Welcome to Psychedelics Today with your host, Joe and Kyle.

Today is August 10th, and we are here with Catherine McLean.

Catherine is an academically trained research scientist with a longstanding interest in neural correlates of consciousness and the science of well-being.

At the beginning of her career, she lived in four months, she lived in four months at a secluded retreat center in Colorado, Rocky, studying the

effects of intensive meditation on brain activity, concentration, and psychological functioning.

As a postdoctoral research fellow and faculty member at John Hopkins University, she was one

of the lead scientists and session guides studying the effects of high doses of psilocybin

and other psychedelic compounds and healthy adults. Catherine now lives on a farm in Connecticut

with her husband and baby daughter and is the co-founder and director of the psychedelic education

and continuing care program in New York City. Thanks so much for joining us today, Catherine.

Thanks so much for having me. It's an honor to be invited.

Start off maybe a little bit about your background. How did you get into the research and

kind of what drove you to study consciousness and psychedelics and meditation?

Sure.

I had the privilege of going to college in a very beautiful, rural, intellectually stimulating,

and kind of free-for-all environment up in Hanover, New Hampshire at Dartmouth College,

which for what it's worth is where Jack Cornfield said he first took LSD.

So the roots for both psychedelics and consciousness expansion and kind of philosophy are strong there.

And I spent a lot of time in nature,

and I met this one man who taught rock

climbing and kind of yoga classes and other outdoor activities. And he took me to my first

meditation class. And there was a group of monks from Bhutan actually teaching in a tiny little

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