Latest / Broken Brains with Bruce Parkman / Bruce Parkman on Psychedelic Therapy, Trauma Healing and Spiritual Transformation | Broken Brains

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Bruce Parkman on Psychedelic Therapy, Trauma Healing and Spiritual Transformation | Broken Brains · Broken Brains with Bruce Parkman

• 0:08
  SPEAKER_00: Hey folks, Bruce Parkman here from the Mac Parkman Foundation, bringing you another episode of Broken Brains, the official podcast of the Mac Parkman Foundation, where we talk about repetitive brain trauma, repetitive head impacts from contact sports, and repetitive blast exposure from our military veterans and what we're aware of what this trauma is doing to the brains, mental well-being, and futures of our children, athletes, and veterans.
• 0:36
  SPEAKER_00: I want to talk a little bit today about psychedelics.
• 0:41
  SPEAKER_00: I get asked a lot about psychedelics, and we've had a lot of amazing guests on this show that are either practitioners of psychedelics or have used them.
• 0:51
  SPEAKER_00: And the other day I had a gentleman on here, Tony Crowder, who, if you haven't seen the episode yet, go find it.
• 0:59
  SPEAKER_00: That guy is an animal.
• 1:00
  SPEAKER_00: He's a hoot.
• 1:02
  SPEAKER_00: And we started talking about Ibogain, and um I thought, well, maybe I should talk a little bit about this because I've experienced a lot of psychedelics myself.
• 1:15
  SPEAKER_00: And I want to talk about how my experiences also parallel what you hear on this show.
• 1:23
  SPEAKER_00: And so, you know, one of these things about myself is I've always walked the walk.
• 1:30
  SPEAKER_00: If my men in the army had to do something, I did it.
• 1:34
  SPEAKER_00: Okay.
• 1:34
  SPEAKER_00: So I went and got all the badges I could get, you know, and all that stuff.
• 1:39
  SPEAKER_00: Um as an employee, you know, as a CEO, if my employees have to write proposals and they sell, I'm out there.
• 1:47
  SPEAKER_00: I do exactly what my people have to do.
• 1:50
  SPEAKER_00: And I don't like talking about things and not having done them.
• 1:55
  SPEAKER_00: So um, you know, I've ended up getting deep into the psychedelic um uh well environment for right now.
• 2:08
  SPEAKER_00: Lack of a better word, sergeant major, you know, four-letter words, ten-letter words, not that good, but uh four-letter words.
• 2:16
  SPEAKER_00: So um, but because it's a game changer.
• 2:21
  SPEAKER_00: There is no other way to put this.
• 2:24
  SPEAKER_00: And I do run across people every now and then that are other, oh my, you know, psychedelics or they're not Christian.
• 2:31
  SPEAKER_00: And and and or they're a drug, right?
• 2:35
  SPEAKER_00: They're mind-altering.
• 2:36
  SPEAKER_00: And I'm like, okay.
• 2:38
  SPEAKER_00: And then you talk to these doctors and researchers, or just, you know, feed people you're in the lab.
• 2:44
  SPEAKER_00: Have you ever done that?
• 2:45
  SPEAKER_00: Oh, no, no, I'd never do that.
• 2:47
  SPEAKER_00: Like, well, okay.
• 2:49
  SPEAKER_00: Uh, you know, and and um, you know, you gotta walk in people's shoes.
• 2:55
  SPEAKER_00: I think that's how I roll.
• 2:57
  SPEAKER_00: This is how I am, you know.
• 2:59
  SPEAKER_00: So I became associated with psychedelics when I got my stellate ganglion blocks.
• 3:09
  SPEAKER_00: Now, there was a time in Germany where somebody was throwing some acid around the barracks.
• 3:15
  SPEAKER_00: That was a lot of fun back then, but I had never done psychedelics.
• 3:20
  SPEAKER_00: I'd never done drugs.
• 3:21
  SPEAKER_00: You know, I didn't like them.
• 3:22
  SPEAKER_00: Didn't do I was in the military, and then I've had a, you know, you know, I just couldn't do them.
• 3:27
  SPEAKER_00: I didn't want to.
• 3:28
  SPEAKER_00: I had booze.
• 3:29
  SPEAKER_00: I had, you know, I had bag, I had beer.
• 3:31
  SPEAKER_00: I didn't need drugs.
• 3:32
  SPEAKER_00: I had beer.
• 3:33
  SPEAKER_00: Then I had whiskey.
• 3:35
  SPEAKER_00: So um, when I got my second round of stellaganglion blocks, I couldn't complete the first one because I had COVID.
• 3:43
  SPEAKER_00: They got one side done, but they couldn't do the second.
• 3:46
  SPEAKER_00: They asked if I would do ketamine.
• 3:49
  SPEAKER_00: I'm like, what's that?
• 3:50
  SPEAKER_00: They go, it's well, we're recommending it because together we're seeing enormous results.
• 3:56
  SPEAKER_00: And at that time, I was struggling with you know severe what they call general anxiety disorder, panic attacks, impulsivity, a lot of anger, rage.
• 4:07
  SPEAKER_00: Uh and I was going through a lot.
• 4:09
  SPEAKER_00: You know, I lost my wife.
• 4:10
  SPEAKER_00: I mean, I lost my son, my wife was going through breast cancer, struggling company, uh, just under a lot of stress.
• 4:18
  SPEAKER_00: I was like, like, man, I'll do anything.
• 4:20
  SPEAKER_00: I don't want to feel like this no more.
• 4:21
  SPEAKER_00: You know, I don't want these drugs they give me.
• 4:24
  SPEAKER_00: I I don't want them.
• 4:25
  SPEAKER_00: I I want to do something different.
• 4:27
  SPEAKER_00: So my first experience was ketamine.
• 4:30
  SPEAKER_00: And ketamine is something that a lot and a lot of people should try.
• 4:38
  unknown: Okay.
• 4:38
  SPEAKER_00: It's it's it's you know, it's an anesthesic, it's an anesthesia drug, medication.
• 4:45
  SPEAKER_00: If you're allergic to morphine or what opiates, I guess they give you ketamine, right?
• 4:50
  SPEAKER_00: Well, at certain doses, ketamine induces a very, very transitory disassociative state.
• 4:58
  SPEAKER_00: I mean, you know you're in a chair, but when you've got the blindfold on, man, there's a TV on, and you are going anywhere you would like or where the medicine will take you.
• 5:09
  SPEAKER_00: It allows parts of your brain to communicate that have never communicated before.
• 5:14
  SPEAKER_00: Physiologically, we know now that it creates an enormous amount of neuroplasticity, which is why ketamine is good.
• 5:22
  SPEAKER_00: A person that's undergoing ketamine in the experience has the neuroplasticity of a 10 euro, which is why when you leave it, you're just so tired.
• 5:32
  SPEAKER_00: It's like your brain just ran a marathon because it's working, it's moving, it's also creating uh, you know, growth, right?
• 5:40
  SPEAKER_00: It's bypassing damage, you know, things are tying together.
• 5:43
  SPEAKER_00: It's it's it's healing.
• 5:44
  SPEAKER_00: It's healing.
• 5:46
  SPEAKER_00: And but the the the the side part of it is that you get to look at your life.
• 5:52
  SPEAKER_00: You go through what's called ego death, which is this point where you die.
• 5:58
  SPEAKER_00: You really, you wish you would, you understand that nothing else matters.
• 6:01
  SPEAKER_00: You don't matter in this world for all your egotistic, self-centered, selfish interests.
• 6:08
  SPEAKER_00: And I am, I am that, I'm the I looked all that up in a dictionary.
• 6:14
  SPEAKER_00: That's my picture, okay?
• 6:15
  SPEAKER_00: Very self-centered, very selfish back in the day.
• 6:20
  SPEAKER_00: Um, you start realizing through ego death that you are nothing, and that is the source of people becoming humble.
• 6:28
  SPEAKER_00: Walking through life humble, humility, with humility, and being grateful for what we have are some of the big steps that some of us take as human beings.
• 6:39
  SPEAKER_00: They're very, very profound.
• 6:42
  SPEAKER_00: Well, under the influence of ketamine, your mind starts to, you know, we'll just say expand.
• 6:48
  SPEAKER_00: You recover memories.
• 6:50
  SPEAKER_00: It just takes you places, some of the places you don't know, you've never been.
• 6:54
  SPEAKER_00: Sometimes you see the beginning of the universe, you know, it's euphoric.
• 6:59
  SPEAKER_00: Other ones are, you know, it's very downbeat, you know, you're never in any danger.
• 7:04
  SPEAKER_00: I mean, they've got a blood pressure monitor on you, you got a, you know, they got a camera, you can have somebody in the room.
• 7:11
  SPEAKER_00: But it is an amazing experience.
• 7:15
  SPEAKER_00: And so on one side, you have the physiological impact of the healing, but then you have that spiritual component.
• 7:24
  SPEAKER_00: And that's where you know ketamine started to really allow me to understand how much I do believe in God, how much I love my wife, how much I love my kids, my son, my daughters, how much, you know, that that you know, the anything, right?
• 7:47
  SPEAKER_00: You start absolutely confirming yourself, and as a human being, it's very, very powerful.
• 7:55
  SPEAKER_00: So the outcome of that two weeks of ketamine was that my mind felt so much better, like my brain stuff felt so much better.
• 8:03
  SPEAKER_00: Um, and I was starting to start to unravel the knots of my trauma that I did not know I had.
• 8:14
  SPEAKER_00: Because when you're a guy or when you're a girl and you grow through life and you've gone through a bad childhood, you've gone through combat, you've gone through a bad divorce, you've gone through bad business, you become resilient.
• 8:27
  SPEAKER_00: We think I'm tough, I've made it, I've got it.
• 8:30
  SPEAKER_00: You're still carrying that stuff in you.
• 8:33
  SPEAKER_00: And we don't understand that a lot.
• 8:36
  SPEAKER_00: It's still there.
• 8:37
  SPEAKER_00: You know, we see this with our first responders, firefighters, you know, police officers, EMS people, dispatchers, people that we never, they've got to just doing a job.
• 8:46
  SPEAKER_00: No, these people are picking up body parts, they're going in after the burnt buildings, they're listening to people kill themselves on phones.
• 8:52
  SPEAKER_00: They go through enormous amounts of trauma.
• 8:57
  SPEAKER_00: It's here.
• 8:59
  SPEAKER_00: Nurses, you know, people and social workers, people that deal with the negative aspects of life.
• 9:06
  SPEAKER_00: We absorb that energy.
• 9:09
  SPEAKER_00: Bad childhood, adverse childhood experiences.
• 9:12
  SPEAKER_00: We all carry that.
• 9:14
  SPEAKER_00: And it impacts who we are.
• 9:16
  SPEAKER_00: And it was impacting me as a human being.
• 9:19
  SPEAKER_00: My anger, my rage, my impulsivity, my drinking, you know, my you know, my attitudes towards sex and food were all driven by this trauma that I had no idea that I had.
• 9:33
  SPEAKER_00: Nothing.
• 9:33
  SPEAKER_00: I didn't have a clue.
• 9:36
  SPEAKER_00: So ketamine started to unlock that.
• 9:39
  SPEAKER_00: And I'm like, wow.
• 9:40
  SPEAKER_00: And I still wasn't really paying too much attention to it at the time.
• 9:45
  SPEAKER_00: But I I stuck I started to say, wow, I, you know, I feel better, my brain feels better, which is great.
• 9:52
  SPEAKER_00: That's the purpose of that's the primary purpose.
• 9:55
  SPEAKER_00: But the secondary part of these psychedelic experiences is that spiritual side.
• 10:03
  SPEAKER_00: So get through ketamine down to one a month.
• 10:06
  SPEAKER_00: My wife takes me up there.
• 10:08
  SPEAKER_00: Because when you leave these things, man, you're like, I don't walking's kind of tough.
• 10:12
  SPEAKER_00: You just see uh it takes you about 30 minutes to just kind of get your stuff back together.
• 10:17
  SPEAKER_00: And then you just want to sleep.
• 10:19
  SPEAKER_00: Because I started taking longer doses, not because it's a drug and I was getting addicted to it, it's because I wanted to be in what they call the K-hole.
• 10:29
  SPEAKER_00: I wanted to be in the experience longer.
• 10:31
  SPEAKER_00: Because if you take it for an hour, it takes about 10 minutes, 15 minutes to get there, and then about, you know, 10, 20 minutes before the top of the hour, you start coming out of it.
• 10:40
  SPEAKER_00: I wanted to be in there longer.
• 10:42
  SPEAKER_00: I wanted more healing, and I wanted more insight.
• 10:45
  SPEAKER_00: So I started, I did two hours once, man.
• 10:47
  SPEAKER_00: I I slept for like two days.
• 10:49
  SPEAKER_00: But about 90 minutes was my time frame, right?
• 10:53
  SPEAKER_00: Some people get all they want out of an hour.
• 10:56
  SPEAKER_00: So one day a buddy calls me up and he goes, Hey man, have you ever heard of ayahuasca?
• 11:01
  SPEAKER_00: I'm like, what's that, bro?
• 11:03
  SPEAKER_00: He goes, Man, I just did it, and I felt like my brain just went around with Mike Tyson, and I heard brain.
• 11:09
  SPEAKER_00: And I'm like, hey, man.
• 11:11
  SPEAKER_00: Because at that time, you know, I was still struggling, but now I was stuttering and I had massive brain fog.
• 11:20
  SPEAKER_00: I'd I'd start a conversation, I'd be like, What are we talking about?
• 11:23
  SPEAKER_00: Like the same conversation.
• 11:25
  SPEAKER_00: I'd my my mind would go somewhere, I'd come back, and and I'd be clueless.
• 11:30
  SPEAKER_00: You know, short, extreme short-term memory loss.
• 11:32
  SPEAKER_00: Like, what do I do?
• 11:34
  SPEAKER_00: And I said, Wow, he said, your brain.
• 11:37
  SPEAKER_00: He goes, Yeah, I said, Well, I'll try it.
• 11:38
  SPEAKER_00: So he set me up with this organization.
• 11:40
  SPEAKER_00: They do veteran clinics, and I go to this clinic.
• 11:42
  SPEAKER_00: It's me and 14 other guys.
• 11:45
  SPEAKER_00: There's 14 of us, I think 13.
• 11:47
  SPEAKER_00: I'm the oldest by 20 years, right?
• 11:49
  SPEAKER_00: They're like, hey, who's the old guy?
• 11:51
  SPEAKER_00: And these are all combat vets, 9-11 guys and girls.
• 11:54
  SPEAKER_00: There's, I think, two girls there.
• 11:57
  SPEAKER_00: And we were all collectively a mess.
• 12:00
  SPEAKER_00: Big mess.
• 12:00
  SPEAKER_00: Big, big group of messy people that were all trying to find our way.
• 12:08
  SPEAKER_00: And we all found this plant called ayahuasca.
• 12:11
  SPEAKER_00: And if you don't know about it, ayahuasca is usually out of South America.
• 12:15
  SPEAKER_00: It comes out of some other places, Hawaii now.
• 12:18
  SPEAKER_00: And basically it's the root, it's the bark of a tree and a vine that are boiled together.
• 12:23
  SPEAKER_00: There's a whole process.
• 12:25
  SPEAKER_00: But you end up with a group, it's a really foul-smelling, foul-tasting, you can't make this taste good.
• 12:33
  SPEAKER_00: Uh that um has what's called DMT in it.
• 12:38
  SPEAKER_00: Now, in your lifetime, from what I understand, and I'm not an expert on all of this, other than to relay what I why I think this is important.
• 12:48
  SPEAKER_00: You only experience DMT twice in your life, when you're born, when you die.
• 12:54
  SPEAKER_00: DMT has the ability to create a, I think it's called an oleogenic experience, a dream-like state where your brain just kind of like kidding me a little bit, goes out there and connects.
• 13:09
  SPEAKER_00: It connects inside internally, and you are basically in a state where you are receiving input that is driving you to deal with yourself and life.
• 13:28
  SPEAKER_00: And in these dreamlike states, things that you have never ever thought about in your life that you have buried so deep are coming up.
• 13:40
  SPEAKER_00: And you can't fight it.
• 13:42
  SPEAKER_00: And this is one of the reasons I tell people, even the most ardent Christians, and I am one of the most devout followers of our Lord that you ever find, that you cannot spiritually progress the way that you can on psychedelics through just prayer um and therapy alone.
• 14:10
  SPEAKER_00: Because when you pray, you can pray.
• 14:13
  SPEAKER_00: And God sees everything.
• 14:14
  SPEAKER_00: Sometimes, you know, we don't talk about the things we have, but God sees them.
• 14:19
  SPEAKER_00: In therapy, you just turn it off.
• 14:21
  SPEAKER_00: Ah, you know what?
• 14:22
  SPEAKER_00: I don't want to talk about that today.
• 14:23
  SPEAKER_00: You know, I don't want to go there.
• 14:25
  SPEAKER_00: I'm paying you.
• 14:26
  SPEAKER_00: I don't care.
• 14:27
  SPEAKER_00: I don't want to go there.
• 14:28
  SPEAKER_00: When you're under the influence of these medicines, you're going there.
• 14:33
  SPEAKER_00: And it's right in your face.
• 14:36
  SPEAKER_00: I imagine sitting there and my stepmother popped in my head, and I was like, and all of a sudden I had to vomit.
• 14:44
  SPEAKER_00: And we'll talk about that in a second.
• 14:46
  SPEAKER_00: Sounds gross, but it's actually kind of cool.
• 14:49
  SPEAKER_00: And I'm like, I do not want to think about you.
• 14:53
  SPEAKER_00: This woman tormented.
• 14:56
  SPEAKER_00: Cinderella stuff, man.
• 14:58
  SPEAKER_00: Can't make it up.
• 14:59
  SPEAKER_00: And I had buried that woman.
• 15:01
  SPEAKER_00: I hadn't thought about her since I left my crazy childhood home.
• 15:07
  SPEAKER_00: And she was right there, and I'm like, oh God, not you.
• 15:12
  SPEAKER_00: And you and it's like, oh, and it's like right in your face.
• 15:16
  SPEAKER_00: And what do you do?
• 15:18
  SPEAKER_00: You start thinking about them.
• 15:21
  SPEAKER_00: And as you progress through the people in your life that hurt you, and then you start moving on to the people that you hurt.
• 15:31
  SPEAKER_00: I mean, it takes multiple cycles, but the thing is, you're starting to deal with the most innermost portions of you where you have the most pain.
• 15:45
  SPEAKER_00: And until you deal with them, they're causing you pain.
• 15:49
  SPEAKER_00: They're driving your drinking, they're driving your impulsivity, they're driving your anger, your ego.
• 15:56
  SPEAKER_00: If you ever want to do some reading, read up on your ego.
• 16:00
  SPEAKER_00: Okay, and what that powerful part of you wants from you and controls.
• 16:06
  SPEAKER_00: And the last thing your ego wants, right now, it's probably telling you, don't do it.
• 16:10
  SPEAKER_00: Don't do it.
• 16:10
  SPEAKER_00: Don't do it.
• 16:11
  SPEAKER_00: Because your ego wants to be in control.
• 16:14
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah, you've got this other magnificent part of you that God put in you called your true self.
• 16:20
  SPEAKER_00: That's the part of you says, go, go, go, go, go, go.
• 16:24
  SPEAKER_00: You remember Animal House, you got the angel and the devil, right?
• 16:27
  SPEAKER_00: The devil's your ego.
• 16:29
  SPEAKER_00: The angels, your true self, going, hey, let's do good things.
• 16:32
  SPEAKER_00: Let's get let's get rid of it.
• 16:33
  SPEAKER_00: Let's fight it.
• 16:34
  SPEAKER_00: Well, you have to process this stuff.
• 16:37
  SPEAKER_00: And I sat on this mattress.
• 16:39
  SPEAKER_00: I had a veteran 10 inches away, no more than a foot on both sides.
• 16:44
  SPEAKER_00: And we are puking.
• 16:45
  SPEAKER_00: And they're crying and screaming.
• 16:50
  SPEAKER_00: And all of us are in our own internal hells, just dealing with combat, trauma, and abuse and vomiting.
• 17:00
  SPEAKER_00: And it's this unbelievable room of just pain.
• 17:05
  SPEAKER_00: But all these people are processing things, most of us for the first time.
• 17:12
  SPEAKER_00: And so after about two hours, the drug starts wearing off and the bell rings.
• 17:17
  SPEAKER_00: And guess what?
• 17:18
  SPEAKER_00: You get to take some more.
• 17:21
  SPEAKER_00: Well, it's up to you, right?
• 17:22
  SPEAKER_00: You can just ride with what you got.
• 17:24
  SPEAKER_00: Some of us have had enough.
• 17:26
  SPEAKER_00: I don't want no more.
• 17:27
  SPEAKER_00: Then, you know, but then some of us, like, yeah, man, up, I'll go there and take another sip.
• 17:32
  SPEAKER_00: It's measured out in tablespoons.
• 17:35
  SPEAKER_00: And then you go back into your traps and you deal with more stuff.
• 17:40
  SPEAKER_00: And as you deal with these experiences, you start understanding more and more, not about just your pain, but about the people that hurt you, and then yourself.
• 17:52
  SPEAKER_00: You start digging into yourself.
• 17:56
  SPEAKER_00: And after the journey's over, you know, there's a fire pit, you're up for hours.
• 18:01
  SPEAKER_00: Like most of the first time you take this stuff, you don't sleep.
• 18:04
  SPEAKER_00: You're just up all night thinking and wondering.
• 18:07
  SPEAKER_00: And you have this glow because you are in contact with a part of yourself for the first time.
• 18:14
  SPEAKER_00: And you're in contact if you believe in the universe and consciousness for the first time.
• 18:20
  SPEAKER_00: And as a group, you can become really tight.
• 18:22
  SPEAKER_00: And if you've ever been part of a sports team and you've ever been in the military, you know, you go through a jump together, you go through a combat experience together, you win a victory, you get a team, or you even lose, right?
• 18:33
  SPEAKER_00: You're tight.
• 18:34
  SPEAKER_00: This common grind brings you together.
• 18:38
  SPEAKER_00: And you talk, you know, and you start opening up.
• 18:43
  SPEAKER_00: And through this all, you start releasing, you start cleansing yourself in a way that's, I don't think is possible any other way.
• 18:54
  SPEAKER_00: Unless you know you have, you know, really, really long periods of therapy, you know, you only go once or twice a week.
• 19:00
  SPEAKER_00: This is just, and then you do it two more times in a weekend, right?
• 19:05
  SPEAKER_00: I mean, this is the Ranger School of psychedelics.
• 19:11
  SPEAKER_00: And you do it two more times.
• 19:13
  SPEAKER_00: And through these events, you just start releasing, you start forgiving, and most importantly, you start loving.
• 19:25
  SPEAKER_00: You actually start loving the people that hurt you because you understand that they were probably hurt.
• 19:32
  SPEAKER_00: Hurt people, hurt people.
• 19:34
  SPEAKER_00: You start forgiving them because you start to understand that forgiveness is one of the greatest gifts, not only to those that have hurt you, but to yourself.
• 19:45
  SPEAKER_00: Because when you forgive, you release it all to God, to the universe, to Buddha, whatever you think is.
• 19:52
  SPEAKER_00: You get it out, and then it's gone.
• 19:56
  SPEAKER_00: It's still there.
• 19:57
  SPEAKER_00: I mean, you I think about my stepmother, but I'll go, oh God, you know, like, oh boy.
• 20:01
  SPEAKER_00: I can think about my father, not with anger and shame and regret and and and and hatred, but with love now.
• 20:10
  SPEAKER_00: You know?
• 20:10
  SPEAKER_00: And and and these are massive steps for anybody to take.
• 20:15
  SPEAKER_00: And unfortunately, a lot of people like me, you know, they they say, why do you find God?
• 20:20
  SPEAKER_00: Everybody finds God so late in their life.
• 20:22
  SPEAKER_00: Well, some of us do, but it's all part of the journey.
• 20:26
  SPEAKER_00: And this is absolutely was part of mine.
• 20:29
  SPEAKER_00: So I go through ayahuasca, and then I just take about two months just to like process.
• 20:35
  SPEAKER_00: I'm like, what just happened?
• 20:38
  SPEAKER_00: And and I start feeling lighter.
• 20:42
  SPEAKER_01: And my wife's like, dude, you're different.
• 20:48
  SPEAKER_00: I mean, I'm still Pac-Man, I'm still nutty, I'm still loud, you know, whatever.
• 20:55
  SPEAKER_00: But I was like, kindler, kinder.
• 20:58
  SPEAKER_00: Like, kind has never been associated with me and gentle.
• 21:02
  SPEAKER_00: And then I really started, you know, getting into God.
• 21:06
  SPEAKER_00: I'm like, wow, what just happened?
• 21:08
  SPEAKER_00: And then I started mentoring these young kids here because I've been around for a while, man.
• 21:12
  SPEAKER_00: I've been in four different combat zones.
• 21:14
  SPEAKER_00: I've done a lot of crazy stuff.
• 21:16
  SPEAKER_00: I've started companies, I've had companies blow up.
• 21:19
  SPEAKER_00: I mean, I've I've been through a lot.
• 21:21
  SPEAKER_00: And I started sharing with these young men and women, but from their perspective, you know, to give yourself a break, learn how to love it.
• 21:28
  SPEAKER_00: And I and I and I really enjoyed it.
• 21:30
  SPEAKER_00: But I was watching these young men and women make progress that they've never made.
• 21:36
  SPEAKER_00: Men and women that were sucking a pistol.
• 21:39
  SPEAKER_00: Men and women had a given up on everything.
• 21:42
  SPEAKER_00: Bags of drugs, all the therapy that anybody could have in their life.
• 21:46
  SPEAKER_00: Everything they had dogs, cats, have lost their wives, have lost their children, have lost themselves.
• 21:52
  SPEAKER_00: They were finding their way home.
• 21:55
  SPEAKER_00: I mean, my journey was nothing compared to these brave.
• 22:00
  SPEAKER_00: Men and women that went under the influence of a God-given medication and started finding themselves and were getting saved.
• 22:10
  SPEAKER_00: Not by Jesus and the Lord, but by saved, by being here, wanting to go back and apologize, wanting to say I'm sorry, wanting to make things right, wanting to forgive, wanting to love.
• 22:23
  SPEAKER_00: And all of us as a group were absolutely, absolutely sorry, that without that experience, we never would have gotten to be able to make those steps.
• 22:34
  SPEAKER_00: Never would have made those spiritual things.
• 22:37
  SPEAKER_00: And that's what I want people to understand is that the psychedelic range of medicines, I don't care how they're given to us.
• 22:46
  SPEAKER_00: I know farmers out there, everybody wants to make money.
• 22:49
  SPEAKER_01: I really don't care.
• 22:50
  SPEAKER_00: I don't care if you grow the plants in your yard.
• 22:52
  SPEAKER_00: They have to be administered safely and soundly.
• 22:55
  SPEAKER_00: There's still some work that needs to be done with standardizing the treatment plans.
• 23:00
  SPEAKER_00: And we can talk about that some other time.
• 23:02
  SPEAKER_00: But the impact of these medicines, there's nothing like it.
• 23:06
  SPEAKER_00: Nothing like it.
• 23:07
  SPEAKER_00: As profound, as intense, as fast and rapid and effective that I've ever seen that fixes our veterans and our athletes, are people that are hurting from brain trauma when it can be safely administered.
• 23:21
  SPEAKER_00: There are people that unfortunately can't, you got heart conditions, whatever it is, right?
• 23:26
  SPEAKER_00: But for the vast majority of people out there, when properly administered, what these medicines can do, what they've done for me and what I'd watched them do, is absolutely amazing.
• 23:41
  SPEAKER_00: So I, you know, I did ayahuasca um a couple more times.
• 23:46
  SPEAKER_00: And then I had always been interested in suicide.
• 23:50
  SPEAKER_00: And I, you know, I was aware of um, you know, some people that I knew that were growing them, and and I was talking to some folks about it.
• 23:57
  SPEAKER_00: And as part of my now research, I wanted to see what suicidem could do.
• 24:03
  SPEAKER_00: And so um I went to a practitioner, had somebody come over the house, and I wanted to do it alone.
• 24:11
  SPEAKER_00: And I said, All right, I don't, and I'm one of those people like when you do psychedelics, you can have somebody in the room.
• 24:18
  SPEAKER_00: I am now, and believe this, that this is Pac-Man talking.
• 24:21
  SPEAKER_00: I'm a big energy guy.
• 24:22
  SPEAKER_00: I don't want nobody's energy around me because you have energy coming in, you have energy going out, you have your own energy, and I don't want nobody around.
• 24:30
  SPEAKER_00: So I do things alone.
• 24:31
  SPEAKER_00: I said, look, you go in the other room, and if I need medical attention, please come help.
• 24:37
  SPEAKER_00: But let me roll.
• 24:39
  SPEAKER_00: So I put on my blindfold, had some tunes, I took a heroic dose of psilocybin, which is I think five grams, and I disappeared.
• 24:50
  SPEAKER_00: And I had again, one of the most profound experiences.
• 24:54
  SPEAKER_00: My son came rushing into my head.
• 24:58
  SPEAKER_00: He was worried, he's he's just crying all the time.
• 25:01
  SPEAKER_00: Did we hate him?
• 25:03
  SPEAKER_00: You know, and I'm like, oh my God, boy, I just miss you.
• 25:07
  SPEAKER_00: And then I just, you know, I just had this unbelievable transformational experience where it was him and me finally back together, father and son, you know, crying, you know, and then we started, you know, the God come in, and Cobb comes in, what's our plan?
• 25:22
  SPEAKER_00: How are we going to fix this?
• 25:24
  SPEAKER_00: Because our son, you know, we're losing our boys, we're losing our girls, this can be fixed, you know, all this stuff.
• 25:29
  SPEAKER_00: And then, you know, just had this remarkable journey.
• 25:32
  SPEAKER_00: And again, thinking about my my wife and God and love and forgiveness, and then bam, at the end of it, this channel opened up.
• 25:39
  SPEAKER_00: And all these voices were in my head.
• 25:42
  SPEAKER_00: And guess what?
• 25:43
  SPEAKER_00: They were all NFL blenders.
• 25:45
  SPEAKER_00: They were yelling at me, but hey, you get you know, you know this.
• 25:49
  SPEAKER_00: They think I was crazy.
• 25:50
  SPEAKER_00: You have to tell my wife, you have to tell my family that I was hurt, I was injured, I couldn't be here.
• 25:55
  SPEAKER_00: And I'm like, whoa! And it this big channel opened up, and I'm like, oh my God.
• 26:00
  SPEAKER_00: And it just kind of validated, you know, what we have for mission.
• 26:03
  SPEAKER_00: And believe what you want, I really don't care.
• 26:06
  SPEAKER_00: But during that time, my brain felt better.
• 26:12
  SPEAKER_00: And again, I was able to get emotions, I was able to get in contact with my son, and I was able to dive deeper into myself and release more of the trauma.
• 26:24
  SPEAKER_00: I felt, you know, that I was able to help my boy for once, instead of just being, you know, the guy left behind and the sorrowful, you know, guy that I am.
• 26:34
  SPEAKER_00: But an amazing journey that that helped me open up.
• 26:37
  SPEAKER_00: And then after that, I made a decision that I was gonna go to IBO.
• 26:43
  SPEAKER_00: Because I talk about it.
• 26:44
  SPEAKER_00: And we've had people on the show.
• 26:46
  SPEAKER_00: And if I'm gonna talk about it, I better get better get on with it, right?
• 26:50
  SPEAKER_00: And uh in the the five NU.
• 26:53
  SPEAKER_00: And so I I went to Mexico.
• 26:55
  SPEAKER_00: I went to Ambio, best in the business.
• 26:58
  SPEAKER_00: You know, Trevor Millar has spoken on the show, he's spoken at a summit.
• 27:02
  SPEAKER_00: And I did not think I needed Apple Game because my ego didn't want me to go down there.
• 27:09
  SPEAKER_00: I was like, you know, I'm good, you know, and I kept doubting myself, you know, Aussie White's birth.
• 27:13
  SPEAKER_00: They had a, you know, your ego is very, very powerful.
• 27:17
  SPEAKER_00: And and I was like, maybe I shouldn't go.
• 27:19
  SPEAKER_00: I don't really need this, man.
• 27:21
  SPEAKER_00: I'm a good guy.
• 27:21
  SPEAKER_00: I'm like, I'm back with my wife, my brand.
• 27:23
  SPEAKER_00: No, I'm not back with my wife, I'm back with the Lord.
• 27:25
  SPEAKER_00: You know, I'm Bruce 3.0 now.
• 27:28
  SPEAKER_00: My wife, you know, likes who I am.
• 27:30
  SPEAKER_00: I've got my little companies turning around.
• 27:32
  SPEAKER_00: I mean, everything's rolling, dude.
• 27:33
  SPEAKER_00: Why do I want to go down there and blow my brains out?
• 27:35
  SPEAKER_00: I know with this stuff.
• 27:37
  SPEAKER_00: But I went.
• 27:39
  SPEAKER_00: And I went, and my ego fought me the whole way to the point that when I took the pill, my blood pressure jumped up to 200 over 100.
• 27:49
  SPEAKER_00: And I'm like, oh my God, I'm not gonna be able to go through this.
• 27:52
  SPEAKER_00: And of course, the staff's like, ah, we see this all the time.
• 27:55
  SPEAKER_00: I'm like, say, Damien, you know, you take four pills, they get four rounds of pills.
• 27:59
  SPEAKER_00: They give me a second one, they monitor my blood pressure, 200 over 100.
• 28:03
  SPEAKER_00: My ego's like, I'm taking you out of this, man.
• 28:05
  SPEAKER_00: You ain't going through this.
• 28:07
  SPEAKER_00: And anyways, they gave me some blood pressure medicine, and I said, You're gonna go.
• 28:12
  SPEAKER_00: And I went down, I looked in the mirror and shook my things, I laid down.
• 28:18
  SPEAKER_00: And I think it was because I had not, I had done a lot of psychedelic work and practice on myself that I just couldn't get into the trance.
• 28:27
  SPEAKER_00: Like you're supposed to, it's just like ayahuasca, an oleogenic state where you're just kind of dreaming of.
• 28:32
  SPEAKER_00: And I'm lying at it, like, and they and they play the music, and usually a lot of music is it's there's the there's a synchronous intent to the music to drive you deeper into the medicine, and then you know, it becomes a little bit more enlightened to bring you out and give you, you know, the you know, the hope and all that.
• 28:52
  SPEAKER_00: Well, I was like probably three hours into this thing, and I wasn't going anywhere.
• 28:56
  SPEAKER_00: So I raised my hand, they come over and I said, Look, I I I don't think I think I need some more.
• 29:03
  SPEAKER_00: They go, nah, you probably don't.
• 29:04
  SPEAKER_00: You just need to wait.
• 29:05
  SPEAKER_01: I'm like, all right.
• 29:07
  SPEAKER_00: So then they started playing some music I knew, and I'm like back, snapping my fingers, and they and I raised my hand and said, Look, man, I I'm making jokes to myself.
• 29:16
  SPEAKER_00: I said, I think I need a booster.
• 29:18
  SPEAKER_00: So they, you know, they had me walk up and down the stairs, kind of get the medicine through you in.
• 29:21
  SPEAKER_00: But finally they gave me a booster.
• 29:24
  SPEAKER_00: And then, brother, whoop, I went.
• 29:28
  SPEAKER_00: My son popped up and led me on a guided tour where I had this, like it was Lord of the Rings for hours.
• 29:38
  SPEAKER_00: And my dog jumped in and licked my face, which I thought my dog had died, so I was all worried about my wife.
• 29:44
  SPEAKER_00: And my son guided me through this entire journey where I started putting myself together.
• 29:51
  SPEAKER_00: I found my sins, I put them in a backset, I gave it to God.
• 29:56
  SPEAKER_00: I, I, I, you know, it was just this amazing journey.
• 29:59
  SPEAKER_00: We had swords, and we it was it was it was it wasn't nutty.
• 30:05
  SPEAKER_00: It was just it was just kind of you know what it was.
• 30:09
  SPEAKER_00: It was cool.
• 30:09
  SPEAKER_00: It was this is my journey.
• 30:10
  SPEAKER_00: Some people don't have visions.
• 30:12
  SPEAKER_00: I had like this trilogy of just stuff.
• 30:16
  SPEAKER_00: Me, my son, and my ego, you know, Pac-Mar.
• 30:19
  SPEAKER_00: He was there.
• 30:19
  SPEAKER_00: We all went around.
• 30:20
  SPEAKER_00: We picked up the pieces of my sin.
• 30:22
  SPEAKER_00: Oh, it was just a crazy journey.
• 30:25
  SPEAKER_00: So next thing you know, you know, they start waking you up.
• 30:27
  SPEAKER_00: Well, you wake up and you're coming out of it.
• 30:29
  SPEAKER_00: You've been under, you've been under.
• 30:30
  SPEAKER_00: It's now you go in, you go in about 10 o'clock at night, it's now nine o'clock in the morning, then you do your gray day.
• 30:36
  SPEAKER_00: The gray day is where you just kind of catch up on life, man.
• 30:40
  SPEAKER_00: You process what you've been through.
• 30:42
  SPEAKER_00: That entire gray day was not a gray day for me.
• 30:46
  SPEAKER_00: I was under the influence of that medicine.
• 30:48
  SPEAKER_00: As a matter of fact, not the gray day, the night into the next day.
• 30:52
  SPEAKER_00: Maybe because I had a lot of trauma, maybe it's because I boosted, don't know, but I processed a lot.
• 30:59
  SPEAKER_00: And I'll tell you one thing.
• 31:01
  SPEAKER_00: You know, I finally, it was IBogain that allowed me to make the jump from being 95% committed to everything.
• 31:09
  SPEAKER_00: My wife, God, my job to 100%.
• 31:13
  SPEAKER_00: All it.
• 31:15
  SPEAKER_00: And you start really understanding who you are and what's been done to you.
• 31:22
  SPEAKER_00: And much like ayahuasca, you really start to understand the power of love, the power of forgiveness, the power of the universe, the fact that we are all here to do good.
• 31:34
  SPEAKER_00: And these are not visions, this is just like heartfelt truth that as you dive into it and things just start peeling off.
• 31:43
  SPEAKER_00: Trauma, you'll be processing and so many things that the is the little things become the big things, and the big things in your life become nothing.
• 31:53
  SPEAKER_00: What do I need a job for?
• 31:54
  SPEAKER_00: I can live in a trailer.
• 31:56
  SPEAKER_00: What do I need money for?
• 31:57
  SPEAKER_00: Right?
• 31:58
  SPEAKER_00: What you know, I just want to be around my kids.
• 32:01
  SPEAKER_00: I just want my wife to love me.
• 32:03
  SPEAKER_00: You know, I I I just want to follow Jesus.
• 32:06
  SPEAKER_00: These are, you know, in your whole concept of life, your priorities flip upside down.
• 32:13
  SPEAKER_00: And to me, you know, some of you might think, well, I want to focus on money and all that.
• 32:17
  SPEAKER_00: That's your gig, man.
• 32:18
  SPEAKER_00: I really don't care.
• 32:20
  SPEAKER_00: But again, without the experience, you cannot get to these core central beliefs and find out who you are.
• 32:29
  SPEAKER_00: And you can't really decide on what you're gonna be when you grow up until you get into there and you figure out, you know, what's been going on.
• 32:40
  SPEAKER_00: And for me, um, I ended up coming out of Ibogain and I struggled for a while uh because, again, my ego is very, very powerful and and um and worked through a lot of that.
• 32:52
  SPEAKER_00: But again, um I came out of that, I showed up, well, so my wife didn't know I was coming home.
• 32:59
  SPEAKER_00: She thought I was coming home the next day.
• 33:01
  SPEAKER_00: I found a flight earlier.
• 33:03
  SPEAKER_00: I showed up at the house at 11 o'clock at night, it was because I missed her birthday.
• 33:07
  SPEAKER_00: And I had taken wrapping paper, birthday wrapping paper, put a bow in my head, just wrapped it all around me, and rang the doorbell.
• 33:15
  SPEAKER_00: And I had never been so much in love with my wife and my wife.
• 33:18
  SPEAKER_00: And I finally started realizing the blessing that she is and the gift that she has been to me my whole life.
• 33:26
  SPEAKER_00: And and and you just start realizing through these psychedelics how important things really are, the right things really are.
• 33:38
  SPEAKER_00: And then you start, as I said, learning, you know, the power of forgiveness and love.
• 33:45
  SPEAKER_00: And so in the end, what I would like you to understand is that I have been profoundly changed by these psychedelic experiences physiologically.
• 33:58
  SPEAKER_00: I'm back.
• 33:59
  SPEAKER_00: I my brain functions better than it is ever, ever had.
• 34:04
  SPEAKER_00: Spiritually.
• 34:06
  SPEAKER_00: I am becoming the man that I want to be, and that I do believe God wants me to be.
• 34:14
  SPEAKER_00: And this is a good point, starting point for the rest of my life.
• 34:18
  SPEAKER_00: My life can end tomorrow.
• 34:20
  SPEAKER_00: I'll be with my boy, I'll be happy.
• 34:22
  SPEAKER_00: I don't want it to because I have a lot of work.
• 34:26
  SPEAKER_00: But it was because of the the both the physiological and the spiritual side of these psychedelics.
• 34:33
  SPEAKER_00: And that is why our veterans and our athletes and abuse people and people traumatized, our first responders, need them so bad.
• 34:45
  SPEAKER_00: When I say need them, they should be able to access them and they should be able to try them in order to see if they can help them the way they've helped so many others.
• 35:00
  SPEAKER_00: And when I say so many others, I think of all the people that have been through AMBI alone, I think only one person has said it did not help them the way they anticipate.
• 35:10
  SPEAKER_00: That's okay.
• 35:11
  SPEAKER_00: Because you can fight this.
• 35:13
  SPEAKER_00: You don't have to go under.
• 35:14
  SPEAKER_00: You can sit there and fight the medicine the whole time, and that's okay too.
• 35:17
  SPEAKER_00: I mean, your brain's still healing.
• 35:19
  SPEAKER_00: You don't have to do the journey.
• 35:21
  SPEAKER_00: That's that's your when you're in these states, you can decide to take the journey or you can say, you know what, I'm not going there.
• 35:28
  SPEAKER_00: And I've seen it.
• 35:28
  SPEAKER_00: I've seen, you know, people say nope and reject the journey, and that's okay.
• 35:33
  SPEAKER_00: That's your thing.
• 35:34
  SPEAKER_00: That's your free will, God's gift, right?
• 35:36
  SPEAKER_00: Free will.
• 35:38
  SPEAKER_00: But I am, you know, just I am telling you that I have seen this over and over again, and that's why I am such a big proponent of these medicines.
• 35:50
  SPEAKER_00: And I don't care how we make them available, but you shouldn't have to go to Mexico for it.
• 35:56
  SPEAKER_00: But I will say that over and over again, these psychedelic uh substances have changed the lives of so many people for the better.
• 36:08
  SPEAKER_00: And so when you look at the spiritual and psychological, I mean the spiritual and the physiological um healing that takes place, I honestly think that to deny access to these medicines is a travesty.
• 36:24
  SPEAKER_00: And we need to embrace them as part of our brain, of our approach to brain optimization.
• 36:30
  SPEAKER_00: And I want to make this, you know, of the case to Maha and all the other people that are trying to change the health environment out here because this is part of the overall approach to brain health.
• 36:40
  SPEAKER_00: It's a part, it's not the path.
• 36:42
  SPEAKER_00: Some people get what they need from HBOD and TMS and photobiomological brain supplementation programs, still they're saying that no problem.
• 36:51
  SPEAKER_00: But they also don't allow you to go deep and to explore your soul.
• 36:57
  SPEAKER_00: And if you decide that you want to get better or you want to change, you don't like where you're at, you know, you need to, you know, these this is definitely a path.
• 37:10
  SPEAKER_00: Not the path, but is a path.
• 37:12
  SPEAKER_00: And to deny it is wrong.
• 37:15
  SPEAKER_00: So, anyways, there's my journey.
• 37:19
  SPEAKER_00: It's still ongoing, you know.
• 37:21
  SPEAKER_00: I'm uh, you know, I'm I'm still, you know, um, I uh um I'm I'm I'm receptive to new modalities.
• 37:27
  SPEAKER_00: I talk to people about you know what's out there on the horizons, but I my son, and I want you to know this, Mac got me on this journey.
• 37:38
  SPEAKER_00: And these are the the karma effects of my son's tragic death.
• 37:45
  SPEAKER_00: You know, he made me a better person.
• 37:48
  SPEAKER_00: He made me, you know, just stop worrying about the dumb stuff, dad.
• 37:53
  SPEAKER_00: You know, so he used to tell me, Dad, why are you worried about that?
• 37:56
  SPEAKER_00: My son, nothing bothered him.
• 37:59
  SPEAKER_00: And I try every day to be more like him, and I'm glad that I went through these experiences to become who I am today.
• 38:06
  SPEAKER_00: Like I said, I'm still Pac-Man.
• 38:08
  SPEAKER_00: I'm still I just don't drink anymore.
• 38:10
  SPEAKER_01: My buddies drink, I don't care, you know.
• 38:12
  SPEAKER_00: But um I would encourage you all to just be open to the concept of psychedelics and what they can bring.
• 38:20
  SPEAKER_00: And and and I and I do believe that as things, as the research and science, and more importantly, the evidence-informed um uh you know, basis of these of these modalities.
• 38:33
  SPEAKER_00: The more and more people say, look, it nothing's done this for me, but this, right?
• 38:38
  SPEAKER_00: We cannot ignore it.
• 38:39
  SPEAKER_00: And in the name of science and creed and money, we shouldn't.
• 38:43
  SPEAKER_00: We need to do what's right for our kids, our athletes, and our veterans.
• 38:47
  SPEAKER_00: And kids should not be touching this stuff, by the way.
• 38:49
  SPEAKER_00: But when you're an adult, it is absolutely a way uh to get that to get us fixed.
• 38:55
  SPEAKER_00: So I hope that was helpful.
• 38:57
  SPEAKER_00: I hope that was insightful.
• 38:58
  SPEAKER_00: Hope you still want to watch the show.
• 39:00
  SPEAKER_00: Bruce the Drugie.
• 39:02
  SPEAKER_00: You know, but um really uh they have been um profound.
• 39:06
  SPEAKER_00: And I wanted you to know that because we talk a lot about a lot, and uh I want to talk about a little bit.
• 39:12
  SPEAKER_00: So if you like what you saw or heard, hopefully what you heard, please subscribe, spread it around, let people know about the show and what we're what we've been doing.
• 39:24
  SPEAKER_00: Tell them about the free book, free, free, free, free, free.
• 39:27
  SPEAKER_00: It's on the website.
• 39:28
  SPEAKER_00: Go download it.
• 39:29
  SPEAKER_00: It's the only book out there on the on how to you know make an informed decision on the subject.
• 39:34
  SPEAKER_00: And it's so important that we spread that book around and get things going.
• 39:38
  SPEAKER_00: And um, and you know, honestly, thank you so much for listening to the show and spreading it around.
• 39:45
  SPEAKER_00: We really, really appreciate it.
• 39:48
  SPEAKER_00: And uh it's so so important and so amazing.
• 39:50
  SPEAKER_00: It's it's such a cool part of my life that uh uh I thank you for encouraging me and the foundation to keep going.
• 39:58
  SPEAKER_00: So until next time on another episode of Broken Brains, the official podcast of proofs of the MAC Parkman optics.
• 40:06
  SPEAKER_00: Thank you so much for listening to my story.
• 40:09
  SPEAKER_00: And remember, if you have children, only you got one melon, take care of it.
• 40:12
  SPEAKER_00: It bruises so easy and it's so fragile and it's so important.
• 40:16
  SPEAKER_00: We'll see you next time on Broken Brains.
• 40:18
  SPEAKER_00: Take care.