The Human Experience Podcast

Tucker Max is the co-founder and CEO of Book In A Box, a company that turns book writing and publishing into a service. Tucker has written three #1 New York Times Best Sellers, which have sold over 3 million copies worldwide. He is credited with being the originator of the literary genre, “fratire,” and is only the third writer (after Malcolm Gladwell and Michael Lewis) to ever have three books on the New York Times Nonfiction Best Seller List at one time. He co-wrote and produced the movie based on his life/book, also titled “I Hope They Serve Beer In Hell.” He was nominated to the Time Magazine 100 Most Influential List in 2009. He received his BA from the University of Chicago in 1998, and his JD from Duke Law School in 2001. He currently lives in Austin, Texas, with his wife Veronica and son Bishop.

ELIZABETH LESSER is a bestselling author and the co-founder of Omega Institute, the renowned conference and retreat center located in Rhinebeck, New York. Elizabeth’s first book, The Seeker’s Guide, chronicles her years at Omega and distils lessons learned into a potent guide for growth and healing. Her New York Times bestselling book, Broken Open: How Difficult Times Can Help Us Grow (Random House), has sold more than 300,000 copies and has been translated into 20 languages. Her latest book, Marrow: A Love Story (Harper Collins/September 2016), is a memoir about Elizabeth and her younger sister, Maggie, and the process they went through when Elizabeth was the donor for Maggie’s bone marrow transplant.

Oliver Burkeman is an award-winning feature writer for The Guardian and the author of The Antidote: Happiness for People Who Can’t Stand Positive Thinking, published by Faber & Faber in 2012. He has interviewed a wide range of high-profile figures, including Bill Clinton, Al Gore, Jimmy Carter, David Cameron, Dolly Parton, 50 Cent, and Larry David. Oliver has spoken extensively – on themes such as the problems with overfocusing on goals, the upsides of uncertainty in business, finding time for creative work, and ancient Stoicism as a philosophy for modern life – at events including: the 99U Conference at Lincoln Center in New York; the Edinburgh International Book Festival; the World Knowledge Forum in Seoul, South Korea; the creativity conference Adobe MAX in Los Angeles; and The Guardian ’s Masterclass series and at the School Of Life in London. His radio appearances have included NPR’s All Things Considered, BBC Radio 4’s Today program, and WNYC’s The Leonard Lopate Show, and he is working on two BBC radio programs on psychology to be broadcast in 2016.

Michael Marshall Smith is a writer that writes in various formats: novels, for screen and short stories. His first published story was The Man Who Drew Cats, and this won the British Fantasy Award in 1991 for “Best Short Story”. His first novel, Only Forward, followed in 1991 and won the August Derleth Award for best novel in 1995 and the Philip K. Dick Award in 2000. He has also been nominated for the World Fantasy Award in 95, 96 and 97. His stories have appeared in many anthologies and magazines, including volumes of Dark Voices and Dark Terrors. Other notable novels/stories are The Straw Men novels (The Straw Men, The Lonely Dead and Blood of Angels).

Peter Sage is a world class thinker, international serial entrepreneur, as well as author, speaker and philosopher. He defied all contemporary ideas when he self-published his first book, Supreme Physique, at the age of 18. He has written other books since then, including 5 Keys To Master Your Life which became an Amazon best seller in Japan in its first week, and How to Master Your Life: The Four Keys to Excellence. Over the course of 25 years, Peter has personally started over twenty companies in a wide range of fields. Not all have been successful, but some have gone on to become global successes. Peter is a titan in the industry of self-help and entrepneurship and this is a phenomenal wide-ranging conversation that you will absolutely love.

Robert Waggoner, Author, speaker and Lucid Dreamer, is past President of the International Association for the Study of Dreams (IASD). For the past ten years, he has been the co-editor of the online magazine, The Lucid Dreaming Experience, the only ongoing publication devoted specifically to lucid dreaming. A lucid dreamer since 1975, he has logged more than 1,000 lucid dreams. Robert frequently speaks on lucid dreaming at national and international dream conferences, workshops and college classrooms, like Sonoma State University, Iowa State University, University of Washington, University of Michigan-Ann Arbor and Evergreen State College. Robert has been interviewed by CNN, CBS News and ABC News (KABC - Los Angeles) about the practice of lucid dreaming. His comments have appeared in media as diverse as DETAILS ,The Huffington Post, Pittsburgh Post Gazette, Popular Science and Brides magazine. During 2009-2010, he had a regular Iowa Public Radio show,discussing dreams and lucid dreams, and spoke with Utne Reader in 2015. In this conversation we discuss in-depth the state of lucid dreaming and all of it's variations. This is a massively informative episode.

Moran Cerf Ph.D. is a professor of neuroscience and business at the Kellogg School of Management and the neuroscience program at Northwestern university. He studies patients undergoing brain surgery to examine behavior, emotion, decision making and dreams. This is done by directly recording the activity of individual nerve cells using electrodes implanted in the patient's brain for clinical purposes. Dr. Cerf holds a Ph.D in neuroscience from Caltech, as well as an MA in Philosophy and a B.Sc in Physics from Tel-Aviv University. Cerf holds multiple patents and his works have been published in wide-circulation academic journals such asNature, as well as popular science journals such as Scientific American Mind, Wired, New Scientist and more. Additionally, his work has been portrayed in numerous media and cultural outlets such as CNN, BBC, Bloomberg, NPR, Time, MSNBC, and dozens of others. He has been featured in venues such as the Venice Art Biennial and China's Art, Science and Technology association, and has contributed to magazines such as Forbes, The Atlantic, Inc., and many others. This is a mind-blowing conversation on neuroscience.

Jonah Berger M.D. is a marketing professor at the Wharton School at the University of Pennsylvania and author of the recent New York Times and Wall Street Journal bestsellerContagious: Why Things Catch On. Dr. Berger has spent over 15 years studying how social influence works and how it drives products and ideas to catch on. He’s published dozens of articles in top-tier academic journals, consulted for a variety of Fortune 500 companies, and popular outlets like the New York Times andHarvard Business Review often cover his work. What makes you choose the choices you think you're choosing? What is the determining factor in your decision making? These are just a couple of the questions we answer in this fascinating episode.

ERICSSON, K. ANDERS Ph.D. M.D. , is Conradi Eminent Scholar and Professor of Psychology at Florida State University. In 1976 he received his Ph. D. in Psychology from University of Stockholm, Sweden, followed by post-doctoral fellowship at Carnegie-Mellon University. In 1980 he moved to University of Colorado at Boulder, where he remained until 1992 with the exception of a two-year leave during 1987-89 at the Max-Planck Institute for Human Development and Education in Berlin. His dissertation examined how verbal reports on cognitive processes provided insight into the structure of problem solving on the 8-puzzle. In this episode we demystify expertise, we explore what makes people "great" at what they do. You'll love this one.

RICK STRASSMAN M.D. holds degrees from Stanford University and Albert Einstein College of Medicine of Yeshiva University. He took his internship and general psychiatry residency at the University of California, Davis, Medical Center in Sacramento and he spent ten years as a tenured professor at the University of Mexico he performed the first new human studies with psychedelic drugs in the US in over 20 years. His research involved the powerful naturally-occurring compound, DMT – N,N-dimethyltryptamine. This Led to this substance through his earlier study of the pineal gland as a potential biological locus for spiritual experiences, he administered several hundred doses of DMT to approximately 60 volunteers between 1990 and 1995. He wrote about this research in the popular book, DMT: The Spirit Molecule, which has sold over 100,000 copies, has been translated into 12 languages, and is now available as an audio-book. It also inspired an independent documentary by the same name, picked up by Warner Bros distributing in Fall, 2011. With three distinguished collaborators, he co-authored Inner Paths to Outer Space, which looks more carefully at the common "other worlds" experience that volunteers frequently reported during his research. In this episode we spoke to Dr. Strassman in detail about his work on the ever mysterious molecule, DMT and it's role in human consciousness and evolution.