276. Psychedelic Therapies - Jahan Khamehzadeh

Kara Goodwin: [00:00:00] Hello and welcome to the meditation conversation, the podcast to support your spiritual revolution. I'm your host, Kara Goodwin, and today I'm joined by Johan 

Kara Goodwin: Johan completed his dissertation on psychedelics at the California Institute of Integral Studies. He's the author of the Psilocybin Connection, psychedelics, the Transformation of Consciousness and Evolution of the Planet. Aside from academic work with the J F K University and University of Arizona, he has undergone several major trainings, including the Hakomi Somatic Psychotherapy Program and the Matech Mushroom tradition.

If you're at all curious about the healing potential of psychedelics you're in for a real treat with this [00:01:00] episode. Johanna's full of fantastic insights on how various psychedelics, such as psilocybin and LSD heal the brain and resolve longstanding mental illness. We talk about why these substances have such a controversial reputation. These insights might surprise you. 

As well as their importance in the natural world in terms of their planetary function. So get ready to have your mind expanded. And be sure to check out Kara goodwin.com for more resources specific to helping your meditation practice such as the meditation immersion online course, to go deeply into your own meditation practice. 

And the healing hearth online community Where we meditate together regularly. There's a large meditation library to help your meditation practice and other ways to help your spiritual growth. Learn more@karagoodwin.com and now enjoy this episode

Kara Goodwin: So welcome, Johanna. Really excited to talk to you today.

Jahan Khamehzadeh: Thank you, Kara. It's an honor to be here and [00:02:00] with your audience.

Kara Goodwin: So how did you get into the field of psilocybin research?

Jahan Khamehzadeh: You know, I, you know, not so much of a different topic than we were discussing right before this, but consciousness has always been a pool and interest, and I was in quite of like an existential inquiry as a teen. Like, who are we? What are we, how do we know where we're supposed to go to the species?

What's the point of my life? And that naturally predisposed me to an interest in how we make sense of reality and the idea that we could take a compound and it alters our perception of self and time and space really piqued my interest. And so I had a huge experience as a teen, changed my life. And over for the next 20 years, psychedelics have been a part of my practice.

Kara Goodwin: That's fantastic. You know it, it's funny. Accidentally, so it wasn't really in preparation for our talk, is what I mean by that. But I've been watching, how to Change Your Mind on Netflix, which is a four-part [00:03:00] series and I've listened to the book years ago, but, and so it's been really fascinating to engage with that material again and all the therapeutic.

Benefits that are being realized now, with psychedelics. And so it's, I bring this up in case there are listeners and you have your book out, which is the psilocybin connection, where, you know, we may think it's this, like. Way to trip out and kind of recreationally have fun or something, but there are real health benefits that are truly helping people from P T S D to cancer.

To, I mean all sort, you know, severe anxiety and, O C D, all kinds of things. I don't know if you have anything that you wanna share in terms of that type of research and how it's sort of moving people forward in, in those terms.

Jahan Khamehzadeh: You know, as somebody, as I mentioned, that's been really interested in consciousness in general, different [00:04:00] modalities of therapy and of transformation. so not necessarily just from a bias perspective, but statistically there's nothing as healing. and that's quite a big statement to say, but clinical studies have found it's psilocybin, psychedelic treatment is, Effective for 80% of people with treatment resistant depression.

That's a population that no other treatment has worked for. No medications, no other form of therapy, 80% of them heal, many times getting out of decades of depression, right? So I see it's probably affected for about 90% of people. Those are kind of the worst, hard, core cases. 80%, effective for NeoLife anxiety.

People that have been diagnosed with a terminal illness have six months to two years left to live, and because of, you know, their terminal illness, they're stuck in this deep state of fear, like hard to even leave the house. They're kind of petrified, and so they can't even enjoy the life they have left.

They're able to overcome their fear of death, which is such a deep root for most of us. You know, 80% successful for nicotine addiction. And alcohol addiction, which I believe those are the highest numbers of any [00:05:00] kind of therapeutic modality for low addiction. helpful for O C D. And what we've seen when it comes to the brain, it stimulates what's known as neurogenesis.

The growth of new neurons. A brain physically begins to grow, quiets what's called the default mode network. The ego part of the brain as, neuroscientists call it, which is overdeveloped with

Kara Goodwin: oh

Ego. 

Jahan Khamehzadeh: So when you think of me, me, me, eye, eye, eye, there's a certain network of the brain that lights up and that's overdeveloped in people that have anxiety and depression.

Because if you're constantly in pain and scared, you're a little self-absorbed, right? You're like, you can't help but keep thinking about yourself cuz you know it's a self-preservation, technique. But this, network acts as a repressive function for the rest part of your brain. And so when this network, you can think about it as a loud voice quiets, the whole brain begins to come up and the entire subconscious, you know, arises and looking at, MRI imaging, the whole thing interacts.

And many of these pathways stabilize. It increases neuroplasticity. And for those that are into meditation, the neurosciences shows it's very similar, in terms of the quantity, [00:06:00] the thought mode network between longtime meditators and those that use psilocybin. 65% of people have a mystical experience in the right set and setting.

I mean, that's we're you're talking about after 20 years follow up, people say it's one of the top, most people say it's between one of the one to third most important experience of their entire life. So we have the recreational use, which is amazing. And it can be, and there's a lot we can get into, but when we come just to healing and spirituality, it's fairly uncomparable.

Kara Goodwin: thank you for that because that is really powerful data. What about,the fears of addiction? So you mentioned that it can help with alcohol and cigarette or nicotine, a addiction. What about becoming addicted to the to the psilocybin itself?

Jahan Khamehzadeh: You know, one big interest of myself in psychedelics, and I do love all of them, and I focus on PIL side for a variety of reasons. Cause I think it can be the most potent so far I've seen when it comes to really deep peeling, it's quite an anomaly in our paradigm in many ways. And my 20 years of [00:07:00] interests, I've yet to find a single person, become addicted to psilocybin.

And that's quite astounding because we can get addicted to almost anything. And so what we have found is it helps break addictive patterns. And, you know, we can get into it later. The evolution of it's about 70 million years old, this compound and how it kind of developed and grew with our brain. But you can't really take high doses many day in a row and still have an experience.

So you, if you take a, have a trip on day one, you might need double the second day, quadruple iii. And on day four you could take any amount and it doesn't work. So it doesn't keep having an effect. Right? That being said, because of how amazing the results have been and life changing experiences.

When we see the documentaries and read the books, we kind of hear about the highlights. Beautiful, epic, high altitude experiences that are transformative. But I. What I've seen and many people that really kind of stay with the psilocybin, it's it kind of works a lot with the shadow. Like, it forces you to work with really hard, dark material, you know, so [00:08:00] you might have a beautiful trip the first time, but if you try to trip a few days later, you're likely going to be working with some difficult emotions.

Which makes the transformation really real. It's like, you're gonna therapy, you're, you don't go in, oh my God, therapy's gonna be amazing. It can be, but you're still in there working with the wounds, you know, intergenerational within your biography, so it can give you quite a kick in the ass. So it's, at some level it doesn't become fun, but it's like growth oriented work. So it's very unlikely people are gonna get there cuz you're not really in the state of euphoria. Likely you're gonna have to deal with rage, shame, pain, fear, all of it, you know, cause it, it comes up, whatever's repressed comes up to be healed.

Kara Goodwin: Wow, that's really fascinating. I am interested, I know you said that you focus on psilocybin. do you have anything you can share in terms of the differentiation of the healing capabilities or the journeys with the various psychedelics? So from mushrooms to ayahuasca to L s D or, and so forth?[00:09:00] 

Jahan Khamehzadeh: So those that you just named, they're part of the same chemical family called Tryptamines. So D M T, which is the same. compound in Ayahuasca, l s d psilocybin and also the other well known is five M E o d m T, that's called the Godd molecule. they're very similar in their structure working with the same receptor sites, and they light up the same parts of the brain, so they are far more similar than difference.

Of course, there's nuance. You know, so d m t by itself takes about 20, 30 minutes and it moves through your system. With ayahuasca, it's able to be elongated, LSDs like eight to 12 hours. Psilocybins like four, you know, five, m e o, DMTs about 20 to 30. So one thing is just duration is quite a difference and different potency by weight. There's other chemical families on the phyl means like Meslin, which is IMP peyote and San Pedro. That also includes M D M A. There's also Iboga, which is its own, ketamine, its own, so there's different families that interact with different parts of their brain. But as far as the trip demine, which are the classical kind of psychedelics, you know, I focused on [00:10:00] psilocybin because a lot of my research was the role it played in early human history.

You know, the theory proposed by Terrence and Dennis McKenna, that it was probably what catapulted human evolution. the idea that our consciousness expanded while we were, evolving in Africa and there must have been a consciousness expanding substance in the area. And there's plenty. so there's over 200 different species of psilocybin mushrooms found around the world.

It's very plentiful. So the idea that because it's part of our history that it's so available worldwide, people can grow it, and it kind of really forces people generally to become an integrity, working with their shadows and so on. I thought it was just a great substance all around.

It's one that I've come to really trust.

Kara Goodwin: Hmm. It's really, really fascinating that something that is this ancient and natural and grown in the ground is then like illegal to such a high degree. I don't know how can we make that something from nature illegal? I don't know. That's [00:11:00] weird.

Jahan Khamehzadeh: I mean, completely. I'm at the root of it. Fear, so anything that we are really, it's so earth shattering different than everything else within our paradigm. you could take a five grams and likely to have a missile experience. I mean, talk to deed c aliens, merge with the planet, it's a really intense.

It can be and transformative. And so Michael Poland in his book, how to Change Your Mind, you know, one you just referred. He says, what happened in the sixties? He says, at what other point in human history did the youth have such a searing Rio of passage that the prior generation didn't understand? So the youth that came in contact with these psychedelics, well live transforming different shifts and paradigms and identity questioning the establishment, the government, the Vietnam War, moving for, you know, feminism, empowerment and racial rights changing.

The arts in general with music and media and this level of quick change scared the older generation that was in control. So without looking at the scientific research, this is well documented. There's o over 1500 papers on L S D by like 1960. [00:12:00] It was a sweepingly made illegal out of fear. That being said, there's so many indigenous traditions that have been holding, holding this li little fire alive for millennia, you know, and we look back through history, the first religions and spiritual inclinations were shamanism.

 people that use the plants in the environment to work with spirit. And a lot of, I think my further research is how it was in the Americas before the Europeans came. You know, the Europeans came about five a hundred, years ago, but people came here about 20,000 years ago, and there was about 70 million Americans here already, largely using psychedelics.

So the Aztecs are really well known for using littley mushrooms in their political rituals, like in the inauguration of their leader, Montezuma. The second the Incas had psychedelics, the Totex, and. So it's, so it was a huge part of human history. It's more western culture in general that came from a religions mind frame.

You know, just say Christianity like, where we have the only truth and we're not willing [00:13:00] to look at other people's perspectives. So when the Europeans encounter charism for a long time, they saw them as devil worshipers, and they're, there was a lot of genocide, a lot of killing, you know, and breaking apart the rituals.

So it's only that we've become more open-minded with anthropology, with psychology that we've become. Open to taking in other people's perspectives. A lot of people still aren't there, but so it's only with this opening and culture that we were able to embrace and take new information, including these other modalities.

Kara Goodwin: Hmm. That's interesting. And, you know, speaking just about the religious context and, you know, you've talked about how there's so, so much research that shows how beneficial these experiences are for people, for example, who are facing terminal illness and the fact that it's not, addictive. So there, but the, the effect of like one experience on somebody who is terminally ill [00:14:00] is lasting.

It's not just like while they're in this, it, it continues on, even if they don't continue having journeys and it, and I think a lot of people don't, if I understand correctly, they're not seeking it out. A lot, but the experience stays with them and that healing continues. Am I correct?

Jahan Khamehzadeh: absolutely. I've, there's, it's quite illicit. People that I've come in contact with out just wanted experiences change their life, and that was definitely the case in my own life. And as I'd mentioned, it can be the experiences are quite difficult. the majority of the time when people show up to take the actual psychedelic, it's generally filled with a lot of anxiety, you know, so it's not something people really jump in to do over and over again.

You're like, oh my God, I need to face the unknown today. And the general response to that, even in the body, even somebody like me that's had hundreds of journeys is still fear. And you kinda have to be willing to move through that threshold to really, you can kind of break up that ego membrane and really kind of expand into something much larger.[00:15:00] 

Kara Goodwin: Hmm. Yeah. Interesting. So fascinating. I'm curious about people who may need to avoid these types of things. Are there people, I mean, we've talked a lot about the benefits and the pros and the amazing healing capabilities. Are there people who should stay away from. These substances.

Jahan Khamehzadeh: Yeah, so it's a nuanced response, you know, Terrence McKenna is my favorite philosopher in this area, and he puts up, up there as like, this is a part of a human right. Along with like, Having sex. So it's just a, an important part of the human experience. again, it grows everywhere in nature.

It's, I would say it's part of our evolution. It's our opening to deep spiritual experiences and psychological development. So there's a part of me that's just like, yes, open to everybody, but that doesn't mean necessarily open to them at any given moment in their life. So first and foremost, I would prefer and strongly encourage that the person's somewhat grounded.

You know, and functioning. and so there's certain [00:16:00] personality disorders that right now I don't feel our society's able to hold while having these experiences. for example, borderline and schizophrenia, you know, where there could be quite of a lack of control within somebody's system, or they're already so ungrounded that they're constantly not sure what reality really is in their normal waking life.

Right? So this could be very destabilizing. That being said, the substance, the cells, as I shared, heal different parts of the brain, including what's called the Spinalis. The Reen Livening of Dendra. So one of the best researchers in this area, his name was STIs, SLA Gruff. He also created holotropic breath work.

Some people might be familiar with that, and he's been working this field for about 60 years, held space for about 50,000 people. With all these different kind of consciousness expanding modalities. And he says psychedelics, catalyze what he calls holo. Tropic states of consciousness states that organically move towards wholeness.

So the psyches tries to repair itself. So this is pretty much helpful for everybody. But there's a certain more the people, like the population I just named that might need an entire support team, [00:17:00] that might need a facility to stay in for a week, you know? And we don't, because of legality, we're moving in that direction.

We don't have that infrastructure. So my hope is yes, everybody, but we're not able to hold everybody across the entire range right now.

Kara Goodwin: Hmm. Do we know, you mentioned about, I think you said dendron, is that right? Dendrites?

Jahan Khamehzadeh: rounds. Yeah. Yeah.

Kara Goodwin: Yeah. So pardon neurons within the brain. Is there. And you went into this a little bit, but like you said, that it allows new connections to be made within the brain and those, because when I think of mushrooms, in the Meial network, you know, it really is like this network.

And I've heard or or seen evidence that there's like a, almost like a lattice work across the planet of mu, like a mushroom lattice sort of underneath the surface of the earth. And just how. Much the planet relies on this and how, you know, if we go down the [00:18:00] mushroom track, aside from psychedelics, the healing capabilities, from the planet of mushrooms is astounding.

So then I think about that in the brain where it's making new, like, connections within the brain just like it does within the planet itself. but does that, do we have research to show if that holds or is that like while, while they're having the experience.

Jahan Khamehzadeh: No, it hold, it holds simulates the neuroplasticity, the brain's able to shift and the re enlivening of the dendrites definitely come back to life and stabilize. And, just, I love the context you brought in a fungi as a whole, you know, cuz in my research again, like how does something so powerful, and that seems to give higher ordered experiences of consciousness exist.

This can be random. So we have to look at it from an evolutionary standpoint. And so fungi is one of the three large kingdoms of biology, fungi, plants, animals, and fungi is about 2.5 billion years old. Animals are about 500 million. So it's about [00:19:00] five times older than animals.

Kara Goodwin: And it's different from plants.

Jahan Khamehzadeh: Different than plants completely. So, fungi breathes oxygen. Categorically, it's a little bit closer to animals than it is plants, but all. But all these involved in a deep symbiotic relationship. Everything's so interdependent because we've been evolving together, co-evolving this entire time.

And so fungi created the first root systems in plants. They were the first roots. So they came onto land, broke down the soil, plants emerged onto land from the waters. So 90% of plants of a symbiotic relationship to mycelium. And mycelium is a large underground body, a fungi. 80% of them would stop existing if mycelium went out.

So mycelium this large, almost like you say, neurono network, like brain network, across pretty much the entire ground of the planet. Connects all these root systems and sends electrical impulses to all the plants so that could communicate, breaks down dead matter, you know, biological matter, so it can become nutrients for everything.

So we've been evolving on top of this living network, our entire history here on land, and out of this comes the mushroom and that fits in, [00:20:00] and then the psilocybin cell fits in the five H T two, A serotonin receptor in our brain, better than serotonin in itself. Really showing this long line of evolution. But to really kind of circle back to this part around the dendrites of coming back to life, most people I see coming into this work is because of depression. Depression and anxiety. It's a rising epidemic. The World Health Organization says it's the number one, reason for disability worldwide is depression.

Kara Goodwin: No

kidding. 

Jahan Khamehzadeh: And, what I've seen depression comes down to ultimately is, I don't like myself. There's a level of shame. And if you don't like yourself, life is inherently sad and hard, as opposed to if you really like yourself, then there's confidence and there's pleasure. And so much of this I don't like myself, comes from the sense of feeling fragmented and alienated and separate from your family, from your community, from the planet, from the universe, right?

And so what happens in depression is literally parts of the brain get separated. Like that's what happens. Those dendri, become atrophy and the brain's no longer fully connected. So the sense of separation is happening in the brain and it's happening [00:21:00] experientially. What happens, right? So everything matters.

Spirit consciousness. So intertwined and mirroring. So what happens when the brain hyper connects and you can see the MRIs. Of the brain on psilocybin and then on placebo, whole thing, hyper connects, right? And then experience. People have experienced a sense of unity, of oneness with themselves, with the planet, with the universe and so on, which I say as the most healing experience.

And so the brain unifies and a lot of those pathways stabilize. So those dislocated parts of. I'm different, I'm rejected. I don't belong, can merge, where all of a sudden I feel part of the environment, part of the planet connected to love, you know, having a sense of purpose. So a lot of those structures in consciousness stabilize and a lot of those structures in the brain begin to stabilize.

Kara Goodwin: That is fascinating that the physical connections within the brain, Start to join together and the emotional. Feeling that comes from that because we talk a lot. I mean, just it's becoming more and more accepted, more and more understood the role of emotions [00:22:00] in our physical health. And of course like the mind, body, spirit connection.

You know, that's another leap that a lot of people are taking. But, you know, I would not say that the majority of humanity is there, but a lot of people do at least accept the mind body connection. but. To see that actually, illustrated in like an M R I scan or however they're showing the imaging of the brain and the completeness that's happening in their, the way that they feel and the completeness that we can see happening within the brain.

that's like mind blowing. Beautiful.

Jahan Khamehzadeh: Absolutely. I mean, just to, I think science, you know, is pretty definite on our interconnectivity. If you're looking through physics, chemistry, biology, ecology, even economics, everything's so I intertwined and so is our consciousness with everything else. It's emerging in this relationship, this large web, and I'm glad we're moving through a paradigm shift as seeing this, body, mind relationship.

Because [00:23:00] when you think about it, well, where else is the mind? It's not like it's over here, outside of my body, it's. Part of my body. My entire body's one system that evolves and consciousness is embedded in that. So of course, if I tweak parts of my brain chemically, it's gonna tweak my consciousness. You know?

So there's definitely, and I think there's enough work on trauma right now where a lot of people can ground that emotions are in the body. You know, we store them as tensions in the body, and to really heal, we have to move those tensions out of the body. So definitely the whole thing is one unitary phenomenon.

Yeah.

Kara Goodwin: Yeah. That's amazing. Is there anything that you wanna share in terms of your own experience or the experience of people that you've worked with in terms of notable experiences with psilocybin? In case there are people who are listening who may have an idea of what it is, but not really. Proper stories that they get, or a way to relate to it in terms of a personal account.

Jahan Khamehzadeh: Yeah. So I can give as a general pattern. one of the things that [00:24:00] draws me to this particular substance, and there are so many, is that it's different every time, which means that you get to keep growing forever. It's always new and kind of meets you where you're at. So the indigenous societies see psilocybin in other plants like ayahuasca, bogas as plant teachers, that these are actual entities with their own consciousness that you come into relationship with over and over, over a course of a lifetime.

And so when you go in, some of the things people see right away that are the most common are like geometric patterns. So your entire landscape and visual experience is filled with the symmetry of like moving geometry, which for me signifies that something intelligent is happening. You're coming in contact with some of their consciousness in showing mathematical symbols.

And this geometry arise cross culturally across world regardless of people's knowledge or influence about it. So I can give a decent dose to somebody, you know, in Africa or China or India, who's never heard of psychedelics, and they're probably gonna see these same patterns and then they're come. The felt sense of an intelligence and presence, sometimes moving you through your [00:25:00] biography, you know, through your past history to heal, sometimes moving you out through space and showing you the history of evolution.

You know, for me, the deepest healings are those that we could classify as spiritual, that there's some deep intelligence embedded that kind of unites everything has been the most healing for me. But I've seen. Almost half the time and it's a big number. So half the time I've seen people's life change with one experience.

Right. And the hardest part though, for my work has been doing this legally in Jamaica and might be hard for the listener, is it doesn't necessarily work for everybody. There's no medicine or modality that's a hundred percent effective for the population. No pharmaceuticals, no transformative modality.

And so there's certain people I've seen that you can give them any amount of medicine and nothing happens. You know, and so the hardest part of my work has been dealing with disappointment. People come in and read these facts, the data, hear the transformations, and then it doesn't happen for them. And they're like, why not me?

There's something wrong with me. You know? So that's the hard part. The big risk done in the right set setting [00:26:00] is not a whole lot happens for you. Yeah. but it's the numbers are still in their favor.

Kara Goodwin: Mm-hmm. Yeah. Yeah. Thank you. What about microdosing? I think we're hearing a lot these days about microdosing, and maybe you can just even explain what that is, if there's somebody listening who's not sure, but I'd love to hear your thoughts on that too. Cuz everything we've talked about here is like, you know, proper journeys.

Jahan Khamehzadeh: Mm-hmm. Yeah. You know, I just recently learned like the deep history of how that arose. And so people may or may not know there's, the chemist, his name was Albert Hoffman. He was the first to synthesize and slash create l s d. and real took it like in an early 1940s. He was also the first to synthesize psilocybin, right?

And so this guy played a monumental role in the world of psychedelics and.

Kara Goodwin: it wasn't. Sorry to interrupt you, but wasn't l s d, it was created by Merck, didn't he work for Merck?

Jahan Khamehzadeh: I think it was called Zando. I think it's another pharmaceutical company. Merck, I think was the [00:27:00] emergence of M Dmma.

Kara Goodwin: Oh, yes, yes.

Sorry. 

Jahan Khamehzadeh: yeah. So this guy was working for a missile pharmaceutical company, in Switzerland and accidentally took some and then had a bike ride home. Kind of a general, like the beginnings of my experience.

He thought this could be a revolutionary. The pharmaceutical company didn't know what to do with it, so they started selling L s D all around the world to seem like, what can psych psychiatrists do with this? there's something here. And so that became kind of plentiful, but it was still in the background.

It was still in the areas of research and scientists and different artists that had access, but it wasn't available and open to the public. And LSD is very similar to psilocybin. L S D actually is derived from a fungi ergots. Right. So it's, they're pretty similar, even though they have different characteristics.

Gordon Watson was the JP Morgan banker that first went to Mexico and heard of, tribes using mushrooms. And then he went and had, he was the first Westerner having a, an intentional psilocybin mushroom experience in 1955. Publishes experience in Life Magazine in 1957. And then the world became aware of [00:28:00] mushrooms and somebody like Timothy Leary, who was at Harvard, the doctor doing the psilocybin research, went to, tried psilocybin, had a big thing, brought it to Harvard, and then later came across L S D and really kind of spread L S D everywhere.

So really to circle back with Albert Hoffman, he, during the last several years of his life, you know, he became open that he was taking about 50 micrograms of L s D regularly walking outta nature. So it's, that was a, that's a light medium dose. It's a significant dose though. You're really feeling this.

Well, James Fatman, the man who's really popularized the movement of microdosing or the, psychedelic explorers guy that's been working in this field for about almost 60 years. When Albert Hoffman said 50 mics for some reason, James Fatman thought he said five mics, which is a much smaller amount, right?

And so he's like, well, what can we do with this small level and taking on a regular basis? There might be a lot of potential here. So he is hired those for about 10 mics now, but out of that miscommunication, it enticed them to learn like [00:29:00] microdosing. And so there's been a questionnaire that he's put out where about 1500 people has responded to using microdosing with L s, D and psilocybin.

90% feel improved in their life. 10% feel an increase in anxiety. So again, it doesn't work for everybody. So the idea is taking what's called the sub, sub perceptual threshold. So the experience is more in the background, not the foreground. So like if you're taking a big mushroom experience, three to five grams, it's the main star of your experience.

It's like, this is what happening. You're tripping. This is more like there's a small enhancement, but I'm going along with my everyday life. I'm taking care of my children, I'm doing my work, I'm going to exercise. And it tends to add just a little bit of stimulation, like a little bit of energy. But most people also experience less judgment and openness, more presence, uplifting of depression.

So kind of anti-depressant, faculties, increase in productivity. You know, again, so these small factors of the brain, hyper connecting, the default mode network kind down, they're still in effect, but it's such a [00:30:00] small amount that people can build a deep relationship with it. And also it's a nice entrance cuz a lot of people have fear of psychedelics.

And here's like, well worst case situation, you might experience anxiety for a couple hours. Worst case, you know, at best this is a great replacement for antidepressants and pharmaceuticals that people are addicted to and they're on there for sometimes 20 years. 

Kara Goodwin: Is there like a, a. Build. Like if you were in a microdose, is there like a buildup to where you could you, because is it every day that you would take it? Little bit Every day.

Jahan Khamehzadeh: one say if we're looking at psilocybin lsd, super safe, no bio toxicity. Theoretically have to take a thousand doses die. Very clean compounds. That being said, tolerance does build. It stops having effective, so you could take it every day, but it's generally been encouraged to take two to three days off a week.

So LSCs really strong. So it's one day on, two days off, one day on, two days off with L S D [00:31:00] Psilocybins like four or five days a week. And that just allows the tolerance to come back down so you can start to feel the effects again.

Kara Goodwin: And would it be something for like long term or for people who are microdosing, are they doing this like indefinitely or is there like a period of treatment?

Jahan Khamehzadeh: It's as needed, you know, so again, it's safe. that being said, my experience, I've gone through different rounds of it. I'll do it for three months and then for some reason I just lose interest and then I'll come back a year later to it. And so it.

I think it, it depends on the intention. definitely better than pharmaceuticals. But if the point is just to feel balanced and happy and you get there, you can definitely stop. Know, if you're doing this as an area of study and building relationship or using it for meditation, you know, keep going. I see it more as an art given, especially that there's no real harm.

It's an art, you know, the way we kind of, I drink tea every day. You know, Michael Poland wrote in his new book, you know, this is Your Mind on Plants to look at psychedelics and other psychoactives. 90% of the planet uses [00:32:00] caffeine. It's just intertwined in her life. It's okay. You know, so it can be that symbiotic, synergistic effect.

it's if it's serving you ticket, if it's no longer serving you and it's getting in the way, stop.

Kara Goodwin: Okay. All right. I like that. Is there any practical advice that you would give for seekers, you know, spiritual seekers who want to use psychedelics in terms of like how it can be done responsibly? obviously including, but not even limited to the legality issue.

Jahan Khamehzadeh: So, yeah, legality's been quite a big factor for so long. It looks like federal legalization is gonna be taking place in 2024, maybe 2025. So around the corner, that's a big deal, all across the US for medical use. And so for the depression with, for psilocybin, it can be start being prescribed. And,M DMA for P T S D, the protocol's still gonna be quite, I don't say rigid, it's just, it's having to do with safety where you'll have to go to a clinic, probably stay there overnight.

There'll probably be a few [00:33:00] professionals there with you almost the entire time. So M dmma, two therapists with the doctor also on board. So it's, that being said, the main difficulty I see with a lot of this is accessibility. So costs will still be probably pretty high. You know, it looks for M Dmma treatment, which include three journeys.

It's gonna be about 12 to $15,000. You know, so it, it'll, yeah. So it is, it's hard.

The other part, if people try it on their own,and coming with terms of legality. You know, we've decriminalized it here in Oakland. I testified in court. A lot of places have decriminalized now. Oregon has legalized and Denver has legalized, and a lot it's moving in that direction.

It looks like around the corner. California will decriminalize it across the entire state. And so the problem there still is having accessibility specifically to train individuals. So first and foremost, I'd recommend this can be a very sensitive, vulnerable time. This, for while you're in this state, find somebody that's trained in this, you know, hopefully a therapist, a guide, somebody that spent a lot of time in this territory that might be hard to [00:34:00] find for a lot of people and still cost a lot of money.

You know, you're asking people to go find a trained therapist. A lot of people can't afford that. I know. Second option that I'd recommend is a ceremonial setting where there is again, a therapist or somebody that plays a role of a shaman and they're working with a larger group of people. So you don't quite have that indivi individualized attention, you know, but it costs less and you're having this group experience can be very healing.

And the last thing I would, I can't quite recommend, but I know what will happen is self experimentation. And I, it's hard for me to recommend because it can be traumatic. You know, chances are in your favor, it's gonna go fine. It's dose dependent. and so I do recommend having a sitter, you know, not necessarily somebody that's necessarily has a deep training in this, but as educated enough just to help you feel safe and take care of you. and so me and some friends created a free online training for this. It's at Silo health.ceo, PS I L o, health ceo. It's a [00:35:00] free four hour training to help people learn how to sit for each other, you know? Cause we see this major issue and. and all the trainings cost money, so we wanted to create a free training so people in underprivileged communities, you know, need to start to heal each other because they're really, it's very unlikely they're gonna have, you know, ability to go out of the country to do the sigley in Jamaica or to find a specialist to work with them.

Kara Goodwin: Oh, that's so beautiful. Wow. Thank you for that. This has just been really, really fascinating. I really appreciate all of your expertise. Can you help people to find you? How can people connect with you?

Jahan Khamehzadeh: totally. No thanks. my website's, psychedelic evolution.org and my book's on all the platforms, you know, and all the formats. So ebook, it's on Audible, it's on an audiobook. And Amazon, Barnes and Nobles, you know, wherever people are buying books.

Kara Goodwin: Awesome. Thank you so much, Jahan. I have really, [00:36:00] really enjoyed connecting with you today.

Jahan Khamehzadeh: Likewise. Thank you, Kara. It's been a pleasure. 

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