What the New Science of Psychedelics Teaches Us About Consciousness, Dying, Addiction, Depression and Transcendence

Author Michael Pollan
Reviewed by Peter Flagg, RCH

Synopsis: The book, “How to Change Your Mind” is a review of the history, cultural impact, psychology, current neuroscience and other research into the impact of psychedelic “molecules” found in LSD, psilocybin from mushrooms and other “mind altering” drugs. The author, Michael Pollan, a well-known and respected American writer takes the reader on a journey that is both historic, personal, scientific and brings us to the leading edge in understanding human consciousness. In addition to presenting past and emerging research, Pollan takes the plunge into his own journey and describes three personal experiences he has in controlled “set and setting” circumstances with three different psychedelic chemicals. He then presents recent neuroscience research exploring the effects of psychedelic compounds on brain activity and also treats the use of psychedelics in psychotherapy, in particular for terminally-diagnosed patients, and people suffering with addiction and depression. Pollan wraps up with an attempt to integrate his new-found knowledge and experiences into a comprehensive understanding of consciousness and praise of what he calls “neural diversity”.

In reviewing the book, I found personal resonance and validation of my experiences gained through meditation and contemplation retreats, reinforcement of the potential of hypnotherapy, and a realistic view of the struggle that our practise still has to go through to gain recognition in the health-care industry. I came away from the book with some ideas to help me be a better hypnotherapist and help clients achieve their life-changing goals.

An authentic voice, professionally written, very well researched, evenly presented material, offering personal insights with integrity and authenticity, and fascinating in its implications for the understanding of human consciousness and for our trade, I recommend this book for any practising hypnotherapist.

History of the molecules

Pollan focusses our attention initially on the “molecules” – the organic compounds that would “change the course of social political and cultural history as well as the personal histories of millions of people”. LSD (Lysergic acid diethylamide) was first synthesized in 1938, as a drug to stimulate circulation. Five years later the scientist who synthesized the drug ingested a small quantity and realized he had created “something powerful, at once terrifying and wondrous”¹. The second molecule has been around for thousands of years, known as psilocybin, originating from a range of species of mushrooms, and used by indigenous peoples of Mexico and Central America in shamanic rituals or ceremonies, often targeted at healing damaged minds and psyches. In the 1950’s and 60’s the two compounds were regarded by the psychiatric establishment as miracle drugs. The author traces the social and political shock waves unleased by the chemicals and notes that “beginning in 1965 the exuberance surrounding these new drugs gave way to moral panic”, and by the end of the decade the drugs were outlawed and forced underground.

Pollan explores the cultural and political background and impact of the use of chemicals being “forced underground” over the decades since 1970 and presents that controlled use and even quiet research went on, with bona fide psychiatrists and psychotherapists, in the intervening decades under the shadow of the law.

In the 1990’s groups of scientists, psychotherapists and others keyed to understanding human consciousness resolved to recover the science and culture surrounding these powerful drugs. Since then, over the following decades and currently, psychedelics are having a renaissance and “new generations of scientists are testing their potential to heal mental illnesses such as depression, anxiety, trauma and addiction. Other scientists are using psychedelics in conjunction with new brain imaging tools to explore links between brain and mind, hoping to unravel some of the mysteries of consciousness.”²

The author’s personal journey

Pollan does not simply present a bland recapitulating of research and the cultural challenges of these drugs; he presents his own personal inquiry and history that has led him to not just research but to be a “guinea pig” in psychedelic use, under controlled “set and setting” circumstances, with guides he comes to trust. Pollan is not a cynic when it comes to embracing the “spiritual or mystical phenomenological experiences”, but he is a skeptic; openly stating that prior to ingesting these drugs he never himself felt he had an experience he would title as “spiritual”.

He describes these experiences:

“According to scholars of mysticism, these shared traits generally include a vision of unity in which all things, including the self, are subsumed (expressed in the phrase “All is one”)”; a sense of certainty about what one has perceived (“knowledge has been revealed to me”); feelings of joy, blessedness, and satisfaction; a transcendence of the categories we rely on to organize the world, such as time and space or self and other; a sense that whatever has been apprehended is somehow sacred (Wordsworth: “Something far more deeply interfused” with meaning and often paradoxical (so while the self may vanish, awareness abides). Last is the conviction that the experience is ineffable, even as thousands of words are expended in the attempt to communicate its power. (Guilty)”

Before my journey, words and phrases such as these left me cold; they seemed utterly opaque, so much quasi-religious mumbo jumbo. Now they paint a recognizable reality. ” ³

Pollan reminds us throughout the book of historical figures, poets, artists, mystics, thinkers, who have had similar experiences, either through meditation and contemplation or interaction with psychedelics. He offers writings from Wordsworth, Tennyson, Ralph Waldo Emerson, Walt Whitman and often from Aldous Huxley’s “The Doors of Perception”.

The Neuroscience

Pollan describes current research using brain imaging into what is called “The Default Mode Network (DMN)” in the brain, by neuroscience researchers, and the affect of psychedelics on that network.

“The brain is a hierarchical system…the default mode network exerts a top down influence on the other parts of the brain…Robin has described the DMN variously as the brain’s “orchestra conductor”….The default mode network appears to play a role in the creation of mental constructs or projections, the most important of which is the construct we call the self or ego…Nodes in the default network ate thought to be responsible for autobiographical memory, the material from which we compose the story of who we are…”⁴

Research has shown that psychedelics can reduce the blood flow to the DMN, sponsoring more (expanded) connection between the brain’s other systems and that can result in “ego diminishing” states of consciousness and explain experiences of being able to “see music” or “touch colours”. The systems that control and offer experience of vision, sound, touch, etc. are connected to each other, and not subjected to the dominance of the DMN, that holds these experiences “separate from each other” and organized to the self or ego.

“But however it happens, taking this particular network off-line may give us access to extraordinary states of consciousness, moments of oneness or ecstasy that are no less wondrous for having a physical cause.⁵”

Before leaving the neuroscience aspect, it is useful for hypnotherapists and psychotherapists to note that the brain waves produced and “states of mind” achieved in psychedelic therapy are those states and brain waves achieved by practiced meditators and by clients in hypnotherapy. Pollan himself identifies “holotropic breathwork” as being able to produce similar internal phenomena as the psychedelic drugs do, under controlled “set and setting” guidance.

Psychedelics in Psychotherapy

Pollan’s research continues into the current use of psychedelics to treat alcoholism, addiction, depression and the anxiety that can overwhelm people in the face of terminal diagnoses. In treating patients who are dying, the experience of “losing one’s self or ego” and being connected with a “larger mind” or with living things, people or life in general, can have a beneficial effect for the patient and their loved ones. The struggle between biologically based treatments and psychodynamic treatments in the past is discussed:

“Jeffry Guss, a Manhattan physiatrist…thinks the moment could be ripe for psychotherapy to entertain a completely new paradigm…”we’ve had this conflict between biologically based treatments and psychodynamic treatments…Is mental Illness a disorder of chemistry or is it a loss of meaning in one’s life? Psychedelic therapy is the wedding of those two approaches.”

Some of the reaction to psychedelic treatment to patients facing death is presented: “People who had been palpably scared of death – they lost their fear. The fact that a drug given once could have such an effect for so long is an unprecedented finding. We have never had anything like that in the psychiatric field” ⁶. and “ To situate the self in a larger context of meaning, whatever it is-a sense of oneness with nature or universal love-can make extinction of the self somewhat easier to contemplate.”

Pollan presents similar results in treating chronic depression and addiction, from the patients having experience of being connected to a “larger mind” or other people, to all life and to a universe founded on, created by or imbued with love. On smoking addiction: “…the results were nevertheless striking, especially you consider that smoking is one of the most difficult addictions to break – harder, some say, than heroin. Six months after the psychedelic sessions, 80 percent of the volunteers were confirmed as abstinent; at the one year mark, that figure had fall to 67 percent, which is still a better rate of success than the best treatment now available.”

On depression: “..the potential of the (psychedelic) therapy has regulators and researchers and much of the mental health community feeling hopeful. “I believe this could revolutionize mental health care” Watts told me. Her conviction is shared by every other psychedelic researcher I interviewed.”⁷

An interesting historical note is that one of the co-founders of AA – “got sober after a mystical experience on belladonna and in the 1950’s sought to introduce LSD into the fellowship. …AA takes a dim view of the human ego and, like psychedelic therapy, attempts to shift the addict’s attention from the self to a “higher power” as well as to the consolidations of fellowship – the sense of interconnectedness.” ⁸

One of the potentially alarming and intriguing potentials (for psychotherapy and research) for psychedelic therapy is that it does not have to be constrained to “healing sick people”, but could be turned to further help “healthy people” adjust to life with a broader and more inclusive perspective:

“Matt Johnson believes that psychedelics … open a window of mental flexibility in which people can let go of the mental models we use to organize reality…our addiction to a pattern of thinking with the self at the center of it”… This underlying addiction to a pattern of thinking or cognitive style, links the addict to the depressive and to the cancer patient obsessed with death or recurrence.” ⁹

Here is the resonance I saw with hypnotherapy, as our practice is centered on using the power of the subconscious mind to shift our clients out of their (negative) story, and change their unwanted behaviours.

The current neuroscience research into meditative states and psychedelic phenomenon detailed in Pollan’s book frame mystical and spiritual experiences in an increasing knowledge of how the brain – and mind – work to shape our experience of life and our belief in who, or what, we are. These sub- conscious beliefs can give one connection and meaning in life, or take them away, and are central to the hypnotherapist’s practice.

¹How to Change Your Mind, p. 6

²How to Change Your Mind, page 8

³How to Change your Mind, page 327

⁴How to Change Your Mind, pp. 345 – 348

⁵How to Change Your Mind, pp. 345 – 348

⁶How to Change Your Mind, pp. 381 – 382

⁷How to Change Your Mind, p. 434

⁸How to Change your Mind, p. 421

⁹How to Change your Mind, p. 418

Conclusion: Takeaways for practising hypnotherapists

For hypnotherapists, I found much of the content and revelation in the Pollan’s book could be useful for hypnotherapy. A few items out of the book that I will take back into my practice and which I hope will make me a better hypnotherapist:

Intention: The value of formulating an intention with our clients that has deep meaning: by this I don’t just mean “stop smoking” “stop overeating”, “get to sleep at night”, “be less anxious” or “stop shanking the golf ball” – these goals are often symptomatic of what can be larger and deeper issues of finding meaning, connection, community, acceptance, dignity and love, in life. We can help our clients by reaching for more meaningful intentions – being healthy in thought, being connected, being open to a more inclusive and benign consciousness that facilitates health and well-being, not just treat a single symptom of unhealthy self-stories.

While stopping smoking is a great step in a client’s health, it is part of understanding that the very mind’s processes that set up, prolong and protect this unhealthy “habit of thinking”, are the same processes that can be used to change any aspect of their behaviour, and their experience of life in a positive manner.

Setting: psychedelic drugs administered to people with psychosis, while strapped down on tables in “clinical” settings and surrounded by people wearing lab coats, have had predictably terrible results for the client. Our settings have to be conducive to our client’s health and well being and their intention. While most of us strive to make a ‘comfortable’ setting for our clients, I wonder if our constant desire to be seen as a bona fide “mental health treatment”, is leading us to present a more sterile and “clinical” surrounding. We want to be seen to be “professional”, but we are not lawyers or accountants. Maybe our front office needs to be professional, but our treatment rooms should acknowledge that hypnotherapy settings interact with the client’s belief systems and can influence the client’s state of mind. Perhaps we can look for ways to make our treatment setting less “clinically professional” in tone and more conducive to a benign, insightful, meaningful and welcome experience.

Frightening Material: hypnotherapists have an arsenal of tools to help clients get to those frightening, emotion-laden memories or “stories-of-themselves” that have to be confronted at the subconscious level. In the book, I saw the need to reinforce that my clients will come “face-face” with material that may frighten them, that is scary. However, we have tools that will help our clients handle these scary images or emptions, and come out the other side of these emerging memories with strength and other emotional content – forgiveness, compassion, intelligence, awareness, dignity, composure, to name a few, and perhaps even profound insights into the nature of their consciousness.

Integration: Like many hypnotherapists and counsellors, I have had clients that go through a pattern of improvement with their unwanted behaviour after initial sessions, only to suffer “set backs” as that behaviour returns under stressful situations. Just as it is vitally important for an individual to attempt to integrate a powerful spiritual experience into their life, I believe it is important to help my clients practice a new mind-set, practise the new self-story and be ready for the changes that new story can make

in their life. Transformed consciousness often comes with a cost in changes to the circle of the client’s friends, family relationships, work, profession and world view. We need to be ready to help our clients understand that by changing some of these behaviours, other aspects of their life that supported those behaviours are likely to change as well. Integrating their new “self- story” into their life may change their world-view as well.

Conclusion

Perhaps it is because the author is a similar age to me and his search reflects the search many people go on at some stage in their life – a search for meaning, spurred by curious inquiry and a desire to uncover some kind of abiding “truth” – that I found the search, the journey, the science and the specific content to resonate with me as much as it did.

How to Change Your Mind