Rick Alexander was a Special Operations combat medic until a single psychedelic experience shattered his worldview and sent him back to school to study psychedelic spiritual care. He and Dr. Mike dig into neuroplasticity windows, why "good trip/bad trip" is the wrong question, and what may really be happening in DMT space.
Rick Alexander is a depth-psychological counselor, psychedelic practitioner, and interfaith spiritual care provider currently completing his Ph.D. in Mythology/Depth Psychology and a former Naval Special Operations combat medic.
Rick was a Special Operations combat medic until a single psychedelic experience shattered his worldview and sent him back to school to study psychedelic spiritual care. He and Dr. Mike dig into neuroplasticity windows, why “good trip/bad trip” is the wrong question, and what may really be happening in DMT space.
Expect to learn how a rough teenage salvia trip and a later psilocybin experience redirected Rick's entire career, what life is really like as a Special Operations Combat Medic supporting SEALs and Green Berets, why military training narrows emotional range and makes civilian re-entry so hard, how integration (not the trip itself) determines whether a psychedelic experience heals or destabilizes you, what the "third wave" of psychedelic science gets right that the DSM's "hallucinogen" label gets wrong, whether neuroplastic windows could help athletes learn skills faster, and what a brutal 5-MeO-DMT experience taught Rick about his own running form and breathing.
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Episode Timestamps:
[00:00:00] Dr. Mike T Nelson: Hello, sir
[00:00:13] Rick Alexander: Hey
[00:00:15] Dr. Mike T Nelson: How's it going?
[00:00:19] Rick Alexander: Can't hear you
[00:00:20] Dr. Mike T Nelson: Oh, okay. Uh, let's see. I'm just turning my phone off here. Let's see if it's on my end here.
[00:00:31] Rick Alexander: I think it's mine Can you hear me?
[00:00:35] Dr. Mike T Nelson: Uh, I can hear you.
[00:00:37] Rick Alexander: You can?
[00:00:38] Dr. Mike T Nelson: I can hear you
[00:00:44] Rick Alexander: Okay. So all that had to happen was my these plugged in. Turns out.
[00:00:52] Dr. Mike T Nelson: Turns out, yeah, you know, it's, it's a simple, simple thing.
[00:00:57] Rick Alexander: Yeah. S-
[00:00:58] Dr. Mike T Nelson: I'm just closing down a couple windows here, so gotta love the hotel Wi-Fi, but it should be okay. Ba, ba, boo, doo, doo, doo All right. Let's make, exit out of one more program here.
[00:01:22] Dr. Mike T Nelson: And okay, that looks good. Yeah, that should be fine. Cool. How are you doing?
[00:01:29] Rick Alexander: I'm doing pretty well. How are you today?
[00:01:31] Dr. Mike T Nelson: Uh, not too bad. I'm in Ohio here doing a podcast with, uh, Dave Tate on Table Talk tomorrow, so I'm pretty excited about that.
[00:01:41] Rick Alexander: Oh, nice. Yeah.
[00:01:42] Dr. Mike T Nelson: Yeah.
[00:01:43] Rick Alexander: Cool.
[00:01:44] Dr. Mike T Nelson: Yeah. Did you get more ink on your left forearm there?
[00:01:47] Dr. Mike T Nelson: I
[00:01:48] Rick Alexander: did.
[00:01:48] Dr. Mike T Nelson: What did you have? Let's see.
[00:01:50] Rick Alexander: Um, it's just a... It's a, it's actually a name for God. Um-
[00:01:54] Dr. Mike T Nelson: Oh, okay ...
[00:01:55] Rick Alexander: yeah. It means, um, something like, "She is the refuge of everything." Um- Okay ... and then it also has a connotation of the, kind of like, the life force and dynamism and power that brings form into being and takes it out of being.
[00:02:11] Dr. Mike T Nelson: Oh, very interesting.
[00:02:13] Rick Alexander: Yeah.
[00:02:14] Dr. Mike T Nelson: It looks pretty, like, brand new. Like a couple weeks or months or?
[00:02:17] Rick Alexander: Days. Like four days.
[00:02:18] Dr. Mike T Nelson: I was gonna say, yeah, it looks super black.
[00:02:20] Rick Alexander: Uh-huh. Yeah. Yeah, I need it to fade a little so it'll match everything else I got going on.
[00:02:25] Dr. Mike T Nelson: Yeah, yeah. Uh, awesome. You guys are doing well in Colorado?
[00:02:31] Rick Alexander: Yeah, things are good. Danielle is, like, f- done with her dissertation. Um-
[00:02:35] Dr. Mike T Nelson: Oh, she is? I was gonna ask how she's doing, 'cause I know she's gotta be close.
[00:02:39] Rick Alexander: Yeah. She's, um, her, her external reader has it, so when he, she gets it back from him she'll send it to editing, and then, um, she's done. Yeah. And I'm, I'm hoping to finish by end of September.
[00:02:52] Dr. Mike T Nelson: Oh, that's getting close.
[00:02:55] Rick Alexander: We'll see.
[00:02:56] Dr. Mike T Nelson: That's awesome. Is that your... Do you do, like, a formal dissertation, or is it more like a paper that you have to get feedback on then, or how does that work?
[00:03:02] Rick Alexander: A formal dissertation. Okay. So I... Yeah. So once my chair approves it, then I'll send it to my internal-external readers, and then I'll, then I'll, uh, defend.
[00:03:13] Dr. Mike T Nelson: Wow. That's exciting. That's awesome. Yeah. Very cool.
[00:03:16] Rick Alexander: I, I almost sent you the first, like, 20 pages just to get an idea, but I didn't, I didn't wanna send you my shit to read, so like...
[00:03:21] Dr. Mike T Nelson: Oh, yeah, no, that's all good. Send me over anything. I, I was actually an external committee member for a friend who was doing her PhD in, uh, of all things, tantric sex and psychology stuff.
[00:03:36] Dr. Mike T Nelson: Oh. And I'm like, "I am definitely not a subject matter expert in anything you are talking about. But if you want someone to, you know, read it for scientific rigor and how you set up your experiment and your pilot study and all that stuff, like, I'm more than happy to do it, but that's the extent of what I'm gonna be able to do in your area."
[00:03:55] Rick Alexander: Yeah,
[00:03:55] Dr. Mike T Nelson: yeah. She's like, "No, no."
[00:03:56] Rick Alexander: She's doing, she's doing a study.
[00:03:58] Dr. Mike T Nelson: Yeah, she did a pilot study, and I felt kind of bad for her because the university just kind of, in my opinion, just left her out to dry. And, and she did talk to me beforehand and said, "Okay, if I'm gonna do this, like, please talk to me before you do your study, 'cause I don't wanna be the dickhead-
[00:04:14] Rick Alexander: Yeah
[00:04:14] Dr. Mike T Nelson: that comes in at the end that says, 'You fucked up,' because nobody told you what to do correctly, no fault of your own type thing."
[00:04:21] Rick Alexander: Yeah.
[00:04:22] Dr. Mike T Nelson: Yeah. So she did, and, you know, at the end I, you know, I said, "Everything's fine, but you definitely need to rewrite a lot of this and, you know, here's what you would change, here's what you would do."
[00:04:31] Dr. Mike T Nelson: And she's like, "My other two committee members said it w- it was probably just fine." I'm thinking, "Who the hell is on your committee?" You know? Mm-hmm. And, and to her credit, like, she did, you know, take six weeks and fixed it, and everything was good. And so I'm like, "Okay, yeah, that's cool. Like, you're, you know, you're definitely good."
[00:04:47] Dr. Mike T Nelson: But she's like, "But I feel like nobody gives me any feedback. Everyone else just told me this was great the whole time." And I'm like, "Oh, you poor person," you know?
[00:04:55] Rick Alexander: Yeah. Man, that's tough. I mean, yeah. That, that's the thing about picking an external reader, right? Is, um, it like, like, it can strengthen your dis- That's what I did.
[00:05:07] Rick Alexander: I tried to find an external reader that's like, "Okay, what, what are my... What's my college gonna miss?" You know?
[00:05:12] Dr. Mike T Nelson: Mm-hmm. Yeah, yeah.
[00:05:14] Rick Alexander: Um, so yeah. Huh.
[00:05:17] Dr. Mike T Nelson: Yeah. Exciting. That's
[00:05:18] Rick Alexander: cool, though. That's like, I, I, I'd be interested in that, to read that.
[00:05:21] Dr. Mike T Nelson: Yeah, yeah. Uh, and you're good with the topics? You're good for... Do you have about an hour?
[00:05:26] Dr. Mike T Nelson: I got till, let's see, 11:30 my time here, so if that's all right.
[00:05:29] Rick Alexander: Yeah, perfect.
[00:05:30] Dr. Mike T Nelson: Perfect. Um, do the two kind of blend into the two topics kind of make sense? Or what are your kind of thoughts on that?
[00:05:39] Rick Alexander: Yeah, I'm, I'm, like, happy to go. I, I guess the only question I would have is, like, one, maybe how would you describe your audience?
[00:05:46] Rick Alexander: And then two, is there anything specifically, like, you wanna get out of this?
[00:05:52] Dr. Mike T Nelson: I'd, I've realized, like, most of the, that you've probably realized 90% of my podcasts is I just wanna have, like, fun discussions with people I, I like. Mm. And so most of it's just for my own entertainment any- anyway. Uh-huh. Cool. Um, but I think for most of the readers, just, if nothing else, like, getting them to think in different ways that are possible.
[00:06:14] Dr. Mike T Nelson: And so one of my other pet theories we might be able to weave this into is that if psychedelics are expanding neuroplasticity- Hmm ... and neuroplasticity can be a double-edged sword, in theory, you sh- if strength is a skill and what we teach people is a skill, shouldn't they be able to get better at it faster?
[00:06:36] Dr. Mike T Nelson: And then that, I think, leads down the rabbit hole of, okay, so what... You know, you have got imagery and you've got thinking about things, which leads you into, well, what is kinda your identity? And what is your identity? Is that based on the world view? Yeah. Like, how do you view consciousness, then? How do you think about how you relate to everybody else in not only your area, your world, but the community or the world, I guess.
[00:07:02] Dr. Mike T Nelson: I don't know. That's, like, sort of the little bit of the trajectory I had kind of sort of planned out in my mind, so it doesn't start so obtuse and abstract for people, like, "Um, I'm out."
[00:07:15] Rick Alexander: Right. Um, I like that. I mean, I- I'm exploring- I
[00:07:19] Dr. Mike T Nelson: know it's a little bit different than what we had planned, but-
[00:07:21] Rick Alexander: No, that's perfect, though.
[00:07:22] Rick Alexander: I, I was just editing a chapter this morning where I'm, like, wrestling with the, uh, the concept of a psychoplastogen or a neuroplastogen, so we can... I'm down to talk all about it.
[00:07:32] Dr. Mike T Nelson: Perfect. Yeah, yeah, 'cause I think I've even talked to you about this idea. Like, I've had this idea for years that, you know, even high-dose, like psilocybin, may even open up critical windows again in people.
[00:07:43] Dr. Mike T Nelson: And so if we've- Mm ... missed those, some of those critical windows in development for whatever reason, can we have this hyper period of neuroplasticity to do intensive training in that area as an adult or someone who's older, and would that be an advantage? So to my, you know, functional neural guy years ago before I did the one week long thing, God, it was probably five years ago, I was like- Could I just do like a bunch of psilocybin like a week before I do this, and would that really be better?
[00:08:14] Dr. Mike T Nelson: He's like, "Uh, we don't really know yet." Hmm. Um, and then because of... We didn't go back to Costa Rica for the third time, but what I actually had... Or no, wait. Did we do it? No, the, the... We're gonna go back again. I was gonna try to get a, um, a baseline reading and then see if I could get myself to see in 3D better.
[00:08:38] Dr. Mike T Nelson: So I was gonna have him do all the baseline measurements before, do like the DMT, ayahuasca, whatever, and then like a couple weeks later come back and redo the measurements and see if there's any change. So-
[00:08:49] Rick Alexander: Huh ...
[00:08:49] Dr. Mike T Nelson: didn't work out yet, but that's still something I would like to try just to see. 'Cause it's been s- semi-stable for, you know, 50-plus years of my life, you know?
[00:09:00] Dr. Mike T Nelson: So it's something that even though it's an N of one before and after, you're doing something that hasn't really moved a ton. It's moved and gotten better, but better over doing therapy on it for like 10 years, right?
[00:09:14] Rick Alexander: And you're talking about visual, visual acuity?
[00:09:18] Dr. Mike T Nelson: Just visual, um, so seeing in binocular.
[00:09:21] Dr. Mike T Nelson: Okay. So I don't see in binocular, I see in monocular- Mm-hmm ... 'cause my right eye sits up and out a little bit too far. So the images go to the back of the brain, and I would see in double vision, so I can't fuse them quite well together. And he's got like VNG and all these fancy like, you know, several hundred thousand dollar equipment that can measure micro movements in your eye and how they track, and visual acuity, and stability, and saccades, and all this kind of stuff.
[00:09:48] Dr. Mike T Nelson: So I thought with, you know, pretty precise instruments it would be interesting to see if any of those things actually move over time in a, a better direction.
[00:09:58] Rick Alexander: Hmm.
[00:09:59] Dr. Mike T Nelson: So might do that at some point again, but yeah.
[00:10:01] Rick Alexander: Okay.
[00:10:02] Dr. Mike T Nelson: Yeah.
[00:10:03] Rick Alexander: I'm down to go into all that, yeah. Whatever-
[00:10:05] Dr. Mike T Nelson: All right ...
[00:10:05] Rick Alexander: wherever it goes.
[00:10:06] Dr. Mike T Nelson: Cool. All right.
[00:10:06] Dr. Mike T Nelson: So we'll just do a pause. I'll do a little intro, outro after this, and, uh, yeah. Okay. Away we go Awesome. Welcome to the podcast, Rick. How are you today?
[00:10:15] Rick Alexander: I'm doing well. Thanks so much for having me, Mike. It's great to be back.
[00:10:19] Dr. Mike T Nelson: Yeah. It's been a while. Thank you so much for, for doing this. I know it's been a while since we chatted, and I know you're getting close to finishing your PhD, hopefully this coming September, correct?
[00:10:29] Rick Alexander: Yeah, that is the hope. End of September at least, at least rough draft before editing, yeah.
[00:10:34] Dr. Mike T Nelson: Yeah. And that was a big change from what you have done in the past, especially considering your military experience, all to now what you're doing your PhD on.
[00:10:44] Rick Alexander: Yeah, for sure. And, you know, m- I think this is probably what we'll get into, but that change, in fact, was catalyzed by a psychedelic experience, um-
[00:10:52] Dr. Mike T Nelson: Ah.
[00:10:53] Dr. Mike T Nelson: Do you wanna talk about that? I think I know which one you're mentioning, 'cause we've talked about it before, but I didn't know if you're open to sharing that.
[00:10:59] Rick Alexander: Yeah, sure. Well, I could maybe share some details that are somewhat relevant. So really had, I had one experience with, um, salvia as a, as a 19-year-old- Oof
[00:11:10] Rick Alexander: or 18-year-old, um, and did it in a way- Those
[00:11:12] Dr. Mike T Nelson: have all sounded horrible to me ...
[00:11:14] Rick Alexander: I mean, just the way in which we, the whole, our ritual around it, you know? Like, making it, you know, super concentrated and buying it from a, a gas station, and I smoked it out of a gravity bong, and it was an- ... it was a horrible experience, you know?
[00:11:30] Rick Alexander: And but there was something good in it in that it kept me away from any kind of psychoactive, for the most part- Mm ... thing, um, for a, for a, a pretty critical period in life. Um, and so I had joined the military, uh, around 19. This was 18, right after high school. I joined the military, and then, you know, for 12 years I had a particular worldview, um, and but it, it felt as if it were closing in on me.
[00:11:56] Rick Alexander: I think sometimes this happens, like John Vervaeke talks about this idea that we have a particular relationship with the world, and it either creates reciprocal opening or reciprocal narrowing in the sense that- Mm-hmm ... as we open, the world reveals more of itself to us, and then that causes us to open, which then causes the world to reveal more of itself.
[00:12:16] Rick Alexander: Um, and I, I had what I would describe as a reciprocal narrowing. I became more closed off, um, throughout my life, and particularly in my military career. Um, and then when I had, um, a psilocybin experience, you know, what I experienced was, I o- often describe it as if, you know, you've, you have an idea of what you think the world was, and it was like somebody just cut, um- Your entire worldview and half peeled it back.
[00:12:47] Rick Alexander: The whole thing opened up, and then they were like, "Ah, it's more like this." And I was like, "Oh, okay."
[00:12:52] Dr. Mike T Nelson: Oh.
[00:12:53] Rick Alexander: And so what that did was open up, um, a genuine curiosity in me, um, for all kinds of things. You know, at the time I, I considered myself essentially atheist/agnostic. You know, it opened up like what this idea about what else could be out there.
[00:13:09] Rick Alexander: I got really interested in philosophy and psychology and spirituality. Um, and I just started going down that road, and I think that road is how I... I mean, in a lot of ways I, you know, I'm doing my dissertation on, um, psychedelic chaplaincy, which is like psychedelic spiritual care and sort of caring for the existential dimension of what opens up for people in psychedelic experiences.
[00:13:33] Rick Alexander: Um, but in a way I really see that as a kind of fidelity to that first experience. You know, I'm really trying to wrestle with this massive gap that opened up for me between, you know, the worldview I brought into the experience and the, you know, shattered um, worldview that I took away from that experience.
[00:13:54] Rick Alexander: Um, so, so yeah, it was a really, it was, it happened that I had that experience right at the end of my military career, so it was like a, a really big transition in life, which I think is a really auspicious time to have a big experience- Mm-hmm ... like that. You know, it can also be incredibly destabilizing. Um, for me it wasn't.
[00:14:12] Rick Alexander: For me it was, it, it opened up things in myself that I, um, really wanted to know about, curiosities that I had that I felt like now all of a sudden I had permission to pursue for some reason.
[00:14:26] Dr. Mike T Nelson: And in the military, you were a medic for the SEAL teams, correct?
[00:14:30] Rick Alexander: I was a special operations combat medic. Um-
[00:14:32] Dr. Mike T Nelson: Okay
[00:14:32] Rick Alexander: so I was SWCC, which is, um, we go through, uh, a selection phase, and then, um, I did a deployment, I came back. Um, I won't go deep into that story, but I, I felt- Yeah ... pretty lost. I was kind of, like, trying to find a direction. Had always wanted to be a medic, and so went through, became a special operations combat medic, which is, like, trained by, um, the Army.
[00:14:55] Rick Alexander: Um, all, all, uh... Not all, but many special forces, you know, Army, Navy, uh, Marines, go through that program. So the cool thing about it- Hmm ... is once you get out, uh, you can kind of be farmed out. Like, once people know what your- Oh, interesting ... training is, like on deployment I would work with, uh, Green Berets and SEALs and, and just kind of, like, whoever needed a medic.
[00:15:15] Rick Alexander: Um, so yeah, that's, that's what I did when I was in.
[00:15:18] Dr. Mike T Nelson: And do you feel like your worldview at that point became more closed because that's almost sort of how you had to operate? Because your world was kind of closed because you're doing something that's a, in a way, a smaller worldview, but also very high-risk environments at the same time, that you kind of had to operate with this more so, "I just need to be hyper-focused and more closed on 100% of what I'm doing now because of the situation"?
[00:15:49] Rick Alexander: Yeah, it's interesting to wonder why. Um,
[00:15:51] Dr. Mike T Nelson: I think- Yeah, and I don't know. I'm just guessing.
[00:15:53] Rick Alexander: Yeah, I think part of it was that, um, the job that I did didn't allow me to express a lot of the values that I, that I actually just sort of generally hold in my life- Sure ... in my soul, you know? And, um, and so that created a bit of a, a dichotomy within me, a split within me.
[00:16:11] Rick Alexander: But also when you get a split like that in the psyche, then every time you get around it, you kind of want to push it away. Um- Mm ... because if you go into it, it might, it might be like pulling a string on your worldview, you know? And so, um, even though I had a deep sort of desire to go into places like that, I, I found myself avoiding them.
[00:16:31] Rick Alexander: So I think that created a bit of a closing off. Um, I felt like the sort of map I was given, I grew up in, like, a, a very conservative Christian household, so that was the map I was given, and that didn't work for me. Um, so there was that, there was that difficulty going on. And then there's also the fact that when you're in the military, you know, there are only particular...
[00:16:55] Rick Alexander: I think about it like there are only certain emotions that are acceptable. Um, like fear is not really too acceptable in the military, but anger is. And so we often- Mm ... reach for what's the most acceptable based on our circumstance, and so... But then I think what happens is you start reaching for the same things over time.
[00:17:12] Rick Alexander: You start patterning that as a response to life, and next thing I know, I'm actually, um, quite angry. Um, no- not-- I didn't understand why at the time, but I, I would kind of work it out as something like that now. Yeah.
[00:17:27] Dr. Mike T Nelson: Do you feel that the big psychedelic experience once you were done was kind of good timing?
[00:17:32] Dr. Mike T Nelson: 'Cause I know a lot of people who have gone through very specialized training in the military, and you-- they've explained to me You come out and you're now operating in a completely different world that they feel like they were not prepared for because they had spent, in some cases, five, 10, 15-plus years operating in this world kind of with its own rule set, doing a very hyper-specialized skill set that isn't really valued in the real world.
[00:18:03] Dr. Mike T Nelson: One guy described it as, he's like, "I had more stress going to the goddamn grocery store than I did doing some stuff on deployment," just because he was so far removed from being around other people in that environment, and he felt completely lost as to what to do with it. 'Cause on one hand he knew it made no sense whatsoever, but yet he's like, "I still felt extremely uncomfortable."
[00:18:29] Rick Alexander: Yeah. Yeah, that... It's interesting because what he said is, like, so logically I know the grocery store- Right. Yeah ... isn't really a risk. My nervous system is doing something completely different.
[00:18:39] Dr. Mike T Nelson: Right. His body's, like, says otherwise.
[00:18:40] Rick Alexander: Yes. Yes. Um, what was the original question about that?
[00:18:44] Dr. Mike T Nelson: Oh, if the timing sets you up to actually go through a transition to kind of help you from sort of one...
[00:18:51] Dr. Mike T Nelson: I view it as, like, leaving one world, entering another world. And a lot of times I think- People are just not prepared for that, and they... It's a lot better from what I've heard from people now than even 10 years ago. But the assumption used to be, "Well, you were so well-trained in this one area that you just go back to normal life.
[00:19:10] Dr. Mike T Nelson: Everything is good." But it, it's, it's not that simple of a transition.
[00:19:15] Rick Alexander: No, certainly not. Um, it, it's interesting because I think what it did is having it at that time in my life, what I was aware of after that experience was that I knew nothing. Mm. Um, I knew nothing about the world. I knew nothing about myself even.
[00:19:32] Rick Alexander: Like, there were dimensions of myself that I experienced that I didn't know somebody could experience. Um, there were depths of emotion, love, even fear. Like, I kinda had a full experience, um, that I also didn't know I could experience. So, so it, it really opened me. And I think, you know, it's interesting 'cause if you look, I, I think there's some decent evidence that show psychedelics do, um, move us almost, like, one standard deviation of a trait toward openness, um- Mm-hmm
[00:20:02] Rick Alexander: over time, you know? And so, uh, I think that's what it did for me. I think it opened me to the fact that I knew very little. But that was a really good place to go through a transition. Um, it's a good attitude to have, I think, in a transition because, you know, it's like the... as you go through change, right, all of the old is falling away.
[00:20:24] Rick Alexander: The new hasn't presented itself. Um, there's a mythic idea that in that kind of a period, um, truth is the most readily available if you can look for it. Um, so I think looking for my own truth about myself, what, what I was called to do or how I was called to show up in this life, um, it was a really... it's a really good time to do that.
[00:20:44] Rick Alexander: A lot of people get, I think, so hemmed in by the instability of it that they, they don't look for those things, um, and it goes a different direction. So I think for me, having it at that time, it opened me in a very valuable way, yeah.
[00:21:00] Dr. Mike T Nelson: Do you think if it was a, and again, this is speculation, but different person, different circumstance, that it could have gone the other way and been very destabilizing?
[00:21:11] Dr. Mike T Nelson: 'Cause I think there's also this myth of psychedelics are becoming more popular, which is great. Hopefully we got a lot more funding. You know, Texas spent a ton of money on Ibogaine funding. Maybe federal scheduling will be different, and all that stuff I think is a- a- amazing.
[00:21:25] Rick Alexander: Mm-hmm.
[00:21:25] Dr. Mike T Nelson: But like all things, I think the pendulum then swings so far to the other way that people listening to this may feel like, "Oh, well everyone should just do high-dose mushrooms as soon as they're out of the military, and it'll solve all their issues."
[00:21:38] Dr. Mike T Nelson: Where I, I think it could, in a different person, different circumstance, and how it's administered very much go the other way and could be incredibly destabilizing. And like you said, you're in that sort of in-between phase, and for some people who are used to kind of knowing everything, that can be incredibly frightening, too.
[00:21:58] Rick Alexander: Yeah. Yeah, totally. Um, you know, one of the things that I'm looking at in my dissertation is that the institutions that... So psychedelics, right, as we're in this, what people would call the third wave of psychedelic use, which is really characterized by research, um, psychedelic science, and medicine. And so the institutions that are stewarding this process, which for us is, like I said, it's science, um, it's research, it's the a- it's, so the academy, it's medicine, um, and then it's also Uh, capitalism because that really holds our rituals in this country, right?
[00:22:38] Rick Alexander: So, um, these are the, these are the, the ways in which this is gonna be stewarded is through these. Now, I think if you look at medicine, you know, if you look at, like, the DSM, for example, that's how we know what any... The Diagnostic and Statistics Manual is how we know, like, that's how we classify all kinds of pathology.
[00:22:58] Rick Alexander: Now, if you look at the DSM, MDMA, LSD, psychedelics are under hallucinogens. Now, a hallucinogen, if you look up the definition, is something that is unreal. Um, now, what's really interesting about a hallucination is if you really get into the definition, it's like not only is it unreal, but it's, um, the people having the hallucination can't tell the difference between consensus reality and what they're experiencing.
[00:23:23] Rick Alexander: Now, my experience with psychedelics is that that's not what happens at all.
[00:23:26] Dr. Mike T Nelson: Right.
[00:23:27] Rick Alexander: R- there are... Can it cause a kind of break, um, in the psyche where you fall into losing track of consensus reality altogether? Certainly, but not prevalent enough to name the substance or the category. Um, so my point is though that I think what's one of the things that's happening is the underlying ontological, philosophical, existential frameworks that we're using to understand these things actually don't have a really good, um, map for saying what happens, right?
[00:23:58] Rick Alexander: Because if the DSM is telling you this isn't real, but then, you know, one of the things that people will say about their experience is it felt more real than reality itself. Yeah. That's a very common thing to say.
[00:24:08] Dr. Mike T Nelson: Yeah.
[00:24:09] Rick Alexander: What do you do with that? So there's a, um... I think that as capitalism, which is concerned with making money and- So there's all kinds of things to say here, but I think one of the things that's going to happen is as these institutions steward psychedelics into the mainstream culture more and more, this gap between our ontology and existential framework and the experience we actually have is going to be magnified.
[00:24:37] Rick Alexander: Like, I think we're gonna see it in a lot of people, and I think people fall into that gap. Um, and so part of what I'm doing in my dissertation is what does a compassionate response to that look like for us? Like, how do we tend that? Um, so for me, I think there's a lot of things that go into that, the substance itself.
[00:24:56] Rick Alexander: Um, you know, people talk about set and setting. I think, you know, there's a lot more that go into it, like the kind of practices that you have and your, your worldview and things like that, um, that are beyond just your mindset at the time. I was lucky that I felt, and this happens often in psychedelics, I felt very, like, cradled or held by something as my worldview was being torn asunder.
[00:25:19] Rick Alexander: Mm-hmm. You know what I mean? Like, I felt like- I felt like, oh, okay, this is all falling apart, but I'm falling into something more stable and deeper. Um, and I feel really lucky by that. But it's interesting because since then, I've also had incredibly difficult experiences. Um, and if those would've been my first one, you know, it's hard to say how that would've gone.
[00:25:43] Rick Alexander: And so, um, yeah, I'm really interested in what, what a compassionate response to that problem looks like. You know, when you go to, um, when you th- when you think about how these substances are used in traditional cultures, they're actually bringing you into alignment with the cosmology and the worldview, right?
[00:26:01] Rick Alexander: They're, they're amplifying it. Here, I think they're taking you away from what I would call the, like, modern Western worldview. Um, we can talk about what that is, but I, I just think it's worth recognizing, like, that creates a problem, you know? Um-
[00:26:19] Dr. Mike T Nelson: Yeah. And I also get worried that they're trying to fit everything into a standard pharmaceutical model that psychedelics just don't really, on multiple levels, don't really fit.
[00:26:33] Dr. Mike T Nelson: You know? Like the, if you have depression, then you need an SSRI, and you need this amount per day for the rest of your life. And again, some people definitely need that. It definitely can be beneficial. Like, the model is not maybe have, you know, like for the MDMA trials, I think they did, what, two trials I think, and you're probably pretty good for a period of months or maybe much longer.
[00:26:55] Dr. Mike T Nelson: Like, there's just, that, that doesn't fit with the standard model. And I know that's why some, you know, psychedelic research are trying to disassociate the air quote hallucinogenic portion from the other mechanisms of neuroplasticity and everything else that's going on. But, you know, there's some other, you know, pretty prevalent researchers that are like, I think even Dr.
[00:27:17] Dr. Mike T Nelson: Roger Carhart-Harris has said this, that the experience is part of the thing that probably results in the change. You know, like maybe we can take some part of that out, but the sensations and the feelings. And if anyone has ever done it, it is the... The most bizarre thing to me was Knowing something and then, you know, having done ayahuasca in Costa Rica, profoundly feeling it.
[00:27:46] Dr. Mike T Nelson: It, it, it's so-- it's hard to explain to someone who hasn't had that experience that, yes, you could say something and you're like, "That logically makes sense," but in the middle of, you know, my case, five glasses, you profoundly felt it all the way through your entire soul. Which I know sounds just bonkers.
[00:28:06] Rick Alexander: Yeah. Um, Houston Smith, the religious scholar, talks about it as an experienced worldview. Mm-hmm. He's like, "I could tell you what I believe, but like-
[00:28:15] Dr. Mike T Nelson: Right ...
[00:28:15] Rick Alexander: something different happened here." Um, Rachel Peterson at Harvard calls it, calls- started talking about psychedelics as, um, ontological insurgents, you know?
[00:28:24] Rick Alexander: Ooh, I like that. These are things that like, yeah, that like push into your, your frame. Um, and what do we do when phenomenology becomes ontology? Yeah. Meaning phenomenol- you know, your experience of reality, your phenomenology and ontology, your frame. Just kind of saying this for, um, the listeners, right?
[00:28:42] Rick Alexander: What happens when the experience itself is so irrefutable that what you believe doesn't actually matter anymore? Uh, 'cause what you've experienced has somehow got more authority. There are really good things about that, you know? Like for example, like platitudes that we all know, like it's really important to love the people in your life, have authority now, and often people experience like, "Oh, that's something I need to act on," you know?
[00:29:07] Rick Alexander: You could say it- Mm-hmm ... a million times. But the other part of that is maybe you attribute meaning to things that aren't, don't really have so much mean- that, that shouldn't have so much meaning or, um, your experience is so convincing that, um, it starts to lead you astray. Like, these are, these are really complicated areas that we need, um, people who help us develop discernment, I think, to work through.
[00:29:32] Rick Alexander: Um, but yeah, this ex- this thing about an experienced worldview is, um, it's the thing I'm most interested in 'cause I think that's what happened to me. It was like I have all these beliefs or even atheism for me was a belief. Like, I think there's nothing, you know? Mm-hmm. Um, and so, and so yeah, like feeling the, what happens when the intensity of experience itself shatters your story about the world and yourself- Where do you, where do you go from there?
[00:30:02] Dr. Mike T Nelson: Yeah. And I think of even the concept of, like, neuroplasticity, that everybody assumes that neuroplasticity is always a benefit, and it, it's not really a benefit or a negative. I think it can be either one. You know? So if your brain is more neuroplastic and you're able to make changes faster, it really then just depends upon, well, what are you doing with that?
[00:30:27] Dr. Mike T Nelson: You know? And I think even back to, like, a psychedelic experience, like how- what is the integration process? Like, what are you doing at that point? Okay, so now you had a bunch of things that came up. Now you have this profound feeling of something, but how do you, like you said, integrate that into your worldview?
[00:30:47] Dr. Mike T Nelson: Or maybe you realize your worldview isn't what you thought your worldview was. Mm. And so I wanna... You know, usually people ask me about experiences, and usually most of the time I just try to talk them out of doing most things. Huh. You know, but you're a grown adult, you know, do whatever you want. Granted, they're currently Schedule I illegal drugs in the US, but that, do you have time to potentially integrate a new worldview, or do you expect to go back to work on Monday like nothing happened?
[00:31:15] Rick Alexander: Hmm.
[00:31:16] Dr. Mike T Nelson: And to me, like, the hallmark is if you don't have at least some time to wrestle with what you've found there, and some people may need more time than others, I don't know if you're prepared or you have the best understanding of what may happen. 'Cause I've seen a lot of things go, in general, vast majority of the time go incredibly positive.
[00:31:37] Dr. Mike T Nelson: But I've also can imagine experiences where things could have gone the wrong direction very fast.
[00:31:48] Rick Alexander: Yeah. Yeah, totally. Um, it's interesting because it is a kind of trauma- Mm-hmm ... um, I think that the mind, uh, brain particularly experiences a- as a kind of trauma. Um, and trauma itself can be a catalyst for growth, or it can be, um, a fracture that becomes so challenging you, you never work yourself out of it.
[00:32:09] Rick Alexander: Um, I, I write a lot about this idea of what I call psychedelic myth-making, and that is, um, that to me is the integration process. How do you, how do you, um, understand your own mythology, um, your own rootedness in, in the world? And sometimes it looks like taking a previous mythology and widening it. You know, sometimes maybe, uh, j- just throw stuff out there, like a Christian has a living experience of Christ or something.
[00:32:39] Rick Alexander: Mm-hmm. You know, now your Christianity is probably gonna look different after that. Um, so it might be that. It might be, um, relating to energies that you didn't even know existed prior to the experience. Um, and it might be somebody just sitting with you- witnessing what it's like to be stuck. Um-
[00:32:58] Dr. Mike T Nelson: Mm-hmm ...
[00:32:59] Rick Alexander: you know, that there's a real, as a spiritual care provider, there's a r- I've really come to appreciate the power of presence in difficult times, like another human presence.
[00:33:09] Rick Alexander: Um, and to me, the kind of questions that we ask in the neuroplastic window is really important. Um, because to me, it's kind of showing you something that, uh, many spiritual traditions have, have posited from the beginning, which is actually this whole thing is process. Nothing is fixed. Now, once you're really, once you experience that to be a living reality though, I think there's important questions like what is it, what do you notice if you experience yourself in this new way?
[00:33:41] Rick Alexander: What sensations arise? Is it a kind of resistance, or is it a kind of pull toward it? You know, like the kind of questions you ask direct, I think, what direction the integration work needs to go, um, if that makes sense. And I didn't, I didn't say this earlier, but when you were talking about this push right now to, um, get rid of the trip but try to keep the neuroplastic- Mm-hmm
[00:34:05] Rick Alexander: sort of properties. You know, I think that's where we have to be really careful, 'cause I think one of the things that the modern worldview does is it culls and discards everything that doesn't fit it. Yep. Meaning the hallucination, something not real, well, then we can get rid of that. Um, whereas from a more, um, from a perspective that takes the spiritual world seriously or even the psychological world, it's actually your confrontation with that world, um, that relativizes the ego, um, and puts you in right relationship with value and your own depth.
[00:34:42] Rick Alexander: And so yeah, just something, something to notice. I think like the way in which, yeah, the way in which we steward- Those experiences, the questions that we ask, the direction we go, um, is incredibly important.
[00:35:00] Dr. Mike T Nelson: Yeah. And I think it, like you mentioned, just the integration. Even just, you know, it's kind of an overused term, but like holding space for people to share what came up, and being in a group that...
[00:35:12] Dr. Mike T Nelson: Uh, I know we did this in, in Costa Rica the day after the first time I did ayahuasca there. And I remember talking about my experience of drinking five glasses and waking up on a couch in South Padre, drinking coffee, getting ready to go kiteboarding, and then just being stuck in this loop for what felt like 17 years.
[00:35:30] Dr. Mike T Nelson: And the question I had is, you know, am I going the right direction in, in my life? Am I picking the right things? And the answer I kinda got was, well, yes, and then, oh, maybe I should practice being more present because I was, you know, stuck on this loop of like literally being there the whole time. And I remember telling you this, and you're like, "Oh, you were stuck in the eternal now."
[00:35:52] Dr. Mike T Nelson: I'm like, "Eternal now? Like, there's words and stuff for all this shit that happened?" 'Cause I didn't... You know, I only read like the, the research going into it. I purposely didn't read any trip reports or anything else, and that was kind of, one, affirming that, okay, yeah, what you experienced, other people have experienced it, and that there are ways to th- think about this that's not necessarily in the research.
[00:36:16] Dr. Mike T Nelson: And so that was like very- poignant but also very profound of like, oh, maybe you can't shove everything into an actual research study. Maybe qualitative studies have a huge role to play, you know, in how we look at these things, and it's not always just quantitative, just, you know, shove it in the box that we already have.
[00:36:37] Dr. Mike T Nelson: Maybe you need a better box.
[00:36:38] Rick Alexander: Hmm. Yeah, I think there's something with, um, the, the modern worldview. I keep using that term, and we haven't really defined it, but I think that there's something that the quantitative tends to eclipse the qualitative.
[00:36:52] Dr. Mike T Nelson: Mm-hmm.
[00:36:52] Rick Alexander: Everyone that comes in my practice, everyone that I am with in the hospital, they're struggling with the qualitative dimension of their lives.
[00:36:59] Rick Alexander: Um, and I don't... My feeling is that both are... they're different ways of saying what's true about your life. You know, they're both important, but there's something, you know, to your example of time, it's like, we say like, "Oh, that felt... That, that hour felt like forever. Oh, that hour went by so quick." But we all know time's not really like that.
[00:37:19] Rick Alexander: Time is, is this measured standard thing. Um, and so we totally deny our experience of it often. Um, but to your point, and I think to what you're experiencing after that, one, I think articulating what happened, where, what you went through is helpful. Mm-hmm. It tries... It adds order to it. You... There's a... It can be frustrating too, 'cause you know that there's this ineffable aspect of it that you can't articulate.
[00:37:45] Rick Alexander: Yes. But with, but doing it in relationship with another person, you know, and getting that reflection and that mirroring back, it's like you, then you have an image. And I think if you have an image, you can... it gives you a way to, to be with the experience itself.
[00:38:00] Dr. Mike T Nelson: Yeah, it's like giving you little hooks in your brain to, to try to sort stuff as best you can in the meantime.
[00:38:05] Rick Alexander: Uh-huh. Yeah, yeah, yeah. Um, exactly. And, and it gives you a, um- The mind can loop without an image. It's like you're ju- you just get stuck in the, like, rumination or something, or even metacognition, thinking about the thinking. But I think with the right image, it gives you a sense of grounding, um, stability.
[00:38:28] Rick Alexander: Um, yeah.
[00:38:31] Dr. Mike T Nelson: Yeah. That's cool. And before we hopped on the call, you... We talked a little bit about neuroplasticity, which we brought up a couple times, and I know you were doing some research or reading on it. And one of the thoughts I've had for quite a while, and I'm sure there's people doing this, I just...
[00:38:46] Dr. Mike T Nelson: Someone can write in with who it is. But we know that, you know, high doses of some of these compounds, maybe DMT, maybe psilocybin, maybe, you know, other ones, 5-HT, 1A, 2A, et cetera, can open up periods of being more neuroplastic, uh, for periods of time. And the thought I've always had is that if, if training and athletics is a skill, if you can be more neuroplastic, especially as adults, we're not talking kids, that you should, in theory, with the correct training, be able to learn things faster during these periods of time.
[00:39:26] Rick Alexander: This
[00:39:26] Dr. Mike T Nelson: window. You know, ne- this window, right? It's maybe a critical window is open for a period of time, and it's not like the window's always open or closed, but it's, it's much more open now for a period of time. Um, what are your thoughts on just that concept, um, overall?
[00:39:42] Rick Alexander: I think it's really interesting for a couple of reasons.
[00:39:46] Rick Alexander: Um, so I had a 5-MeO-DMT experience that I found very difficult to contend with. I mean, I think- Hmm ... it was the most challenging experience of my life, in part because it was a combination of all of the most challenging experiences of my life- ... at one time, you know? Um, now, but I al- Yeah, so what do I want to say about that?
[00:40:07] Rick Alexander: So after that experience, um- I came home and I had heard-- I was reading in a, I was reading a book, um, from Carl Jung, and he was talking about once you experience, um, a new reality or, uh, something like that, you, you can never go back. Mm. Like consciousness never goes back. No matter what, you've left a piece of you there, and so you've got to go forward to it.
[00:40:34] Rick Alexander: Um, which is why I actually don't think about us integrating the experience. I actually think about the experience integrating us, that we transform- Mm ... toward it, um, not try to shove it into our sense of self.
[00:40:45] Dr. Mike T Nelson: Yeah, yeah.
[00:40:46] Rick Alexander: It's too big for that to me. Um, so we get humble, and we transform toward it. Now, what was interesting though is for some reason like that stuck with me, and so I felt like, okay, the only way I'm getting out of this difficulty is transformation.
[00:41:01] Rick Alexander: I need to move toward it. Um, and, and I had-- I started, um, a meditative practice, um, in the morning, and it was really interesting because I've tried to-- at different times I had tried to start a spiritual practice. Um, and probably like most people experience, like you start meditating, but then you fall away, and you come back, and you fall away.
[00:41:23] Rick Alexander: It's hard. It's hard to stay up against yourself. And, um, there was something about that critical window though that I had like-- It's almost as if I, I learned how to meditate, but I got a somatic reference point for where I was going with it. Um, and so I don't know about, you know, athleticism and things like that.
[00:41:43] Rick Alexander: Um, I'm like just kind of contemplating it in terms of my own experience. But what happened is I never lost that somatic reference point. Mm. I can go there. I can go there now. Um, so it was like I did gain a new skill in that critical period. I-- It wasn't what I was trying to do. I was trying to just keep myself together.
[00:42:03] Rick Alexander: Um You know? But, but really interesting because it, it... something I took with me
[00:42:10] Dr. Mike T Nelson: Oh, that's, that's cool.
[00:42:11] Rick Alexander: Yeah.
[00:42:11] Dr. Mike T Nelson: And that makes me think about just even in athletics, just e- trying to experience and replicate different states, right? 'Cause we know that even just simplest, simplest, higher heart rate, um, for precision of shooting goes down, right?
[00:42:29] Dr. Mike T Nelson: And this has been known for a long time 'cause it's easy to measure those, those skill sets. Um, and you talk to athletes, and one of the things that conditioning, I think, is so important is that you can operate at a lower heart rate and probably make better cognitive decisions. Not only can you have faster speed and power, but cognitively you're gonna have more cognitive bandwidth at a heart rate of 100 compared to 165, right?
[00:42:55] Dr. Mike T Nelson: And anyone who's done any high heart rate stuff can definitely agree with that, 'cause the whole world at some point just gets really, really small.
[00:43:04] Rick Alexander: Yeah.
[00:43:05] Dr. Mike T Nelson: Um, so I think that might be just in reference to experiencing of different states that might transfer. Maybe you get a better practicing of skill sets because your state is better, maybe because of the increase in neuroplasticity, those things will change a little bit faster.
[00:43:27] Dr. Mike T Nelson: Again, you could screw this up by doing poor training and, and things like that too, but, um, yeah, I don't know. It's just something I, it seems in one way kind of obvious, but I don't know. I would imagine there's people doing stuff in that area, but it also seems like it's something that could be tested relatively easy, right?
[00:43:48] Dr. Mike T Nelson: You know, if you go back to just, if we go to hardcore quantification, you know, randomized, double blind, placebo-controlled trial. Obviously trying to blind people with high-dose psychedelics is pretty difficult. They've tried multiple times and basically failed almost every time. So one of my favorite researcher quotes was, like, even people who've never done psychedelics, nobody is gonna confuse high-dose niacin with high-dose psilocybin.
[00:44:12] Dr. Mike T Nelson: He's like, "You're just not." So I think blinding's a little bit of an issue, but-
[00:44:17] Speaker 2: Mm-hmm ...
[00:44:18] Dr. Mike T Nelson: even just a simple intervention trial, like do you, you know, do you see improvements in skill faster over, you know, certain periods of time?
[00:44:27] Rick Alexander: Yeah, that would be, uh, that would be interesting. And I guess, like, I would m- to bring in a yogic perspective- Yeah
[00:44:34] Rick Alexander: that, that's kind of- Please ... where I operate from. Um, you know, uh, in the yogic worldview, you have what are called nadis, which are subtle energy channels. Um, and you have some 72,000 nadis in the body. Buddhism says you have 86,000. First of all, imagine how subtle your perception would have to be to notice- Yeah.
[00:44:53] Rick Alexander: Woo ... the 72,000 different ways that energy moves in your body.
[00:44:57] Dr. Mike T Nelson: Um- Yeah. Or if you wanna notice.
[00:44:59] Rick Alexander: Right, right. Um, and so there's an idea, though, that if energy moves freely through the body, you will experience that as space in the mind. Hmm. Um, and I think that one of the things... And so it goes both ways, right?
[00:45:14] Rick Alexander: Conditioning and blockages in the mind also block energy from moving in the body. It's, there, this worldview, and I think the worldview that psychedelics often open up is mind and body are not separate phenomena. It's more like mind is a very subtle end of the spectrum, whereas the body is a very gross end of mind, uh, manifestation of the mind.
[00:45:35] Rick Alexander: They can be worked. You can work the body, and it will open the mind, and vice versa. And I think one of the things that psychedelics might do from that perspective is, like, sort of the influx of energy, it's as if the energy channels themselves are blown open. Um, and I think, though, 'cause what I notice after especially 5-MeO-DMT, which had a, there's a, it's an incredible intense, incredibly intense, and I don't, I don't think I've ever experienced anything so intense.
[00:46:03] Rick Alexander: Um, I feel like my running form changed. Felt like my- Hmm ... breathing pattern changed. Um, just these, like, very subtle things that I, um- That I was trying to figure out. One of the things I think happens is if you think about, uh, if you think about, like, spiritual or psychological evolution, that's you becoming more subtle.
[00:46:23] Rick Alexander: Right? You get to, to understand what you're experiencing emotionally, you have to become more subtle. But what I think psychedelics do is they move the other way. They take the subtle and amplify it to your perception. Um, and so I think in the amplification of that subtlety, I, I... My runs, my breathing, my spiritual practice, like, they all...
[00:46:43] Rick Alexander: There was just less stickiness, less stuck points. It was like- Less friction? Yeah, less friction. It felt like everything was just moving better. So I actually like that. Not, not to say it's, like, true in some- Sure ... scientific way, but to say it's a really good heuristic for thinking about what just happened to me.
[00:47:00] Dr. Mike T Nelson: And do you think that is a combination of both a physical difference and a perception? Or do you think it's more one than the other? Or hard to say?
[00:47:09] Rick Alexander: What do you mean, a physical difference or a perception?
[00:47:11] Dr. Mike T Nelson: Like, if we could stick high-motion speed cameras on you, do you think we've noticed the economy- Change
[00:47:18] Dr. Mike T Nelson: your foot strike and stuff change? Or that your perception is more, in a lack of a better word, free, that you just feel different sensations and feel more loose, and that it's the perception that's changed even though your gait was similar? Or my guess is it's probably a combination of both. Th-
[00:47:41] Rick Alexander: that's what I was gonna say, because if I'm more subtly perceiving, let's say, my, me being in the world- Right
[00:47:47] Rick Alexander: well, then the heel strike that I used to be able to ignore- Yeah, it might feel worse. ... feels worse. Right. So it changes. And that, same with emotions. Um, same with the way I treat my dog or my wife, or whatever it is that comes up, right? It's like, be- become aware of this thing that was subtle and so out of perception.
[00:48:04] Rick Alexander: It's like it gets raised into consciousness. My feeling is there's a window where all this stuff comes up out of cons- comes up out of consciousness. Sometimes it's out of the unconscious, sorry, becomes conscious. Sometimes it's too much to deal with and it swamps the ego. But there's a critical period where all of these unconscious things become conscious.
[00:48:26] Rick Alexander: You can then work with them. Um, at some point, I think they're gonna sink back into the unconscious, to use that language, and you'll stop being-- You'll, you won't perceive h- if I'm standing directly upright like I did right after my experience. Um, so yeah, I think it's a combination, would be my guess. Like, I think your- motivated to move differently in the world when you more subtly perceive how you're moving in the world.
[00:48:54] Dr. Mike T Nelson: Yeah. Yeah. And I, I mean, I know again it's an n of 1, but for me, even kiteboarding after the experience was, and it was probably, mm, two, three, four months after that, but everything just felt more connected. Like, it felt easier. Again, I don't know if my skill set was any better, but even just, like, when you would do a jump, like, the perspective of time felt better, but it also felt slower.
[00:49:27] Dr. Mike T Nelson: It felt like instead of everything becoming just a, a blur of, "Oh my God, I hope I don't crash and get dropped like a sack of potatoes," like, it felt like I could almost stop time and, and look around and, and see what was going on better for those few seconds, even though the time duration was probably the same.
[00:49:46] Dr. Mike T Nelson: I felt like that it was almost like I could look through, like, a high-speed camera now instead of a, a fuzzy lens that I wasn't really as sure about, if that makes any sense.
[00:49:58] Rick Alexander: Yeah, that's really inter- I wish I knew enough about how, you know, the mind perceives vision-
[00:50:03] Dr. Mike T Nelson: Right, right ... 'cause I
[00:50:04] Rick Alexander: think there's something really interesting here.
[00:50:06] Rick Alexander: Um-
[00:50:06] Dr. Mike T Nelson: Yeah. And I haven't been able to f- to, to, to figure it out, 'cause performance-wise it was very similar, but I think just having better proprioception and better awareness of your environment allows you to change your perception of time. 'Cause I noticed it was different when I went to go to learn to do back rolls.
[00:50:26] Dr. Mike T Nelson: So you're, you're riding out, and then you basically go off and you spin 360 around, and you ride out of it. So when I first started doing that, I literally would just, I'd go blank. Like, I would get part of the way around, and I could not remember anything during that time period. Hmm. So I had to go back and just stop, and literally stand there and turn around with the kite, and then just figure out a way of regressing while staying, um, I dunno, not really disassociating, but being able to perceive things in my environment.
[00:50:54] Dr. Mike T Nelson: And once I was able to do that, then kind of scale back up.
[00:50:58] Rick Alexander: Well, and you can see why traditional cultures would find it such a important part of hunting and gathering and-
[00:51:03] Dr. Mike T Nelson: Right. Yeah, yeah ...
[00:51:04] Rick Alexander: right? 'Cause it's, yeah, you're, it's ch- I mean, it's changing your experience in a very dramatic way. Um, I, I'm curious too, did you find, in addition to that, did you find...
[00:51:16] Rick Alexander: How do I say this? Like a more- A deeper love or appreciation for actually just being out in the ocean and-
[00:51:25] Dr. Mike T Nelson: Oh, for sure ...
[00:51:26] Rick Alexander: doing that. Okay.
[00:51:27] Dr. Mike T Nelson: Oh, for sure. Okay. Yeah, like even, I sometimes have to remind myself of this, like the, even the worst days are just don't feel as bad. And they're probably, some of the conditions are actually d- definitely worse.
[00:51:41] Dr. Mike T Nelson: But again, I think it goes back to your perception of it. And like I've tried to transfer this to, to training more recently too, is I did a bunch of intervals on the rower before I left and then would do like a cold plunge. And so in the cold plunge, I'm trying to work more consciously on breathing, but I'm also trying to do it from a s- a sense of gratitude and appreciation that even though I did the thing that was hard, it wasn't, it wasn't necessarily painful, but there was a lot of discomfort, but it was good because I got to choose the discomfort I wanted to expose myself to, and I'm physically able to, to do that.
[00:52:20] Dr. Mike T Nelson: So kind of that appreciation of even the hardest days where you feel like it's just a, a disaster is probably, as long as you're safe, not as bad as what you would've been before. You know, 'cause otherwise before it was like, "Oh, the wind's kinda light," or, "Oh, the conditions aren't really that good," or whatever, and now it's like, well, you still got to go out and do the thing even though my eyeballs literally broke all the vessels in them because the rain was pelting me in the eyes.
[00:52:46] Rick Alexander: Right. So that's a really good example of, you know, not only can I do hard things, but I get to do hard things, is- Right ... a great place to operate from, but it's also a platitude for a lot of people. Like- Mm-hmm ... yeah, sure, okay, but this sucks. Um, and I think one of the things like that I've noticed from my own experience and also from a lot of my, you know, clients and patients is that.
[00:53:09] Rick Alexander: It's like this was, this is something that is so basic and so helpful, but if it doesn't have any authority in your system, it's just a platitude. It's something you know but can't really get yourself to, to appreciate or get there. Um, and, and there's something about psychedelic experiences that these really fundamental things about life are perceivable.
[00:53:30] Rick Alexander: They have more authority in your system. Like I, again, that's a place of what I would call like that created a somatic reference point in your own system, so now it's easier to get back there-
[00:53:40] Dr. Mike T Nelson: Mm-hmm ...
[00:53:41] Rick Alexander: you know, on a hard day, you know?
[00:53:44] Dr. Mike T Nelson: Yeah, and it, it's also such a, it's a hard thing to explain because it's just this profound sense of feeling.
[00:53:53] Dr. Mike T Nelson: Like, I also felt, you know, after those two experiences, I was much more empathetic for a period of several years, but then I have a reference point of what it feels like to be more empathetic. You know, this, the, the kind of day-to-day things. You know, it's like anything else, like you have a really hard experience where something is taken away for a while, then you realize, like, what it was like to appreciate it.
[00:54:18] Rick Alexander: Hmm. I
[00:54:18] Dr. Mike T Nelson: think psychedelics in some sort of weird way allow you to have a taste of that experience, but without having things permanently removed from you. It feels like something has definitely gone awry in the moment. Like, every part of you feels like, "Oh, shit." But then you come out of it and you're like, "Oh, I'm good, I'm good.
[00:54:39] Dr. Mike T Nelson: I'm okay, I'm okay."
[00:54:40] Rick Alexander: Yeah. I have a buddy who describes that as, uh... He was talking about a psilocybin experience. He had one good experience, so then he was like, "Oh," you know, what a lot of people say.
[00:54:48] Dr. Mike T Nelson: Yeah, they're all amazing. Let's all do it now. Yay.
[00:54:51] Rick Alexander: And more is better. You know? Um, and so on the very next one, though, he, he said...
[00:54:56] Rick Alexander: What did he say? He was like, "I thought I poured coffee on the motherboard."
[00:55:00] Dr. Mike T Nelson: Oh.
[00:55:01] Rick Alexander: You know? I thought, like, those are, um, you know, those are the kind of experiences where it's really helpful to have a really good guide.
[00:55:09] Dr. Mike T Nelson: Oh, for sure.
[00:55:09] Rick Alexander: You know, practitioner that can, um, help standard- stabilize you. And, and this is the double-edged sword, um, that psychedelics bring, you know?
[00:55:18] Rick Alexander: Um, that I think, that that's the, the question I'm the most interested in working with. It's there's a lot of conversation about should psychedelics happen, should do we need those? You know, as a, as a counselor and as a spiritual care provider, I- that can't be a question I think about. Like, should death happen?
[00:55:37] Rick Alexander: Yeah. Should sickness? No, I don't know, but I have to, I want to respond compassionately to the fact that it does. These substances, they're dangerous. Uh, there's no doubt about it, and people are going to do them, and I think there's a deep kind of existential distress that lives in our culture that drives people into these experiences and, and- It's a double-edged sword and somebody's gotta be there to, um, to be with people through it, yeah.
[00:56:05] Dr. Mike T Nelson: Yeah. I mean, that's, I guess, my more libertarian point of view is that, you know, humans should have the option to do things as long as it's done in a, a, a safe environment that they're not harming others. But in our current framework of society, cigarettes are legal, alcohol is legal. Not that I'm saying that they should be illegal, but then in the same breath you, you can't make, you know, cannabis and psychedelics and other things illegal.
[00:56:32] Dr. Mike T Nelson: And I think we spend too much time questioning and grappling over the legality of it, and instead, like you said, okay, people are going to use these substances. How do we better educate them? How do we set up, you know, containers and things so that they can use them in a safe environment? And like... And I don't remember who said it, but he's like, there's no, there's no real...
[00:56:55] Dr. Mike T Nelson: There's definitely good and bad trips per se, but your thought process should be, "Am I going into something that is gonna be safe or unsafe?" And whatever happens at that point will, will happen. But, you know, and that was like the, the good thing about the experiences in Costa Rica was the whole time I felt very safe, and that was, like, my only last sort of thing of...
[00:57:15] Dr. Mike T Nelson: I remember telling my wife, Jody, when we went down there, I'm like, "So if we get down there and I don't like this, this shaman dude, whoever he is," I didn't know it was a female at the time, um, I'm like, "Here's all my money in cash. Like, I'm out. Like, I am definitely not, you know, staying for this." But then once you get there and you realize, okay, it- it's, everything is safe, there's...
[00:57:36] Dr. Mike T Nelson: I think there's a huge relief that goes into that, and I can't imagine being, you know, four or five glasses in and part of your thought being, "Is this really a safe environment?" Like, that just sounds like a horrifying thought to have at that point.
[00:57:52] Rick Alexander: Yeah. I mean, first of all, life isn't safe. 100% mortality rate.
[00:57:56] Rick Alexander: Oh, of
[00:57:56] Dr. Mike T Nelson: course.
[00:57:56] Rick Alexander: Yes. Right? And so there's that. Um, not to say we should be unsafe sort of like irresponsibly or- Yeah ... recklessly, but to just say like, no, no, no. Nothing here- There's always risks ... is safe. Right. Right. We have... I mean, one of the things that I, has really struck home for me working helping people die, 'cause that's one of the things that I do a couple days a week, is there are a lot of people that thought they were gonna have dinner that night that no longer are.
[00:58:19] Dr. Mike T Nelson: Mm.
[00:58:19] Rick Alexander: Like, that is... We are always in the mystery. Um, and, and psychedelics are magnifying that fact in some really important way. So there is... There's safe or, you know, is there safe or unsafe? Yes. But like, just to point out, like, there's something- Yeah, good point ... inherently unsafe about being in life. Um, and you could always have an experience that is too big for you to process- Oh, for sure
[00:58:44] Rick Alexander: in psychedelics or on the highway.
[00:58:46] Dr. Mike T Nelson: Um- Yeah,
[00:58:47] Rick Alexander: anywhere. Right. So, um, you know, first of all, to point out that part, and then there was something else you just said that I wanted to comment on. Um- I mean, you know, for what it's worth, that 5-MeO experience was the m- that's a... I think if there's a bad trip, that's it.
[00:59:06] Rick Alexander: Like, it was the most difficult thing I've experienced, like I said. It was also the most, I don't wanna say most, 'cause I don't wanna talk in absolutes, 'cause who knows, but it was incredibly beneficial. You know? Um, I also had one LSD experience that was really tough, like incredibly tough. Um, and it ha- had an incredibly positive catalyst on my life.
[00:59:31] Rick Alexander: Um, and that isn't the case for everybody, you know? Um-
[00:59:34] Dr. Mike T Nelson: Yeah ...
[00:59:35] Rick Alexander: I wanna just acknowledge that. But, but yeah, to, to your point, the good/bad paradigm, I don't even know if that's the right paradigm. I think we have to just- Yeah, it
[00:59:43] Dr. Mike T Nelson: just seems so limited. And I understand what people are, are, are saying by it, but-
[00:59:48] Rick Alexander: Mm-hmm
[00:59:49] Dr. Mike T Nelson: like you said, like, and then they wanna predict what's gonna happen. I'm like, oh, my God, like that just seems like such a fool's errand. I feel like at least with ayahuasca, like you do it enough times, you're just gonna have a horrible fucking trip. Like, I just feel like if all... like, your first eight times were amazing, like, it just feels like you- the system's just waiting to, like, just shove you back to where you were.
[01:00:12] Dr. Mike T Nelson: It, that, just like my perception of it.
[01:00:14] Rick Alexander: Uh-huh. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. It's interesting. I mean, there does seem to be a kind of intelligence that I trust in these substances. Now, whether- Yeah ... that's the sort of like the innate healing intelligence that Grof talks about or- Yep ... whether the substances themselves have a kind of intelligence or it's the relationality and the meeting of two intelligences, which is how I tend to think about it.
[01:00:38] Rick Alexander: In any case, I do tend to trust it. Now, whether that's right or wrong in some ultimate way, I don't know, but it does give me a good framework to work with these experiences. Um, and anybody that knows, you know, in the depths of really difficult experiences, trust is very helpful. Mm-hmm. Um, that what I'm experiencing, I should be experiencing.
[01:00:57] Rick Alexander: Um, that it's somehow for some greater, um, sense of self or good or however you define that. I think that's, um, I think that's really helpful. And you know, for what it's worth, as a practitioner, having gone through really tough experiences hel- is really helpful too, because when I have clients who are going through those experiences, I'm like, "I can be here with you.
[01:01:18] Rick Alexander: I know what this- Mm-hmm ... you know, I have a, my own ver- I don't know what exactly like, but I have my version of this, and it, it's okay to be here."
[01:01:26] Dr. Mike T Nelson: Yeah. And I think that's very profound, especially if you're working with people in altered states too, because it's so- It's so radically different. Like, you can read everything in the world, but to experience it, it, it's still not w- what it's like in the, in the reading.
[01:01:46] Dr. Mike T Nelson: You know, and I use the, the term, like, in- ineffable, and it's hard to explain, but I think there is a lot of truth to that, you know? And I know, like, I think it was the MAPS program, I think, required, you know, counselors who were doing it to at least have one experience to have, you know, some reference in, in working with people and stuff like that, which I, I do think is at least a beneficial step in the right direction to try to have some ability to relate to what's going on.
[01:02:13] Rick Alexander: Yeah. Um, Lacan is a psychoanalyst in the Freudian tradition, but his definition of the unconscious is the gap between experience and articulation.
[01:02:23] Dr. Mike T Nelson: Ooh,
[01:02:24] Rick Alexander: I like
[01:02:24] Dr. Mike T Nelson: that. Which I,
[01:02:25] Rick Alexander: I always try to hold. Like, okay, there's, there is an unconscious here that we need to relate to, and that's a good, good definition of it.
[01:02:32] Rick Alexander: Um, and then Don Kimen, who is a psychedelic chaplain and a Buddhist chaplain out of, um, the Netherlands, I believe, he talks about this idea of what he calls the metamins. Hmm. And the way he defines that is a human, a fellow human being who has the capacity to articulate the full range of human experience.
[01:02:52] Dr. Mike T Nelson: Oh, wow. Um,
[01:02:53] Rick Alexander: and I... That feels like a lofty goal, you know?
[01:02:56] Dr. Mike T Nelson: Yeah.
[01:02:57] Rick Alexander: Um, but the way I would kind of, the way I work with it or think about it is the capacity to be in the full range of human experience.
[01:03:05] Dr. Mike T Nelson: Mm.
[01:03:06] Rick Alexander: Um, and so, and so to be able to offer, um, one, a witness, um, 'cause when you experience something traumatic and it's unwitnessed, you get stuck in what, um, one neuroscientist, I can't remember his name, called unreality.
[01:03:24] Rick Alexander: Mm. It's, like, a really weird place to get stuck. So I think witnessing is super helpful. But then you c- they can also let, also, like we were saying, give you an image. Like, like we were talking about, oh, you're, it sounds like the eternal now. Mm-hmm. And then that image acts as a kind of psychic scaffolding, which creates- Yep
[01:03:40] Rick Alexander: order. Yeah.
[01:03:42] Dr. Mike T Nelson: Yeah. That's cool. Uh, well as we wrap up, I really appreciate all your time. I have one last question. Two questions, but this could be its own podcast itself. Um- What do you think is going on with DMT? Like, just straight, not in the form of ayahuasca, which has other compounds, which is obviously an oral form of, of DMT, but like the, you know, like the Rick Strassman studies or either vaped or IV or some of the DMTX, you know, stuff that's been going on now.
[01:04:11] Dr. Mike T Nelson: Uh, my favorite book this past year was, uh, Dr. Andrew Gallimore's book on DMT, Death by Astonishment. It, it just seems to be s- so much like a psychedelic, but yet so different from the other compounds, and that the worlds that people describe just, they eerily sound similar, but yet so foreign from what you think our brain should be recreating.
[01:04:41] Dr. Mike T Nelson: You know, right? 'Cause if our brain is having this massive hallucination, it's still gotta be pulling stuff from f- some reference. So like, "Oh, look, the painting on the wall is melting." Okay. But you saw a wall and you saw a painting, right? You're still kind of pulling from objects and things in your memory.
[01:04:59] Dr. Mike T Nelson: Where the DMT space just appears to be completely almost foreign to what you would expect any hallucination per se would be. Does that make any sense?
[01:05:11] Rick Alexander: It does, and the mind perceives it, this just came out a couple of months ago, but the mind perceives it as if you were seeing the wall in front of you, which is
[01:05:19] Dr. Mike T Nelson: interesting.
[01:05:19] Dr. Mike T Nelson: And it makes complete sense out of it, and it feels like it's real. It doesn't feel like it's an artificial thing, but by all definition and description, it should be massively artificial to you
[01:05:34] Rick Alexander: Yes, based on the modern worldview. Yes
[01:05:37] Dr. Mike T Nelson: Correct. Yeah. Yes, yes, yes, yes.
[01:05:38] Rick Alexander: Yeah, yeah. Yeah.
[01:05:38] Dr. Mike T Nelson: Yeah.
[01:05:39] Rick Alexander: So when you say, "What do I think is going on?"
[01:05:40] Rick Alexander: Like, what's going on, like, sort of ontologically, like, what's, what's reality up to you there? Yeah, just your
[01:05:45] Dr. Mike T Nelson: thoughts in, in-
[01:05:46] Rick Alexander: Yeah ...
[01:05:46] Dr. Mike T Nelson: in general. Like, there's, there's, you know, this gets super woo-woo to all sorts of things, where people are like, "Well, is it just a difference in perception? We're, we're actually living in a world where all this stuff is happening.
[01:05:58] Dr. Mike T Nelson: We just don't see it, 'cause like we don't see in UV and these other perspectives." And then, you know, some, although becoming less and less in the research world, people are still like, "Well, it's just kind of, you know, sort of still a hallucination. It's just different because the compound's a little bit different."
[01:06:14] Dr. Mike T Nelson: And I know in the DMTx stuff now, like, was it, um, so Andrew Gallimore's talked about they're trying to set up experiments to see can you pass information through the DMT space from one person to the next, right? So if you have an experience with an entity and you tell the entity, "Okay, the next time Bob comes in here, uh, the color is red," right?
[01:06:38] Dr. Mike T Nelson: "Tell him red," right? So Bob shows up in the DMT space and asks, "What's the color?" And he goes, "Red." Like, could you, you know, some way of sort of scientifically seeing what's, what's going on.
[01:06:51] Rick Alexander: Yeah. I mean, so anecdotally it does seem like things like that happen, which is part of why- It
[01:06:56] Dr. Mike T Nelson: does ...
[01:06:56] Rick Alexander: it's so
[01:06:58] Dr. Mike T Nelson: strange.
[01:06:58] Dr. Mike T Nelson: Yeah This just even makes you more sound like a loon.
[01:06:59] Rick Alexander: Yeah, yeah. Um, let's see if I can explain this in two seconds, but- Uh, I follow- Give me a little
[01:07:05] Dr. Mike T Nelson: more time. It's all
[01:07:06] Rick Alexander: right. Yeah, well, I- It's a hard
[01:07:08] Dr. Mike T Nelson: question.
[01:07:09] Rick Alexander: I... This is the way I've been thinking about it and kind of working with it. Um, I follow French philosopher Henri Corbin's idea of what he calls a psycho-cosmology.
[01:07:18] Rick Alexander: Mm. Which is to say that the world and the state of consciousness that you're in are not two separate things, but they reflect each other in some really powerful way.
[01:07:28] Dr. Mike T Nelson: Oh.
[01:07:29] Rick Alexander: And so you could think about that, like, if I'm going through hell in a psychedelic experience, but mentally I begin to experience heaven, am I still in hell?
[01:07:38] Dr. Mike T Nelson: Mm.
[01:07:39] Rick Alexander: Right? So, so that there's some very... So first of all, that's kind of the, I tend to think about things that way. It's a psycho-cosmology. My levels of mind, this is platonic. Like, mind, levels of mind and levels of world mirror each other in some particular way. Now, also, so what that means is the world at which you experience is proper to the consciousness at which you are, um, operating at.
[01:08:03] Rick Alexander: And so if you think about psychedelics as sort of, um, amplifying, modulating, distorting, transforming consciousness, then you're going to experience the beings in the worlds that are proper to the consciousness that you're inhabiting. And so I think maybe, like, the reason there seem to be commonalities in the DMT world is because it's amplifying consciousness at, it's a v- a very particular amplification or, or transformation of consciousness.
[01:08:32] Rick Alexander: And so you're experiencing, um, the beings that live in that loka. That, that's the Hindu world for, word for world. But that, like, level of reality in some way. And, uh, to add on to that, uh, you know, some, I could look it up, but I won't right now, but some, like, 60, 70% of people come out of psychedelics with a kind of panpsychist view.
[01:08:58] Rick Alexander: Mm. That, like, that, um, yeah, there's some really interesting studies done by Timmerman and some others, um, '23, '24, around this idea that interests me because the researchers that are holding these views obviously don't have ... That are holding these studies- Yeah,
[01:09:12] Dr. Mike T Nelson: he's pretty straight-laced. Like, he's pretty straight, you know, down the path type, type dude from what I've seen.
[01:09:17] Rick Alexander: Yes. Yes, totally. Um, and so when you put these two ideas together, they're, it's very interesting to me that you modulate consciousness. Everything is alive, even when you can't, that goes back to perception from a sort of panpsychist view. Everything is alive. And so when you modulate, you don't go experience an empty world, you experience the aliveness that lives at that world.
[01:09:43] Rick Alexander: Um, and is that, you know, real? It depends what we mean by real. Um, Corbin talks about reality as having certain intensities. Um- Hmm When, when we say, "Oh, it was more real than real," what we mean is it was more intensely alive. And it-- there is something about the DMT space that seems to be more intensely alive.
[01:10:10] Rick Alexander: Um But yeah, I don't know where that goes. It's just some- something I've kind of been thinking about. Like, what, what is going on there, you know? Um, yeah.
[01:10:19] Dr. Mike T Nelson: Yeah.
[01:10:20] Rick Alexander: Kind of falls into Gallimore's idea of reality switch technologies.
[01:10:24] Dr. Mike T Nelson: Oh, I love that book. That's my second
[01:10:25] Rick Alexander: favorite
[01:10:25] Dr. Mike T Nelson: book.
[01:10:26] Rick Alexander: Um, okay. Yeah. Yeah. I haven't worked all the way through it, but the idea is just, um...
[01:10:31] Rick Alexander: Well, I think it's more helpful than you're hallucinating, 'cause that just doesn't-
[01:10:34] Dr. Mike T Nelson: Yes ...
[01:10:35] Rick Alexander: doesn't hold up to the, at least the anecdotes, you know?
[01:10:38] Dr. Mike T Nelson: Yeah. And he goes through and shows how each different sort of classification modulates your reality in, in different ways. Um, which is, uh, I think super interesting because the ways that it's modulating it are pretty reproducible.
[01:10:53] Dr. Mike T Nelson: Like, you know, ayahuasca is a little bit different than DMT, which is a little bit different than psilocybin, which is different than, um, what is it? The most fascinating one is that the, the tropanes like belladonna and things like that, that people don't really use anymore because they completely almost sever your body's perception of any sensory information during the experience.
[01:11:16] Rick Alexander: Yeah.
[01:11:17] Dr. Mike T Nelson: And I think he was talking about the, the smoking example of, you know, a guy who is, you know, just tripping on, I don't know what compound it was, but some tropane, and they... He was smoking in his, his trip, and his buddies are explaining to him, and his buddies trying to explain to him that, "Well, you're, you're not really s- you're not really smoking."
[01:11:36] Dr. Mike T Nelson: He's like, "Oh, I'm not smoking?" He then proceeded to look around on the ground because he thought he dropped the cigarette. Like, the, the... He couldn't take any new sensory information that there was no cigarette to begin with, you know? And then you see how, like, certain drugs can just change your reality by changing the sensory part of the circuitry, like, dramatically is just crazy.
[01:12:03] Rick Alexander: It really is, and it keeps, um... I think whatever frames we have, like I'm using this frame, this imaginal frame based on Corbon and, and Jung and Hillman and some others, but no matter what our frame is, I do think we have to hold space for the, like, I have no idea.
[01:12:19] Dr. Mike T Nelson: Oh, for sure.
[01:12:20] Rick Alexander: And we should still- For sure
[01:12:21] Rick Alexander: keep trying to figure it out, but hold space for this just constant mystery that we're in with these experiences, you know? And, um, any worldview, and this I think is what's really interesting. So MDMA studies, for example, the therapists, there's all kinds of different schools of therapy that they're using, but what they found was the thing that had the best results of, best predictor of PTSD remission wasn't the school they were using, but it was, like, the rapport between- Mm
[01:12:51] Rick Alexander: the, the facilitator and the person, um, to get back to that relationality piece that I think is so important. Um, but my point here is kind of that- The only frames I think that are actually inadequate are the ones that dismiss the experience or try to collapse the mystery.
[01:13:09] Dr. Mike T Nelson: Mm-hmm. '
[01:13:09] Rick Alexander: Cause those are the ones that are gonna get s- broken apart immediately by, um, the experience itself.
[01:13:17] Dr. Mike T Nelson: Yeah. And you see that back to integration. I think hanging out with people who are very experienced with it, ideally if they all went through the experience together, I think is beneficial. 'Cause I've seen the inverse happen, that people have this profound experience and, you know, unfortunately it's usually just someone who hasn't had any experience, which is, you know, no fault of their own, but they almost then want to dismantle all of what that person's experience was.
[01:13:42] Dr. Mike T Nelson: And it's like even if you don't understand what it was or you're not sure, you can't dismiss how they felt or what they experienced either. And then the person who had the experience, then they start questioning themselves like, "Oh, well maybe it wasn't. Maybe w- but w- these, these hallucinations, maybe it's just all in my head.
[01:14:02] Dr. Mike T Nelson: Maybe I made up the whole thing." And you're like, "Oh, no, no, no. Like, don't..." Yeah. Yeah, it's just like don't piss on somebody's leg and tell them it's raining, I guess.
[01:14:11] Rick Alexander: Right. Yeah. It's called functional consequentialism. It's like the concept of-
[01:14:14] Dr. Mike T Nelson: Oh, okay. I didn't know there was a name for it.
[01:14:15] Rick Alexander: Yeah, it's like we're just saying that if it's helpful for you and it makes your life better, then we should at least validate the fact that it's doing that for you instead of- Yeah
[01:14:26] Rick Alexander: say like, "Oh, well it was actually just a hallucination," you know? Um, yeah.
[01:14:33] Dr. Mike T Nelson: Yeah. And that goes back to the- If you haven't had the experience, it's, it's hard to explain the sensation you have during it. And people have talked about this with, like, the, the smoking cessation, one of the studies. I think it was one of the participants said, she's like, "Yeah, I've known that smoking is bad for me the whole time."
[01:14:50] Dr. Mike T Nelson: And I think it was psilocybin she did and, and worked with a counselor in a professional setting. And she's like, "But after the psilocybin experience," she's like, "I just had the profound feeling that every time I smoked a cigarette, I was filling my lungs with tar, and I quit." Hm. And she's like, "But I could have explained the same thing to you before, but I didn't have the sensation associated with it."
[01:15:17] Dr. Mike T Nelson: And I think a lot of times that gets dismissed as, you know, back to that is part of the experience. Maybe that's part of why these compounds are working so well as how they are working.
[01:15:29] Rick Alexander: Yeah. I think ner- I think psychedelic science is really focused on the brain aspect of it. Mm-hmm. But I think the bottom-up approach is really interesting.
[01:15:38] Rick Alexander: For sure. 'Cause I think one of the ways that these experiences have authority is that you have a different aesthetic feeling associated with the thought. Yes. You can, you could tell yourself a story about it all day long, but like she was saying, I felt something different, and that was what I needed actually to act.
[01:15:54] Dr. Mike T Nelson: Yep.
[01:15:54] Rick Alexander: Yeah.
[01:15:55] Dr. Mike T Nelson: Yeah.
[01:15:55] Rick Alexander: It's very hard to, um, think your way into a different way of acting.
[01:16:01] Dr. Mike T Nelson: Yeah.
[01:16:01] Rick Alexander: Um, but it, you can act your way into a different way of thinking. You can feel your way from the bottom up, and it, that does create change.
[01:16:08] Dr. Mike T Nelson: Yeah. And there's some cool new studies showing that, like, um, I'm blanking on who wrote the book on this, but- That maybe the heart is actually informing the brain, and the brain is not informing the heart.
[01:16:18] Dr. Mike T Nelson: That maybe... There's some interesting data on this too, that your heart rate goes up, and then your brain perceives that the heart rate has gone up. But the first thing changing was the cardiac or the heart system, but your perception is then making meaning of, of what it was after the fact. So that a lot of stuff that we think is always brain first might actually be body first, that you're not always aware of what's going on, but it's the, back to the connection between, you know, the brain is in the body and the body is in the brain type thing.
[01:16:53] Rick Alexander: Yeah. That's really, that's... In- intuitively that feels right to me, so that is interesting. But basically, the communication is going from the bottom up.
[01:17:01] Dr. Mike T Nelson: Bottom up, yeah.
[01:17:01] Rick Alexander: Yeah. Okay.
[01:17:02] Dr. Mike T Nelson: Yeah, yeah.
[01:17:02] Rick Alexander: Interesting. And then the mind is making meaning of it.
[01:17:05] Dr. Mike T Nelson: Yeah. Which it makes sense, right? The- Yeah ... mind is just kind of a meaning making machine.
[01:17:09] Dr. Mike T Nelson: That's just kinda what we're doing all the time with everything.
[01:17:12] Rick Alexander: Yes, and that, that's the work of spiritual care, is meaning making. It's like, what, what, what... Sometimes you can make really poor meaning of things.
[01:17:19] Dr. Mike T Nelson: Yeah, it doesn't mean we're always right.
[01:17:21] Rick Alexander: Yeah, like stories and feelings can get over-coupled, um, and you can end up with, "Oh, I..."
[01:17:27] Rick Alexander: You always make a certain meaning out of a certain feeling. And whereas if those two things were a little bit separated, maybe you'd have more freedom to make new meaning, and maybe that would be more beneficial for you, you know?
[01:17:38] Dr. Mike T Nelson: Yeah. I think with psychedelics too, like, they're not always a pro benefit.
[01:17:42] Dr. Mike T Nelson: I think you could have circumstances where someone could then feel they're going in this direction, which is actually probably a horrible direction for them, for them to go in their life.
[01:17:52] Rick Alexander: Yeah, you can become so ungrounded, and there's the, you know, the Messianic complex and all of that kinda to bring into it, which we didn't get into.
[01:17:59] Rick Alexander: But yeah, like, it's not... To me, it's not guaranteed that what you take from that is gonna be overwhelmingly beneficial. It, it might be, but might not be. You know?
[01:18:10] Dr. Mike T Nelson: Yeah. Yeah.
[01:18:11] Rick Alexander: Yeah.
[01:18:12] Dr. Mike T Nelson: Awesome. Well, thank you so much for your time and, uh, all the discussions. I really appreciate it. This was super fun. Um, where can people find out more about you if you wanna be found?
[01:18:19] Dr. Mike T Nelson: I know you do a fair amount of work there in, locally in Colorado, and I think you still do some work, um, online. Is that correct?
[01:18:26] Rick Alexander: Yeah, my counseling practice is mostly online. Um, rickalexander.com is where you can find everything. And then I'm doing a lot of teaching right now, breathwork and meditation workshops, and things like that.
[01:18:37] Dr. Mike T Nelson: Awesome. Awesome. Well, yeah, website's the best place for people to get ahold of you.
[01:18:41] Rick Alexander: For sure. Yeah, rickalexander.com.
[01:18:43] Dr. Mike T Nelson: Awesome. Well, thank you so much, Rick. I really appreciate it. This was super, super fun. Thank you for all your time and all you're doing, and especially all your, your thoughts and everything you put into it.
[01:18:53] Dr. Mike T Nelson: I feel like I just get to talk to you for an hour and a half, and I feel like I've condensed, like, I don't know how many years of reading on my part, and now I have all these other directions of things I didn't know anything about that I have to go look up now, which is great.
[01:19:06] Rick Alexander: Yeah, the feeling's mutual.
[01:19:07] Rick Alexander: That's great. I appreciate you having me.
[01:19:09] Dr. Mike T Nelson: Awesome. Thanks, buddy.
[01:19:11] Rick Alexander: Cool. Thanks.