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you touched on a couple of points here that we could go on and on.
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That are very, very close to my kind of my rap, if you will.
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This idea of the filtering effect.
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Aldous Huxley first articulated it, that it was the reducing valve.
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Ordinary consciousness, you're absolutely right, is only possible because of these filtering mechanisms.
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And the current buzzword in is the default mode network.
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And this is a set of sort of mechanisms that keep us within a certain realm of ordinary consciousness essentially.
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Because I like to call it the reality hallucination, in a certain way.
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Because the reality hallucination is something that the brain takes in information from the outside, processes that with associations and memories and all sorts of things inside. Inside, outside.
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These terms are very tricky, but for the moment we can use them.
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And it comes up with a model of reality.
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And the model of reality is an impoverished model.
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And the reason it is is because it's there have been all these selective filters applied.
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Because if everything came through, it'd just be a blooming, buzzing confusion.
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So the brain selectively filters what comes in, constructs a comprehensible model of reality.
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That's what we call the default mode network or the reality hallucination. It is a model. It's not reality.
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Reality is out there somewhere, but it's some sort of representation of reality that makes it possible for us to function.
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What psychedelics do is they temporarily disable the default mode network. They just blow it apart.
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And your model of reality collapses.
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And all of this information can then come in and be experienced and is accessible.
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And that can be very scary, but it can also be very useful.
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Because, in this default mode network, habitual behaviors and thoughts and so on, can become installed.
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And you can get into feedback loops that are destructive.
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That really need to be blown away.
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And that's what the psychedelics can do.
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It's literally, I think, in very much ways, it's literally like rebuilding, rebooting your computer.
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You know how your computer can get all glitched up and it runs slower and there are problems. And so on.
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You reset that thing and it runs smoother.
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The same thing goes on with the psychedelics.
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And because the default mode network the brain and the body, the brain, it's going to reestablish itself.
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It's going to fall back together.
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You're not destroying it.
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You've temporarily disabled it, but that equilibrium will reestablish itself.
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And it will reestablish itself in a way that a lot of the clutch that has built up has been eliminated.
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So it runs more smoothly literally.
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And I think the therapeutic utility of psychedelics is that, because they let you step out of this reference frame, they let you step out of this personal reference frame and look at your issues from a different perspective temporarily.
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So your depression, your PTSD, your addiction, whatever the problem is.
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And, of course it's usually a complex picture.
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Usually if you're depressed, there are other things going on.
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They don't happen just one thing.
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But it lets you look at whatever is contributing to your unhappiness and your mental disorder.
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And from a perspective that, by just being able to step out of it temporarily, in effect, you defuse it.
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And you can come back into ordinary reality with this sort of reconstructed ...
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It's really like taking the engine into the shop and, "Hey, give me a tune up."