Produced by the ILAB at WBUR Boston.

Hey everybody, take a trip with endless thread if you will into the wild world of psychedelics.

In our last story, Zambi Funkis, we spoke to best-selling author and environmentalist Michael

Pollen about cordiceps, a parasite which Zambi fies its host and eats its brains.

Check that out if you haven't yet because Zambi's are cool and so is that episode.

Yeah, Zambi's are cool, but we also talked to Michael about his recent book,

How to Change Your Mind. What the new science of psychedelics teaches us about consciousness,

dying, addiction, depression, and transcendence.

When I talk to him for our episode, Pollen had a lot to say about mushrooms and psychedelics in general,

because of the deep research he did for his book.

So we thought you might enjoy it too. Take a listen.

Michael, thank you very much for talking with us. Sure, Ben. Glad to be here.

So how many magic mushroom enthusiasts have come out of the woodwork to high five you for writing this book?

Oh, you would not believe how many there are. I've heard from everybody.

It's an interesting, you know, normally I write about food and I meet a different crowd.

Sure. But there are a lot more psychedelic enthusiasts out there than I ever realized.

One of the ideas in the book that you present is the idea that people should consider perhaps taking psilocybin later in life.

Yeah, I mean, I don't recommend anybody do anything, but I think there's something very interesting about the experience later in life.

And one of the reasons is that as we get older, we kind of get stuck in various patterns of thought and behavior that aren't always constructive.

We get set in our ways. And one of the things these medicines have the potential to do is blast, blast open those ways and create new pathways and help people break out of habits of thought and behavior that may be destructive.

The way that kids use psychedelics is fundamentally different. They tend to want to be outside or be at a concert or be in a social venue.

And they're really focusing on the extraordinary sensory experiences that these drugs can sponsor.

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