Where does consciousness come from? Can information be received through visions? And is it possible that ancient plants unlock biological knowledge we haven’t even begun to fully understand?
 In this episode of Your Brain Explained, Dr. Dave Rabin MD, PhD is joined by Pulitzer Prize-nominated author Jamie Wheal (Stealing Fire & Recapture the Rapture) as guest interviewer for a special conversation with anthropologist and author Jeremy Narby (The Cosmic Serpent) to explore one of the most provocative frontiers of neuroscience and consciousness research. Together, they delve into Jeremy’s early fieldwork with Indigenous peoples of the Amazon, whose shamanic traditions claim to receive verifiable botanical knowledge directly from experiences with the sacred jungle plants—including ayahuasca.
What begins as an exploration of cultural perspectives on plant medicine soon evolves into a larger conversation about the mysterious role of DNA in consciousness, the science of epigenetics, and the limitations of materialist thinking in modern neuroscience. Could DNA act as a receiver for information in altered states? How do we distinguish between personal projection and true insight? And what does it mean to “know thyself” in the age of brain scans and psychedelic therapy?
This is a monumental episode, and one of my favorites of all time, for seekers, skeptics, and scientists alike—an invitation to sit with the unknown, rethink what we believe about consciousness, and explore how visionary states might help us heal trauma across generations.—

Explore more from this episode:
📘 The Cosmic Serpent by Jeremy Narby
📘 Recapture the Rapture by Jamie Wheal

🌐 www.drdave.io
📸 Instagram: @drdavidrabin
🐦 Twitter: @DrDavidRabin
Outro music from Notanairplane: https://on.soundcloud.com/qf1bwHUi3A9l86BHpi

Artificial Intelligence or AI, as it’s so commonly known, feels like a tool of the future. As it stands today, models like ChatGPT, DeepSeek, Gemini, and hundreds of others are quickly becoming widely used tools for writing, researching, painting, and music creation, all at the push of a button. But now, every industry is asking what else can be done with AI. Should we make better deep fakes? Could AI products improve our physical and mental health, and even enhance our human potential? Most importantly, with constant news of AI products fabricating people and conversations, how do we know that what is being served up to us is real and true?

In this conversation, Dr. Dave Rabin brings you an unusual conversation with one of the world’s leading AI experts, Dr. Ken Ford PhD, founder & CEO Emeritus of the Florida Institute for Human and Machine Cognition (IHMC). Dr. Ford explains what AI really is, how it differs from human intelligence, why AI products might be lying to us more than we think, and how it’s already being used to solve some of humanity’s biggest problems and enhance our understanding of the mind. You won’t want to miss this opportunity to hear the voice of a great mind who rarely appears in interviews.

Most of us think of trauma and what happens in the brain and body as a life sentence. Once you’ve been “traumatized” or you’ve been told you have PTSD, that's it, and you'll deal with it for the rest of your life. But the latest neuroscience and mental health research is giving us a very different lens through which we can see quite a bit of hope. In conversations with Dr. Gabor Maté MD , a leading trauma physician, and Dr. Rachel Yehuda PhD, a leading researcher on the science of trauma — we learn what trauma truly is, what it does to our bodies and minds, and how to heal from it.

Could a cure be on the way for mental illness? In today’s episode we’re talking with two leading minds in the psychedelic therapy space, Dr. Rick Doblin PhD and Dr. Ben Sessa MD, working on MDMA-assisted therapy, the most promising breakthrough treatment on the horizon for Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder (PSTD). We kick off today’s show with a special introduction from Rachel Nuwer, the award-winning freelance science journalist who regularly contributes to National Geographic, Scientific American, and who has been tracking the progress of the MDMA research trials closely in the New York Times. You’ll learn what MDMA-assisted therapy is, how it works, who it’s good for, and what the new research is saying about its potential to jump-start self-healing.