Psychedeliology (HALLUCINOGENS) with Dr. Charles Grob

Part 1: Magic mushrooms, LSD, ayahuasca ceremonies, DMT, ketamine: this episode is a grab bag of trippy facts. Renowned psychiatry professor and psychedelics researcher Dr. Charles Grob of Harbor-UCLA Medical Center sits down to talk about how much LSD is too much LSD, what juices are squirting in the brain when you're tripping out, who should NOT take psychedelics, talking to dead people, serendipitous libraries, late night phone calls, antidepressants and mushrooms, the murky history of psychedelic research, and future paths of study that may help the world. Next week, wall-to-wall listener questions and some tales from your internet dad’s own  journey.

Listen via Apple, Spotify, iHeartRadio, Podbay, Podcast Addict, or wherever you listen to podcasts.

Part 2: It’s wall-to-wall listener questions about magic mushrooms, LSD, ayahuasca ceremonies, set and setting, how mushrooms go stale, decriminalization, strains and potencies, placebos, the “Stoned Ape Theory,” neurodivergence, tripping in an MRI, recent F.D.A. hearings, astrophysics and psychedelics, and how to be a good trip sitter with a professor of psychiatry at the UCLA School of Medicine and co-editor of the Handbook of Medical Hallucinogens, Dr. Charlie Grob. Also: the safest way to take psychedelics, what is reality, avoiding barfing and at the very end, my own first-person ramble about following clinical guidelines for a big trip. In Oregon.

Listen via Apple, Spotify, iHeartRadio, Podbay, Podcast Addict, or wherever you listen to podcasts.

Browse Dr. Grob’s publications on ResearchGate

Buy his book, Hallucinogens: A Reader

Donations were made to Chacruna Institute for Psychedelic Plant Medicines and Human Rights Watch


Links to things we discussed:

PART 1

Pilot study of psilocybin treatment for anxiety in patients with advanced-stage cancer

Human hallucinogen research: guidelines for safety

Psychotherapeutic and neurobiological processes associated with ayahuasca: A proposed model and implications for therapeutic use

The Origin of the Term “Psychedelic”

Why Indigenous ‘Spirit medicine’ principles must be a priority in psychedelic research

Stanley Krippner

Michael Pollan’s book “How to Change Your Mind

Fantastic Fungi” documentary 

Maria Sabina and Visionary Mushrooms

Salvador Roquet Remembered: An Innovative Psychedelic Therapist in 1960s Mexico

Old Trips, New Destinations: Recent Advances in the Study of Psychoactive Drugs with Harriet de Wit

Poisoner in Chief: Sidney Gottlieb and the CIA Search for Mind Control” by Stephen Kinzer

From mind control to murder? How a deadly fall revealed the CIA’s darkest secrets

Dreams and Psychedelics: Neurophenomenological Comparison and Therapeutic Implication

Natural vs. Synthetic Psilocybin: The Same or Completely Different?

Operation Midnight Climax

CIA-Funded Research Exploited Black Americans in Search of “Mind-Control” Drug

Attenuation of psilocybin mushroom effects during and after SSRI/SNRI antidepressant use

A systematic study of microdosing psychedelics

Comparison of psychedelic and near-death or other non-ordinary experiences in changing attitudes about death and dying

Single-Dose Psilocybin Treatment for Major Depressive Disorder

Ethical principles of traditional Indigenous medicine to guide western psychedelic research and practice

Microdosing with psilocybin mushrooms: a double-blind placebo-controlled study

Modern Psychedelic Microdosing Research on Mental Health: A Systematic Review

Therapeutic use of psilocybin: Practical considerations for dosing and administration

Psilocybin, in 10mg or 25mg doses, has no short- or long-term detrimental effects in healthy people

Repeated low doses of LSD in healthy adults: A placebo-controlled, dose–response study

More People Are Microdosing for Mental Health. But Does It Work?

How psilocybin, the psychedelic in mushrooms, may rewire the brain to ease depression, anxiety and more

The brain's default network: origins and implications for the study of psychosis

Trial of Psilocybin versus Escitalopram for Depression

Comparison of psychedelic and near-death or other non-ordinary experiences in changing attitudes about death and dying

PART 2

Stability of psilocybin and its four analogs in the biomass of the psychotropic mushroom

Testing for Truth Part 9: Caps vs Stems – Where Does the Psilocybin Hide?

Don’t Kill My Buzz, Man: Explaining The Criminalization Of Psychedelic Drugs

What psychedelics legalisation and decriminalisation looks like around the world

Drugs Cited as N.Y.U. Leap Is Ruled Accident, Not Suicide - The New York Times 

The Yale Manual for Psilocybin-Assisted Therapy of Depression (using Acceptance and Commitment Therapy as a Therapeutic Frame)

Imperial College of London Psilocybin Clinical Trial playlist

Reduction in social anxiety after MDMA-assisted psychotherapy with autistic adults: a randomized, double-blind, placebo-controlled pilot study

The 19th century 'psychonauts' who pioneered experimental drug use for scientific research

Are Psychedelic Mushrooms Legal in Colorado?

Mapping Psychedelic Drug Policy Reform in the United States

Microdosing with psilocybin mushrooms: a double-blind placebo-controlled study

Comparison of psychedelic and near-death or other non-ordinary experiences in changing attitudes about death and dying

The Varieties of Self-Transcendent Experience

Michael Pollan’s A Psychedelic Glossary

From psychiatry to neurology: Psychedelics as prospective therapeutics for neurodegenerative disorders

Handbook of Medical Hallucinogens

The Stoned Ape Theory Revisited


Other episodes you may enjoy:

Oneirology (DREAMS)

Mycology (MUSHROOMS)

Molecular Neurobiology (BRAIN CHEMICALS)

Quantum Ontology (WHAT IS REAL?)

Quasithanatology (NEAR-DEATH EXPERIENCES)

Cosmology (THE UNIVERSE)

Thanatology (DEATH & DYING)

Radiology (X-RAY VISION)

Scotohylology (DARK MATTER)

Futurology (THE FUTURE)

Witchology (WITCHES & WITCHCRAFT)

Ethnoecology (ETHNOBOTANY)


Ologies info:

Sponsors of Ologies

Transcripts and bleeped episodes

Smologies (short, classroom-safe) episodes

Become a patron of Ologies for as little as a buck a month

OlogiesMerch.com has hats, shirts, hoodies, totes!

Follow @Ologies on Instagram and X

Follow @AlieWard on Instagram and X

Editing by Mercedes Maitland of Maitland Audio Productions and Jacob Chaffee

Managing Director: Susan Hale

Scheduling Producer: Noel Dilworth 

Transcripts by Aveline Malek

Website by Kelly R. Dwyer

Theme song by Nick Thorburn

The BrainAlie Ward