MaussShane

Some people believe that these states are connecting with different dimensions and worlds outside of ourselves. Like we are connecting with aliens or gods during a trip that we can't normally receive the transmission for.

The way I tend to think about the psychedelic experience is just the opposite, but to me far more interesting possibility and has major implications for our lives in every moment.

I believe what you are actually taping into is a multiverse inside your subconscious mind. All of your ideas, experiences, instincts, emotions, are building these kind of holographic simulations and representations that feed our conscious experience. I think of it like the movie Inside Out only in our minds the characters aren't looking out our eyes and controlling us in that way. Consciousness and the subconscious are speaking two different languages and having two very different experiences that work together to drive us. Both are relatively unaware the other exists or the impact that they have on the other.

So many lessons.
Here is one that I try to remind myself of constantly…
Many aspects of the mind (our different personalities, emotions, hats that we wear etc) are fueled by our conscious attention. They are always bidding for it and doing what they can to keep it when they have it.

I am a big believer in the utility of the whole bouquet of emotions and not dismissing the negative ones or holding too tightly to only the positive ones. That being said, paranoia is in my mind one of the most dangerous ones that can lead to the heaviest delusions.

What has struck me strange during my most manic episodes and the worst of paranoid states is that the MAJORITY of my reason is intact and knows that it exceptionally unlikely that a paranoid thought that I am experiencing (say Truman Showish feelings) are actually happening. But the stakes are sooo high IF the paranoid idea is true that paranoia is able to out compete my reason.

I think anyone with any phobia could probably relate, but having had these experiences really made it hit home for me how powerfully wrong yet convincing the mind can be.

Mushrooms had been the single greatest treatment for chronic depression that I have ever had. Not to mention they have taught me endless things about myself. And DMT is the greatest adventure I ever had.
Both made me interested in how the brain works more than I already was. My venture into that and science has helped me make better decisions in life.
So 1000% yes.
But it wasn't chemical changes, it was experiential. So it took time and their were a lot of wrong turns.

We sometimes consider doing one with some other comics. But I am focused less and less on psychedelics these days. They were always a gateway to understanding the mind for me and I think there are a number of tools to do that. I'd like to make a documentary about how we aren't built for the world that we have built for ourselves and explore the evolutionary mismatches of the modern world.

well don't leave me hanging...
what was next?