
• 33:02
  SPEAKER_01: Now, I I I should explain the area that we actually did this in is colloquially known as the vomitivo.
• 33:08
  SPEAKER_01: So, you know, it's a gymnasium for your stomach, let's let's just say so.
• 33:13
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah, we we chugged this.
• 33:15
  SPEAKER_01: There's I think 12 or 13 of us, I can't remember exactly.
• 33:18
  SPEAKER_01: And we all race it to I was feeling sick already before I even started.
• 33:22
  SPEAKER_01: I'm like, oh and you know, you want to hide from these processes, you want to come up with an excuses to why, oh it's it's not you know, I've got a dodgy heart, or so I don't know, I don't want to have to do it.
• 33:30
  SPEAKER_01: So you chug that, and this is a bit gross, I apologise.
• 33:34
  SPEAKER_01: But what you have to do is get it out of your system, it's a purgative, it's a it's a cleansing of your stomach lining, is the only way I can describe it as from what I was told and you have to get rid of it as quickly as possible, which basically means a lot of spewing up.
• 33:50
  SPEAKER_01: Now, how do you do this?
• 33:51
  SPEAKER_01: You drink jugs of warm water and as much of it as possible.
• 33:56
  SPEAKER_01: You've got a chug, like basically a two-litre jug of water as quickly as possible, and spew it up, and then you've got to drink another two-litre and then another until it basically your vomit is clear.
• 34:07
  SPEAKER_01: There's just lick clear liquid coming out.
• 34:09
  SPEAKER_01: Anything red or frothy is your if you don't basically if you don't get out of your system, you're gonna have a bad couple of days sitting on the uh on the seat with the whole of it.
• 34:19
  SPEAKER_01: Okay, yeah.
• 34:19
  SPEAKER_01: So the m like it's a bit gross, but it what what we were told is it's it's good to purge all the toxins out of you, but also it's meant to help the ayahuasca work better.
• 34:31
  SPEAKER_01: And there's a whole system of thought there about the ayahuasca works with you, and it's you know, you ha part of the purgative aspect of ayahuasca is getting rid of all that build-up of of toxins that you we have from our processed diets and whatever.
• 34:47
  SPEAKER_01: And you know, I was worried about that because I do have I have in the past had quite a processed diet, so it it cleanses you for that, but it's it's it's also that suffering together side, which I think is quite important when you're with a group of people who've gone through severe trauma, and especially if they're kind of military veterans, and you know, I'm not military, I'm not ex-military, but being part of that kind of process is is like a right of passage that I guess we used to have more of in the the distant past.
• 35:15
  SPEAKER_01: You know, these indigenous communities still have that, and we and we are missing that.
• 35:19
  SPEAKER_01: I guess that's why a lot of my work on adventure and interventions kind of it's in that space as well.
• 35:24
  SPEAKER_01: But uh, you know, I I'm quite proud of myself getting through that that session uh and and also quite proud to say, and it sounds outlandish, but I managed to drink 10 litres of water in I think about eight minutes.
• 35:36
  SPEAKER_01: And how can you even do that?
• 35:37
  SPEAKER_01: You know, you you're transgressing the boundaries that you normally set for yourself.
• 35:41
  SPEAKER_01: You're like, there's no way a human can drink that.
• 35:43
  SPEAKER_01: Well, you can if you if it's coming straight back up, but you know, you you can feel you feel very different when you've gone through these processes and tried these medicines, and you know, it it is that rite of passage, you know, and it's traumatic in itself, but you're properly getting out of your comfort comfort zone for a kind of holistic purpose of well-being.
• 36:03
  SPEAKER_01: Um yeah, so that that was a bit of a digression into that that story.
• 36:07
  SPEAKER_01: There's many more stories from these retreats, but it's all part of that, you know, healing and restoration.
• 36:12
  SPEAKER_03: But I think it's it sort of proves our shows there, done it for listeners that someone might be thinking, right, because if they read the show notes on this, it'll say it'll mention ayahuasca, it'll be a key word.
• 36:22
  SPEAKER_03: Oh yeah, listen to that, right.
• 36:24
  SPEAKER_03: I want to go off, go go to ayahuasca, get off my head a bit.
• 36:26
  SPEAKER_03: And you're not getting off your head.
• 36:28
  SPEAKER_03: You know, we had uh weighing on, didn't we?
• 36:31
  SPEAKER_03: Back back in the early days, like four years ago, and he's he had some issues at the time with alcohol and and and recreational drugs, and he went off on this two-day retreat thinking they were getting off his head, and he won't, and it just brought all this well, it sort of piece that you said the first day it felt absolutely shocking and you know, purging, and they did get invited back for the next day, and he went back, and it's sort of this is where he had his breakthrough with his ma with his mind of seeing where a lot of his trauma and issues had come from as a kid.
• 37:02
  SPEAKER_03: Um so if you want to go back and listen to that one, I think it's number five, is it something five or six?
• 37:07
  SPEAKER_03: Anyway, something like that.
• 37:08
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah, um but that running the gauntlet side of things is is key.
• 37:12
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah, it's a key learning in life, isn't it?
• 37:14
  SPEAKER_01: I mean, if you really want to to get better, to improve, you have to it's it's uncomfortable in some cases extremely uncomfortable.
• 37:23
  SPEAKER_03: When you're when you're there, so we've we've got Peru and Colombia, when you're there and we're doing and you do you're sort of monitoring monitoring people, are you looking for how it works or what it can do?
• 37:33
  SPEAKER_01: There's a mechanistic side.
• 37:35
  SPEAKER_01: Uh I mean again we're standing on the shoulders of giants here, there's lots of research groups, there's lots of background science to this, which is already starting to unpack the mechanisms.
• 37:45
  SPEAKER_01: At the end of the day, it's the kind of nuances within that that the research is getting into.
• 37:49
  SPEAKER_01: And also the purpose of these, especially Athletes' Journey Home.
• 37:52
  SPEAKER_01: Just to refresh briefly, we talked about it in any other podcast.
• 37:56
  SPEAKER_01: Athletes Journey Home was started by a guy called Ian McCall, who I think it was around 2016, he was at the height of his uh UFC career, so he was number one contender.
• 38:08
  SPEAKER_01: He he fought a guy called Demetrius Johnson, uh Mighty Mouse, who's often held up as being the greatest fighter of all time in in terms of MMA.
• 38:16
  SPEAKER_01: And he he certainly went the distance, I think, on his second fight, uh, and took Mighty Mouse the distance, so he'd fly away at the the the lower weight classes.
• 38:23
  SPEAKER_01: I mean Ian's very publicly taught his story of high performance, but again, a very traumatic upbringing, uh which often drives fighters into the ring anyway, but also substance addiction, self-destructive behaviours.
• 38:39
  SPEAKER_01: So and and he believed uh his career was kind of derailed when he was at the height of world-class performance by these self-destructive impulses which are fuelled from the childhood trauma and so on.
• 38:50
  SPEAKER_01: So he came out of transitioned out of that high-performance career, and you know, he he was interested in psychedelics and the impact of that, and obviously must have been through his own journey on that, and set up athletes' journey home to help high performance athletes, certainly those with potential traumatic brain injuries, the the trauma of of of their past, but also the danger of coming out of a high performance type career, and then having well, what do you do?
• 39:20
  SPEAKER_01: What what your identity's built on that?
• 39:22
  SPEAKER_01: And identity, like I said earlier on, is fragile.
• 39:24
  SPEAKER_01: We need to preserve it to some degree and guide it, much like we need to do that after ayahuasca anyway.
• 39:30
  SPEAKER_01: Um otherwise you're on a a path downwards uh in which can and has resulted in suicide and and what have you.
• 39:38
  SPEAKER_01: So he set up Athletes' Journey Home to to kind of help um certainly athletes who've given themselves to the public to to perform uh you know, lots of money s thrown their way, but they're expected to perform and then you know cast out.
• 39:53
  SPEAKER_01: So he set it up to to look at the uh uh ways to help them and particularly through the psychedelics.
• 40:00
  SPEAKER_01: And because in the last few years there's an emerging line of thought that things like ayahuasca, psilocybin, um other other plant medicines and compounds can potentially uh reduce inflammation, which inflammation being the cause or being a result of of concussion, TBIs and so on.
• 40:18
  SPEAKER_01: So there is a it's quite a cutting edge part of the psychedelic science in itself, which is a cutting edge science in itself as well.
• 40:26
  SPEAKER_01: So there is a mechanistic side, but it's also exploring the utility in these populations to give them that that kind of quality of life back, but also potentially repair the physiological damage which has occurred as well, so reduced inflammation.
• 40:41
  SPEAKER_01: So in terms of the sort of protocols, we are looking at you know depression scores, quality of life scores, so subjective experience, which is a key indicator of whether people are getting something positive out of it longer term.
• 40:53
  SPEAKER_01: But we're also looking at the microbiome, which is quite a uh a novel part of that research as well, especially given the importance of diet and how you ingest things like ayahuasca and how it works on your gut and your gut brain axis.
• 41:10
  SPEAKER_01: So microbiomics is is a key part of that.
• 41:13
  SPEAKER_01: Also the epigenetics, so we're taking things like uh s saliva swabs, we're we're taking stool samples, we're taking blood samples, as well as all the other psychological and neurological testing, such as EEG testing and cognitive testing.
• 41:28
  SPEAKER_01: So it's a whole package, again, with that remit of integrating all of this into a system systematic approach and understanding systematically which elements are being impacted on by this process and the things that that people are taking into them, you know, to work in that way.
• 41:47
  SPEAKER_01: So it that's what's really profoundly interesting, you know, with all these elements in the mix.
• 41:52
  SPEAKER_01: Uh so yeah, that's that's where the athletes journey home is kind of trying to carve a path with respect to these populations as well, as well as understand, you know, back in the lao we can start to understand the mechanisms on the back of the data that we've got.
• 42:06
  SPEAKER_03: Yeah, I suppose with both both groups, cohorts that you got the um the veterans and the athletes, when they've not got that structure of the training and being involved in that world, that's when it all starts falling to fall into bits and something and I suppose both massively high adrenaline.
• 42:23
  SPEAKER_03: Yes.
• 42:24
  SPEAKER_03: Um without without injuries, you know.
• 42:26
  SPEAKER_03: And then you know, you hear the people, or I have heard people, people that have been in forces, of loving that firefight, mm-hmm, and then you've got the people getting in the ring and definitely you know, yeah buzzing to get in that ring and that ru that strict training, you know, if you're gonna be successful in the uh in combat sports, then you've got to train and you've got all this structure and you're looking after yourself, and then all of a sudden it's gone.
• 42:47
  SPEAKER_03: And this is where other things creep in, like yeah, I'll call them recreational drugs at a sport.
• 42:51
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah, and and you know, you've got that high sensation seeking trait.
• 42:54
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah.
• 42:55
  SPEAKER_01: Uh you've got this potentially this dopamine DRD4 gene, which has been implicated as this kind of in in relation to this high sensation seeking and potentially impulsive, or at least exploratory and novel stimulus-seeking behaviour.
• 43:09
  SPEAKER_01: So you've got things like that in the mix.
• 43:11
  SPEAKER_01: And and what's really interesting that you picked up on that that you talked about there, and this is why I'm interested in this in my more general thing, is the extreme uh what draws people to extreme sports or extreme how do people perform in extreme environments?
• 43:25
  SPEAKER_01: So the veterans, in a sense, are the extreme environment operators by the fact that they're in the military, they're in combat situations, they're going to extreme environments, perhaps as part of that, especially if they're in the more specialist sides of the of the forces.
• 43:40
  SPEAKER_01: And and I do kind of characterise fighting, ultimate fighting, bare knuckle fighting, whatever.
• 43:45
  SPEAKER_01: Is it's extreme sport.
• 43:47
  SPEAKER_01: There's no no bones about that.
• 43:49
  SPEAKER_01: You know, you can get severely injured, you can't be killed.
• 43:52
  SPEAKER_01: Uh it it's it's a very high, as you say, adrenaline.
• 43:55
  SPEAKER_01: And and in my work with extreme sports people, I do come across People often ex-forces as well.
• 44:02
  SPEAKER_01: I mean, one guy I've written about when my book eventually gets published, there's a whole chapter about a guy who was a combat vet in Afghanistan, whole traumatic past uh in the forces, before the forces, after the forces, and he got into extreme sports on the advice of his therapist, a guy called Gary.
• 44:21
  SPEAKER_01: And he his yeah, you he was quite he's again very open about his uh you know, gone from the macho, you must not talk about this in the military setting at the time, which hopefully has become a bit more progressive, to actually openly talking about having a therapist and the therapist saying you need to get into some you need to channel that that that high stress kind of urge you've got into something positively stressful.
• 44:45
  SPEAKER_01: And that's where a lot of my work's interest in that that um you stress, they call it positive stress.
• 44:50
  SPEAKER_01: So, yes, you need to direct that that um autonomic activity, that high sympathetic drive from the nervous system into something positive.
• 45:01
  SPEAKER_01: And when you have that structure taken away from you from you know coming out of the military and especially with unprocessed trauma, you you need something to to mitigate that.
• 45:10
  SPEAKER_01: And that that's an area of research I'd like to kind of push my own stamp on a bit more, the kind of autonomic regulation side and how that relates to these uh psychedelic type of processes as well, at the level of the brain function and how the you know the these default mode type of areas are interacting with these autonomic regulation areas, all tied in with you know how PTSD can potentially be, you know, mitigated and understood on those kind of axes.
• 45:38
  SPEAKER_03: We must have mentioned it on the previous podcast about the uh when I read Body Keeps the Score in relation to my own PTSD of these hang on, these are this is a standard pathway, really, you know, and I'm drawn to that all of a sudden I'm going out rock climbing and looking at risk high risky stuff because it satisfies you a little bit and you just don't mind it.
• 45:58
  SPEAKER_03: You know.
• 45:58
  SPEAKER_03: Absolutely.
• 45:59
  SPEAKER_03: And getting into that world of I suppose that world of working outdoors and violence after a violent um situation.
• 46:05
  SPEAKER_01: It's just age-old it's kind of obvious in a way.
• 46:08
  SPEAKER_03: Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah.
• 46:10
  SPEAKER_03: But unless you know, you don't know, do you know this is the thing.
• 46:12
  SPEAKER_03: I'm just thinking with the psychedelics, because we heard a lot about this loss of ego.
• 46:17
  SPEAKER_03: I suppose with military and combat sports, there's got to be an ego, hasn't there?
• 46:21
  SPEAKER_03: Otherwise you just wouldn't do it.
• 46:23
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah.
• 46:24
  SPEAKER_01: So it it's easy to kind of demonise things like ego or you know, and I was probably a bit guilty in my early days of looking at things like the default mode, saying, Oh, you've got to get you've got to turn off the default mode because it's all about rumination.
• 46:36
  SPEAKER_01: It's not, it's a key hub for identity, for processing multisensory information, for just making sense of of the world.
• 46:43
  SPEAKER_01: And your ego is there as part of your sense of agency.
• 46:46
  SPEAKER_01: If you don't have an ego at all, I mean, you know, there's the whole Zen monk type of thing, you know, we can't all be Zen monks and just sit in a cave contemplating, we're not not getting anything done.
• 46:57
  SPEAKER_01: The ego is there to kind of drive us and give us a sense of differentiation from the world so we can impact back on the world and and steer our course productively through life and hopefully for the good of others.
• 47:09
  SPEAKER_01: So the ego is within that.
• 47:11
  SPEAKER_01: It's just how you manage it because there's all these forces within, you know, the aid, the ego, these Freudian type of terms, and it's turmoil.
• 47:19
  SPEAKER_01: And and the brain connectivity is turmoil.
• 47:21
  SPEAKER_01: There's a whole area I won't go into now called the entropic brain thesis or hypothesis, and it's all about the entropy, which is kind of chaos, you know, systems degrade into disorder.
• 47:33
  SPEAKER_01: It's i it's part of the second law of thermodynamics.
• 47:36
  SPEAKER_01: In fact, that's where the term kind of comes from.
• 47:38
  SPEAKER_01: And the brain is pushed into a kind of entropic state within uh psychedelics, but also I kind of would like to look at that in other ways to do with other type of extreme stress, extreme environments type of stuff.
• 47:50
  SPEAKER_01: And what that basically means, we're going from a kind of rigid sense of maybe an ego that's too rigid, too kind of set in its ways, to, you know, sort of self-analytical and and getting stuck in in ruts, which it can't get out of, which you get in sort of clinical depression, you know, conditions which which push you into that kind of I can't function properly because my my whole default mode is kind of crushed down, into this more kind of flexible and dynamic state.
• 48:19
  SPEAKER_01: Well, th this is what effectively psychedelics are or seem to do on the brain.
• 48:23
  SPEAKER_01: It's it's creating that kind of chaotic connections which go here, there and everywhere uh compared to what they normally do when we're a bit more sort of functional.
• 48:32
  SPEAKER_01: And it increases our repertoire of of of action on the world, of perception, and just the conceptual boundaries that we normally live within, the constraints we live within, are kind of just thrown open a bit.
• 48:43
  SPEAKER_01: And when they settle back down, the snow globe effect of settling back down, actually there's a bit more clarity, there's a bit more um open-mindedness.
• 48:52
  SPEAKER_01: And we get things like traits of openness, one of the the five big personality traits.
• 48:57
  SPEAKER_01: Actually, that's something I think in the the athlete's journey home, preliminary results as showing increases in trait of openness.
• 49:04
  SPEAKER_01: So we're more open to it to experiences, to ways of looking at the world, to other people's opinions, as opposed to being set in our ways.
• 49:12
  SPEAKER_01: And so that ego does need some guidance and it's important to have it, but it needs to experience an a more open way of embracing the world to then come back to how it is.
• 49:24
  SPEAKER_01: And it's the hero's journey, you know, the the the corny sort of idea of the hero's journey, which but it's it's through all our storytelling.
• 49:30
  SPEAKER_01: You go out into the world with curiosity and a fixed sort of sense of who you are and what you're going to achieve.
• 49:36
  SPEAKER_01: You go through the turmoil, the challenge, the the trials and ordeals which make you very vulnerable and realise you're not as strong and you know invincible as you were, but then you come out the other side and you settle back into the person you kind of were, but you you've grown, you've matured, and you go back and sort of teach others uh the value of that process.
• 49:56
  SPEAKER_01: So it's all kind of tied up in that kind of mythical space as well, on all these different levels of analysis.
• 50:01
  SPEAKER_01: So yeah, so sorry, long-winded digression into the ego is such a passion of mine to talk about.
• 50:06
  SPEAKER_03: That's one of the things about not moving your parameters along, I suppose, yeah, and expanding and just trying a little bit, and then coming back to what you were and what you've learned.
• 50:15
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah.
• 50:15
  SPEAKER_01: And and the brain kind of works in that way.
• 50:18
  SPEAKER_01: You know, if we went into the level of what networks are and different brain regions come together and they have different kinds of functions, like the default mode is basically your identity function, your self, your executive uh control network is your focused on productive, goal-directed tasks.
• 50:34
  SPEAKER_01: And what the brain seems to do, it segregates into these networks, which are good for functioning in a certain way.
• 50:41
  SPEAKER_01: But if you were to think of it in terms of an organization, like a a a series of teams that form a department or a series of departments form an organization, it's when it all when they all talk to each other and you understand the bigger picture, that's when you actually get somewhere.
• 50:56
  SPEAKER_01: You know, you you achieve greater things than if you're a very sort of insular and and segregated.
• 51:02
  SPEAKER_01: So the it works in that kind of level of analysis as well.
• 51:05
  SPEAKER_01: You know, the brain segregates and it integrates as well.
• 51:08
  SPEAKER_01: So yeah, the ego needs to go out and experience the world in a chaotic sense to come back to then know where it's going, in a sense.
• 51:16
  SPEAKER_03: We're nearly out of time, Dave.
• 51:18
  SPEAKER_03: That's gone so quick.
• 51:19
  SPEAKER_03: Um, what else have you got coming up?
• 51:21
  SPEAKER_03: Because we were going to talk about your You've been to Everest.
• 51:24
  SPEAKER_01: I mean, yeah, it's been such a crazy yeah, and you know, Everest was a huge was probably the biggest thing I've done this year, but not even it's a footnote on the current discussion.
• 51:33
  SPEAKER_01: But you know, what there's no need to cram everything into one.
• 51:37
  SPEAKER_01: No, no, definitely not.
• 51:38
  SPEAKER_01: Because we're we're looking at and and this this psychedelic side of it it's been bursting to come out for quite some time.
• 51:45
  SPEAKER_01: We've touched on it a little bit in previous podcasts, but this it's such a rich space which I'm glad we've we've given it the space to kind of breathe into.
• 51:53
  SPEAKER_01: Uh so yeah, I there's Everest, there's other extreme sports stuff that um I've been doing, but that's a conversation to tantalise to the code to box that off into a different conversation.
• 52:04
  SPEAKER_03: Yeah.
• 52:05
  SPEAKER_03: So that's right, we've got you for another one then at least.
• 52:07
  SPEAKER_03: So for that one.
• 52:08
  SPEAKER_03: At least so.
• 52:09
  SPEAKER_03: Yeah, so where where what direction have you going now?
• 52:12
  SPEAKER_03: What's coming up with the psychedelic studies?
• 52:14
  SPEAKER_03: Because I know that's going to go on and on, isn't it?
• 52:16
  SPEAKER_01: Yes, well, again, alluded to uh with Matthew, uh there's another retreat coming up, but it's another one in Colombia with the athletes' journey home people, and there's some pretty big people coming actually.
• 52:28
  SPEAKER_01: Um I think not size big.
• 52:30
  SPEAKER_01: Well, they are big.
• 52:31
  SPEAKER_01: I mean Gaiden Velasquez, the ex uh world champion of UFC, who's uh quite uh an interesting figure.
• 52:37
  SPEAKER_01: There's there's some yeah, big guys and big names.
• 52:40
  SPEAKER_01: I don't want to say big ladies, that sounds wrong, but you know, sort of athletes in big in the sense of sort of high-achieving people that some people might know.
• 52:49
  SPEAKER_01: I know you love that.
• 52:50
  SPEAKER_01: Are you studying that?
• 52:50
  SPEAKER_01: Are you taking yourself advanced your journey?
• 52:54
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah, so it's an interesting thing with certainly with Colombia, it is a bit less participatory because we were doing a lot of in-ceremony kind of observation and and science there.
• 53:04
  SPEAKER_01: And it it's it's that fine line between being the observer and the you know, the objective observer and the understanding the process from the inside out.
• 53:12
  SPEAKER_01: So I don't know quite where that will go in Colombia.
• 53:15
  SPEAKER_01: It all depends on how it's set up.
• 53:17
  SPEAKER_01: But uh very exciting research direction.
• 53:20
  SPEAKER_01: I mean that's what drives me.
• 53:21
  SPEAKER_01: The the research to me is profoundly psychedelic in itself, let alone the actual psychedelics side of it.
• 53:29
  SPEAKER_01: And how's the book coming along?
• 53:30
  SPEAKER_01: The book, uh yeah, apologies for keeping advertising this book, but then it goes through rewrites and uh and the thing is, I mean, the last year I could have written two books on just what I've done.
• 53:40
  SPEAKER_01: So it's all about integrating into the the narrative.
• 53:44
  SPEAKER_01: But yeah, it's it's kind of there.
• 53:45
  SPEAKER_01: It just needs I actually just need a literary agent and a publisher.
• 53:49
  SPEAKER_01: I've I've reached out to some and had some very positive feedback, but uh it's quite a hard thing to get for the endorsement.
• 53:56
  SPEAKER_01: So any listeners who are literary agents and publishers who might want to give me a bell.
• 54:01
  SPEAKER_01: Sounds like the brain going in chaos and then entropy.
• 54:04
  SPEAKER_01: It's all about entropy, but you know, it's it's the snow globe.
• 54:07
  SPEAKER_01: It's a great analogy that.
• 54:08
  SPEAKER_01: Just let it settle before you make any rash decision.
• 54:11
  SPEAKER_01: Fair.
• 54:12
  SPEAKER_03: Thanks a lot, Dave.
• 54:13
  SPEAKER_03: Like I say, we'll get you back in.
• 54:15
  SPEAKER_03: We've got some paperwork to sort out as well at some point.
• 54:17
  SPEAKER_03: But it's nice to be in the studio as well.
• 54:19
  SPEAKER_03: Yeah, look where we live.
• 54:22
  SPEAKER_03: This is where we live through winter.
• 54:23
  SPEAKER_03: Yeah.
• 54:24
  SPEAKER_03: This is our cave.
• 54:25
  SPEAKER_03: Man caves.
• 54:26
  SPEAKER_03: Well, no, no, no.
• 54:27
  SPEAKER_03: Well, is it a man cave?
• 54:29
  SPEAKER_03: It's it's a studio cave.
• 54:30
  SPEAKER_03: It's Seb's it's Seb's technology cave.
• 54:32
  SPEAKER_03: It's where I go with some shit every time that's that's someone's been in and messed around with everything, and I'm like, ah no, we've got a guest coming in.
• 54:39
  SPEAKER_03: So but yes, thank you for coming.
• 54:40
  SPEAKER_03: It's great to have you again, and what a great chat.
• 54:43
  SPEAKER_03: So we'll uh put that out after Matthews, because it's relative now.
• 54:47
  SPEAKER_03: Yeah, so cool.
• 54:49
  SPEAKER_03: But thank you.
• 54:49
  SPEAKER_03: Thanks, Dave.
• 54:50
  SPEAKER_03: Thank you very much.
• 54:51
  SPEAKER_03: Cheers.
• 54:53
  SPEAKER_02: And if you'd like to support us and help us keep the podcast going, then you can go to buy us a coffee or you can click that on our website, whitefox talking.com, and look for the little cup.
• 55:04
  SPEAKER_02: Thank you.