Latest / The Joe Rogan Recap / Bert Kreischer (2026) - Biohacking Eyes, Lucid Dreams and Framing Nixon

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Bert Kreischer (2026) - Biohacking Eyes, Lucid Dreams and Framing Nixon · The Joe Rogan Recap

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  Welcome to the Joe Rogan Recap and before we get going, please
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  follow us right here on Spotify to make sure you get sight of
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  our latest episodes in your feed.
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  Today we are strapping in for the Joe Rogan Experience episode
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  hashtag 2445. The guest is the machine
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  himself, Bert Kreischer. And if you're familiar with the
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  Rogan Kreischer dynamic, you know exactly what you're in for.
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  It's usually just chaos, wheezing, laughter, maybe some
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  shirtlessness. A lot of drinking.
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  A lot of drinking, but I have to say this episode felt a little
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  different. It was still chaotic for sure,
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  but they somehow managed to stumble into some incredibly
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  deep waters. I agree completely.
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  It wasn't just party talk this time around.
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  I mean, they were bouncing between like high level
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  biohacking, the really strange psychology of the comedy
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  industry. And then these genuinely heavy
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  world altering conspiracy theories.
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  Yeah, involving American history.
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  It was like watching 2 frat brothers suddenly decide to
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  rewrite a history textbook. It really felt like 2 friends at
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  the absolute top of the food chain just trying to figure out
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  what's real and what's fake anymore.
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  So our mission for this deep dive is to try and separate the
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  signal from all that noise. We're going to look at the
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  science and the astronomical cost of buyer hacking, your
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  vision, the shift from Google to AI, and this massive debate on
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  historical frauds ranging from Richard Nixon all the way to
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  Helen Keller. Wow, and you're forgetting the
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  dreams. The terrifying science of lucid
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  dreaming. Oh, we have to get to that.
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  There's a lot to unpack here. OK, so let's start with the
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  physical. We know Joe loves his
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  biohacking, you know, using science and technology to
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  optimize the body. But Bert brought something to
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  the table that that sounds like pure vanity, but might actually
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  be a, well, a medical breakthrough.
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  He claims he fixed his eyesight with red light therapy.
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  Right. And for anyone who thinks this
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  is just some, you know, woo woo magic, we should probably define
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  what they're actually talking about.
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  The technical term is photobiomodulation.
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  It's all about using specific wavelengths of red and near
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  infrared light to stimulate your cells, specifically the
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  mitochondria. So the idea is you're reducing
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  inflammation and boosting energy production right there on the
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  retina. So in plain English, it's like
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  charging the batteries in your eye cells with light.
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  Essentially, yeah. And Bert's metric for success
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  here was it was hilarious, but so relatable.
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  He said for the first time in years he could read the shampoo
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  and conditioner bottles in the shower.
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  Which is such a burnt problem to have, he said.
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  He used to have to literally get out of the shower dripping wet,
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  put on his readers his glasses, just to figure out if he was
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  washing his hair with conditioner again.
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  It's a funny image, but the result is pretty significant.
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  I mean, he claims his vision has legitimately improved without
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  any surgery. And Joe, he backed them up
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  immediately. Yeah, he called them the Gary
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  Brecca beds, named after that human biologist they both
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  follow. But Joe added a really crucial
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  piece of context here, the price tag.
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  The price tag? Because these aren't just red
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  light bulbs you get at the hardware store.
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  Exactly. Joe pointed out that, you know,
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  while the science is real, the barrier to entry is just
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  massive. The high-powered beds that
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  actually give you these results, we're talking 10s of thousands
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  of dollars. It really highlights this
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  growing like class divide and health, doesn't it?
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  You have this whole tier of biohacking that's just for the
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  ultra wealthy. If you have the money, you can
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  fix your eyes in a tanning bed. And if you don't, you just buy
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  stronger glasses at the pharmacy.
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  Yeah. It's this friction point
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  between, you know, having the information versus actually
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  having access to the treatment. Right.
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  And that theme of how we get information LED them right into
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  a discussion about the death of, well, the death of Googling.
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  This was a huge take away for me.
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  Joe explicitly said he doesn't search for things anymore.
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  He's switched completely to perplexity AI.
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  And that's a massive shift in user behavior.
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  I mean, think about the old way you search topic, you get 10
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  blue links. You have to dodge all the ads in
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  the SEO spam you. Have to do the work.
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  You have to be the researcher. Right.
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  But Joe describes his new method as asking his phone, not
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  searching. He asks a complex question and
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  it gives him the pros and cons instantly.
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  He's gone from being an active hunter of information to a
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  passive receiver of answers. The Oracle in your pocket.
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  But there's a danger there, right?
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  If you weren't looking at the source material yourself, you're
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  putting a lot of trust in that algorithm.
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  A ton of trust. And Speaking of trust and how
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  easily it can be broken, we have a talk about the Shannon Sharpe
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  story. This was painful and hilarious.
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  It's a master class in how misinformation just spreads in
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  real time. OK.
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  So for context, Shannon Sharpe, legendary NFL player, has a
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  massive podcast. Huge.
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  He has Bert on and he looks him right in the eye, totally
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  sincere, and asks what was it like when you lost everything
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  and had to build it back? And just to be clear for
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  everyone listening, Bert Kreischer's never lost
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  everything. His career has been a steady,
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  you know, upward climb for decades.
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  He never went broke. But this is where the psychology
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  gets so weird. Bert is so conflict averse that
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  he just he didn't correct him, he just agreed with a completely
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  false reality to save the host from embarrassment.
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  He literally just said I did. I just focused.
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  And apparently their friend Eddie Bravo called Joe crying
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  with laughter because he knew exactly what was happening.
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  Bert was just role-playing his own tragedy to be polite.
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  It's so funny, but it's also kind of terrifying.
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  It shows you how these public narratives just form.
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  Someone on Shannon's team probably scraped a Reddit
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  thread, put it on a cue card, and now it's fact.
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  And because Bert validated it, it becomes history.
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  It's the illusory truth effect in action.
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  If someone writes a biography of Bert in 50 years, that interview
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  might be a key source. Even though the crash never
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  happened. And that ties so perfectly into
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  their whole discussion on authenticity in comedy, they
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  started talking about Shane Gillis.
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  Who is maybe the biggest comic in the world right now?
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  For sure they told the story about being on tour and Bert's
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  daughter Georgia with sneaking beers.
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  Bert, of course, is totally oblivious.
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  And Shane Gillis, sitting right next to him, just rats her out.
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  He leans over and says George is sneaking beers.
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  I can smell it on her. And the point wasn't to get her
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  in trouble. No, it was about the motivation
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  for the joke. Yeah, they were talking about
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  the difference between like content creator comics and pure
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  comics, right? A content creator might have
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  filmed that for a TikTok to get views, but a pure comic like
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  Gillis does things just to make himself giggle.
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  It's internal validation versus external.
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  Gillis just thought it would be funny to snitch, so he did.
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  He wasn't performing for an audience, he was just performing
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  for the vibe. Exactly.
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  And Speaking of performing for an internal audience, let's
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  shift gears to the night shift dreams.
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  This segment was wild. Joe brought up an article
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  claiming scientists have actually achieved two way
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  communication between people who are dreaming.
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  Which is a major scientific breakthrough if it scales.
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  We're talking about lucid dreaming, the state where you're
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  asleep but you know you're dreaming.
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  OK, so how does that even work? Well, the method involves
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  sensors and earbuds, so the scientists can tell when someone
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  enters that lucid state, and then they send a coded word
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  through the earbud. The dreamer hears it,
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  incorporates it into the dream and repeats it back.
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  So it's the first step toward the movie Inception.
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  If you can send a message in, you can eventually plant an
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  idea. But the contrast between how
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  Bert and Joe experience dreams, man.
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  It really explains their personalities, doesn't?
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  It it really does, Bert says. He's been a lucid dreamer his
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  whole life, especially when he takes supplements like Alpha
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  Brain. But his application of the
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  superpower is well, it's very burnt.
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  He uses it to fly. Right to fly over the One O 1
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  freeway in Hollywood or to have sex.
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  Yeah, he had this specific example where he realized he was
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  dreaming, he could sleep with anyone in the world, and he
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  chose his own wife. His logic was how cool is that?
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  I know I could have fucked her in real life.
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  It's so wholesome in a really crude way.
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  He's not looking for cosmic answers, he just wants to fly
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  and hang out with his wife. And then Joe just drops this
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  absolute hammer of a story, a dream that he says didn't feel
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  like a dream at all. The alien corridor dream and you
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  can just hear the difference in the detail Joe described being
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  in this organic living hallway and there were four tall thin
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  beings, no muscle tone, wearing these weird rash guard suits.
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  And the vibe wasn't fun flying, it was pure dread.
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  He described this feeling of the thin barrier between our safety
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  and just the horrific danger of the universe.
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  And he said these beings were almost mocking him, like joking
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  with him to get him comfortable. It felt less like a dream and
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  more like a memory. A memory of an abduction or
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  something. He woke up so disturbed he
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  couldn't go back to sleep. He went to the gym at 4:00 AM
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  just to do chin ups and process it all.
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  It just shows how open Joe is to the idea that consciousness
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  interacts with things we don't understand.
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  And that skepticism, that questioning of what is real, it
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  bled right into the heaviest part of the whole conversation.
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  Historical Revisionism. Yeah.
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  And this is where we should probably tell you, the
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  listeners, they're discussing theories here, not textbook
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  facts. But the theories are getting
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  more popular, and they are fascinating.
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  They started with Richard Nixon and Watergate.
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  Right. The standard story is Nixon was
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  a paranoid crook who got caught spying, but Joe unpacked this
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  different theory, which he credits to talking with Tucker
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  Carlson. And the gist is that Nixon
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  wasn't removed because he was a crook.
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  He was removed because he was investigating the CIA about who
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  killed JFK. And the linchpin of this entire
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  theory is Bob Woodward. The legendary journalist who
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  broke the story. Right, but the theory is look at
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  his resume. He was a Naval Intelligence
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  officer with 0 journalism experience.
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  Suddenly, he gets hired by the Washington Post and is handed
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  the biggest story in American history.
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  The implication being that his source, Deep Throat, wasn't just
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  some whistleblower, it was the number two guy at the FBI.
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  So the argument is that Watergate wasn't a triumph of
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  journalism, it was an inside job.
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  A coup by the intelligence community to take out a
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  president who was asking too many questions.
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  And Joe told this great story about Bill Murray.
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  Apparently Murray read the book Wired, which Woodward wrote
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  about. John Belushi read the first few
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  pages, threw it down and said, Oh my God, they framed Nixon.
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  That's such a great line. His point was that Woodward got
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  Belushi's life so completely wrong that he realized his
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  narrative on Nixon was probably just as constructed.
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  If you can't trust the storyteller, you can't trust the
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  story. But they didn't stop there.
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  They went full tilt into the Helen Keller conspiracy.
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  I know this sounds wild, but it's a real theory that's been
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  growing online. The argument is that Helen
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  Keller was, if not a total fraud, then a kind of cash cow
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  created by her teacher, Anne Sullivan.
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  They brought up some of the so-called evidence, like her
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  writing style apparently matched her teachers grammatical errors
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  exactly. And they talked about these
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  alleged medical reports where she responded to visual and
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  audio stimuli, like flinching at loud noises.
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  Bert. Even brought up up the fact that
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  there's footage of her flying a plane in a silent movie.
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  The skepticism is just how could someone who is fully blind and
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  deaf be that prolific? It's the same kind of skepticism
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  that fuels the Stevie Wonder truthers.
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  Which is my favorite conspiracy theory of all time?
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  It's hilarious, but they brought up the anecdotes, like the Shaq
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  story. Shaq gets on an elevator,
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  doesn't say a word. Stevie Wonder's in the corner,
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  turns to him and just says what up, Diesel?
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  How do you explain that? Seriously.
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  And, well, Burt actually had some counter evidence he was had
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  a Stevie Wonder concert recently.
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  At the end, everyone stood up for the ovation, but Stevie
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  stayed seated. And his logic was.
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  His logic was you only stand to see better.
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  If you're blind, why would you stand?
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  That is surprisingly sound logic from the man who drinks kool-aid
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  for breakfast. But what connects all of these
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  things? Nixon.
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  Helen Keller? Stevie Wonder?
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  Why lump them together? It's the erosion of trust that's
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  the common thread. Whether it's the government or
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  history or celebrities, they're expressing this deep skepticism
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  about what they've been told is fact.
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  They're rejecting the authority of the textbook.
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  And Speaking of rejecting authority, that brings us to the
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  COVID retrospective. This part got surprisingly
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  personal. Yeah, it started with Bert
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  admitting he'd had a blood clot. And for a guy who sees himself
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  as the machine, you know, totally durable, it really shook
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  him. But Joe pivoted that immediately
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  to how the media treated health protocols during the pandemic.
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  He's still so frustrated by the whole horse dewormer narrative.
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  He feels like he was targeted. The media labeled ivermectin as
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  only a horse medication to discredit him when, as Bert
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  pointed out, it's used for human things like rosacea.
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  Right. And Joe listed his actual
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  protocol, 5E vitamins NAD monoclonal antibodies.
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  He sees himself as a medical concierge.
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  He was sending nurses to Bill Burr and Dana White's houses.
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  He feels vindicated because his friends got better using his
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  advice while the media was telling him he was basically a
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  quack. And that creates this friction
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  where you need internal validation because the external
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  world is telling you you're wrong, which led them perfectly
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  to the Golden Globes. This was a pure alpha moment
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  from Joe. He was barely asked to submit
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  his podcast for a Golden Globe, but there was a $500 submission
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  fee. And he refused, not because he
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  couldn't afford it, obviously. It was the principle.
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  His whole attitude was, I'm already #1 the audience numbers
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  are the vote. I don't need a group of people
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  in tuxedos to tell me I won. He just rejects the entire
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  premise. The institution is obsolete.
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  If you have the listeners, you have the win.
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  And Bert is on that same wavelength with his new Netflix
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  show. He pitched it as a serialized
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  arc, like a spy thriller, not a reality show.
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  He wanted to force people to binge it and for.
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  Him The win wasn't an award, it was getting a text from Luke
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  Combs, the country singer, saying.
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  I watched the whole thing. That's the key.
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  They're prioritizing the peer group over the institution,
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  trusting their circle, not the critics.
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  So if we step back and look at this whole thing, we've covered
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  red light beds, lucid sex dreams, framed presidents, maybe
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  not so blind people. What's the big take away here?
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  I think the core friction is between the official narrative
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  and just your own personal intuition.
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  Whether it's a history book on Nixon or Shannon Sharpe telling
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  you about your own life, they're basically arguing.
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  You have to trust your own eyes, your own research.
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  Even if that research is just asking an AI on your phone.
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  Exactly. It's about taking ownership of
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  what you believe and realizing that people in charge of the
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  narrative might be just as confused or manipulative as
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  anyone else. That's a powerful place to land.
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  And I've got one final provocative thought for you to
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  Mull over. We talked about Nixon and Helen
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  Keller, right? If history is truly written by
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  the winners, or in some cases the handlers, how much of what
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  we all consider settled fact in our textbooks is actually just a
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  really well managed public relations campaign that we've
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  all just agreed to believe? Ma'am, that is going to keep me
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  up at night. Thanks for diving in with us.
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  We'll see you next time.