I haven't read any Michael Pollan, but I decided to give him a try after hearing him on the Tim Ferriss podcast. How to Change Your Mind is about his anthropological adventure into psychedelics. He's well known for his research on the foods we eat and why we eat them. This look at the psychedelics opened my mind to possibilities I hadn't considered. These mind-altering substances like LSD and Psilosybin show amazing potential. It's clear, though, that more research is necessary to prove safety and efficacy.
Key Takeaways
Memorable Quotes
Rating: 9/10
This book opened me to possibilities I haven't considered. I'm not about to run out and do a bunch of 'shrooms, but I am exploring ways to expand my mind and become more connected. I recommend listening to the audio. Michael Pollan reads it himself. You can hear his awe and emotion as he re-reads descriptions of his own mystical experiences. Learning is one of my highest values. The possibility of learning about myself sans-ego is intriguing. I look forward to consider exploring in the realm of the self through other leaders in the space.
Key Takeaways
- Use of mind-altering substances is much more prevalent than I thought. Almost all civilizations show evidence of using such drugs.
- The history of the criminalization of psychedelics reads as very political. We're entering a period of more open research of their effects and potential uses.
- Psychedelics often induce mystical experiences that have mind-altering effects on the user.
- There are exciting potential uses for psychedelics for both healthy and troubled people.
- Psychedelics give neuroscientists a window into how the brain works.
- More research is necessary on the effects and uses of psychedelics.
Memorable Quotes
- By the early 1970s, when I went to college, everything you heard about LSD seemed calculated to terrify. It worked on me: I’m less a child of the psychedelic 1960s than of the moral panic that psychedelics provoked. I also had my own personal reason for steering clear of psychedelics: a painfully anxious adolescence that left me (and at least one psychiatrist) doubting my grip on sanity.
- Carl Jung once wrote that it is not the young but people in middle age who need to have an “experience of the numinous” to help them negotiate the second half of their lives.
- “Individuals transcend their primary identification with their bodies and experience ego-free states,” one of the researchers was quoted as saying. They “return with a new perspective and profound acceptance.”
- “participants ranked their psilocybin experience as one of the most meaningful in their lives, comparable “to the birth of a first child or death of a parent.” Two-thirds of the participants rated the session among the top five “most spiritually significant experiences” of their lives; one-third ranked it the most significant such experience in their lives.”
- “Since the revival of sanctioned psychedelic research beginning in the 1990s, nearly a thousand volunteers have been dosed, and not a single serious adverse event has been reported.”
Rating: 9/10
This book opened me to possibilities I haven't considered. I'm not about to run out and do a bunch of 'shrooms, but I am exploring ways to expand my mind and become more connected. I recommend listening to the audio. Michael Pollan reads it himself. You can hear his awe and emotion as he re-reads descriptions of his own mystical experiences. Learning is one of my highest values. The possibility of learning about myself sans-ego is intriguing. I look forward to consider exploring in the realm of the self through other leaders in the space.