The Trip: 7. Fascination and taboo

Aug 25, 2025

Tim Hayward shares intriguing insights from his 14-day coma during the pandemic, filled with vivid hallucinations. He explores the history of psychedelics, from early research in the 18th century to their decline in the 1970s. Through discussions on cultural shifts and societal perceptions, the podcast tackles the controversial relationship between psychedelics and mental health. Key moments include Aldous Huxley’s experiences and the media’s role in shaping drug narratives. The exploration highlights both the fascination and the taboos surrounding altered states of consciousness.

Ask episode

AI Snips

Chapters

Books

Transcript

Episode notes

ANECDOTE

Huxley’s Mescaline Visit And The Outsight Plan

Humphrey Osmond visited Aldous Huxley in 1953 and gave him mescaline, inspiring The Doors of Perception.
Osmond planned an

ANECDOTE

Outsight's Grand Intellectual Experiment

Outsight aimed to give leading intellectuals mescaline or LSD to write about the experience and shift intellectual culture.
The project drafted guests like Einstein and Jung but failed for lack of funding and Huxley's personal loss.

INSIGHT

Science And Poetry United Early Research

Early psychedelic inquiry mixed science with poetry and philosophy, creating a rich salon-style exploration.
That interdisciplinary approach produced new language and metaphors for altered states.

Get the Snipd Podcast app to discover more snips from this episode

Get the app

During the early weeks of the pandemic, Tim Hayward spent 14 days in a coma. He remembers this time vividly – his days and nights filled with strange, incandescent visions and hallucinations. That experience is something he would never choose to revisit but, around the world, large numbers of people are deliberately seeking out powerfully altered states.

In this ten-part series, Tim sets out to better understand a group of substances that induce altered states: psychedelics.

There’s been a surge of interest in their therapeutic potential for various mental health conditions - as well as a range of other clinical possibilities. As research around the world ramps up after years of taboo and prohibition he tries to get to grips with - or at least get a clearer sense of - how science, culture, politics and business might all interact in this changing psychedelic landscape, and what it all might mean.

He also explores what might be happening in the brain during a trip and whether, by studying psychedelics, we might uncover more about consciousness, imagination and even the mysteries of reality itself.

This episode looks into the history of psychedelic research. From the “dawn” of psychedelic science in 1799 through to prohibition in the second half of the last century, Tim explores shifting cultural and scientific approaches to substances that induce altered states. There had been a willingness to openly explore the trip experience and to see what might be discovered by doing so. Why did all that become taboo?

Contributors: Erika Dyck, historian of psychedelics, University of Saskatchewan Mike Jay, author and cultural historian Peter Sjöstedt-Hughes, philosopher of mind and metaphysics, University of Exeter

Presenter: Tim Hayward Producer: Richard Ward Executive Producer: Rosamund Jones Editor: Kirsten Lass

Written by Tim Hayward and Richard Ward

Sound Design and Mixing: Richard Ward Production Executive Lisa Lipman Researcher: Grace Revill Commissioning Editor: Daniel Clarke

A Loftus Media production for BBC Radio 4