Michael Pollan✓

How should we define “psychedelic”?: 5 Questions for researcher Avery Ostrand

RT @politico: The Trump administration moves to treat millions of mentally ill veterans with psychedelics

This week's psychedelic news: Healthcare cost watchdog to scrutinize Compass’s synthetic psilocybin, and Study links enhanced feelings of connection to lighter depression following psilocybin

My latest: The New Food Movement - The Atlantic

Sydney friends, join me at the Sydney Opera House on 4 November for the final event in their Curious festival! Michael Pollan’s Journey into Consciousness | Sydney Opera House

RT @SciPsychedelics: The visual cortex, plant intelligence, and the experience of becoming one with the universe ✨ If you missed the @michaelpollan and Christof Koch talk on psychedelics and consciousness last week, you can now watch it online: @UCBerkeley @calperformances

RT @MatthewSacchet: How might meditation support preparation for, navigation of, and learning from psychedelic experiences? I'm delighted to share our new manuscript, "Exploring the Interface of Meditation and Psychedelics: A Qualitative Analysis of Experienced Practitioners' Perspectives on Psychedelic Preparation," now published in Psychedelics. We analyzed open-ended responses from 82 regular meditators across 18 countries, each with at least one psychedelic experience, such as psilocybin or LSD. Three core themes emerged: 1️⃣ Optimizing Pre-Psychedelic Mindset: Participants described meditation as cultivating a positive mood, openness, cognitive flexibility, and a capacity to surrender before the experience. 2️⃣ Navigating Challenges: Participants felt that meditation made non-dual states and intense emotions feel more familiar, and helped them meet difficult moments with acceptance, equanimity, and an understanding of impermanence. 3️⃣ Facilitating Psychological Development: Participants used meditation to both set intentions before their experience and to integrate insights afterward. They viewed the changes from psychedelic experiences as short-term and opposed treating them as a “magic pill.” These accounts suggest meditation and psychedelics may work synergistically along a continuum of psychological development, with psychedelic experiences embedded in a longer trajectory of meditative development. These findings are based on participants' self-reported experiences. Because participants were recruited for their experience with both meditation and psychedelics, their responses may be biased in favor of meditation-based preparation for psychedelics. Future research is needed to fully understand possible synergies between these practices. Congratulations to our first author Mia C. Riedel, and co-authors Rosalind G. McAlpine (@rosmcalpine) and Terje Sparby (@terjesparby). We are grateful for the practitioners who participated in our research. Do our results resonate with your research, teaching, or practice? Let us know! The full article is included in the comments below ⤵️ May this work benefit many 🙏

Does the menstrual cycle change the psychedelic experience? 5 Questions with psychopharmacologists Natasha Mason and Eline Haijen-Bongers

A Journey Into Consciousness: Michael Pollan and Christof Koch in Conversation - UC Berkeley Center for the Science of Psychedelics

Michael Pollan and Christof Koch Talk Psychedelics and Consciousness | Research UC Berkeley

#NoKings North Berkeley

RT @doristsao: 1/ We discovered something totally unexpected about the neural structure of consciousness that overturns decades of thinking on its biological basis and brings us significantly closer to the recipe for generating conscious awareness. New preprint: (led by @HesseJanis, with @FrankLanfranchi, @_conor_mcgrory, @Yuelin_Shi, and @EngelTatiana)

Me too?

@_RajPatel Raj could you please send me a PDF of this article? I don't have a FT subscription. Thanks.

RT @SciPsychedelics: This week in psychedelics news: –Researchers go undercover to study Oregon’s psilocybin centers –Are psychedelic treatments leaving behind therapy? –Iowaska Church makes a deal with DEA Read in The Microdose:

Today's news in psychedelics: Researchers go undercover to study Oregon’s psilocybin centers; Are psychedelic treatments leaving behind therapy?

Mary Berry Lives Out Her Father’s Farming Vision | Civil Eats

Opportunity knocks!

Do you live in the San Francisco Bay Area? Are you planning a psychedelic experience? Willing to have an MRI before and a few weeks after? Maybe you're eligible for our study here:

The Next ‘It’ Apple Might Be 300 Years Old - NYT Cooking

Check out my PErception Box podcast with @heather_berlin and Christof Koch: Can a Plant, a Chatbot, or Your Gut Be Conscious? With Michael Pollan - YouTube

Out today, one of the sanest books I've read on what to eat and why: Food Sense | Book by Christopher Gardner | Official Publisher Page | Simon & Schuster