Can psilocybin microdosing actually treat depression – or are expectation and the placebo effect doing far more of the work than we realise?

Dr. Rotem Petranker is a clinician, researcher and therapist who has spent years studying psychedelic microdosing. In one of the most rigorous clinical trials of microdosing for depression to date, his team gave people diagnosed with major depressive disorder either 2mg of psilocybin or placebo and tracked what happened.

The surprising result?

People in both groups got dramatically better – but on most measures of depression, there was almost no difference between microdosing and placebo.

In this conversation, Paige and Rotem explore what that finding actually means, why psychedelic research may be far less certain than popular headlines suggest, and how expectation, media hype and scientific bias can shape what we think psychedelics are capable of.

We explore:

💕 What actually counts as a microdose – and why scientists still don't know the ideal dose or frequency

💕 What happened in Rotem's clinical trial of psilocybin microdosing for depression

💕 Why both the placebo and psilocybin groups experienced major improvements

💕 The enormous role expectation may play in psychedelic research

💕 Whether microdosing improves focus, cognition or connectedness

💕 Why set and setting are so difficult to study scientifically

💕 The replication crisis and why some psychedelic research may be less reliable than it appears

💕 Why pre-registration matters – and how researchers can accidentally “draw the bullseye after firing the shot”

💕 How media coverage may be exaggerating what psychedelics can currently treat

💕 Psychedelic-assisted therapy, SSRIs and what the evidence actually tells us

💕 The meaning crisis, certainty and why humans find not knowing so uncomfortable

💕 Consciousness, physicalism, panpsychism and whether psychedelic entities should be taken literally

This isn't an argument for or against psychedelics. It's a conversation about something much more interesting: what the science actually shows when we remove what we want to be true.

☕️ To support conversations like this, shout Paige a coffee:

https://buymeacoffee.com/paigeleacey

🔗 Connect with Dr. Rotem Petranker:

Website: https://petranker.com/

🔗 Connect with Paige:

YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/@PaigeLeacey

Spotify: https://open.spotify.com/show/4sVFkvFcj3DW1wuVZuGd4U

Apple Podcasts: https://podcasts.apple.com/au/podcast/on-the-same-paige-with-paige-leacey/id1573526370

Newsletter: https://paigeleacey.substack.com

Instagram: @samepaige__

TikTok: @samepaige__

What is an Iboga journey really like – and what should you know before considering one?

In this episode of On The Same Paige, Paige Leacey sits down with herbalist and plant medicine practitioner Rachel Marie for an in-depth conversation about Iboga, one of the world’s most intense and misunderstood plant medicines.

Rachel shares her own experiences with Iboga, including her first journey in her twenties and later traveling to Gabon to undergo a traditional Bwiti initiation. She explains why an Iboga ceremony can be so different from classic psychedelic experiences, why people often describe it as confronting the truth of themselves, and what she has learned through years of working with the plant.

Paige also reflects on her own Iboga experience as they explore:

💕 What an Iboga journey can actually feel like

💕 Why Iboga is different from classic psychedelics

💕 Rachel’s five-day initiation with the Bwiti tradition in Gabon

💕 The fear of confronting yourself during an Iboga ceremony

💕 Flood doses vs streaming doses

💕 Iboga, Ibogaine and addiction treatment

💕 Purging and the physical intensity of the experience

💕 The serious cardiac risks associated with Iboga

💕 Why Rachel strongly advises against taking Iboga alone

💕 Intuition, consciousness and altered states

💕 Herbalism, healing and the intelligence of plants

💕 What happens after a profound plant medicine experience

This conversation is an exploration of personal experiences and perspectives around Iboga and plant medicine. It is not medical advice and should not be treated as a recommendation to use Iboga or Ibogaine.

Connect with Paige:

YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/@PaigeLeacey

Spotify: https://open.spotify.com/show/4sVFkvFcj3DW1wuVZuGd4U

Apple Podcasts: https://podcasts.apple.com/au/podcast/on-the-same-paige-with-paige-leacey/id1573526370

Newsletter: https://paigeleacey.substack.com

Instagram: @samepaige__

TikTok: @samepaige__

Could biphasic sleep change the way we think, create and connect? I’m trying a biphasic sleep schedule for one week – splitting my night into a “first sleep” and “second sleep,” with two quiet waking hours in between.

The idea came from the viral claim that our modern eight-hour sleep routine is an industrial invention. Although that version of the story may be oversimplified, historical research has found frequent references to people sleeping in two separate phases during the Middle Ages.

Between their first and second sleep, people reportedly prayed, reflected, journaled, created, connected with their partners – and sometimes made love.

So, what might we have lost when segmented sleep disappeared from modern life?

For this one-week biphasic sleep experiment, my planned schedule is:

First sleep: 9:00 p.m.– 1:00 a.m.

Awake period: 1:00 a.m.– 3:00 a.m.

Second sleep: 3:00 a.m.– morning

During the waking period, I’ll avoid screens, doomscrolling and life admin. Instead, I’ll experiment with journaling, stretching, self-massage, reflection and whatever else emerges during those strange middle-of-the-night hours.

I’ll also be tracking how the schedule affects:

• My energy and cognition

• Creativity and productivity

• Dreams

• Intimacy and connection

• My experience as a cycling woman in the follicular phase

This video explains why I’m doing the experiment and what I hope to discover. The full journey and my reflections after the week will be shared on YouTube.

Have you ever tried biphasic or segmented sleep? Share your experience below so we can compare field notes.

This is a personal experiment, not medical advice. Speak with a qualified healthcare professional before making significant changes to your sleep routine.

☕ Support conversations like this:

https://buymeacoffee.com/paigeleacey

🔗 Connect with Paige:

YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/@PaigeLeacey

Spotify: https://open.spotify.com/show/4sVFkvFcj3DW1wuVZuGd4U

Apple Podcasts: https://podcasts.apple.com/au/podcast/on-the-same-paige-with-paige-leacey/id1573526370

Newsletter: https://paigeleacey.substack.com

Instagram: @samepaige__

TikTok: @samepaige__

The placebo effect is real – but are clinical trials designed to understand it, or suppress it?

Dr Balázs Szigeti joins Paige Leacey to explain how the placebo effect shapes clinical trials, antidepressant research and psychedelic therapy. They explore why pharmaceutical companies try to minimise placebo responses, how patients can work out whether they received the active drug, and whether the apparent success of psychedelic medicine has been overstated.

Balázs is a clinical data scientist at the UCSF Translational Psychedelic Research Program and a leading researcher on placebo effects, expectancy, blinding and psychedelic medicine. He has a physics degree from Imperial College London and earned a PhD in computational neuroscience from the University of Edinburgh.

☕ Support conversations like this:

https://buymeacoffee.com/paigeleacey

In this conversation:

💕 What the placebo effect actually is – and why it is not “fake”

💕 How expectation can produce genuine biological and psychological changes

💕 Whether placebo-controlled trials answer the questions patients actually care about

💕 Why psychedelic studies may make psilocybin appear more effective than antidepressants

💕 What ketamine research reveals about active versus inactive placebos

💕 The limitations of psychedelic-assisted therapy

💕 Why depression and anxiety cannot always be treated as purely biological problems

💕 Suggestibility, nocebo effects and patient expectations

💕 The relationship between psychedelics, community, and rave culture

💕 Why scientific hype often rises before the evidence catches up

This discussion challenges the assumption that beating a placebo is always the most useful measure of whether a treatment helps patients. It also examines the tension between scientific research, pharmaceutical incentives and the real-world experience of people seeking relief from depression, anxiety and other mental-health conditions.

Follow Dr Balázs Szigeti on X: @bsybalazs

🔗 Connect with Paige:

YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/@PaigeLeacey

Spotify: https://open.spotify.com/show/4sVFkvFcj3DW1wuVZuGd4U

Apple Podcasts: https://podcasts.apple.com/au/podcast/on-the-same-paige-with-paige-leacey/id1573526370

Newsletter: https://paigeleacey.substack.com

Instagram: @samepaige__

TikTok: @samepaige__

What does grief do to the body and brain – and how can loss change the way we understand consciousness, identity, and the meaning of life?

Grief is more than an emotion. It can affect how we think, remember, connect with others, and understand ourselves. In this episode of On The Same Paige, Paige explores why loss can feel so disorienting, why healing is rarely a simple or linear process, and how people begin rebuilding a meaningful life without pretending the loss never happened.

The discussion also moves beyond conventional psychology and neuroscience into the bigger questions grief can surface. What is consciousness? Does our connection to another person disappear when they die? Why do experiences around death and loss sometimes feel impossible to explain through science alone?

Rather than offering definitive answers, Mona and Paige look at these questions through scientific, psychological, philosophical, and personal perspectives on one of the most difficult parts of being human.

Mona Sobhani, Ph.D. is a cognitive neuroscientist, researcher, and author. In 2022 she published her first book, Proof of Spiritual Phenomena: A Neuroscientist's Discovery of the Ineffable Mysteries of the Universe, which documents her transformation from diehard materialist to open-minded spiritual seeker.☕ Support conversations like this:https://buymeacoffee.com/paigeleaceyIn this conversation, you'll hear about:💕 How loss can affect identity and emotional wellbeing💕 Why grief is not a linear process💕 The difference between healing and simply "moving on"💕 The neuroscience of grief and memory💕 How grief can reshape meaning and purpose💕 Where neuroscience, philosophy, and spirituality overlap💕 The questions grief raises about consciousness and human experienceThis episode is for anyone coping with grief, supporting someone through loss, or trying to understand how the brain and mind respond when life changes in a way that cannot be undone.

Connect with Paige:

YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/@PaigeLeacey

Spotify: https://open.spotify.com/show/4sVFkvFcj3DW1wuVZuGd4U

Apple Podcasts: https://podcasts.apple.com/au/podcast/on-the-same-paige-with-paige-leacey/id1573526370

Newsletter: https://paigeleacey.substack.com

Instagram: @samepaige__

TikTok: @samepaige__

I spent 48 hours in an iboga ceremony purging, confronting my deepest fears, and coming out the other side completely transformed. This is my full, unfiltered experience with this very unique plant medicine.

In this episode, I take you through the entire journey: what iboga (Tabernanthe Iboga) actually is, its origins in the Bwiti spiritual tradition of Central Africa, and why this plant medicine operates in a category of its own — nothing like ayahuasca or psilocybin.

☕️ To support conversations like this, shout Paige a coffee:

https://buymeacoffee.com/paigeleacey

I cover:

🩷 5 months of preparation — blood work, cardiac monitoring, meditation, lifestyle changes

🩷 Microdosing iboga for 5 weeks and the triggers that surfaced

🩷 My 8g streaming dose at home — a full night awake with no anxiety

🩷 The fear that almost stopped me: "What if iboga tells me to leave my partner?"

🩷 Reading my intention letter to Dr. Iboga before the flood dose

🩷 48 hours of relentless purging and what it taught me about surrender

🩷 The two laundry baskets vision — sorting what stays and what goes

🩷 Integration: 3 days, 3 weeks, 3 months, 3 years

This is not an educational episode — it's a personal account. Every iboga journey is different, and I share mine not to influence your decision but to offer one honest window into what this initiation can look like.

🔗 Connect with Paige:

YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/@PaigeLeacey

Spotify: https://open.spotify.com/show/4sVFkvFcj3DW1wuVZuGd4U

Apple Podcasts: https://podcasts.apple.com/au/podcast/on-the-same-paige

IG: @samepaige__

TT: @samepaige__

What actually happens to your consciousness when you're put under general anesthesia — and how does a drug stop your brain from forming memories while a surgeon cuts into your body?

Professor Bruce MacIver is a Stanford researcher who has spent decades studying how anesthetics work at the cellular level. His lab discovered that anesthetics disrupt learning and memory by enhancing inhibition of specific GABAergic interneurons, and his recent work on microtubules provided key experimental support for the Penrose-Hameroff theory of consciousness. Together with philosopher Tam Hunt, he just published a paper reviving the electromagnetic field theory of consciousness — the idea that your mind is a physical energy field, not just neurons firing.

In this conversation, Paige and Bruce explore:

🩷 The terrifying phenomenon of anesthetic awareness — when you're paralyzed and awake during surgery

🩷 Why anesthesia doesn't replace natural sleep (and the one drug that actually can)

🩷 The full continuum of consciousness — from coma to psychedelic expansion

🩷 Whether plants have awareness and what that implies

🩷 How theta brain rhythms predict what you're going to do hundreds of milliseconds before you do it

🩷 The binding problem: why you feel like one unified self despite billions of neurons

🩷 Can you train your brain into deeper states of consciousness through biofeedback?

☕️ To support conversations like this, shout Paige a coffee:

https://buymeacoffee.com/paigeleacey

TIMESTAMPS:

0:00 — What Happens Under Anesthesia?

0:55 — How Anesthesiologists Define Unconsciousness

3:11 — How Anesthetics Block Memory Formation

5:08 — Acupuncture as an Alternative to Drugs

6:51 — Anesthetic Awareness: Awake But Paralyzed

11:23 — Can You Die From Pain Alone?

13:49 — Sleep vs. Anesthesia: The One Drug That Restores Sleep Naturally

18:13 — The Consciousness Spectrum: Coma to Psychedelic Expansion

20:19 — Do Plants Have Consciousness?

21:32 — Microtubules and the Penrose-Hameroff Theory

24:09 — What Are Microtubules and Why They Matter

29:41 — Is Consciousness Just Neuronal Activity?

30:17 — The Electromagnetic Field Theory of Consciousness

39:00 — The Binding Problem: Why You Feel Like One Self

47:57 — Headphones, EMF Fields, and Your Brain

50:01 — Creating Thought-Like Activity in Disembodied Tissue

54:32 — Biofeedback: Training Your Brain for Deeper Consciousness

57:12 — Closing Thoughts

📍 Watch more of Bruce's work — search "MacIver Anesthesia and Consciousness" on YouTube

🔗 Connect with Paige:

YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/@PaigeLeacey

Spotify: https://open.spotify.com/show/4sVFkvFcj3DW1wuVZuGd4U

Apple Podcasts: https://podcasts.apple.com/au/podcast/on-the-same-paige-with-paige-leacey/id1573526370

Newsletter: https://paigeleacey.substack.com

Instagram: @samepaige__

TikTok: @samepaige__

What happens when you're injected with DMT for 40 minutes straight... on four separate occasions?

Alexander Beiner was one of nine participants in the Imperial College of London's DMTx extended state trial — a protocol designed to push a human being to the peak of a psychedelic experience and hold them there. This is not a clinical breakdown. It's a first-person account of what happens at the edges of human experience, and what you bring back.

We explore:

🩷 What the DMTx protocol actually feels like — from waking consciousness to peak in under 3 seconds

🩷 Why "surrender" might be the wrong word — and what polyvagal theory, curiosity hacking, and cognitive flexibility teach us about navigating altered states instead

🩷 The nature of consciousness — panpsychism, Bernardo Kastrup, and why the DMT realm challenges materialist assumptions

🩷 Entities, fairy lore, and UFO abduction — are they the same phenomenon wearing different cultural masks?

🩷 How ideas actually emerge — the neuroscience of creativity and why good writing demands good research

🩷 AI, the legitimation crisis, and why the internet is running out of reality

To support conversations like this, shout Paige a coffee:

https://buymeacoffee.com/paigeleacey

🔗 Connect with Paige:

YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/@PaigeLeacey

Spotify: https://open.spotify.com/show/4sVFkvFcj3DW1wuVZuGd4U

Apple Podcasts: https://podcasts.apple.com/au/podcast/on-the-same-paige-with-paige-leacey/id1573526370

Newsletter: https://paigeleacey.substack.com

Instagram: @samepaige__

TikTok: @samepaige__

🔗 Connect with Alexander Beiner:

Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/alexander_beiner

Substack: https://beiner.substack.com/

YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/@StudioKainos

Website: https://www.studiokainos.com/

The version of you that created your problems can't come with you to solve them.

Chris Walker had a multi-million dollar business, a growing personal brand (hundreds of thousands of followers across platforms), and speaking gigs at Google — and he was an anxious wreck. He thought $10M would fix it. It didn't.

But he managed to transform his entire life and upgrade what he calls his "frequency" with one simple yet powerful practice.

In this conversation, Paige pushes back on Chris's claims with genuine skepticism: Is this just manifestation in different clothing? Can you actually reprogram beliefs you can't consciously access? And if everyone is capable of the transformation Chris describes, why do so few people achieve it?

TOPICS:

- Why earning more money doesn't reduce anxiety (and what actually does)

- The 90-day journaling system that rewired Chris's neural pathways

- Emotional sovereignty — eliminating cognitively-driven negative emotions

- How nervous system capacity expansion leads to clairvoyant visions

- Why handwriting outperforms typing for neuroplasticity

- The "beauty contract" — how inherited definitions of attractiveness drive suffering

- Identity-based subconscious programs and why busy founders can't slow down

- Chris's vision of the synthetic vs organic human split

- What Chris changed his mind about after 10 years of this work

TIMESTAMPS:

0:00 — Chris's origin story: anxiety, $3M revenue, and the journaling that changed everything

4:50 — Paige's skepticism: "This feels too good to be true"

5:37 — The fitness analogy: training neural pathways like training your body

7:36 — Is this just manifestation in different clothing?

13:07 — Why busy founders can't slow down: identity and the productivity contract

19:00 — It's not technology's fault — it's your relationship to it

20:42 — The Freudian challenge: how do you reprogram what you can't access?

24:07 — Why handwriting activates neuroplasticity (the neuroscience)

26:00 — The compounding effect: 4 structural brain changes per year

28:40 — The beauty contract: redefining attractiveness on your own terms

32:14 — How the pivot was received: "Chris, you sound crazy"

35:00 — Clairvoyance explained: nervous system capacity and the prefrontal cortex

39:58 — Chris's visions: the synthetic vs organic human split

46:13 — What Chris changed his mind about: "I was told what to believe"

🔗 Chris Walker:

Podcast: We Are Encoded (Apple, Spotify)

LinkedIn: Chris Walker

Encoded AI: encoded.ai

📌To support conversations like this, buy Paige a coffee:

https://buymeacoffee.com/paigeleacey

🔗 Connect with Paige:

YouTube: / @paigeleacey

Spotify: https://open.spotify.com/show/4sVFkvF...

Apple Podcasts: https://podcasts.apple.com/au/podcast...

Newsletter: https://paigeleacey.substack.com

Instagram: @samepaige__

TikTok: @samepaige__

Everyone in the personal development world is chasing more self-awareness. But what if you've already got it — and that's not actually the problem?

Paige makes the case that your body is running a 24/7 awareness system you never had to build. The hard part isn't becoming more aware. The hard part is being honest about what you already know you feel.

In this episode: the gap between sensing something and saying it out loud, why "I don't know" is the most underrated tool in psychology, and why slowing down isn't a mindset shift — it's an act of rebellion.

TIMESTAMPS:

0:00 — The self-awareness trap: why "knowing more" doesn't fix it

1:41 — Your system is already doing the work

2:51 — The real problem: honesty, not awareness

4:47 — When you know exactly what's wrong but can't say it

6:01 — The Gap Theory: the space between stimulus and response

7:26 — Why slowing down is an act of rebellion in 2026

9:07 — The language of body sensations (and when it doesn't help)

9:48 — "I don't know" — the most underrated tool in all of psychology

11:30 — What you actually need instead of more self-awareness

🔗 Connect with Paige:

YouTube:⁠https://www.youtube.com/@PaigeLeacey⁠

Spotify:⁠https://open.spotify.com/show/4sVFkvFcj3DW1wuVZuGd4U⁠

Apple Podcasts:⁠https://podcasts.apple.com/au/podcast/on-the-same-paige-with-paige-leacey/id1573526370⁠

Newsletter:⁠https://paigeleacey.substack.com⁠

Instagram: @samepaige__

TikTok: @deepbeauty__