No, you’re not hallucinating! In episode 89 of Overthink, Ellie and David investigate the loopy world of psychedelics. Did you know that after doing psychedelics Jean-Paul Sartre went through a “lobster phase” during which he hallucinated lobsters everywhere he went? Once paraded as mind-opening gateways to the nature of reality, psychedelics are back in the conversation today as tools of therapy and neuroscience. Your hosts take a crack at the philosophy of these puzzling substances, from their implications for phenomenology and the nature of consciousness, to the ethics of their medicinal use, in light of their risks and long-lasting effects. If a trip can transform our mind and senses, it might be that our everyday perception really is far weirder than we think.

Check out the episode's extended cut here!

Works Discussed

Robin Carhart-Harris, et al. “The Entropic Brain: a theory of conscious states informed by neuroimaging research with psychedelic drugs”
Alison Gopnik, The Philosophical Baby
Aldous Huxley, The Doors of Perception
Mike Jay, “Sartre’s Bad Trip”
Chris Letheby and Jaipreet Mattu, "Philosophy and Classic Psychedelics: A review of some emerging themes"
Maurice Merleau-Ponty, Phenomenology of Perception
Michael Pollan, How to Change Your Mind
Anil Seth, Being You: A New Science of Consciousness
Dana G. Smith, “What Does Good Psychedelic Therapy Look Like?”
Simeon Wade, Foucault in California

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Psychedelics