ZDoggMD: Psychedelics & Medicine.

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Just listened to this. I like this doc & his vids, opinions, communication style etc. Quite enjoyed listening to this vid, figured I'd share it here.

I liked his interview with Donald Hoffman almost a year ago enough to share it and watch it with friends because his questions and comments seemed to help clear up a lot of misconceptions about what he was actually saying.

On psychedlics so far - I'm not sure. I've liked Michael Pollan and Rick Doblin of MAPS for being straight-spoken on a topic that I believe needs it. The whole 'woah - head asplode!' presentation style is tolerable in physics (probably too much so - it's getting old), okay with math, but with psychedelics and places where our culture by default still largely sees it as the province of idiots, losers, and people who don't work for a living - it doesn't help.

That was enjoyable to watch. Thanks for posting.

It's so weird to me how when people go on about experiences they've had with psychedelics and the kinds of revelations they've had from it and the kinds of thinking it led them to, to me it often feels like "well isn't that just what normal thinking is like? you mean people don't normally think like that? are you sure?" This is just what my mind has always been like. The only psychedelic I've ever tried was weed, when I was 30. It was enjoyable, but I didn't get any revelations from it (didn't expect I would, anyway).

Of course, today I know I'm not "normal" at that, but it's only because of people like that guy relating their thought processes and conclusions as unusual and people going "whoa". Somehow, for some reason, it seems like I have a "naturally psychedelic mind" or whatever you might call it, even though I've never suffered from hallucinations beyond what could be easily explained by sensory overload and by periods of really poor sleep.

Cannabis/weed is the most mellow psychedelic..most people don't get like that sort of revelation feeling from it. In my experience usually who talk about that are more talking of having done more powerful psychedelics like shrooms, acid or DMT. That said I don't think I feel I've had any crazy revelation from any of those though I have tried all three, but I could sort of see how a person could experience that.

But yeah the more powerful psychedelics change the way things look and the colors, it can even seem like you are seeing more colors than you normally see like colors you didn't even know existed. Also things can move a little bit, some people think it looks like walls are breathing and such. And some people feel in that state they get great revelations...I just kinda like the experience and the sort of 'afterglow' like I generally feel content for like a couple weeks after, like it gives me a break from some of the usual anxiety and such. And well a lot of lyrics of older psychedelic music make a lot more since after experiencing a trip. Like this

Especially when it gets to the mark 2:20 in the video

Yep, I know. That's why I didn't expect anything extraordinary from it (and didn't get anything extraordinary, other than some pretty wild but temporary distortions of time and space). I was mentioning it really just to say that I've never tried any strong psychedelic.


The guy in the video says he did try "real psychedelics" (he talked about LSD in particular, IIRC), and that it led him to the sorts of perceptions I'm talking about. He feels so strongly about it that he believes every doctor should at least go through some similar experience (without or without drugs) to really have a deeper understanding of what they'll be dealing with in their profession (namely: people, their inner workings, and their well-being or lack thereof).


That kinda reminds me of how I tend to feel on some days in spring, when the temperature goes up. I've had a lot of moments with a sort of mystical "revelation"-type feeling ("I am one with the universe" type of thing, or "I get it now, this is what it was ALL about all along, EVERYTHING makes sense") on days like those over the years (it almost always seems to be in spring). I get dissociation-type symptoms/effects (including sparkly or strangely-vivid colors sometimes, or like the world is "more 3D than usual", or like my senses are actually not conspiring against me, for a change), and I get a lot of sudden strong deja-vu moments. It feels very confusing (because it's like I remember that I remember that I remember that moment, like a recursive live-TV screen on a live-TV screen), but very peaceful at the same time, like there's no need for it to not be confusing, "I understand it already". An "everything is in perfect harmony" type of feeling. Like that moment was all of history and all of history was that moment. There were also some times when I felt very distinctly weightless, just like I would feel in a dream where I could fly.

I don't get any distinct hallucinations of any kind though. It's all very clearly subjective, and I can still interact with people no different than usual. They wouldn't know I'm going through something strange. Also these effects have been getting milder and milder over the years. I think they peaked when I was in my early 20s. I think part of what made them more intense was mood fluctuations caused by thyroid issues (among other causes) -- heh, whaddayaknow, we're back on topic...

These are a few songs that I strongly associate with some of those past experiences (the first three ones in particular really felt like they reflected my experience at the time, both the music/lyrics and the imagery, the other ones are only more indirectly related; the songs are not all related to the same period of my life):






(too bad the video quality is so terrible)

One thing I feel like adding here, while I take a bit of a Saturday afternoon break before I work till probably midnight, I think I've spotted probably the best use for microdosing.

It's really about fighting off entropy. You think how much wear life gives you with it's battles and tests of sanity and resolve, and then these days the workplace has gotten competitive enough in a lot of places that 60 hrs a week is turning into the new board rather than 40 (which it's been getting like this probably since the late 90's).

It's a bit like if you give yourself a bit of rest and have a microdose with some good neurological supplements (Lion's Mane for example) your central core cohesion peaks up above the mess and has enough time to clean/tidy house in the six or seven hours its given to really put things in order. I used to liken it to something like a transmission fluid flush or oil change for your brain but I think it has even more to do with what I just described and from there the serotonin 5-HT2A effects just help you clean house.

I think this is also why psychedelics will also only be popular with a certain group of people who'd want a potentially harsh and bright searchlight shown on the contents of their consciousness and they have to be people who can love, nurture, and curate/cultivate what they see.