Video summary
Dr. Andrew Huberman reflects on his evolving perspective regarding psychedelics, moving from a stance of caution born from early recreational experiences to one of nuanced appreciation under clinical guidance. He admits that taking substances like LSD and psilocybin as a teenager without understanding the potential risks led him through several difficult "bad trips," which instilled in him years of paranoia about their use. However, his views shifted significantly after undergoing clinically supported MDMA therapy for trauma resolution. While he describes MDMA as an empathogen rather than a traditional psychedelic that induces hallucinations, he notes its unique ability to simultaneously raise dopamine and serotonin while dramatically increasing oxytocin, creating a powerful state of emotional openness and connection without the desire for sexual activity or dancing often associated with other substances.
Huberman's thinking changed further when he decided to combine MDMA with high-dose psilocybin in a single session under professional supervision, an experience that proved both terrifyingly difficult and ultimately transformative. He describes taking this combination as engaging in "the hardest work" of his life, specifically targeting unresolved childhood traumas involving things that never happened but should have. While the initial reaction to such deep emotional excavation was fear and resistance—wanting instead to listen to music like Grateful Dead—the presence of a trained guide allowed him to lean into the experience rather than fight it. This process revealed structural patterns in his thinking, particularly regarding self-deception about future promises that were unrealistic, effectively rewiring his brain's approach to these issues without causing the severe "drop" or crash typically associated with MDMA alone.
The core lesson Huberman draws from this journey is the immense power and precariousness of these compounds when used for neuroplasticity rather than recreation. He emphasizes that while standard therapy can address known traumas, psychedelics offer a unique capacity to explore uncharted emotional territories, such as grief over events that never occurred, which traditional methods might miss or feel too difficult to access voluntarily. The outcome was not just relief but a clear mission and direction for his daily life, allowing him to steer his personal ship toward new possibilities with confidence. Despite the profound benefits he experienced, he strongly advises against recreational use, especially for young people or those without proper support, noting that these tools require careful navigation by trained professionals to ensure safety and maximize their therapeutic potential.
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We spoke some time ago about
psychedelics with a focus on MDMA and it
seems like you may have some revised
views, maybe a few caveats. I would be
interested to hear your current
thinking. So, this is an area you've
spoken about and and thought about
pretty extensively and and or as I'm
more of a newbie. As we talked about
last time, in case people didn't hear
that conversation, you know, growing up,
I made the mistake, it was a truly a
mistake of taking some psychedelics at a
at a very young age, quote unquote,
recreationally,
LSD,
>> psilocybin, not giving any thought to
like what the long-term consequences
might be. Fortunately, I didn't feel any
long-term consequences, but I had to
enough bad trips, meaning one,
Robin Carter Harris would say, you can't
have a bad trip. There's no that you can
have a bad trip, Robin. I've had one. It
sucks. You're in the pit for hours and
hours. There's no guide there if you're
doing it recreationally as a teen. The
brain is hyperlastic. It made me very,
very cautious, almost paranoid about
psychedelics for many, many years. Then
also the last time we spoke, I talked
about how in an effort to resolve what I
felt were some long-standing
psychological traumas, I did clinically
supported MDMA, standard kind of MAPS
protocol, right? take a forget the
milligram dosage maybe take like
>> probably 125 something like that
>> yeah and sometimes there's a booster
about 90 minutes in you have someone
there you're doing talk therapy before
during and after tremendously helpful to
be able to feel my feelings to be able
to recognize what a whole body feeling
was about I mean there was never the
experience for me of wanting to
dance or have sex while I was on it was
like no there was some shaking there was
some a little that but it was a very you
know it's an impathogen I think as you
know it's not a psychedelic it's
technically an impathogen and raises
both dopamine and serotonin
simultaneously which is very unusual for
any compound to do and raises oxytocin
quite dramatically the data actually say
the empathogenic effect of MDMA is not
due to oxytocin through a kind of sort
of good control where you just give
oxytocin and you don't get the same
clinical effects but you could argue the
cocktail effect the synergy might be
important
So I did that a few times. I think it
was a total of four times separated by a
number of months or a year clinically
supported. In any event, after a period
of doing that, I took a break and
on the suggestion of the same clinical
group decided to partake in a psilocybin
experiment and it was highdosily.
Now psilocybin as you know leads to I
think in the words of our friend Paul Ki
it almost like recedes the waterline on
the on the unconscious mind. So what I
found in psilocybin was because my brain
often thinks in analogies like this just
how I structure my thinking it's
reflexive for me offs psilocybin almost
everything that came to me in those
sessions was kind of symbolic
representation analogies for somebody
else who who represents their world not
that way maybe musically or
through sematic experience it's likely
that from my understanding that they
will experience insights
through those same kind of
representations.
What I found from psilocybin
work was
it was exquisite at revealing to me the
structure of my thinking and the ways
that some of the patterns in my life
that were not serving me well
how they were structured. It was sort of
like oh coming out of it there's a like
wow there's this form of self seduction
that I do which takes actually eight
forms which
look the following way in my life I can
be seduced by the enchantment of some
sort of promise of a future outcome
that's not realistic and you can see
that I'm just kind of giving one example
and once you see that you can't unsee it
and that for me was an incredible
experience I do think it was important
to keep a journal afterwards to take
notes while off
the drug. And for me, that was very very
helpful at allowing me to understand the
structure of my thinking both for things
that serve me and don't serve me. I will
say, and this is getting a little, you
know, well, as long as people are doing
like live streams of taking
psychedelics, I feel very I feel on very
solid ground, but who knows?
>> Well, just wait until the second half of
this conversation.
>> Yeah. Exact. [laughter] Exactly. I mean
I don't want anyone to run out and take
these things without clinical support.
There are a number of people who
shouldn't be taking them and all the
usual caveats apply young people etc.
But the real like whoa
one session type rewiring which was the
hardest work I've ever done having done
lots and lots of therapy. But the
hardest work I've ever done was to take
MDMA and then a couple hours later take
a high dose of psilocybin. And I've only
done that twice. By the way, if I ever
try and run for public office, any
mistakes I make, they'll attribute to
this. By the way, I've seen that
publicly. But I'm going to make it very
clear right now. Not only am I not going
to run for office, I'm running from
office. So, you know, there's been some
speculation, but the interesting thing
was no two days later drop, which you do
experience with MDMA. I just did not
experience that if I took psilocybin
with it. Remarkable. Had some of my best
workouts, work weeks, etc. It's like, oh
wow, that can be avoided through this
thing. But what was remarkable is on
MDMA as an impathogen, you feel very
good about most anything you focus on.
You can find the peace in it. You can
find the love in it. Could be this yerba
mate, which I happen to love, but you
like would really love. That's the
danger, right? You can get pulled into
these force fields of thinking
something's really important. It might
not be that important when the session
is over. That's why I think it's very
important to have a trained guide with
you.
But there's the drop.
Psilocybin for me was a very dark and
harrowing experience.
>> Lot of purging, a lot of vomiting.
>> Really
>> about halfway through.
>> These weren't enormous doses. They
weren't small either. It was 4 to 5 g.
>> Just to be clear for folks. Yeah. Of
dried like silos mushrooms.
>> So for me,
>> it was terrifying to be on psilocybin
alone. It was extremely difficult. And
the combination of the two, it was sort
of like having my really good friend Rob
Moore in there with me going, "You can
do this." Now, Rob wasn't in there, so
I'm just sort of half joking because
he's here in the room with us now, but
>> it was like, "I can do this. I can lean
into the hardest work." I'm going to
give an example so it's not too vague.
>> Yeah.
>> I'd spent a fair amount of time thinking
about some of the harder things that had
happened in my childhood, in my life.
Some of which were self-inflicted, some
of which were not self-inflicted.
And I'd come to peace
about those through the work I described
standard psychotherapy lot of journaling
time some MDMAs psilocybin those
separately
taking them together I had this voice in
my head that was like it's time to do
the real work and I was like oh goodness
>> and I said out loud like I don't want I
thought we're just going to like listen
to Grateful Dead today and you know the
person helping me was like no that's not
how this works. You know that. And I'm
thinking, I don't want to do this. I
really And I don't even know what this
is. I just know there's something there
that's important for
>> And I'm like, oh [ __ ] And I think it is
important for people to understand this
cuz it is it can be very, very scary and
you feel it sort of coming at you like a
storm and you can push it away. I could
have spent the entire time listening to
the Grateful Dead. Not a huge Grateful
Dead fan, but you know, people have
encouraged me to listen to it, so I've
been doing it. I like it. But I could
have done that, but I didn't. Instead, I
was like, "Okay."
With those two compounds in me, I was
like, "I can do this. I've got myself
held. Like, I'm my own friend. That's
the impathogen. I can do this." It
wasn't this like, "All right, let's go.
Like, let's fight." And that session
took me through a brutally hard voyage
of thinking about all the things that
didn't happen, all the things that I
would
wish had happened.
>> Mhm.
>> That I was in no position to make happen
for myself. Heavy, gnarly. And coming
through it, it was the perfect thing
because I was like, those are the things
I know I can create now.
>> There is no way, and this is why I feel
it's important to talk about these
compounds. There is no way whatsoever
that a therapist was going to sit down
and go, "Hey,
what's ever on your mind today? Let's
talk about what didn't happen. No one's
ever done that for me." And if they had,
there's no way that I would have been in
the full emotional experience of the
lack
>> or necessarily had access to it
>> or had access to it. Right? So, I give
that as an example. It's certainly not
what everyone would experience, but I'd
never thought about the problem of what
hadn't happened as a as a viable option
to explore. It's so obvious now. But
then the outcome of this brutally hard
session was beautiful. No additional
drug, nothing for and it stayed with me.
This was over well over a year ago. And
I thought, "This is awesome. I can
create these things. I know exactly what
to aim for." And it started to make
steps in my life, you know, steering the
ship in those directions. And not
surprisingly, it's like, "Yeah, I can do
this. I can do these things. I need some
practice." And and so I think that the
medicines, as we think of them, are
immensely powerful, immensely
precarious. You need the support.
I've been told in these sessions, hey,
maybe we don't go there. You don't go
there. that feels like a repeat. You
know, you need someone to help guide
you. These are not to be used
recreationally in my opinion. At least
not for folks like me. You know, I'm
just not interested in that.
>> But the lessons I learned is the
following. Neuroplasticity is the goal.
>> Directed toward something that often
times we can't identify
through standard therapy. Like you would
say, "Oh, I'm trying to resolve my
traumas." That's a sentence. If you
can't know exactly what the thing was
and or even if you can or the things
that happened, what what about the
things that didn't happen? It just never
would have occurred to me. So, it
revealed both the thing that needed work
and allowed me to do a lot of the work
in real time and spit me out the other
end, which is how it felt. You know, I
wasn't cratered coming out the other. I
was like, that was an ass kicking of a
whole other level. And like with a clear
mission in mind of what to do in my
daily life that has served me very, very
well. It also reminded me that we seem
to have this one compound type view and
I'm not suggesting that
polyfarmarmacology is the way but it
turned out in this case was the
appropriate tool for me.