"Psilocybin Makes Nicer, Smarter and More Intelligent People" | Interview with PAUL STAMETS

[Music] you famously said that mushrooms can help Humanity to save the world can you elaborate on that well I think those of us who've journeyed with a high dose of psilocybin so I'm only speaking to a subset of the audience here but those of us who have done these Journeys a very common theme is we realize that we're a species that has a obligation to help save the planet the biodiversity the ecosystems and nature nature is calling out to us to open up our eyes to our responsibility as Earth citizens to be responsible in protecting

the commons and unfortunately because of capitalism religion you know all all sorts of other factors our vision has become so narrowed for just self-indulgence self- profiteering and the com the understanding of sharing for the commons has unfortunately retreated in the priorities of many human activities you know I do believe um in the principles of of capitalism in so far that individuals to be rewarded for their extraordinary efforts um so you have to be incentivized but once you are incentivized and you do get ahead you have a very I think it's a very strong obligation to

help others who are in need because I think the lessons of evolution is not the survival of the fittest but the sharing of surplus beyond your own needs to help your neighbors and help others who are less advantaged so the message that I'm getting from San mushrooms is the important role that humans play today in being able to provide the for the health of the ecosystem for everyone the common phrase is a a rising tide raises all boats but it's much more sophisticated than that we have a ethical responsibility we are here now because of

EV evolutionary smart choices over millions of years years but we're at a time critical moment that if we don't make smarter choices now then species Extinction for humans is very plausible now some people might say no that's not possible look at the evolutionary record more than 99% of the species that have existed on this planet are extinct Extinction is a natural consequence of evolution for those organisms who are not able to adapt to change the fact that we are contaminating the ecosystem that gives us life is destroying our descendants future and so I feel a

very strong obligation to our descendants calling back in time saying we have at our pivotal moment to makeing decisions that affect our future for literally thousands of years going forward so no from a practical point of view okay most people would accept that logically but what does this mean our research with psilocybin and psilocybin analoges shows that it profoundly stimulates neurogenesis neuroplasticity neurogeneration neuro regeneration those are four separate forms of neuron enhancement and we can see this now very clearly in vitro we are involved in micro doing we published in nature scientific reports two articles

on micro doing the latest June 30th 2022 and it's extraordinary how many people are micro doing and this app that we co-develop called micr do.me people self-report their their behaviors how often they use S cbin what what do they stack it with uh what's their motivation what's their income what's their race which their sexual uh preference so it's a very interesting population study and the reason why the peer reviewers that nature were so excited about our manuscript is our data set is very large the first paper November I think November 28th 2021 um surveyed more

had a survey of more than 8,000 people more than 4,100 were non-micro doers that was a shock to us non-micro doers were motivated to sign up at micro do.me I think because they want to get a baseline you know citizen scientists want to go okay before I start micro doing I want to see what my Baseline level is and then you micro do without contrast so we had about 4,100 non-micro doers a little over 4,000 micro doers predominantly in North America micro doing is with solbin here in Europe is more common with uh LSD so

in our micro doing study um over 55% of the people micro doing with Sol cybin stack it know what stacking means is that you have an ad mixture you add something else to the soloc cyon um and a variety of substances are added uh chocolate I um hypothesized a formula stacking cocy mushrooms with nasin nicotinic acid the flushing form and Lion's man and I propose this stack because cybin a vas constrictor niin a Vaso dilator also when you take the flushing form of in your nerve endings get excited so I thought with neuropathies often times

present themselves of deadening of the extremities the fingertips and the toes and so when you have neurod degeneration and neuropathies you have Vaso constriction blood vessels you know choke off nerves die so I thought with Vaso dilation with nasin it could deliver the the benefits of coc cybin to the end points of the peripheral nervous system so then Lion's man it's been well studied that Lion's man um regenerates myin on the axons of nerves these are this a conductive sheath so I bundled these together for the hypothesis that these would have an Entourage effect of

stimulation for helping people with neurodegenerative diseases now it's not just diseases it's age new news to everyone we get older and as we get older unfortunately our nervous system declines in its health so there was a metric in micro do.me and when we surveyed these thousands of people there was a statistic that jumped out now it did not jump out with young people you know 20 to 55 year olds in that range but 55 plus year olds there was a startling result that caught our researchers by surprise and when they did the analysis there's a

finger tapping test how quickly can you tap the first two fingers in 10 seconds so when you're young you can do it really fast when you get older you do it slower this is a test that is used for charting neurod degeneration with Alzheimer's patients dementia Parkinson's traumatic brain injury this is a common test many people listening to this have taken the tap test so the startling result was with psilocybin in any form by itself with cybin mushrooms cybin with chocolate solide with anything else nothing statistically increased the frequency of tapping in 55 plus year

olds but one formulation and that was called the stamina stock soloc cybin n Lion Man increased the tapping frequency of approximately 49 Taps to 68 TAPS in 30 days relatively quickly with the P value of significance of P equals 04 that means one chance in 250 that it's just random noise so there appears to be a quote unquote cause and effect when we saw that result then I thought well what's the mechanisms of action the modes of action you know neurologically what's happening so we started diving deep into the literature of the proteins that code

for nerve growth factors including uh bdnf which is brain derived neurotropic factors this is basically how brain neurons then are stimulated into regrowth and we found something shocking absolutely bizarre now people can see my talk I encourage that you do that but here's an example at micro doing levels psilocybin by itself stimulated none of these nerve goth factors niin by itself didn't stimulate any and Li's main did not stim stimulate any 0 + 0 plus 0 equal 0 well that's called the cumulative additive effect when we put these three together it excited the these proteins

that then resulted in the stimulation of nerve growth factors in bdnf so in this case 0 plus 0 plus 0 equals for instance 20 so that Synergy of the three components created something truly unexpected and surprising now if you're a neurologist and a researcher and you dosed these nerve cells for instance or these proteins with COC ibin at a micro doing level oh no activity moving on because you think oh it has no activity I believe that nasin is a catalyst for nerve growth factors stimulating the neurogenic benefits of cyon this is also important because

there's a clinical studies that are using nin opposite psilocybin so psilocybin over here nasin is their quote unquote Placebo so they're actually 180 degrees in opposition to my idea not purposely they're looking for an act of PBO I have am teaching opposite of that I always like to go to the path not traveled I'm a contrarian by Nature I'm an inventor and an innovator I think about this I've been doing this my first book on sosop came out 44 years ago I've published numerous species in the Geno osophy I am immersed in this knowledge and

when you study a subject as long as I have you begin to question authority question conventional thinking and that's been a story of my life actually but I respect conventional thinking I think it's an important foundation but it always has to be adaptable to change and creativity and so my cont ution I think is showing that micro doing with soloc cybin works when you can catalyze it with something like nasin and lion man that amplifies the potential benefit where solos cybin by itself at low concentrations may not so that's what we're excited about micro do.me

we have a clinical trials now planned and um these observational studies can help inform clinicians on how to design very good clinical trials so so we do not know whether this is going to be clinically relevant or not that is yet to be proven but we have three pillars of evidence now we have the tap test what can explain that it's not expectancy place is not appropriate so I just challenge any listener what could result in the increase in psychomotor skills compared to Soul by itself or non-micro doers the only explanation that's feasible in my

imagination those of many neurologists I've talked about is neurogenesis there's an increase in the neurological health of the patients or the individuals taking these substances so that's one pillar of evidence the second pillar is these mapkinases These are proteins when the substances dock with them stimulate bdnf and ngf brain derived neur neurotropic factors and and nerve growth factors so that's we have I showed in my talk you know four or five examples of zero activity the component is stacked together of massive activity in fact we have more than 50 examples of this where there's no

activity and massive activity and we have hundreds of examples of synergy where 1 + 1 + 1 doesn't equal three but 1 + 1 + 1 equals 16 so it's the Entourage effect of amplification so we have that pillar of evidence the third pillar of evidence which I didn't have time show is in vitro with brain nerve cells growing we can actually dose those nerve cells with this combination of soloc iin Lion Man and nicotinic acid and we can see the proliferation of the nerves growing Beyond basine of any one of those other components so

those three pillars of evidence are a strong plat a strong argument for creating clinical studies to T Test this now keep this in mind and I didn't get a chance to explain this during my talk talk think about all the confounders in this observational study where are people buying their soloc cybin Underground Market how what's the potency of each one each sample the majority I think 78% of the people are taking a third of a gram to a tenth of a gram of sloy census golden tops dried so you have the variability of the dosage

you variability of the sources and how much cells iens in age you have variability in the amount of ni and they're taking your availability and the amount of lines man they're taking now these three confounders logically would dilute significance the fact that we have such high significance for a tap test suggests to me that the results are understated compared to optimization if we can optimize each of those components then the significance value should logically increase so the fact that we have such a signal from the noise is truly I think an eye opener and um

and so my best supporters by the way many of you are Skeptics my best supporters have been Skeptics so I like to be taken to the mat but I would advise all Skeptics to be a little bit more circumspect because I'm say people said micro doing doesn't work every study on micro doing doesn't follow the practices of micro doers in the real world people are taking it for 30 60 days they're taking it three to five times a week and they're doing sub intoxication levels a report out of Brazil you know they're taking a half

a gram another report 70% of the people could guess what the low dose was well let's unblind it we have 77% of people knowing that they got the low dose by definition a micro do is a sub intoxication but it's not sub effect when you do micro doing for instance colors a little bit more livelier you're in a better mood you're more compassionate frankly or you're nicer so but it's not intoxication it's not like you slammed a beer or smoked a joint or something like that and you have this change in in your state of

consciousness you have a heightened state of awareness and a heightened state of empathy and cordiality and this is why I believe that psilocybin makes nicer people and The Meta studies that have come out showing that cbin is associated with the reduction in crime violence the only psychedelic associated with the reduction in opioid use disorder and it's well known that LSD and soloc cybin use would reduce alcoholic's use of alcohol now there is a very good clinical study proving that so these observational studies do set the stage for clinical studies and think of this as a

paradigm shifting this is why psilocybin micro doing is available for the comp Commons it's affordable it should be available for the commons and if you go into a doctor's office for instance you go into the doctor's office to get your blood pressure very well established just the act of going into the doctor's office elevates your blood pressure well that's expectancy in this case negative you go to a doctor's office because you have an infection your expectancy is your doctor is going to give you a medicine that's going to help your infection so real world effects

of medicines are enhanced by the expectancy of you going to an expert and the act of you trying to take charge of your health by doing something about it so the overlaying and coefficient enhancement of expectancy to a real medicine is part of the medicine's potency and the therapeutic benefit of that so when I see these people trying to draw lines between expectancy and real world medical effects you know this is not a black and white situation it's on a spectrum moreover when you take psilocybin at a high dose to say 30 to 50 milligrams

of cybin the half life of cybin is 2 to three hours so by the next day you're in a micro do so why I like micro doing and increasing narrative as a macro do therapeutically followed by micro doing is that you can restimulate the neurological Pathways that now you have created for a new view of of reality of your ptsds or resolution the John Hopkins study found that 14 months later the very active re-remembering was therapeutically beneficial well re-remembering is rekindling the neurological Pathways that led to that memory and you have a reexperiencing of it

micro doing also rekindles those Pathways not only from your memory of the experience but I believe from the activity neurogenically of visiting and reliving those Pathways so become more resonantly dominant and becomes now your new you know neurological system for dealing with the world so this is a really exciting area of research I'm I'm so honored to be a shepherd of this knowledge I believe that this is generational knowledge we're all thought leaders the ecosystem here the body intellect of knowledge at this conference I think is really hopeful and at the same time we have

to be very careful about marginalization and marginalization is making these therapies too expensive you know when you think about the root causes of so much of our crime which much of it is racist much of it is the rich versus the poor the people who have access to Medical system support versus those who do not that's economic so it's important if we want to help heal society and to reduce crime that the universality of access of these medicines are made available micro doing allows that so what's your vision of of the future of psychedelics how

do you see this field in like 10 years I would see micro doing being a neotropic vitamin that be closely associated impr proven with a massive reduction and crime saving governments and saving Vic victims saving families you know hardship uh money I mean what government official here is opposed to the reduction of crime hopefully there's none right I would hope there's none if there is one they should dose on C and they change their mind um so I would see the future that you know throughout Society people would recognize that the use of cocy and

macro doing for PTSD and all these other trauma traumatic mental health challenges but so much of us are healthy mentally and moreover micro doing I think can prevent crime prevent PTSD it's one thing to treat the illness after the fact but it's a much greater benefit to prevent that mental illness from even occurring in the first place if you are a person who unfortunately there is generational abuse I've seen it even within my own family children who are abused tend to grow up to be adults at abuse this is just a known fact if you

can resolve your issues and not become a perpetrator to pass on this generational violence Behavior then you can prevent victims in the future so I see soloc cybin and micro doing as preventing PSD preven venting criminal behavior and I moreover not only do I think Solin makes nicer people but I believe saly makes smarter more intelligent people especially as they age do you seem think that you became smarter and nicer because you used psych that's a very self- serving question you're asking my ego if I thought I'm smarter because they use this whole side but

of course I think I'm smarter but then I have to say well wait is that delusional is I mean this is where you know is you're asking that kind of the impossible to answer a question without showing bias and and speaking of bias we're all biased we're all biased we all have egos we all have interests show me a person who's not biased even professors at universities if they do not publish they will not get tenure and they can put on their slides they have no conflicts of interest yeah they do every single Professor here

who said they have no conflicts of interest are hypocritical they have to publish in order to have tenure so every person studying the subject has an internal bias because they have an interest in the subject they're motivated they want to do studies they know if the studies get published then their position of employment within the university is better than that which they would not so people should be a little more circumspect take a step back if you're a human you have bias you have bias for food when you're hungry bias for medicines bias for your

friends bias for people you want to associate with bias comes with a human condition the question becomes is that bias such that it is not beneficial for the general population or is it idiosyncratically specific to certain individual and personality types now you can get you can dial this down now and this is something that probably will be disambiguated better in the future when we have more targeted individual therapies customized but right now throughout a general population we're seeing that the effects are beneficial with very strong signals right now from the noise and the chaos of

the general population both with healthy normals and with individuals with mental health challenges we all have mental health health challenges we're all in a spectrum right now don't you have a little voice in your head thinking about your next question don't you wake up and go oh I when I was eight years old I really wish I hadn't taken that toy away from my friend and was so mean to him I mean we're all are self-reflecting we're all self- diagnosing it's just when your self- diagnostic tools are not adequate to treat the condition that it's

important you seek an expert's health so we're all involved in the Spectrum macro doing the micro doing is a spectrum you know people should be much more careful and P saying that micro doing doesn't work and I well I just wish people would um be a little bit more careful in the languaging because I think this is a spectrum you mentioned that your first book was published in 1978 that was the year when I was born in uh so you have been waiting a lot to to to this time when when it seems that it

becomes real right so how do you feel about this new psychedelic Renaissance and do you think there is a risk of a new backlash after this well there's always a danger in the Renaissance you know having by definition it's a revolution against the conventional wisdom what is really different now than in 1978 when I published my first book is um the absence of paranoia that's a stressor that causes anxiety for us early adopters and even with the indigenous people when the Christians and the Catholics came to meso America and they brought their diseases and their

Advanced weapons and their sailing ships I mean that domination and suppression of indigenous wisdom and religion you know causes a mass amount of course anxiety and harm and so societal pressures against us early adopters and people who are thought leaders really carrying the torch forward of indigenous people all over the world you know we are not now under the same pressure from society to be as paranoid as we were back then you you do not know and most people listening do not know the state of heightened paranoia and concern and anxiety that the government any

minute could break down your doors and arrest you and to me the youth of sols Ian and psychedelics is a civil right it's a freedom of Consciousness right no government in the world has a right to your freedom of Consciousness that is your born right and yet you espouse these rights and it it challenges laws and religion and you know other people who are in positions of power they feel threatened by individual freedoms so to me this is a civil right issue um fundamentally you have a freedom of right to your own Consciousness if you

can improve it then you have the right to make that choice no government should take that choice away from you thank you very much okay is there anything you would like to add or did I ask everything I would add one more thing what's very different about souls have mushrooms than peyote for instance in the Peyote way is something that I think should remain with indigenous people the the Yaki and other related you know uh First Nations especially in North America that plant is fragile it takes a long time to grow sustainability doesn't look likely

in the near term and over harvesting jeopardizes indigenous knowledge indigenous practices peyote is very different than saly mushrooms there's 116 known species of soloc mushrooms that grow around the world from the North Pole to the South Pole you know and those margins and in each or many of those ecosystems indigenous people from meso America from Ireland from Germany in Japan solide mushrooms are known as Laughing mushrooms that's been a name that's been around for hundreds of years so every group who's lived in close association with the ecosystem is likely to have a history of contact

with Solan mushrooms so Maria Sabina the great maitech Shaman myologist she was a myologist it gives a huge amount of credit she introduced philosopy zapa torum uh to the West 90% of the people using solide mushrooms are using slos cubensis a mushroom that Maria Saina did not use and it grows in the tropics from Florida or subtropics Florida Guatemala grows in Thailand it grows in Australia um it grows in throughout Africa the moisture regions of Africa so when you understand that soulside mushrooms are not only more biodiverse than peyote but you can grow them sustainably

it kind of checks all the boxes in terms terms of not being cultural appropriation having universality of use across many cultures growing in many different regions of the world so I think this is a a bridge between cultures and continents in throughout centuries there is a narrative new to me but it came out out of British Columbia years ago and it's one one of the Elders of an indigenous uh clan in Canada was challenged by one the parents why should we send our indigenous children to be educated by westerners by the European educational system and

this elder who I think was very wise and he says because we need two eyes to see two-eyed seeing we need the Western eye of science we need indigenous wisdom for making sure the science respects nature and generational knowledge so we went to a first indigenous conference and a good friend of ours who is a leader in this movement she's indigenous she's actually half Irish half Native American and one of her Elders stood up and she goes I loved who I'd seeing and she said I'm not taking away my iPhone from my 12-year-old daughter that

would create chaos in my in my life but I I think this is an example where with two eyes we can see better we need to respect indigenous wisdom all wisdom is built upon by experience everyone contributes to the growing body intellect of knowledge this is what this conference is about and I think we have to always walk forward with two eyes seeing one of the characters in the new Star Trek Discovery was modeled after you and in this show there is the myelon network that helps people to travel through space and time do you

believe that one time this will be a reality yeah I this Star Trek series Discovery the 10 or so writers called me up and said we're in the dungeon we're riding Star Trek give us some ideas and I told them to turn on their tape recorder I'm a Star Trek fan and I just gave him about an hour and a half two hours of just stream of Consciousness talking about the myal network and how networks are self-creating and the myal network the neurological Network the computer internet Network the organization of dark matter and dark energy

in space all are built upon this same sort of structure that allows elasticity that has many end points of contact that can constantly experiment with successes and if there is a success the information back channels and by definition it grows and so I talked about then entering into hyperspace into the moverse you know into the Multiverse using psilocybin and one of the messages many of us get is the University universality of being that we exist within one giant Consciousness and being able to understand that can allow us to be able to cross into different dimensions

without using the envelope of our bodies as a limiting factor so to answer your question yes I do believe that these are portables for us to enter into the Multiverse the very words that I'm using are constricted because I don't have the vocabulary to articulate what that may mean but I think that vocabulary now is being built every single person journeying on soloc cybin is contributing to that vocabulary so I think it is time for humans to ascend into a new species it is time critical that we do so we have a moral ethical an

evolutionary responsibility we've been handed this responsibility it is ours to lose and we're at a a junction we make make the decision to live or the decision to die it is literally that binary and I think most of us want to choose the path that that brings more babies and smiles on people's faces and more camaraderie and more enrich of culture and ideas you know I've always thought thought that wealth is not money is not materialism it's the optionality of having freedom of choices the more freedoms of choices you have the wealthier you are because

you have Alternatives restricting those restricts again your Civil Right rights and your rights as a species to continue to [Music] [Laughter] [Music] evolve