Psychedelics Weekly – Drug-Free Digital Trips, The Prevalence of Challenging Experiences, and The End of Synthesis Institute
Psychedelics Today
Psychedelics Today, LLC
4.6 • 598 Ratings
🗓️ 10 March 2023
⏱️ 52 minutes
🧾️ Download transcript
Summary
In this episode of Psychedelics Weekly, David is joined by Kyle, who is finally home after a lot of traveling, to talk shop and dig into the articles they found the most interesting this week.
They begin with the news that Paul Stamets now has a species of mushroom named after him (Psilocybe stametsii), then take a look at a recent self-report study called "Prevalence and associations of challenging, difficult or distressing experiences using classic psychedelics," which aimed to collect data on just how many psychedelic users (in this study, anyone who had ever tried a psychedelic) felt that they had had a challenging or difficult experience. They discuss the results and highlight some interesting data: that LSD was the most commonly associated substance, that smoking cannabis was one of the most commonly reported interventions, and of course, the question of whether or not these experiences were beneficial.
They then talk about Synthesis Institute closing its doors, the possible hope Synthesis could have, and the sadness in this – when businesses fail, it's easy to look at numbers and profit margins and be dismissive, but we forget the people involved; not just at Synthesis, but the hundreds of would-be students.
And lastly, they look at an article about a California-based startup called the Reality Center, which uses a combination of pulsing lights, sounds, and vibrations to create a drug-free but seemingly very psychedelic experience, reminding us yet again that you do not need a substance to achieve non-ordinary states of consciousness.
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Transcript
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| 0:00.0 | Hello, everybody. Welcome back to Psychialics Today, and this is an episode of Psychedelics Weekly, your host, Kyle Buller here, and also joined by David Drapkin. David, how's it going? |
| 0:21.9 | I don't think we've really been on a podcast in a long time together, so this should be fun. Yeah, I'm delighted to be here. I don't care what we talk about. I just love chatting with you. Kyle, great to see you, mate. How are you? Yeah, I'm doing good. Finally, back in Jersey for maybe a few more weeks and then I don't know we'll see what happens. I've been as I mentioned in one of the last |
| 0:40.6 | episodes, yeah, I've been traveling a lot. So that's why I haven't been on the podcast as much. It's finding it, I'm not traveling with a lot of my gear. So sometimes hard to always record. Yeah, you've been all over the place. So yeah, you've been to, what are some countries in states of America? |
| 0:56.0 | You've been in the last few months. |
| 0:58.0 | Yeah, I just got back from Colorado is there for about like three weeks. |
| 1:01.0 | I was able to hang out with Joe and then we finished up our last vital retreat in Colorado. |
| 1:07.0 | And yeah, I've just been traveling a lot for either conferences and then our vital retreats. |
| 1:12.1 | And so we just wrapped up the last retreat of the year. |
| 1:15.4 | So, yeah, again, we had two in Colorado. |
| 1:17.7 | We had one in the Netherlands, two in Jamaica, one in Costa Rica. |
| 1:22.0 | And then, you know, we were just in, I spent the month pretty much down in Jamaica, |
| 1:26.8 | then flew right to Miami for |
| 1:28.1 | Candidic, which Joe and I chatted about last episode. |
| 1:32.5 | And yeah, so it's been fun, been on the road all year. |
| 1:36.4 | Cool. |
| 1:37.0 | I've been enjoying it. |
| 1:39.0 | I guess my update is just being home working on my laptop. |
| 1:42.9 | That's where I've been. |
| 1:44.1 | So, yeah, I wanted to. That's where I've been. |
| 1:46.6 | So, yeah, I want to tell people, |
| 1:51.8 | and I've been taking most of the role of interviewing new vital applicants for this next year's course. |
| 1:54.0 | And I've probably met now about 150 students from around the world. |
... |
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