What is it actually like to take ibogaine? Jonathan Dickinson, CEO of Ambio Life Sciences and author of Ibogaine and the Bicameral Mind, takes us inside the flood dose: why you can't stand up for hours, why it's closer to a waking dream than a psychedelic trip, and what the people he's treated say they saw.

We also get into the book's big ideas (Lacan's "the Real" and Julian Jaynes's bicameral mind), why the benefits can arrive even when nothing seems to happen, and the real medical risk, including deaths.

🌀 Show notes and links

📚 Jonathan's book and work: jonathandickinson.ca · Ambio Life Sciences: ambio.life

🍄 Sponsored by Amentara, lab-tested Amanita muscaria and other herbal extracts. Use code ATTM22 for 22% off your first order.

🥰 Support the show and join the community: Patreon · other ways to support · newsletter

Huge thanks to my $23+ patrons: Ian C, Eliz C, Dan G & Andreas D

Episode Breakdown

• (0:00) Opening
• (0:52) Ad
• (1:34) Interview Begins
• (4:11) What ibogaine is, and where it comes from
• (7:12) An oneirogen, not a psychedelic
• (14:03) Inside a flood dose
• (20:22) Visions, hallucinations, and false memories
• (26:35) Nobody says ibogaine is easy
• (35:19) Lacan, the Real, and why discomfort heals
• (44:33) The bicameral mind
• (56:04) Ad
• (57:14) No, I think it gets weirder
• (1:06:46) What to believe about what you saw
• (1:15:22) Ancestors and the realm of the dead
• (1:19:52) Leo Zeff, the Secret Chief
• (1:26:06) Patreon Thanks
• (1:28:04) When nothing happens, and it works anyway
• (1:38:28) The medical risk, and people have died
• (1:40:25) Leaving the country, and what it costs
• (1:48:49) Follow up links
• (1:52:05) Outro

Justin Townsend of MycoMeditations explains the "golden shadow" and why psychedelic facilitators need to be well-trained to hand that projection back rather than take it on. The dark shadow is the unsavory stuff we don't want to admit to: the shame, the disgust, the fear. The golden shadow, however, is the beautiful stuff about ourselves: our strengths, our creativity and our capacities for success. However, the golden shadow can get buried and projected just as much as the dark shadow.

The way it shows up is as a kind of intense admiration for someone else. Putting them up on a pedestal, viewing them with all these beautiful qualities of ourselves that we're unable to see in ourselves. This could be a retreat leader, a therapist, a celebrity, or a guru.

In this clip from episode 170, Justin walks us through how projection of the golden shadow can happen in psychedelic therapy and the problems that his can cause for both the participant and the facilitator when that facilitator is not ready and willing to refuse that projection and instead help their participant integrate it.

CHAPTERS

• (00:00) What the shadow and the golden shadow are
• (01:39) Spotting the projection, in retreats and in public
• (02:14) The facilitator's job, and how followers build a guru
• (04:31) Slow boil: how good people become the villain
• (6:54) Outro

***This is a clip from 'The Business and Practice of Psilocybin Therapy in Jamaica | Justin Townsend ~ ATTMind 170', Adventures Through The Mind Podcast, episode 170***

FULL INTERVIEW

• Listen on iTunes
• Listen on Spotify
• Watch in Video
• Read the show notes

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This episode is going to explore the state of the psychedelic movement right now — the money, the policy, the ethics, and the stories that are not getting told.

Specifically, we are going to be exploring what is actually happening across the so-called psychedelic renaissance: the for-profit pharmaceutical track, city and state level decriminalization, the unregulated market selling products that mostly do not contain what they claim to, the biopiracy question that almost nobody in mainstream media will ask about, and why one of the field's most trusted journalists says psychedelics are a relationship rather than a cure. Our guest is Shelby Hartman.

What You'll Learn About:

🌊 The three waves of psychedelic research, from the 1950s through Nixon to the arrival of for-profit "corporadelic" pharma 🍄 Why almost nothing sold as a "gray market" psychedelic is legal, and what an independent lab actually found inside mushroom chocolate bars 🧭 How to vet a coach, facilitator, shaman, or space holder, and why anyone can call themselves one 🌿 Biopiracy, iboga, and the Bwiti — how plant medicine and the knowledge around it get taken without reciprocity ⚖️ Who will qualify for legal psychedelics, who can afford them, and who feels safe on a clinical couch 🔬 Whether the double-blind randomized trial is even the right design for studying psychedelics 📰 What a journalist chooses not to publish, and why not every medicine wants to be found

🌀 Episode Show Notes and other Relevant Links

📚 Check out Shelby Hartman's book The DoubleBlind Guide to Psychedelics: A Road Map to Tripping, Microdosing, and Beyond USA: https://bookshop.org/p/books/the-doubleblind-guide-to-psychedelics-a-roadmap-to-tripping-microdosing-and-beyond-madison-margolin/331fec74d7e84ffe?ean=9781648291791 CAD: https://www.indiebookstores.ca/book/9781648291791/

🍄 This episode is sponsored by Portier Supplies. Use promo code ATTM10 for 10% off your order.

FULL TOPICS BREAKDOWN BELOW

...

SUPPORT THE PODCAST

🥰 Support ATTMind and join the community on Patreon

🎧 Sub and Review on Apple Podcasts

🎧 Sub and Review on Spotify

👁 Watch and Subscribe on Youtube

*** Huge thanks to my patrons on Patreon! In particular, my $23+ patrons; Ian C, Eliz C, Dan G & Andreas D

Other options

• Toss me a tip on PayPal: https://www.paypal.com/biz/fund?id=383635S3BKJVS
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• More Options: https://www.jameswjesso.com/support

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• Telegram Channel: https://t.me/jameswjesso
• Integration Coaching: https://www.jameswjesso.com/jesso-private-skype-sessions/

...

Episode Breakdown

• (0:00) Ad - Portal Box
• (0:31) Opening
• (1:15) Introduction
• (3:50) Interview Begins
• (4:42) Three waves of the psychedelic renaissance
• (10:13) Gray market products and unvetted coaches
• (18:57) Biopiracy and indigenous reciprocity
• (24:43) Who gets access, and on whose terms
• (31:08) The research track, and what counts as evidence
• (37:30) What's going well, and what she can't call yet
• (41:28) The cannabis cautionary tale
• (44:13) Ad - Portal Box
• (44:58) What legalization cost growers in Canada
• (48:38) Why DoubleBlind started
• (52:54) How the coverage changed, and the stakes now
• (59:08) Ten years of staying off the algorithm
• (1:02:40) Psychedelics are a relationship, not a cure
• (1:06:39) Tools, or living beings
• (1:07:42) Patreon Thanks
• (1:09:52) Renaissance, revolution, or media fad
• (1:12:11) What a journalist chooses not to publish
• (1:15:37) The questions no one will answer for you
• (1:19:22) The DoubleBlind Guide to Psychedelics
• (1:24:21) Follow up links
• (1:26:14) Outro

In this Adventures Through The Mind micro, I explain what MDMA is and why it makes us feel love.

I explain why MDMA is an entactogen rather than a classic psychedelic, and how it floods the brain with serotonin. I also discuss how it raises our sense of safety, lowers our sense of danger, and drops the emotional boundaries we normally hold, which is what made it work in couples therapy. Finally, I cover the PTSD research, and why MDMA with someone new can leave you holding an intimacy you have not earned.

• (00:00) What MDMA is, and how it works in the brain
• (06:25) Love with a capital L
• (11:02) Safety, danger, and the boundaries that drop
• (14:36) Why MDMA worked in couples therapy
• (18:14) The intimacy trap, and MDMA for PTSD
• (21:41) Outro

This is a clip from 'Psychedelics in Research & Practice | James W. Jesso', Adventures Through The Mind 200.

👀 Full episode here

🙏 Support the podcast

Related episodes

• Entactogens, MDMA, and Bringing New Love Drugs To Market | Matthew Baggott ~ ATTMind 177
• MDMA for Couples | The Love Doctor, Charley Wininger ~ ATTMind 138

This episode of the podcast is going to explore what actually happens inside psilocybin assisted therapy, from the first conversation to the last integration session.

Specifically, we are going to be walking the entire arc of a legal psilocybin therapy engagement through the lens of naturopathic medicine: preparation, the session itself, integration, the risks, and how to tell whether any of it is right for you. Our guest is Dr. JJ Pursell.

What You'll Learn About:

• 🌿 What naturopathic medicine actually is, and how its root-cause approach differs from the conventional model
• 🍄 What psilocybin is, and what "psilocybin therapy" legally means in Oregon (which is far less than you'd expect)
• 🛋️ Inside a session: the service centre, the eye shades, the music, the waves, and what a facilitator is and is not there to do
• 🔄 Why she requires every client to commit to integration work before she'll agree to work with them at all
• 💧 What "alleviating suffering" really means, why it isn't the same as feeling good, and why the hardest material is usually the most useful
• ⚠️ The real risks: the bolt response, prolonged psychosis, cardiac contraindications, HPPD, and coming out the other side feeling worse
• 🚩 How to find a facilitator you can trust, the red flags to walk away from, and how to know when it's the wrong time entirely

🌀 Episode Show Notes and other Relevant Links

📚 Check out JJ's book Psilocybin Therapy: Understanding How to Use Nature's Psychedelics for Mental Health USA: https://bookshop.org/p/books/psilocybin-therapy-understanding-how-to-use-nature-s-psychedelics-for-mental-health-dr-jj-pursell/7796363e51a70603 CAD: https://www.indiebookstores.ca/book/9781643262000/

🩺 Dr. Pursell's website: https://drjjpursell.com

🤝 Follow JJ: Instagram | YouTube | LinkedIn | Facebook

🍄 This episode is sponsored by Amentara. Use promo code ATTM22 for 22% off your first order.

FULL TOPICS BREAKDOWN BELOW

...

SUPPORT THE PODCAST

🥰 Support ATTMind and join the community on Patreon

🎧 Sub and Review on Apple Podcasts

🎧 Sub and Review on Spotify

👁 Watch and Subscribe on Youtube

*** Huge thanks to my patrons on Patreon! In particular, my $23+ patrons; Ian C, Eliz C, Dan G & Andreas D

Other options

• Toss me a tip on PayPal: https://www.paypal.com/biz/fund?id=383635S3BKJVS
• Toss me a tip on Ko-Fi: https://ko-fi.com/jameswjesso
• Buy some merchandise: https://www.jameswjesso.com/shop/
• More Options: https://www.jameswjesso.com/support

Connect with Me

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• Telegram Channel: https://t.me/jameswjesso
• Integration Coaching: https://www.jameswjesso.com/jesso-private-skype-sessions/

...

Episode Breakdown

• (00:00) Opening
• (03:05) Ad Break (Amentara)
• (03:48) Interview Begins
• (06:47) What naturopathic medicine is
• (15:14) What is psilocybin
• (19:45) What psilocybin therapy actually looks like
• (30:53) Why integration matters
• (44:43) What alleviating suffering really means
• (51:07) Patreon Break
• (53:14) Decomposing the Shadow: why the hard stuff isn't a bad trip
• (1:02:19) Wow, mushrooms sound so good, where could it go wrong
• (1:09:49) Ad Break (Amentara)
• (1:10:53) Choosing a safe facilitator, and the red flags to watch for
• (1:23:17) How do you know it's the right time
• (1:35:30) One thing to leave you with
• (1:37:32) Follow up links
• (1:39:05) Outro

Is your attention being trained the same way an algorithm is trained?

In this micro, Carl Hayden Smith joins me to unpack what he calls the attention war: how algorithms and short-form media shape the brain toward ADHD-like patterns, whether you have ADHD or not. We also talk about what surfaces in the mind after a few phone-free days, and why Carl believes AI's real danger isn't sentience, but a mass hallucination of it: one that's already changing how we see ourselves.

Watch this MICRO on YouTube

This is a clip from 'Hyperhumanism: Reclaiming Our Humanity in the Age of AI | Carl Hayden Smith', Adventures Through The Mind Podcast, episode 198.

FULL EPISODE

• Listen on Apple Podcasts
• Watch/Listen on Spotify
• Listen on Overcast
• Watch on YouTube
• Read the show notes

MORE AI & TECHNOLOGY EPISODES

• The Future of Visionary Art in an Era of AI ~ Psychedelic Café 11
• How Psychedelics Can Help Us Make Sense of the Meta-Crisis | Alexander Beiner ~ ATTMind 185

Connect with Carl

• Noonautics
• The Museum of Consciousness
• Cyberdelic Nexus

Support the Podcast

• Become a Patreon member
• Donate via PayPal
• All support options

Stay in Touch

• Newsletter
• Instagram: @attmindpodcast

EPISODE TIMESTAMPS

• (00:00) Cold open: are screens training our brains toward ADHD?
• (00:45) McLuhan's "the medium is the message"
• (01:28) Is technology leading us, or are we leading it?
• (02:54) Losing wifi in Egypt, and realizing how addicted we are to data
• (03:37) "It is an attention war": algorithms harvesting consciousness
• (03:53) Gen Alpha, dumbphones, and phone-free tree apps
• (04:51) Will AI's fake-everything problem make us abandon screens?
• (05:56) Outsourcing cognition to AI, reclaiming the felt experience
• (06:31) Attention seeds consciousness: seeing the world through memes
• (07:45) "Designed to be like gambling machines"
• (08:10) A phone-free hike, and what surfaced in the mind that night
• (08:56) TV as "the opium of the masses," and a life review
• (10:50) Jaron Lanier: "AI won't destroy us, it will make us insane"
• (11:34) Machine learning vs. sentience: AI's "mass hallucination"
• (12:43) Should the machine be the artist, or should we keep that role?
• (13:21) Outro: about this clip and the full episode with Carl Hayden Smith

Leonardo Mercado, known as The Peyote Lorax, joins me for Episode 209 to talk about the ecological and legal crisis threatening peyote, the sacred cactus at the center of Native American Church ceremonies.

We get into peyote's collapse in its only natural range, the contradictions inside the federal exemption that governs who can legally possess and cultivate it, and the Seed to Ceremony conservation project Leo is building through Morningstar Conservancy in Arizona.

🌀 Episode Show Notes and other Relevant Links

• 🏜️The Morningstar Conservancy: https://morningstarconservancy.org/
• The Peyote Lorax's website: https://thepeyotelorax.com/
• Check Out Leo on Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/thepeyotelorax/
• Buy some art from Leo: https://morningstarconservancy.org/shop

FULL TOPICS BREAKDOWN BELOW

...

🤩 EPISODE SPONSOR

AMENTARA is a credible source of legal psychoactive plants and extracts, most notably, Amanita Muscaria mushrooms—the red mushroom with white spots that shows up in folklore, Christmas imagery, and old shamanic traditions.

Check them out at: https://www.jameswjesso.com/amentara

Use the promo code ATTM22 for 22% off your first order

...

SUPPORT THE PODCAST

🥰 Support ATTMind and join the community on Patreon

*** Huge thanks to my patrons on Patreon! In particular, my $23+ patrons; Andreas D, Ian C, Dan G, and Eliz C

With a special thanks to Paul S. for their generous one-time donation

Other options

• Toss me a tip on PayPal: https://www.paypal.com/biz/fund?id=383635S3BKJVS
• Toss me a tip on Ko-Fi: https://ko-fi.com/jameswjesso
• More Options: https://www.jameswjesso.com/support

Connect with Me: https://linktr.ee/jameswjesso

...

Episode Breakdown

• (00:00) Opening
• (03:45) Interview begins
• (04:51) Peyote as a desert food, not a psychedelic
• (11:02) The teepee ceremony and the fire chief
• (15:08) Leo's early vision quest and the capsule story
• (26:20) Where peyote grows and why that matters
• (29:40) How peyote's wild population collapsed
• (34:08) The Native American Church and the legal exemption
• (38:34) Why peyote still isn't listed as endangered
• (46:35) The peyote carve-out in decrim bills and why it backfires
• (52:13) Ad Break: Amentara
• (54:57) The federal exemption as an exertion of dominance
• (1:02:51) The 25% Indian blood rule and who gets left out
• (1:09:28) Patreon Thanks
• (1:11:36) Would full decriminalization help or hurt wild populations?
• (1:15:42) What realistic legislative change would look like
• (1:23:39) The Peyote Lorax: how Morningstar Conservancy began
• (1:29:49) The Seed to Ceremony program
• (1:33:21) How you can support peyote conservation
• (1:44:41) Outro

Ibogaine is regularly categorized as a psychedelic — but that label may be misleading in ways that matter. In this micro, James offers a crash course in what ibogaine actually is: where it comes from, how its unusual pharmacology works, what it does to the mind, and why it holds a position in addiction medicine that no other drug on earth can claim. The risk profile is part of the picture too.

This is a clip from 'Psychedelics in Research & Practice | James W. Jesso', Adventures Through The Mind Podcast, episode 200

FULL EPISODE

• Listen on Apple Podcasts
• Listen on Spotify
• Watch on YouTube
• Read the show notes

MORE IBOGAINE EPISODES

• Treating Traumatic Brain Injury with Ibogaine | Dr. Nolan Williams ~ ATTMind 188
• Ibogaine Medical Subculture | Jonathan Dickinson ~ ATTMind 003

SUPPORT THE PODCAST

🥰 Support ATTMind and join the community on Patreon

Other options

• Toss me a tip on PayPal: https://www.paypal.com/biz/fund?id=383635S3BKJVS
• Buy some merchandise: https://www.jameswjesso.com/shop/
• More Options: https://www.jameswjesso.com/support

Connect with Me

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• Substack: https://substack.com/@jameswjesso
• Telegram Channel: https://t.me/jameswjesso

EPISODE BREAKDOWN AND TIMESTAMPS

• (00:00) — What is ibogaine?
• (00:43) — An oneirogen, not a psychedelic
• (01:33) — Closed-eye visuals and the life review
• (02:02) — Pharmacological complexity: the "14th century key" metaphor
• (04:39) — Duration and physical challenges of the experience
• (06:34) — Cardiac risk: the only psychedelic that can directly cause death
• (09:01) — Encountering ancestors and the Bwiti tradition
• (09:51) — A brief history: from West Africa to underground use
• (10:58) — Stopping opioid addiction in a single session
• (12:21) — The current treatment landscape
• (14:44) — Reversing traumatic brain injury: the Stanford research
• (18:47) — Brain de-aging and multiple sclerosis potential
• (19:53) — Outro

You can buy Lanmaoa asiatica at a food market in Yunnan. Cook it thoroughly and it's just a bolete. Undercook it, and roughly 12 to 24 hours later you may spend the next three to seven days seeing hyper-realistic miniature people moving through your environment — documented across three independent cultures, mechanism completely unknown. Ethnobotanist Colin Domnauer (Dentinger Lab, Natural History Museum of Utah) is one of the few people actively trying to understand why.

Colin and I get into what's actually documented about Lanmaoa asiatica — the three independent cultural accounts, the unusual onset and duration, and what the phenomenology of the hallucinations themselves suggests about mechanism. We talk about why this mushroom has received almost no formal scientific attention, what studying it would even look like, and what it might reveal about how psychedelic effects are produced in fungi more broadly. There's also a lot we just don't know — and we sit in that honestly.

🌀 Episode Show Notes and other Relevant Links

• 📚 Read Colin's Article on Lanmaoa asiatica - The mushroom making people hallucinate dozens of tiny humans
• Follow Colin on Instagram: @eating_gaia — where he posts research updates and mushroom photos
• The Dentinger Lab at the Natural History Museum of Utah — for anyone interested in pursuing research in the field

FULL TOPICS BREAKDOWN BELOW

...

🤩 EPISODE SPONSOR

AMENTARA is a credible source of legal psychoactive plants and extracts, most notably, Amanita Muscaria mushrooms—the red mushroom with white spots that shows up in folklore, Christmas imagery, and old shamanic traditions.

Check them out at: https://www.jameswjesso.com/amentara

Use the promo code ATTM22 for 22% off your first order

...

SUPPORT THE PODCAST

🥰 Support ATTMind and join the community on Patreon

*** Huge thanks to my patrons on Patreon! In particular, my $23+ patrons; Andreas D, Ian C, Dan G, and Eliz C

Other options

• Toss me a tip on PayPal: https://www.paypal.com/biz/fund?id=383635S3BKJVS
• Toss me a tip on Ko-Fi: https://ko-fi.com/jameswjesso
• More Options: https://www.jameswjesso.com/support

Connect with Me: https://linktr.ee/jameswjesso

...

Episode Breakdown

• (00:00) Opening
• (02:35) Ad Break
• (03:11) Interview Begins
• (03:19) From Astrophysics to Ethnomycology: An Unusual Path Into Psychedelic Research
• (07:44) Discovering Lanmaoa Asiatica: The Hallucinogenic Bolete of Southeast Asia
• (13:03) Lilliputian Hallucinations: The Psychiatric Phenomenon of Seeing Tiny People
• (16:37) Seeing Little People for Days: Cultural Attitudes & the Duration of Effects
• (20:26) Delirium or Psychedelic? What fMRI Data & Eyewitness Reports Reveal
• (23:53) More Real Than a Dream: The Uncanny Stability of These Hallucinations
• (30:12) Mushrooms, Fairies & Ancient Folklore: The Deep Connection to Little People
• (32:53) Patreon Thanks
• (35:23) Is This Mushroom Dangerous? Safety Data from ~1,000 Hospital Cases
• (45:00) Hunting for the Active Compound: Why It's Not Psilocybin or Ibotenic Acid
• (50:04) Ad Break
• (51:55) Are There More Hallucinogenic Bolete Species Around the World?
• (55:03) Why Psychoactive Compounds Evolve in Nature
• (1:00:36) Future Research, a 3rd-Century Taoist Text & How to Follow Colin's Work
• (1:08:03) Follow up links and socials
• (1:09:55) Outro

Psychedelics don't just "alter" your state — they can dissolve the self, surface the unconscious, and open the door to mystical experience. Your host, James, shares what's actually happening.

...

This is a clip from 'Psychedelics in Research & Practice | James W. Jesso ~ ATTMind Podcast 200"

FULL INTERVIEW

• Listen on Apple Podcasts

• Listen/Watch on Spotify

• Watch on YouTube

• Read the show notes

SUPPORT THE PODCAST

🥰 Support ATTMind and join the community on Patreon

Other options

• Support Once on PayPal: https://www.paypal.com/biz/fund?id=383635S3BKJVS
• Toss Me a Tip on Ko-Fi: https://ko-fi.com/jameswjesso
• Buy Some Merchandise: https://www.jameswjesso.com/shop/
• More Options: https://www.jameswjesso.com/support

Connect with Me

• Bluesky: https://bsky.app/profile/jameswjesso.bsky.social
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• X: https://x.com/jameswjesso
• Newsletter: https://www.jameswjesso.com/newsletter
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