The Trip: 10. Unknown unknowns

Sep 1, 2025

Tim Hayward recounts his vivid experiences during a 14-day coma linked to the pandemic, sparking a deep dive into the world of psychedelics. He explores their therapeutic potential for conditions like depression and the challenges in integrating these therapies into practice. The podcast also delves into the mystical realms of DMT and its impact on belief systems. Additionally, it highlights the need for curiosity-driven funding for psychedelic research and the importance of diverse representation in studies. The quest for understanding consciousness continues!

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ANECDOTE

Sartre's Mescaline Vision Sparked His Work

Jean-Paul Sartre took mescaline and experienced persistent, bizarre visions such as being pursued by giant lobsters.
The episode linked those hallucinations to his later influential writings like Nausea and Imagination.

ADVICE

Integrate Trips To Make Insights Last

Revisit psychedelic experiences during integration to make insights actionable and lasting.
Use guided unpacking and follow-up to prevent the experience from evaporating back into normal life.

INSIGHT

Therapy May Come From Brain Change, Not The Trip

Psychedelic experiences may be epiphenomena while neuroplastic changes could underlie therapeutic gains.
Lucy Berkovitch plans trials that block subjective effects to test whether brain changes alone improve depression.

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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.

In this final episode, Tim explores how much there is still to understand about the therapeutic possibilities of psychedelics and, furthermore, what other insights research might lead us towards. Will curious minds be given the space to roam free? Contributors: Lucie Berkovitch, psychiatrist and neuroscientist, GHU Paris Psychiatrie et Neurosciences Osiris García Cerqueda, historian and sociologist, Program Coordinator, Indigenous Reciprocity Initiative (IRI) Gül Dölen, neuroscientist, University of California, Berkeley David Luke, psychologist and psychedelic researcher, University of Greenwich Andrew Penn, psychiatric nurse practitioner and psychedelics researcher, University of California San Francisco School of Nursing Peter Sjöstedt-Hughes, philosopher of mind and metaphysics, University of Exeter

Presenter: Tim Hayward Series Producer: Richard Ward Executive Producer: Rosamund Jones Editor: Kirsten Lass Written by Tim Hayward and Richard Ward Sound Design and Mixing: Richard Ward Researcher: Grace Revill Production Executive: Lisa Lipman Commissioning Editor: Daniel Clarke A Loftus Media production for BBC Radio 4