Adventures Through The Mind

What is Consciousness? Is it unique to human cognition or is it universal and permeating all things? Is it an epiphenomenon of brain activity or a universal constant? Do all things 'have' consciousness or are they 'of', 'in', or 'by' consciousness? Who and what are we, humankind, in the grander process of Consciousness itself? What is the nature of this whole "Reality" game? For the 50th episode of Adventures Through The Mind podcast, we welcome philosopher Bernardo Kastrup onto the show to address these questions and more. For Full Show Notes & Links: bit.ly/ATTMind50 Bernardo Kastrup has a Ph.D. in computer engineering with specializations in artificial intelligence and reconfigurable computing. He has worked as a scientist in some of the world's foremost research laboratories, including the European Organization for Nuclear Research (CERN) and the Philips Research Laboratories (where the "Casimir Effect" of Quantum Field Theory was discovered). He has authored many academic papers and books on philosophy and science.   Support The Show: Patreon PayPal Donation   Episode Breakdown Building conscious machines. What is consciousness? The hard problem of Consciousness. It's not Panpsychism. Do rocks and trees have consciousness? How about weather patterns and neurons? Differentiating 'conscious experience' from 'consciousness'. The subjectivity of objective reality. God suffers from dissociated identity disorder. Autonomous human awareness, nestled in consciousness. Filtering the mind at large. The relationship between brain activity and subjective inner life. What psychedelics show us about the nature of conscious awareness and brain activity. Metacognition and the default mode network. Physicalism as a neurotic defense mechanism.

Episode Part 1/2 From the origins of life, through ancient human history, to the interplanetary future of humanity and everything in between. "Bruce Frederick Damer, Ph.D. (born 31 January 1962) is a Canadian-American multidisciplinary scientist, designer, and author. Dr. Bruce Damer collaborates with colleagues developing and testing a new model for the origin of life on Earth and in the design of spacecraft architectures to provide a viable path for expansion of human civilization beyond the Earth." This man's resume is extensive and beautiful. From helping to lay the foundations for multi-user digital interfaces in the early 90s, to designing spaceships for NASA, to bringing forth what is "perhaps the first "end-to-end" model proposed for life's origins." Not only that but he is also a strong, public supporter of the counter-cultural movement. Once personal friends, with Terence McKenna, Bruce is an incredible story teller and has come on the show for this special 2 part episode to share the story of the origins of life on planet earth, from start dust through the primordial soup and first homo sapiens all the way to dropping LSD at transformational music festivals.   Full show notes and part 2 at bit.ly/ATTMind49 ... Support The Podcast PayPal Donation Patreon Other Options (including bitcoin) ... TOPICS DISCUSSED A complete model for the origins and evolution of life on planet earth A poetic reference to the world of the progenote, our common biological ancestor  How language and storytelling can immerse you in experience Virtual reality storytelling environment (Android Jones' microdose and Duncan Trussell). Psychedelics, magical spaces, and "endotripping". The mystical experiences at the foundations of Western thought. The corporatization of Christianity and the spread of the Pauline Christians. Civilizational neoteny and the failures of conventional initiations. An updated version of Terence McKenna's Stoned Ape Theory. The Ground Truth. An example of how radically human beings have permanently altered the planetary biome. Will we find life on Mars? Why? Space technology, biospheres, and the future sustainability of humanity. Suppressed technology and how to navigate conspiracy theory.  

Episode Part 2/2 From the origins of life, through ancient human history, to the interplanetary future of humanity and everything in between. "Bruce Frederick Damer, Ph.D. (born 31 January 1962) is a Canadian-American multidisciplinary scientist, designer, and author. Dr. Bruce Damer collaborates with colleagues developing and testing a new model for the origin of life on Earth and in the design of spacecraft architectures to provide a viable path for expansion of human civilization beyond the Earth." This man's resume is extensive and beautiful. From helping to lay the foundations for multi-user digital interfaces in the early 90s, to designing spaceships for NASA, to bringing forth what is "perhaps the first "end-to-end" model proposed for life's origins." Not only that but he is also a strong, public supporter of the counter-cultural movement. Once personal friends, with Terence McKenna, Bruce is an incredible story teller and has come on the show for this special 2 part episode to share the story of the origins of life on planet earth, from start dust through the primordial soup and first homo sapiens all the way to dropping LSD at transformational music festivals.   Full show notes and part 1 at bit.ly/ATTMind49 ... Support The Podcast PayPal Donation Patreon Other Options (including bitcoin) ...   TOPICS DISCUSSED A complete model for the origins and evolution of life on planet earth A poetic reference to the world of the progenote, our common biological ancestor  How language and storytelling can immerse you in experience Virtual reality storytelling environment (Android Jones' microdose and Duncan Trussell). Psychedelics, magical spaces, and "endotripping". The mystical experiences at the foundations of Western thought. The corporatization of Christianity and the spread of the Pauline Christians. Civilizational neoteny and the failures of conventional initiations. An updated version of Terence McKenna's Stoned Ape Theory. The Ground Truth. An example of how radically human beings have permanently altered the planetary biome. Will we find life on Mars? Why? Space technology, biospheres, and the future sustainability of humanity. Suppressed technology and how to navigate conspiracy theory.

The late, great Terence McKenna is famous for his suggestion to eat five dried grams of psilocybin mushrooms in silent darkness. Thanks to Terence five dried grams has been a milestone of depth and commitment to psychonauts around the world, an apex of intensity. Then Kilindi Iyi comes along and dismantles the concept of five dried grams as an apex of psilocybin intensity when he begins to speak publicly about his regular use of 30+ dried grams of psilocybin mushrooms.... 30 dried grams of psilocybin mushrooms, an ultra-high dose psilocybin experience. Our guest for this episode, Kilindi Iyi is a martial arts expert, a (medicinal and culinary) mushrooms grower, and a psychonaut challenging the status quo of the psychedelic community with an outspoken, brazen courage. He joins us on the show to discuss his experiences with these ultra-high dose psilocybin experiences, what brought him to explore so deeply, what it's like to take such a high dose, and what he has gleaned from those experiences about the nature of reality. Most importantly, we talk about what it means to become explorers of the mind by taking entheogens at any dose. Although much of what we talk about is offers direct insight and wisdom to anyone choosing to explore entheogens, some of it, much like back in Ep.6 with Rak Razam, goes wildly far-out; 30+ dried grams far-out.   Full show notes at bit.ly/ATTMind48 ... Support The Podcast PayPal Donation Patreon Other Options (including bitcoin) ... TOPICS DISCUSSED Why dose this high, what's it like, and what does it show us about what we are, in reality. Do set and setting even matter anymore? The role, potential, and possibilities available at ultra high doses. The role, potential, and possibilities of entheogens at any dose. How martial arts training influenced Kilindi's choice to explore entheogens. "The journey of the alone into the alone." Coming to learn death. Being an explorer on the frontiers of consciousness. Entheogens for exploring deep philosophical questions, such as the nature of consciousness. The nature of reality: simulation theory, quantum entanglement, higher dimensional civilizations, etc. Crystal Technology / Weaponized Crystals Death and the psychedelic dimension.   Please Subscribe to the Show!

If you had to point to any singular example of institutionalized racial prejudice in America, the so-called drug war is a shining example. The prohibition of drugs in the United States, and subsequently much of the Western world, has its origins in racism, classism, and xenophobia (as well as the socio-economic control of industry, but that's a different story for a different time). The war on drugs was a classist and racist war on people of color (the origin of the Marijuana Tax Act in 1937) and those representing a threat the governmental powers that be, such as hippies and anti-war activists (Nixon's launch of the war on drugs in 1971). If we are to move forward into the better world, one that heals the wounds rotting at the core of the rise of Trump, and begin to understand the systemic foundations of racism in the United States, we need to understand the history. This episode, with Martin Torgoff, author of Bop Apocalypse: Jazz, Race, The Beats, and Drugs, offers a piece of that history. In particular, it follows the history of drug prohibition and institutionalized racism along the coupled history of Jazz music from the early 20s, told through the stories of the musicians, political leaders, and poets whose lives are inseparable from that history. For full show notes, links, and to watch this interview in video, head to bit.ly/ATTMind47 Support The Podcast PayPal Donation Patreon Other Options (including bitcoin)

As the technology of virtual reality continues to progress, it is important that we look beyond the uses gaming companies, Facebook, and Samsung will develop it for. What happens when the capacity to build a completely immersive and convincing alternate reality lands in the hands of visionary artists and shamanic healers? For the new moon episode of ATTMind Radio, we welcome Dutch visionary artist Sander Bos to the show. Painter, musician, and reality-engineer, Sander has been exploring the potentials of art to awaken a sense of healing and enlightenment. He explores the role of the shaman as an artistic one and using virtual reality as his medium is seeking to create shamanic healing experiences in digital spaces.   "I am fascinated in building with light [...] a zen garden, a kind of healing space in VR, so you can experience different states of consciousness and different healing experience" - Sander Bos   See the full show notes and/or watch in video   Support The Podcast PayPal Donation Patreon Other Options (including bitcoin)

We welcome Gay Dillingham to the April full moon edition of ATTMind Radio. Gay is an award-winning filmmaker and the director of Dying To Know: Timothy Leary and Ram Das. We have her on the show to talk about Timothy Leary and Richard Alpert (no known as Baba Ram Dass), who they were on the surface of history but also who they were as people, friends, and members of a larger community. For full show notes, head to http://bit.ly/ATTMindRadioEp45 We also talk about the process of making this film and why she felt telling the story of these two men was so important that she was willing to invest 19 years of her life into making it. (Also, how it was she got Robert Redford to narrate this film about counter-cultural heroes!) Personally, watching this film was perspective altering for me, which I talk about in the episode. Having been exposed to an intimate revealing of people whom I had only known as the legends that had come before me, was deeply meaningful. If you do, or don't know who these men are it's still a worthy listen, as, like Gay proclaims in the film, "whether you know them or not, chances are they changed your life". Support The Podcast PayPal Donation Patreon Other Options (including bitcoin)

Emanuel Sferios is an activist, educator and harm reduction advocate. Founding DanceSafe in 1998 and starting the first laboratory pill analysis program for ecstasy users that same year, Emanuel pioneered MDMA harm reduction services in the United States. He is currently producing a documentary on MDMA highlighting its use in therapy as well as harm reduction as a practical, rational alternative to three decades of failed efforts at prohibition. For the March new moon episode of Adventures Through The Mind Radio, Emanuel and I sat down to talk about MDMA: The Movie. However, our conversation rolled on rather quickly into unexpected waters as we discussed prohibition and the war on drugs. Increasingly more so it has become obvious that the so-called Drug War is only making things worse and that prohibition may very well be the cause of the fatal drug problems we see in the modern world. It was great to get Emanual's thoughts on this as a 20-year advocate for harm reduction. We also talk about: the early 90s rave scene, the use of MDMA-assisted psychotherapy for the resolution of PTSD, the early days of the DanceSafe harm reduction movement, the fatal consequences of prohibition functional heroin dependence, MDMA safety: tips and practices, Pharmacological hacks for ending MDMA hangover, mainstream media's manipulation of drug reporting to manufacture consent for a failing prohibition program AND MORE! Full Show Notes: http://bit.ly/ATTMindRadioEp44 Support The Podcast PayPal Donation Patreon Other Options (including bitcoin)

MDMA is on the front lines of the psychedelic renaissance, shining a light of hope into the lives of those suffering from Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder (PTSD). On this episode, we feature Melanie and Thomas Heath. These two incredible humans have been putting themselves in the public eye to speak about the therapeutic power of MDMA. They come onto the show to share their experiences working with MDMA to assist in the treatment (and even resolution) of deeply debilitating PTSD. This episode goes deep into their personal experiences with PTSD, mental illness, and what pushed them to break the hard social conventions they were raised in and "used illegal drugs". In deep transparency and vulnerability, these two incredible people are standing outside the psychedelic closet and speaking openly about how MDMA changed their lives for the better. ***A word of warning: the audio in this episode is rough, but I choose to release it anyways as the content is so beautiful and honest that I didn't want to loose it. Thanks for your forgiveness in advance.   Full Show Notes: http://bit.ly/ATTMindRadioEp43 Support The Podcast PayPal Donation Patreon Other Options (including bitcoin)

This week's episode features an interview with Mark Wolynn.  Mark is a leading expert on inherited family trauma. He is also the director of the Family Constellation Institute in San Francisco where he trains clinicians and treats people struggling with depression, anxiety, panic disorder, obsessive thoughts, self-injury, chronic pain, and persistent symptoms and conditions. He is also the author of It Didn't Start With You: how inherited family trauma shapes who we are and how to end the cycle. Topics covered include: Emotional Trauma Intergenerational / inherited family trauma Epigenetics Family Constellations The Core Language Approach Cultural trauma: e.g. Syrian War and Refugee Crisis, American Slavery and Canadian Residential Schools Neurological development Memory consolidation Implicit vs explicit memory The root of Chronic Psychopathology The Four Unconscious Themes and the importance of a healthy connection with our parents Full Show Notes: http://bit.ly/ATTMindRadioEp42 Support The Podcast PayPal Donation Patreon Other Options (including bitcoin)