Psychedelics, Neuroplasticity and the Military-to-Spiritual Journey with Rick Alexander — #401

Aug 24, 2026

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Rick Alexander is a depth-psychological counselor, psychedelic practitioner, and interfaith spiritual care provider currently completing his Ph.D. in Mythology/Depth Psychology and a former Naval Special Operations combat medic.

Rick was a Special Operations combat medic until a single psychedelic experience shattered his worldview and sent him back to school to study psychedelic spiritual care. He and Dr. Mike dig into neuroplasticity windows, why “good trip/bad trip” is the wrong question, and what may really be happening in DMT space.

Expect to learn how a rough teenage salvia trip and a later psilocybin experience redirected Rick's entire career, what life is really like as a Special Operations Combat Medic supporting SEALs and Green Berets, why military training narrows emotional range and makes civilian re-entry so hard, how integration (not the trip itself) determines whether a psychedelic experience heals or destabilizes you, what the "third wave" of psychedelic science gets right that the DSM's "hallucinogen" label gets wrong, whether neuroplastic windows could help athletes learn skills faster, and what a brutal 5-MeO-DMT experience taught Rick about his own running form and breathing.

Connect with Rick:

Episodes you'll enjoy next:

#47 — Tools to Down-Regulate in Response to Stress (an earlier conversation with Rick Alexander): Listen here
#194 — The Pros and Cons of Psychedelic Compounds with Psychedelic Researcher Rebekah Senanayake: Listen here

Episode Timestamps:

2:49 – Rick's PhD progress and the psychedelic experience that redirected his career
3:38 – A rough first psychedelic experience with salvia at 18
4:46 – The psilocybin experience that "peeled back" his worldview
7:00 – Life as a Special Operations Combat Medic supporting SEALs and Green Berets
8:23 – How military training narrows emotional range and worldview
10:01 – Why veterans struggle to re-enter civilian life after specialized training
13:34 – The double-edged sword: psychedelics can destabilize as easily as they heal
14:32 – The "third wave" of psychedelic science and the flawed DSM "hallucinogen" label
23:49 – Integration: do you have time to process what comes up?
24:43 – "Psychedelic myth-making" and building a new personal mythology
31:05 – Could neuroplastic windows help athletes learn skills faster?
37:01 – Yogic energy channels (nadis) and psychedelics amplifying subtle perception
39:17 – How a brutal 5-MeO-DMT trip changed Rick's running form and breathing
56:16 – What's really happening in DMT space: Strassman, Gallimore, and "reality switch technologies"
59:43 – Henri Corbin's "psycho-cosmology": consciousness and reality as mirrored levels
1:06:45 – "Functional consequentialism": why you shouldn't dismiss someone else's experience
1:10:46 – Where to find Rick and his counseling and breathwork work

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