RfD with Michael Pollan: The Mind-Blowing Power of Psychedelics

In collaboration with Nella Frumová

This Wednesday, March 25th, American journalist, author, and professor Michael Pollan was welcomed in Amsterdam by the Room for Discussion. He expressed how he always felt welcomed in the city and found his readers here. Through his extensive body of work, Pollan has explored the impact of psychedelics on human consciousness, mental health, and creativity, thereby reviving public interest in these substances.

Given that Pollan’s 2018 book How to Change Your Mind is credited with mainstreaming psychedelics, it may be surprising to learn that the journalist had never experimented with LSD prior to the eve of his 60th birthday. When asked why this experience came so late in his life, Pollan chalked it up to two reasons. 

First, he explained that he was never really surrounded by drugs in his youth, stating there were “exactly two potheads” on his college campus. Besides this lack of exposure, though, Pollan was also afraid to try these drugs because of the deeply unpredictable nature of psychedelic trips. Hearing stories of people making rash decisions–for instance, jumping off of buildings– after taking psychedelics had a profound impact on Pollan, however the journalist now recognizes that such stories were highlighted to spread misinformation about these drugs. 

A War on Thought

In the interview, Pollan explicitly discussed how President Richard Nixon’s “War on Drugs” in the 1960s played a key role in the stigmatization of psychedelics. Pollan states that rather than being a public health measure, Nixon’s criminalization of drugs was a political tactic aimed at keeping Americans –particularly men of military conscription age– obedient to the government. 

The journalist explained that Nixon believed drugs like LSD were “fueling critical thinking”, leading young Americans to refuse to fight in the Vietnam War. Naturally, the best way to combat this critical thinking was to ban the very substance causing it. 

On a personal level, Pollan said that he agreed that psychedelics have the power to foster independent thinking, which has manifested in various interesting ways during his trips.

Seeing the Word Anew

Pollan describes his experiences on psychedelics, particularly psilocybin, as “illuminating”, saying that the drug “smudges the windshield through which we see reality”. Some even think it can help you with environmental thinking. What Pollan himself admitted experiencing. 

“Consciousness is very important” he claims. He prefers using any kind of psychedelics with a “guide”. They are in care of reality, while you can be free in your mind. Your untied mind can be free and creative. There have been many experiences, with creative minds of writers, poets and painters that experienced their “break through” while being on psychedelics.

Changing the brain

Beyond promoting creativity, however, the journalist also discussed at length the benefits of psychedelics in various therapeutic contexts. One study, for example, found that terminal cancer patients who took psilocybin in a guided setting experienced a significant reduction in their fear of death, anxiety, and depression. Beyond this, the drug has proved incredibly effective at curing addiction and OCD. How, then, does psychedelic therapy differ from other forms of treating these conditions?

According to Pollan, it comes down to psychedelics increasing neuroplasticity. Mental illnesses like OCD or depression leave the brain “stuck” in a loop of negative rumination, but psychedelics stop this loop and allow those under the influence to learn new patterns more easily.

Studies have found that this process effectively reopens critical periods of the brain’s development. These periods can be observed in toddlers, who are quickly able to learn a language, and during adolescence, when critical social skills are developed. After a certain age, however, critical developmental periods close, making learned patterns fundamentally harder to break. Insert psychedelics: Pollan compares the brain to a path with deeply formed grooves, and drugs like psilocybin act as freshly fallen snow, smoothing out grooves and allowing people to change their habits with greater ease.

The path forward

Despite the many benefits of psychedelics that have already been discovered, more research must be done to fully understand the therapeutic potential of these substances. However, the positive results that guided sessions using psychedelics as a tool for better health, have been already positively proven. Pollan advocates for the medicalization of psychedelics, envisioning a future in which guided trips are a form of treatment covered by health insurance.

While he supports increased access to psychedelics, Michael cautions against using them casually, as there is always the possibility of a trip going askew. Instead, the author believes we need a cultural container for psychedelic use and proposes drawing upon the ceremonial approach of indigenous peoples, which underscores the solemnity and momentousness of a trip. 

Though Pollan acknowledges the risk of cultural appropriation in seeking inspiration from other cultures’ psychedelic rituals, he believes that we can simply incorporate elements of these ceremonies, such as consuming the drugs in a guided group setting, into rituals representative of a Western cultural context. 

Ultimately, for Pollan, the future of psychedelics constitutes their careful regulation and integration into contemporary medicine and culture, allowing us to unlock the full potential of these transformative substances.