Unlocking Potential The Therapeutic Advantages of Psychedelics with Paul Austin

Jerry:
0:15

Welcome to today's episode of Enduring the Badge Podcast. I'm host Jerry Dean Lund, and if you haven't already done so, please take out your phone and hit that subscribe button. I don't want you to miss an upcoming episode. And hey, while your phone's out, please give us a rating and review. On whichever platform you listen to this podcast, you can listen to it on iTunes, Apple Podcasts, and Spotify. It helps this podcast grow, and the reason why, when this gets positive ratings and reviews, platforms like App Podcasts and Spotify show this to other people who have never listened to this podcast before, and that allows our podcast to grow and make a more of an impact on other people's lives. So if you would do that, I would appreciate it from the bottom of my heart. My very special guest today is Paul Austin. How are you doing, Paul?

Paul:
0:57

Hey Jerry, I am doing pretty well. How are you doing?

Jerry:
0:59

I'm doing good. Thank you so much for being on today. Paul, can you introduce yourself to the audience?

Paul:
1:06

So I grew up in Grand Rapids, Michigan. That's where I'm from. I spent the first 21 years of my life there and was raised in a pretty traditional religious familial structure Not fundamentalist and not necessarily conservative I'd definitely like church every Sunday for 18 years. And when I was 16, I started to experiment with cannabis and my parents found out, weren't too happy about that and that's like an understatement. And then, a few years after that, I started to explore the world of psychedelics when I was about 19,.

Paul:
1:44

Lsd and psilocybin, mushrooms Over the span of maybe 10 to 15 experiences. They had a massive impact on the path that I chose to follow out of my early 20s. And so, at the age of 21, I moved to Turkey where I taught English for a year and soon after that lived in Thailand and then proceeded to travel to, I think, over 70 countries in the span of maybe 10 years. So I've lived very nomadically and one of the places that I lived was Budapest in Hungary in 2015. And we were talking about two friends and I were talking about psychedelics and how Joe Rogan and Tim Ferriss and a lot of people were starting to publish episodes about it. More clinical research was coming out, this was being reevaluated and we thought, oh, it'd be great to provide people with research backed education, and so I started Third Wave as an educational platform in 2015. We've reached 25 million people through our educational content, and the focus really is on the intentional and responsible use of psychedelics, how these can help to heal trauma, but also how they can help us to become, when I say, better leaders, better lovers and better listeners.

Paul:
2:59

And what I've found is in the last, probably five years in particular, there's been a massive upswing of interest in these substances. In fact, in 2023, they did a survey research and the number of people who had used psychedelics compared to 2019, so just a four year time period quadrupled Just a four X the number of people worked with psychedelics in 2023 compared to 2019. And, further to that, 61% of Americans now support legal psychedelic assisted therapy. So this is really on the cutting edge. The efficacy of it is quite outstanding and it's already legal in Colorado and Oregon, and so there are places that you can go in the United States and legally work with these psychedelics. So that interest has been fantastic. It's been great just to witness how the sector has grown and how this has helped so many people and yeah, I'm excited for what the future can bring for psychedelics.

Jerry:
4:01

Yeah, I'm excited too. I'm excited to see them being used in the first responder world to help healing. But, paul, to be honest, most probably the first responders listening their experience with psychedelics is on the negative side, like when I responded to people that were clearly high to a level where they needed some serious help or police intervention. So when you say psychedelics, I think people go right to those visions of those people. But this is not what this is about.

Paul:
4:42

Right? Well, it's partly what it is about. I think it's important to even acknowledge on the front end that there's some risk to this, that if they're not done with a guide or a therapist or a practitioner or friends that you really trust, then things can go sideways. This most commonly happens at festivals, music festivals, but it can also happen just in normal everyday life that, especially if done at higher doses, they can lead people in a highly intoxicated state and that at times very rarely but at times can be dangerous, I think, for first responders in those situations, even having the education of well, what do I do? Because someone who's on coke or amphetamine speed is going to be much different than someone most likely on psychedelics. Usually someone in psychedelics needs to breathe lay down potentially valium, xanax, benzodiazepine can be very useful and helpful and just someone to help them, help remind them they're not dead or they're not going crazy, because that tends to be the most common sort of. There's deep paranoia that can arise if there's not a safe setting for these experiences. But I think what's interesting about psychedelics is, unlike a lot of these more let's say, heroin or even fentanyl there's no way to physically overdose on psychedelics. So even if you were to take 5,000 micrograms of LSD, which is 50 times the normal dose level, not even a micro dose, it's about much more than, but about 50 times the normal dose level, I mean someone would have a very deep, significant experience, but physiologically they would end up perfectly safe and fine. No one has ever died from taking the sort of physical ingestion of the classics psychedelic, psilocybin, lsd and also mescaline, which is in in San Pedro so. But psychologically obviously it can create a level of instability, and so that's why, even when we started the third wave, we advise start low, go slow. You can always take more, you can't necessarily take less. We really put microdosing front and center, and I've led with that for a long time, because microdosing appears to have a lot of the same clinical and physiological benefits as higher doses, but there's less inherent risk for, let's say, self medication because, as so many people are hearing about psychedelics and because the legal landscape it's developing quickly but it's still behind culture there are a lot of people who are just taking in healing into their own hands and sometimes they don't know right from wrong, they don't know best practices, they don't maybe have resources available, maybe they're in a town or small city where there aren't people who could help support them. So microdosing, I think, as a lens to onboard into some of this deeper work, is a great, let's say, harm reduction or educational framework. Now I will say that and we'll probably dive into this deeper A lot of first responders, a lot of military, have found substantial benefits from working with psychedelics and specifically within a clinical framework whether that's Ibogaine, 5meo, psilocybin, mushrooms, even ayahuasca, in retreat centers and there's almost always a medical doctor there, there are trained practitioners, because much of the trauma that military and first responders have experience is quite intense, and so when you go into these deeper psychedelic states, the material that you have to work with has a high charge.

Paul:
8:24

There's a lot of energy behind it. Usually sadness or anger or grief can be one as well. So how was that process? How was that brought up?

Paul:
8:35

That's all part of the importance of facilitation when working with these very deep states.

Jerry:
8:43

Yeah, let's dive down into that a little bit, but let's start. What is microdosing? What is microdosing?

Paul:
8:49

Yeah. So microdosing is taking a very low dose of the psychedelic. I would call it a sub-intoxicating dose, meaning you can still navigate your everyday reality, you're not intoxicated. People notice that when they microdose two, three times a week for maybe 30 days or 60 days, it helps them to wean off certain psychiatric medications. It helps them to have a better mood, more energy. It has a really strong antidepressant effect. People notice they're a little less reactive, they're a little bit more present, their mood is a little bit better.

Paul:
9:24

I would say 70% to 80% of people have this experience. This is the most common experience. For some people it makes them quite tired. These are usually people who have been running an overdrive for too long and need to sleep more. When they start microdosing they tend to have this fatigue that comes on. There are other folks who start microdosing and there's stuff that's emotions and other material that starts to get unpacked and processed, which is why not in every protocol that I've done, but in some protocols I've done it with a therapist. I'll take a low dose of mushrooms. I'll go to the therapist for an hour, take about 200 milligrams of psilocybin, which is about a microdose. I would unpack some of that material there. I do think it can be helpful that even when taking these low doses if you're doing them once or twice or three times a week to have a coach or a therapist, a psychologist, a practitioner who can help you as you start to unpack that Ideally preferably someone who has education and awareness about psychedelics, because they're much different than the classic psychiatric medications. Thankfully, more coaches, more therapists, more medical professionals are training in this. We even have a directory at third wave of clinics, retreat therapists and providers that folks can check out.

Paul:
10:48

The most commonly microdose substances are LSD and psilocybin mushrooms. Psilocybin is more, I would say, emotionally therapeutic. Lsd is more about cognitive enhancement, cognitive performance. People find that with LSD, twice a week is sufficient. With psilocybin mushrooms it could be twice or three times a week. What I usually recommend is to take a day off in between each microdose. Psychedelics have a tolerance window, a short-term tolerance window, about 48 hours. It allows your serotonin system to reset. Then you can basically do it on alternating days, even at third wave. I would say folks are curious about this or they're interested in this. We've started to run online coaching, group coaching, like a 45-day microdosing experience where we guide folks through two to three times a week, microdosing protocol with coaching, group coaching, a workbook, an assessment form all these aspects that help people to do it safely and with guidance. Basically, it's part of that process.

Jerry:
11:59

Yeah, what's taking place in, I guess, the body and the mind when people are taking these microdoses?

Paul:
12:07

Two core things are what I usually point to. One is the impact on neuroplasticity. It's helping to make the brain more plastic, more malleable. What happens, especially when we've experienced trauma, had trauma physical trauma, but also emotional trauma is there are parts of our brain that basically shut down. There's neuronal connections that die off. This is also related to dementia and Alzheimer's. If that happens earlier in life, we can enter a more depressed, rigid state of anxiety and constriction.

Paul:
12:44

What psychedelics do is they especially at high doses, but this could also apply, and does also apply, to microdosing. At high doses they basically turn your brain into what it was like when it was five years old. It's much more plastic. All those neuronal connections that died off get reactivated. It's like Jesus rising from the dead. Psychedelics resurrect the pathways that we've forgotten. That has a substantial and immediate effect on depression, on mood, on our ability to learn, our ability to process emotion.

Paul:
13:22

The neuroplastic element of psychedelics, particularly with the way that it helps to reactivate these old connections in the brain, can be very helpful. Then the second thing is what it does to the amygdala. The amygdala is this little almond-shaped, tiny part of your brain. It's the oldest part of your brain. They call it the reptilian brain. It's your fear response center, especially if we've experienced PTSD. Whenever we try to recall that memory or that traumatic experience, the amygdala tightens up, it constricts, because it's afraid to process the grief and depth of the difficulty of what happened. When we take a psychedelic, it down regulates that fear response. It's like you're swathing the amygdala in fuzzy silk, alpaca wool I love alpaca wool, it's the best. You're cloaking it in that and it softens it.

Paul:
14:22

All of a sudden, things that may have been difficult to discuss, to talk about, can come to the surface and they can be unpacked and they can be reintegrated. That is really the term that allows us then to confront things both in our past but also in our present, with more courage. Usually, the two main benefits, sort of outcomes I point to are your brain's going to be healthier and you're going to have more courage to do the difficult things that you know have to happen but you could be hesitant to take action on. That can be trauma healing. That can be difficult, conversations with loved ones. That can be committing to meditation every day. There are certain things that require us to be more to sort of face our demons. Psychedelics seem to help a lot with that process. They seem to help a lot with healing things that are subconscious and are unconscious, that are creating moments of challenge and difficulty in our present situation.

Jerry:
15:35

So would someone like that's been in the first responder world for a while and has been pretty shut down with their emotions and stuff, could they take this microdose and then could they still withhold that information or still not do the processing? Does that make sense? When I'm trying to explain?

Paul:
15:55

Yeah, so I think the key here is autonomous choice, right or willful participation.

Jerry:
16:00

Yeah.

Paul:
16:00

So someone is like I'm committed to this, I'm on board with this, I'm interested in results. These are some of the goals and the objectives that I have. This is what I want to explore. That direction, that focus can then be amplified by the lower dosing or even the high dose psychedelic worth. But it really starts from there. It really starts from a deep desire to change and want change and want, I would say, better, and not only want better, but expect better, like, have a higher sort of expectation for ourselves that like no, there's. I have choice in this, I have agency, I have autonomy.

Paul:
16:34

How things happen isn't how things have to be, and psychedelics, I think, really help us to remember that, to wake up to that.

Paul:
16:43

So many times we, you know we, life beats us down in many ways and what psychedelics tend to do is they create an energy, like an optimistic energy that we have the capacity to make new things happen.

Paul:
16:57

So I think that the willingness to commit matters, and then the dosage matters, right, and who the coach or practitioner or therapist is, because if you do this by yourself, that has, I would say, one level of efficacy. It's hard sometimes with lower dosing to know am I doing the dose correctly and you know if I calibrated it appropriately, should I take more or should I take less? So some group coaching, guidance, education can be helpful on that. I've also published a book about this called Mastering Microdosing, which if folks are readers they can check out and then and then the third one would be do it so you have by yourself in a group or one on one right with a coach or a therapist, that can really, and there's some onboarding in terms of dose level calibration. But once you have the dose level and the frequency, then it's really about what can you unpack in that environment?

Jerry:
17:52

right.

Paul:
17:53

And looking at it as, yeah, a therapeutic or coaching lens, that the low dose of the psychedelic is going to make it easier to change and adapt and grow. But the work still has to be done. You know, the fears have to be faced and the commitment has to be made if people want to see outcomes and results. And that's true for many things, and what I've experienced with psychedelics is they're really helpful allies in the process, like just the taking the medicine itself. It does something neurologically, it does something even spiritually at higher doses that just, for whatever reason, makes this process easier for a lot of folks.

Jerry:
18:40

And what so maybe listeners are more familiar with, like ketamine and that reaction that they have with that. How is this different from from these other? Taking these other medications?

Paul:
18:55

So ketamine is the most commonly used anesthetic in the world. It's probably, I would imagine, first responders EMT know and have even potentially used ketamine. About 25 years ago people started to notice that ketamine as an anesthetic also had these antidepressant effects. And ketamine is currently legal and available pretty much everywhere. You need a prescribing practitioner, but it is the most widely used psychedelic medication today. People do consider it to be psychedelic because of the impact that it has on the brain.

Paul:
19:34

Ketamine is much shorter lasting than psilocybin and DMT dimethyltryptamine, which is in ayahuasca. It's about 90 minutes, maybe as long as two hours. It's much more active on glutamate, whereas psilocybin is more active on serotonin. Glutamate is tied to learning quickly and adapting. It's also tied to the ability for the brain to heal itself, what we call dendritic sprouting. Ketamine is more addictive than psilocybin. It has to be used with some level of caution. It's quite common in the club scene as well. For that reason, and like the other psychedelics, it's super safe, even at high levels.

Paul:
20:27

So even there was this paper not paper, but an article published about Matthew Perry's death, about saying he died from ketamine like an overdose of ketamine. The toxicology reported this when in fact, the amount of ketamine in a system. Had he been in a safe environment, it would have put him into a disassociated state, but by no means would he have died. He just would have been in a deeply disassociated state. He died because he was in a deeply disassociated state and drowned, and so the important thing to emphasize with psychedelics, with ketamine in particular, is don't do it in water.

Paul:
21:06

You'd be surprised how many people will take hot baths and do ketamine and it can lead. I've heard of more than a few people dying that way. Ketamine in and of itself is quite safe if done in a responsible setting, and the outcomes are significant. I would say 70% of people see improvements in depression, improvements in mood, when they work with ketamine, and it's about, I would say, the efficacy is almost twice that of conventional antidepressants at this point in time. And the thing that ketamine is really really good for is suicidality in particular, not just a depression. If someone is suicidal and you're looking for a medication that will have almost an immediate response on that, ketamine is probably the best thing that we currently have available for it.

Jerry:
21:56

That's interesting. My ketamine experiences. I was in a chair and I was like I don't know how I could have got up and even move and walk around, let alone have the desire to take a bath or something like that. It seems strange that someone would want to take this and be out in the public.

Paul:
22:18

Yeah, and or even because you did, I imagine an IV level dose I did.

Jerry:
22:26

I just did intramuscular.

Paul:
22:28

You did intramuscular Okay.

Jerry:
22:29

Yeah.

Paul:
22:29

Intramuscular, so probably even more intense than IV. Ketamine can also be a powder, so people insufflate it or they'll have. You probably did upwards of 200 milligrams, whereas something like 25 to 50 will just put you into a slight trance state but you can still move. So it kind of creates this observer perspective and mentality. So a lot of people have it, get prescribed it. They have it at home, they will use it at home and if you're experienced, you know what you're doing. Fine, more power to you. But a lot of these people are quite new at working with ketamine and psychedelics. So it's important that certain I would say precautions are put into place if folks want to use it.

Jerry:
23:12

Yeah, I personally would never want to take on that my own personal responsibility. You know, to do a low dose ketamine or to do something. It's just the way it affected me that I don't know that I would want to to expose myself to those types of situations.

Paul:
23:30

Yeah, it's a very vulnerable state. Yeah, a very vulnerable state, absolutely.

Jerry:
23:35

And so the microdosing that you're talking about over 30 days. How do I still function, how does it still go to work, how do I still carry on a normal life?

Paul:
23:49

Yeah, what I tell folks is the first day you do it, preferably on a weekend, where you don't necessarily have a ton of responsibilities. You don't have to go to a job, drive a car to your job, there's not a lot of things happening. Try it first on a weekend. The key is finding the dose level that again, it allows you to navigate everyday reality without having no intoxication. So you notice, your sense of touch and smell and even sight is enhanced. You may be a little bit more emotionally open, a little bit. You might be checking your phone less, less reactive, but you're not intoxicated to the point where you can't navigate your everyday existence. So usually what we tell folks is spend a week or two in the front end it could be a couple of weekends in a row calibrating the dose level appropriately, finding what your sweet spot is. For most people it's 100 milligrams of psilocybin and 10 micrograms of LSD. But there are things that impact that, like, if someone has a history of SSRI use, typically they need quite a bit more. If someone is older and they're 60s or 70s, typically they might need a little bit more. If someone is highly neurotic or has, let's say, treatment-resistant depression, they may need a little bit more. So there are variables and factors, but typically what I tell people is 100 milligrams of psilocybin, 10 micrograms of LSD. Start low, go slow. You can sort of slightly calibrate up until you find the dose level that's appropriate for you and then enjoy. Like some people maybe hesitant, for example with driving what I would say is yeah, you definitely want to know how this works. You definitely want to know the dose amount that's correct for you before you ever get in heavy operate. Heavy machinery is a good recommendation. I and this may be irresponsible of me to say such a thing, but when I was microdosing with LSD, it was taking 20 micrograms of LSD and driving a scooter around Thailand. This was like 10 years ago when I was first microdosing and what I noticed is it helped me with coordination, it helped me with vision, it helped me with noticing things in my peripherals and in fact in the 70s a lot of extreme sport athletes talked about low doses of LSD as like the thing that got you ahead, the thing that helped you to just be in a little bit more flow, like kind of see things before they happen, be super in touch with your body. So that's why I've talked so much about low doses of LSD as performance enhancing, because I think if there's a relationship established, you understand the dose level that's appropriate for you.

Paul:
26:26

You kind of have a sense that the lay of the land doing it at very low doses, I've found especially with LSD. I mean with mushrooms as well, but with LSD I'm less fatigued, I have more energy. I mean, as an example, just yesterday I took a microdose of LSD. I had flown from New York to Lisbon. I got like four hours of shitty sleep on the airplane. I arrived I had an espresso and then I took a gummy that had a little bit of LSD in it and for the rest of the day I felt good, like it helped. So yeah, caveat being don't try this at home. Folks Learn a little bit more about psychedelics. I've been doing them for 15 years, so I kind of know my way around better than someone who's just starting out.

Jerry:
27:08

Yeah, To go back to those, the people that need a little bit higher dose, is that because maybe their brains are not like the neuroplasticity is a little bit more difficult to get?

Paul:
27:21

Yeah, well, it goes back to what I mentioned before, this dendritic sprouting, right? So when we have depression, when there's been dramatic brain injury, when we're older in age, even when we've utilized SSRIs in the past, it impacts that dendritic sprouting, it impacts those neuronal connections and so to get those back online, you got to. You know it's like a jumpstart for the car. You got to supercharge it a little bit, you got to get energy moving, which is why a lot of people who maybe have depression or TBI or PTSD, microdosing is a great way for them to wade their feed in. It's a great way for them to get a sense of the landscape, but typically they find the most benefit from doing a high dose of a psychedelic, and that's what a lot of the clinical research shows as well. So microdosing, great onboarding, but high doses of ketamine, ayahuasca, high doses of psilocybin, mushrooms, with a guide, practitioner, therapist, coach, someone who can support you, especially the first five, six, 10 times you do it. That's really important.

Jerry:
28:22

So is this something that you like? Once you start, you need to continue doing, or it's more like you want to continue to do it because you're seeing the benefits?

Paul:
28:33

All of the above. I know plenty of folks who have just had one or two or three high dose experiences. They're good, they're set, they're solid, gives them a lot to unpack over the next several years In some cases. There are some folks who, you know, do it more as like a maintenance modality. So just like you'd go to the dentist every six months to get your teeth clean, people will do or work with a high dose just to sort of, you know, reset the room and clear out the neurological garbage and have an emotional reset and let go of some emotions and whatnot. So that, I would say, is becoming more common. I would say the biggest challenge right now is a lot of these insights that we experience or feelings that we experience when we work with high doses of psychedelics. It's difficult to integrate those with how we live the rest of our lives.

Jerry:
29:25

Right.

Paul:
29:25

And so a lot of the challenges. Ok, I've had this mystical experience with this beautiful, profound experience. You know I experience unconditional love and you know I was able to process the sadness and grief and anger that I've been under the surface for so long. And, oh, I also want to quit my job and maybe move and divorce my partner. And you know there's, there can be a lot of instability that also comes from that.

Paul:
29:51

And so what I tell folks is give it 30 days before you make any major life decisions. Allow the sort of dust to settle. If it's still present at 30 days, then you know, really honor and acknowledge that and go with it and take the time you need to integrate and unpack and process. You know what, what just came up for you, right, there's no rush to do another high dose ceremony right away or even to start microdosing. What I typically tell folks is to start meditating. You know, just sit in silence for 10 minutes, 15 minutes, 20 minutes. It's literally the greatest thing that you can do. I would, I would argue the greatest practice that we have accessible and available to us, and often psychedelics help us tap into that, open that up, make that a habit, right, so often what we'll even do with microdosing is we'll be like. As part of this experience, we want you to meditate 20 minutes every day, you know, and that commitment has synergistic effects with taking the microdoses.

Jerry:
30:56

For those you know that are listening and stuff like that, they're probably thinking that I don't know that I could do this type of therapy because, like my, I'm going to get drug tested on or it's against against the law. You know how do? How do those people navigate?

Paul:
31:11

this Ketamine is legal, so that's where I would start right. So ketamine high doses is legal, and there's also a company called Joyus Ketamine that does microdoses of ketamine Very affordable it's like 150 bucks a month with someone who supports you. So I would say like, for those who are really concerned about drug testing or maybe they work for the government in some capacity, then ketamine is legal. You can. You can use that immediately. Probably good to let whoever your employer know if you think that's relevant, but that's not an issue. It's FDA approved at this point. So that's all good.

Paul:
31:46

Mdma will likely be approved by the FDA this year, end of 2024. They have finished phase three clinical trials. Mdma is looking to be about three times as effective as conventional psychiatric treatments for PTSD. 70% of people do not no longer have PTSD at the one year mark after 12 weeks of MDMA assisted psychotherapy, which is three MDMA sessions with therapy before, during, between and after. And so once that becomes medically available if anyone is listening has PTSD, you can. Whether you're a veteran or a first responder, you'd be able to medically access that and health insurance will likely cover it.

Paul:
32:30

Outside of that, things like ayahuasca, which is the tea from the Amazon that's been used for thousands of years for healing that does not show up on a drug test. Dmt is too quick acting, lsd might, so I wouldn't recommend necessarily delving into LSD psilocybin mushrooms, I think only in a hair test will it show up, and it's legal in Colorado or Oregon. So there's a case to be made that if someone is not in those states and you travel to those states and legally work with these psychedelics, that may be feasible. Again, if you're working for the federal government probably not, yeah, but I would imagine with many other sort of government or official jobs, there may be more and more wriggle room, especially if the clear case is given around mental health. Yeah, I think if it's communicated that this is about mental health, the clinical research is showing incredible efficacy, and doing it in a legal location. Some, some employers, some people may not be okay with that, but you'd be surprised at how many people are becoming open to how psychedelics can be beneficial for the mental health of individuals.

Jerry:
33:37

Yeah, so, paul, we're like people that would want to work with you, how can they find you or how can they, you know, learn more from you? Yeah, so I'm on Instagram and Twitter, paul.

Paul:
33:49

Austin 3W Just send me a message Microdosing. So Paul Austin 3W on Instagram or Twitter, send me a direct message Microdosing. If you're not on those platforms, we're at. Paul Austin dot co is my website, personal website. And then the third wave dot co is our educational platform, where we have a directory of providers, we have educational guides, we have mushroom grow kits, we have micro dosing.

Paul:
34:16

You know this group coaching for micro dosing. We also have one to one coaching. So if someone is in, is looking at this and interested in it and want to work with a certified professional, we have our own training program where we certified practitioners. We can also pair people with a certified practitioner who will guide them through a legal Psychedelic experience. So that's also an option for listeners.

Paul:
34:40

Yeah, this is this is this is great. I hope this is helpful and useful. I think we started to pack some of the aspects. The one final kind of shout out that I'll give that would be a great. Next sort of resource for folks to check out is out of Stanford University. They just published research on Ibogaine for TBI and that research shows that every participant who went through the program saw significant and substantial improvements in their TBI traumatic brain injury. So I just mentioned that is like for anyone who's listening to this, who is a friend or a family member, who has maybe experienced that, tim Ferriss just did a podcast with Nolan Williams, who's the researcher who led the out of Stanford, and that's also an excellent paper and asset to do.

Jerry:
35:28

Yeah, before I let you go, I just thought of this, this question you know you're talking about. You know the 70s and stuff like that. These drugs that were were being used back then.

Paul:
35:38

Right, some of these these, these plant based medicines, were being used back then, but then slowly the government turned them into being illegal because they were tied into the Vietnam War protests and they couldn't make protesting illegal, but they could make what the drugs that the people were using illegal? And LSD. You know what? The emphasis wasn't so much on microdosing then, it was certainly much more on very high doses, which, if you have a lot of people who are tripping out on LSD, there's what they called acid casualties, which people don't really come back if they keep taking very high amounts of LSD, and so there was both political motivation and I think some people were just like spooked. At the end of the day it's like.

Paul:
36:27

You know, we have a head psychedelics in Western consciousness since the Greeks really 1700 years it's been and so we had no context for it, we had no understanding of what is this, where is it coming from? So I think this time around we have elders who went through that, who were initiated then, and they're helping to provide a lot of guidance in the current times to ensure that it's successful this time around, and one of those elders is a guy named Jim Fatiman who was a researcher at Stanford in the 60s, and he he's the one who wrote a book and talked about microdosing and sort of kicked off this whole sort of microdosing conversation. Personally, I think it's just brilliant because it's a way that we can culturally integrate psychedelics. People don't have to go for full death and rebirth. They can experience benefits just from taking very low doses, which I think is a very powerful like reframe.

Paul:
37:24

Yeah people who are new to psychedelics.

Jerry:
37:26

Yeah, and that you also do retreats, right.

Paul:
37:30

So we have retreats as part of our training program for practitioners and we also have a summit that we're doing in Aspen and if folks are interested they can go to just psychedelicsummitcom. So psychedelicsummitcom, and that's in June, and we're bringing together entrepreneurs, thought leaders, medical doctors, practitioners, investors, philanthropists for a week in an Aspen to talk about the future of psychedelics. And also we give we, as part of the event, donate, provide microdoses of psilocybin, mushrooms and San Pedro, because it's now legal in Colorado and so we can now legally provide access to that. Within this sort of group retreat event format, the focus is more on the keynotes and the wellness events and the music, but microdosing is fun as well, and so it's nice to weave that in.

Jerry:
38:25

Yeah, I'm excited for the future and I know a little bit about it and a little bit about the history and stuff like that, and it could be a game changer. As for the mental health crisis that we're in, and we're looking for answers everywhere and I think we know what some of those answers are. It's just the cultural shift to embrace those.

Paul:
38:51

Cultural shift, which I think psychedelics will help to accelerate, and just the fact that people are looking for answers, they're looking for modalities that work and that really support them. Psychedelics breath work, meditation, changes to diet, exercise, sleep. There's this massive emergence right now of people really taking their healing into their own hands, and I think that's very empowering and helps to cultivate a mindset of sovereignty and freedom which you know, just like you, I'm an American and I'm all about freedom, baby.

Jerry:
39:21

Yeah, paul, thank you so much for being on. Thank you for sharing your knowledge. I found it to be very, very fascinating.

Paul:
39:29

Thank you, Jerry. This was a ton of fun and folks have any questions, Feel free to reach out.

Jerry:
39:36

Awesome. Thank you. Thanks again for listening. Don't forget to rate and review the show wherever you access your podcast. If you know someone that would be great on the show, please get ahold of our host, jerry Dean Lund, through the Instagram handles at Jerry Fire and Fuel or at EnduringTheBadge Podcast, also by visiting the show's website, enduringthebadgepodcastcom for additional methods of contact and up-to-date information regarding the show. Remember, the views in a painting expressed during the show solely represent those of our host and the current episode's guest.