In this episode we talk with stand up comedian Shane Mauss about his podcast Here We Are, his stand up tour Stand Up Science and his documentary Psychonautics: A Comic's Exploration of Psychedelics
In this episode we talk with stand up comedian Shane Mauss about his podcast Here We Are, his stand up tour Stand Up Science and his documentary Psychonautics: A Comic's Exploration of Psychedelics
welcome to the psychedelic suitcase. I'm Dave McNee. This is the first episode, first full episode anyway, we had a preview a couple of weeks ago, but this is the first full episode and I just want to say thank you very much for checking it out. A new show will be out every two weeks and it's conversations we have with people who are involved one way or another in the world of psychedelics. Now that can be, it's a fairly broad term, psychedelics meaning sort of mind expanding doesn't necessarily mean mind altering, but, a lot of times it does, but more mind expanding. So it could be anything from music, art, literature, meditation, anything your consciousness is raised a bit by, in today's episode we talk with Shane Moss. He's a standup comedian who has been doing standup for quite some time and he's, he's been on Conan O'Brien five times. He's had his own comedy central special Jimmy Kimmel, the Joe Rogan podcast he's been on recently, but we're going to talk to him about his documentary. It's called the psychonautics comics exploration of psychedelics. Sort of follows him as he's sets out to prove how harmless psychedelics are and decides to take all over them. The results, I'll let him tell you himself, but the results aren't really exactly what he was expecting. Anyway. We also talk about his science themed podcast called, here we are and he's current stand up tour, stand up science. And without further ado, here's my conversation with Shane Moss. Welcome to the show. Thanks for coming on.
Shane:Thank you for having me.
Dave:so you've been traveling around, doing your standup tour. Stand up science. I wouldn't mind actually starting there if that's o kay. I want to talk about the movie for sure. But u h, I'm really sort of curious about the format of the standup tour that you're doing.
Shane:Yeah, so I have, basically I kind of have these two lives, a full time stand up comedian. And then I also have a science podcast. So, u m, in my, in my comedy, sometimes I sprinkle in a little science and then my science p odcast, sometimes I sprinkle in a little comedy and I wanted to create a platform where I could have kind of 50, 50 a nd h ave both a nd m ix my two worlds together. So I came up with t his show called standup science, which is basically combining comedy with t he science talks. So t here's a ll t hese science talks popping up in different cities everywhere and Ted talks and everything else are becoming popular. And so I wanted to combine that with comedy. So basically I, I host the show, I get to local scientists in every city, do about three different cities a week. And so I host, I warm up the crowd with a bunch of science material. Then I have a scientist give like a, you know, 12 minute long kind of Ted talk sort of thing. And then I use that to improvise a little bit afterwards and then bring up a local comic as well to do a set and then a, a second scientist after them to do another kind of 12 minute talk. And, and then we get all four people on stage and do a Q and a with the audience afterwards. And it's a lot of fun. it's all different because it's all different guests. I'm the only constant on the show. And so it's all different guests each time. So it's all different subject matter and it, and it allows me to do some of my more elevated content and explore some bigger ideas. so yeah, that's, that's, I started doing, I did a test run of it, um, about a year ago and it went really well. And, um, and it's really fitting for my audience. You know, I've, I've been...
Dave:for people who listen to your podcast for example, it'd be be a perfect match for that. Right.
Shane:Yeah. Yeah.
Dave:Is it hard to, have you ever struggled finding the local scientists?
Shane:Yeah, I've got a book about six to eight different scientists a week. U m, and that's a tremendous amount of work. I haven't, u h, I have an assistant that's been taking over a little bit of that and helping me out now that I kind of have laid the groundwork on doing that. But I've, I've basically h ad figured I do everything myself. Now I have my assistant doing, I b ooked venues, I, I f igured out the routing. Um, I do all the marketing and the podcast. I have a PR person as well, but, um, but yeah, I, uh, I basically figured out how to do all of that, which was not natural for me. I spent the most of my career kind of was just, I had an agent that would book me at a comedy club. I'd go and fly into a comedy club and do five nights in Toledo, Ohio or whatever, and then fly back home and then do the same thing the next week. So I kind of just had to figure out how to do all that on my own. And now I have a, I have now have my assistant moving to full time and taking over all of those responsibilities so I can focus on the actual stuff that I should be doing, which is all the creative stuff as I'm researching for podcasts and stuff is as interesting process. I'm figuring out how to do all of that. I'm not a naturally organized or conscientious person. And so, um, yeah, fine. Finding eight different guests a week is, um, kind of a nightmare.
Dave:So where did, uh, I know that people have asked you about your sort of history with psychedelics and stuff, but what's your history with science? So how did that, was in school that you sort of fell in love with science or?
Shane:is it a just, well, I mean, the story changes depending on how long I have to say it. Um, and, and how, how detailed you want it to be. I've always enjoyed thinking about consciousness and, and, um, the mind and, and memory and why we behave the way that we do. And so, so right now and trying to tell an autobiographical story of my life, you'd feel, you'll notice that, um, that when you go to do that, you get like these flashes of little memories throughout your life. And so, so my brain, my subconscious has been given a task to create a, uh, narrative that kind of sums up how I got to be. And in this particular, and this is just like the career side and narrative and, and so, um, and then it's dependent on like, do we have an hour to talk about this? Do we have one minute to talk about this? That, that determines how, how many of these little highlights, right. Choosing to provide your consciousness and, and, um, and so these are the things I like thinking about just naturally and, and what, why it chooses the, um, the moments that it does. Like it seems to be choosing, um, the most pivotal kind of moments that shaped where you are right now and what makes something pivotal or shaping. I think that's, yeah.
Dave:And can you trust those members do, that's the o ther thing.
Shane:Well, exactly. So, you know, I think that, that the brain's kind of looking at like, well, here's where I am right now. And then here's a different version of where, where I imagine myself on kind of this parallel universe of had, had that moment not happened. I would be a very different person right now in the, in the more different you imagine yourself being than where you are right now is what makes something very pivotal. But then like you said, your view of that, so let's say that pivotal moment was getting fired from a job, your view of that pivotal moment is subjective based on where you are right now. So if you're doing really well right now, that pivotal moment is, is like, Oh, who knew getting fired was gonna open up all those doors and, and uh, but if you're doing really poorly right now, you're going to be like, well, but getting fired was the nail in the coffin that really screwed me over and I never recovered from that and screw those guys. So that same incident, how you perceive it is dependent on all these other variables. So this is the stuff that I've always just loved thinking about. And I remember ever since I was a kid, I was just, I spent a lot of time in my head. So, so I was a rebellious young man. I didn't fit into the classical narrative of, of my strict religious upbringing. I started questioning religion from an early age, decided when I was like nine or 10 that I didn't believe in religion. And, um, and uh, everyone else seemed to kind of thought I was crazy. As I, as I got older, I kind of started resenting, um, that I felt like I had been lied to, if, if not directly by, um, you know, the people around me then and by the Authority figures that lied to them, which made them tell me these stories. And, and, um, and I also was very, like, counterculture wanted to do anything different than anyone else was doing. When I was 10 years old, I had a, I had a friend say that I should be a standup comedian. And I was like, yeah, that sounds different than what other people are doing. So it was like right at the same time, those kinds of things happen. And um, I became a really unique kid. I was very introspective and, and shy. I never felt like I fit in and everything else and, and um, and then became like a very angry atheist in my teenage years. And so I finally worked up the nerve to start comedy in my early twenties, and I was just a regular kind of a joke. Her did the traditional path of, you know, I was very fortunate and able to catch some breaks to get me on like late night television and a comedy central half hour special. And then, uh, you know, who the next step is, especial a an hour special and blah, blah blah. And so that was the traditional path when I started in, um, in 2003 or 2004. And then podcasting started coming along and then I started doing international stuff where people were doing these themed shows that there's a lot of like festivals like the ember fringe festival where it's a month long thing of just all these comics doing these like solo shows. So, yeah, it's, I mean, um, there's a comedy special Nanette on Netflix that, that caught a lot of, um, attention. And really that's kind of the same thing that people have been doing internationally for, for a long time. It's just different than what was going on in America where, where like, you know, it's not as Joe Kevvy and there's like, you know, you know, they're sharing their personal story and there's always this big ending of like, and that is why I don't eat crackers anymore. Um, and, and I was like, well, that's interesting and I want to do more international stuff. So what would my, the thing being, and because I was such a, um, such a angry, um, atheist in my teens and early twenties, it got me into learning about physics and evolution just so I could argue with people better. Right. And so then, but then that got me naturally curious in science. I was always interested in the time I was interested in technology and I'm wanting to be a and upload my consciousness into the computer and that whole thing. I'm less interested in that stuff than I used to be, but, but, um, so I, I, I wasn't a huge reader, but when I did read, I was always reading science stuff. I didn't read anything else. So I just started exploring my natural interest in science. I started, um, I was watching, I went through a phase when I was watching, I was in a new relationship writing a lot of relationship jokes and I was also smoking a bunch of weed and watching the animal planet quite a bit at the time. And I was writing a lot of animal jokes and then I started seeing like these like, you know, you see like animal mating behavior and you're like, ah, that's kind of funny. And then after I was like, wait, I'm seeing a few parallels there who ever, right. My wife and I just kind of started looking into a lot more of that. That got me really into evolutionary psychology and biology. And that just changed my, um, you know, we're going to talk about psychedelics in a minute by which I, um, Aye did start and when I was 16. Um, and that, that was transformative in terms of how I viewed life and the world and my appreciation for nature and my interest in how the mind works. And, um, and really it was for most people do their first psychedelic experience that they're like, whoa, this is so crazy. And for me it was more like, ah, I knew life was crazy and this is verification. Um, and, and then I had all these, um, did it swing your, uh, atheism at all? No. Later on in life. I mean, I've had experiences that I have a hard time explaining kind of spiritual take on things. Does, you know, it does seem to fit into some of what people have to say about that, but, but, uh, those, so those were the two things that changed my perspective the most was psychedelics early on in life. And then later on in life, um, learning more about evolution in particular, how evolution has shaped our, our minds and our, our behavior in our modern world. And then I started reaching out to scientists, got to know a bunch of scientists, had these amazing, interesting conversations, started my science podcast. Here we are. And then that took over my life and became my biggest passion. And I loved doing that more than anything else, more than standup comedy or anything else. And so I've just been furthering science communication ever since and have kind of lost interest in, in doing traditional comedy. And so, so yeah, that was a, that was the two minutes stretched a five minute version, which you gotta that's what happens when you ask a comic about themselves. They'll go, no shortage of things to say.
Dave:Well, I've got a few more. that's cool. So the clip I saw of the standup science tour that you're doing was, it was the sort of, um, panel discussions people were asking questions from the audience. has the panel been stumped yet by an audience question,
Shane:usually they ask a, you know, really smart questions and, and it's, uh, you know, it's catered to a demographic of, tends to be people a little more toward the intellectual side. Right. And, um, and Ah, also I have, I have, you know, have a lot of fans in the psychedelic space and you know, a lot of the psychedelic community is not only smart, but they're also a little bit out there. And my favorite thing about science is scientists, uh, love saying, I don't know. They, they, they, you know, you really have to press a scientist to speculate a lot of the times. Some, some scientists have no problem speculating and, and, um, you know, going off on more of a philosophical bent. But scientists are pretty careful and saying what they know about things. And, and it's one of my favorite things about Sa, the biggest difference between a scientist and your average person is just their willingness to say, I don't know. Most people will, most people are happy to give you an answer about just about, you can ask someone the meaning of life and they'll just pop it right off. Like, Oh yeah, here's my take on this. And there's all sorts of stuff like the, um, it's say interesting subject called the illusion of explanatory depth, which has people over estimate how much they know about things, um, all of the time. And um, and then there's the dunning Kruger effect, which is the less you know about something, the more you think you're an expert on it. Whereas people that are actually experts on things realize how much there is to know and how
Dave:Yeah, no, it seems like people who think they have all the answers really haven't asked all the questions yet, but yeah. Is this going to culminate in something, this tour or is it going to just be something that you kind of keep on doing? Or are you going to maybe film it or at some point or documented some way?
Shane:yeah. Um, so, you know, tossing around a lot of ideas of, right. Right now I'm in in kind of a one step at a, at a time phase of, like I said, it's a tremendous undertaking putting this together as, as my assistants taking over all the behind the scenes stuff. I mean, I s I still need to, I still need to show up at Benny's two hours early and set up a projector and do all this other stuff, but, and do a lot of research and everything, but the tourist meant to be indefinite. Finding the cities where it works the best in and, and kind of looping back and going, um, over and over again to those, to those cities because, um, you know, it's a different show every single time. It's all different, right? Scientists, different Comedians, all different subject matter. I do new material each time, right? And so the plan is to do it for the foreseeable future and the plan is to also, um, you know, get better at it. This is, this is also new for me and out of my comfort zone and um, doing stand up and is very different than say moderating a panel and improvising and riffing off things. And so I'm kind of building those muscles and kind of want something that's really, um, I w I want to have like a bunch of structure in my life first and then I'm going to think about maybe, um, you know, at the very least, um, having, having uh, you know, uh, professional, um, come around and record the shows to maybe put the um, the Q and a is, um, on an ad and maybe start editing together short segments of it. I haven't done that yet because one that, uh, there's a few things. One, I, I don't like the idea of people being like, oh, I'll just wait and watch it on youtube. Right. That's why vibe live shows are getting harder and harder for people.
Dave:Yeah. I was going to ask you about that. How you do, how do you sort of keep it fresh when you know somebody in the audience with a cell phone can sort of leak your whole act with this is a bit different cause it is a lot of Improv, but yeah.
Shane:Yeah. We deter people from using cell phones and, and stuff. Um, you know, we, we do a pretty good, that hasn't really popped up. I mean[inaudible] I have some big fans and everything, but I'm not some like big household name or anything like that. So, so I, I, I fortunately don't have to deal with as many people wanting to, but yeah, the, the cell phone thing can be a nuisance. Um, but mostly I just think that for people's own good, they need to go out and see more live events and it's just random vibe of being in a, being in an audience like that,
Dave:isn't it? Uh, like the Jack White or something. Now I think you put your phone in a bag or something and they zips up during the show so you can't have it during the show, which, so yeah, I mean it's, it's sad that we have to take those steps, but uh, yeah, it's, it, it ruins the whole experience I find. I mean, going to concerts and seeing just a sea of phones is a little distracting.
Shane:Yeah, it really is. We'll see. And we might start recording some stuff just to, so at least people can see some highlights and[inaudible] and stuff, so, so there might be more, more stuff like that. And, and you know, I, I will eventually be, um, potentially pitching something similar as a TV show. Um, I don't like television and I'm not terribly interested in it, but I do like money, so, um, so, you know, it might be a good way for me to kind of promote my self and get more people out to the live shows and everything if I should, if I get some sort of a, a show. So, so we'll see that that's kind of another pain in the ass for it. I mean, a lot of comics, that's their dream, um, is to like have a TV show or whatever. And for me that's more of a pain in the ass thing that I would, I would need to do just to, um, get the word out there for my live shows. Cause, um, I'm, I'm all about the live for performance and that's why I'm in a new city every two days. And most comics hate the idea of being on the road as much as I am. I think I'm on the road more than more than any comic out there. But, um, I just, I like that.
Dave:Psychonautics I've watched it a couple times. It's a documentary about a y ourself and as you said, you wanted to prove or de mystify o r make psychedelics less scary. So yo u d ecided to try all of them.
Shane:That was the plan.
Dave:That was the plan.
Shane:I didn't get there. its w hat happened along the way.
Dave:Yeah. And I think I've, I've heard you talk about it since and one of the issues was just doing all of them in a relatively short period of time without any sort of integration afterwards. Right?
Shane:Yeah, we had a low budget. And so that, that ended up, uh, leading to me trying to pack way too much and, and a short amount of time. And usually I'm, I'm, I mean, I wouldn't say I'm the, I'm, I'm the most responsible, um, uh, psychedelic user in the world. I actually, um, for myself, I believe in being a little reckless and adventurous, um, sometimes, but what I was doing during that time was, was way beyond what I would normally ever or be doing. So. So, yeah. And then, and then I found, I found the edge, so it worked out that I was able to report back to people what that experience is like and why it's important to try to avoid that.
Dave:Well, it's funny when I was watching the movie, you sort of explain how things started. You know, you started thinking everything was sort of talking to you. You started seeing signs and things that weren't really, really there and it just sort of built and built and built and half, half way through that, uh, sort of monologue about you discussing, uh, things going over the edge. Um, I was like, what? Yeah. I, I've, I've, I've been there, I've been there, I've been there and then the last couple, I'm like, okay, good. At least I have a few more steps to go. I think I was with you halfway, halfway through like, oh yeah, I can see, you know, things do seem some song. I see faces and everything, you know, it just, uh, yeah, but uh, yeah, luckily there was still a few more steps where I said, well, he got a bit crazy there.
Shane:Yeah. I mean, you know, it really wasn't even, there was nothing within that that was, you know, that crazy up an experience had it been contained within, you know, the, the experience of like a four hour mushroom trip or something like that. It's, that's, you know, that's an inappropriate context to think you're talking with time travelers or whatever. But, but once the drugs wear off that those ideas are supposed to wear off as well. And those ideas weren't wearing off for me. And that's what, that's what kind of got me into trouble. And, and really, um, you know, I, I had, I've had bouts of mania before that, but nothing that, that kept me from sleeping for such a extended period of time. So if you go for a few weeks without sleeping, you're going to get, start getting confused and your judgment is going to go out the window and, and, uh, everything else. So it's going to come along with some psychosis.
Dave:for sure. So lets go through some of the stuff that you did in the d ocumentary,
Shane:there's actually, you know what I, what I think might be even more interesting for people to know if, if people are checking out the, the film is that, um, what the film shows to me doing and what I was doing or are two different things. Because, you know, the film are telling, we're telling a narrative and, and structuring things in in a certain way. I was actually doing way, way, way more psychedelics than what we're showing and that him, because I was trying to tap into that, that kind of head space and figuring out new ways of articulating it. And I was kind of, so I was doing like a lot of mushrooms and thinking about like, okay, how do you, how do you create the visuals for this? That, uh, and, and how do you articulate that? How do you, um, how does this feel like resonated a ton on an emotional level and then how do you translate this to film to kind of draw people into the experience? And these experiences are notoriously hard to, um, to translate to, you know, you get out of the, you get done with your trip and you try to tell your buddies or, uh, about it or whatever. And there, you know, it's like talking about a dream or something like that. Just no one wants to hear it. It doesn't, uh, it doesn't relate. Yeah. That's really hard to capture. And sell. I was, I was just, I was doing mushrooms like three times a week or so, which was just like, you know, that's right. That's pretty, it's pretty asinine amount of mushrooms to speed doing. And, um, and so that's what kind of, I think, started that early onset of the, and then I, you know, I was doing LSD and ketamine and DMT along the way and I had a weird DMT experience that led to a much weirder ayahuasca experience, which was kind of the straw that broke the camel's back. I, another thing that they don't show in the documentary is I did mushrooms one more time after I'd already kind of started going crazy from, from ayahuasca. I did mushrooms at the Roger Waters concert that they mentioned in the film, and that's when things went absolutely bananas or where I thought I was like living in a simulation or I didn't, I didn't know. Um, I didn't know how to explain the things that have happened to me.
Dave:So the DMT, was it the just the nn DMT or the five Meo dmt?
Shane:yeah, yeah. I've actually never done five on Meo because I was, I was waiting to do it during this documentary, I was hoping to film my first experience with both of those on the documentary. So I actually s till, a nd I ended up losing my mind. And so to this day, I haven't done either o f those, which I'm very interested in, but, u m,
Dave:yes. Yeah. I haven't done the NN DMT, but I've done five Meo, three times. And yeah, it's life changing in a lot of ways. And I'm like you, I didn't believe in much before these experiences and not that I do now, but I feel th ere's a connection there. There's something that's going on. And so in your, after talking with experts after your own experiences, where do you, where do you think it takes you? Wha t, w hat do you think is actually going on there? Like, do you have any sort of idea of,
Shane:Yeah. I mean, I, so I, I have a little bit more of a different take than a lot of the people in the psychedelic community that might be talking about, say, like universal consciousness or talking with, u m, y ou k now, entities and like parallel universes or outside time and space or whatever. That's a lot of the common narrative of trying to explain i t. I mean, I think we're all kind of grasping at straws trying to explain these experiences that are really intense and very different than our regular reality. And I do a different take and I, and I will say that when I, u m, share my different take, I, I don't necessarily think that it's true. I'm, I'm, you know, I, I like having different takes on things than other people. And, and I m ay b e biased to, to providing a more novel take than, than is necessary. And, and also I've had experiences that don't fit very well, that my own take and perception on things doesn't do very well to explain. Um, but my take on it just simply that I believe that we have a, um, uh, this conscious experience that we have is one of, um, of many, many, many, um, uh, perceptual experiences that exist within the mind. And, and I think that there is kind of a multiverse of perception and inside of our minds that that is, that is, I think that there's kind of like the movie inside out. Um, if you've seen it as a fun little children's representation of the brain where she has these, her emotional states embodied by these characters in there. And then there's like a dream area where these things are constructing the behind the scenes of the dream and here's where memories are stored and here's how you select a memory and provide it to her. And, and, um, and I think there is a lot of that going on. And I, and so, um, uh, I, I think that normally we don't see those, those levels and of, of perception that are kind of like the early, um, you know, just to be listening to this right now or seeing this, there's a lot of levels of perception that that go into putting[inaudible], constructing our conscious perception. And, and to me that's why, that's why these, you know, you, you do DMT and you see like all these fractals and tunnels and everything else and it's really different than all of this and really like mind blowing the first couple times you see it. But you know, artists are able to represent these, these worlds quite nicely, just using some pretty simple, um, programs that are just using kind of these recursive patterns to put together these fractals and everything's like very symmetrical and everything else. And to me that, that would seem like a nice way of setting up the foundation of our perception. And I think that say you, you're trying to figure out like, okay, that's one reality and then this perception is another reality. How do you know which one is which? And I would say, well, which one has the most computational, um, um, complexity. And I would say that this perception, all, all of the flaws in this swirled all the wrinkles in our face. The, the, the, the, uh, core symmetry, the, um, the flaws would take a lot more programming and complexity, complexity and processing power. And not that it's not possible that we're living in a simulation. We probably are, but I think that you're running into these different roles inside of your head of the many different hats that we live on and in life that, you know, I'm a different person talking to you right now than right at the grocery store around my family at Thanksgiving. And so I think those different roles are actually stored in representations in our mind that are kind of running through simulations of future events all of the time. We're always doing these mental rehearsals of like, Oh, here's the line. I'm going to use it at a girl in a bar next time I write it. Or next time I'm arguing with my buddy, here's this political point I'm gonna make. And boy, yeah, I'm sure I'm going to show him. And you know, we're, we're always doing these mental rehearsals and, and recruiting these, these representations of others and stuff and running these simulations in our mind. And I think that we actually aren't seeing a lot of the, um, a lot of the details of those simulations of okay. Of those processes because it would just be too confusing to our consciousness to see all that. And so I think you smoke DMT and you see some of those worlds processing it and insert your consciousness into those worlds. And those worlds are trying to make sense of that experience. And I think that that when you think you're like meeting a god in there, it's maybe just a version of you. I think it could be your neighbor bill that is just like, that's his memory of him stored. And you know, we have to do this to have a dream at night. You have to, um, you know, I might have a dream where, where your there, um, tonight and also like my mom's there and my fourth grade math teacher there, there, there are these perfect representations of you, which is amazing. Like I'm, I just met you, we been talking for a few minutes and, and we could have a perfect dream of one another that's like a perfect representation. Looks just like us. Sounds just like us. We'll be writing the script with[inaudible] believable content for that person. And the brain's doing this so easily that we don't, we're literally doing it in our sleep first of all. And um, and we don't even realize that we're doing it. We think that it's happening to us and these representations need to be stored some more. I'm being worked somewhere in the mind and, and I think that potentially that's what you're, that's what you're seeing. And, and I think if someone had never had a dream in their entire life and then had their first dream when they were like 30 years old, they would come out ranting and raving and being like, you don't understand. There's like this world where there was a clown there and, and it was like under the sea. And like, no, I'm telling you, it was real. This is all bullshit, right? The clown underwater world is the real world. Um, you know, and[inaudible] and so, uh,[inaudible], you know, a lot of these psychedelic experiences are very, there's something that most people are only doing a few times in their life. Um, and so the brain really likes attaching to stuff like that. And, and that's really novel and salient. And so I think that's, I think that explains a lot of the psychedelic experience. I don't think that it explains everything, um, that, and, and it certainly doesn't explain every experience that, that I've had. And, and I've definitely had a lot of, um, you know, telepathic seeming things I've had. I've had a lot of, um, uh, you know, there's a lot of prophecies and stuff like that. Sometimes times come true, but there's confirmation bias, you know, we're all trying to validate our own shit all the time.
Dave:So, also I was going to ask you about just, how does that square with the whole sort of idea of sort of manifesting your own destiny and, uh, people are into these to sort of find a path and maybe if control, uh, the direction in that path?
Shane:Well, consciousness is a, you know, a very malleable and really flexible thing and most of us are set in these patterns of these kind of daily monotonous lives. And we're kind of used to, you know, we walked by the same things every day without noticing them. And then, and then all of a sudden you have a experience that changes the way that you see things and you're having to re make sense of the world. And all of a sudden you start noticing things that you'd walked by every day without noticing. Just, just like we have, um, you know, blind spots because you have, uh, you have these cones in your eyes that inhibit your ability to see something at a, at a certain angle that's in your blind spot. But if you, um, you know, you'd go to merge and traffic and then you hear a hunk, right? You know, your consciousness had filled in the gap and created what looked like a blank road, right? Because it was filling in that gap with a narrative as in this case, a visual narrative. And then you turn, you hear the honk, you look and then just like that your perception can completely change. You know, you didn't manifest that car there. Um, it, it your, your consciousness instead of responded to new stimulus. And then there's this kind of Basie and processing that it seems to use where, um, you know, your, your conscious construction is, is using the best information that it has available at the time. And then, um, you know, in, in an ideal world, what the brain does is allow itself the opportunity to update as new information comes in. And that becomes hard for us to do as we live our lives and we get stuck in habits and routines. And so I think a lot of these psychedelic experiences rattle that and, and perceptions able to change really, really quickly. So there's things like learned helplessness in a, in a rat where a rat can, um, you can train a rat that like a light comes on and it moves to this side of the stage and it avoids getting shocked or finds a reward or whatever. But if you just create like a really cool, chaotic environment where the, where the rats getting shocked out of nowhere and it has no control over it and no way of predicting when it learns that the world is full of shocks and, and um, and that there's nothing you can do about it. If you then put that right and the cage, um, where, where it can learn and it has an opportunity to control and to predict things. Yeah, it won't learn. A new rat will be able to learn. But the rat that has learned this learned helplessness, they call it, will not look for the signs in the environment that allow it to, um, make changes and control its narrative. And I think a lot of the psychedelic experience creates this reset that allows you to be like, oh wait, oh, when that light comes on I can just move over to this side and I no longer get shocked anymore. And it seems like this, you know, and this is an incredibly life changing thing. So if you're doing these experiences regularly and shaking up your perception regularly, it's allowing you to reorient your er, your goals. And when you are setting new goals, you are shifting your conscious attention. Two where those goals are just like if I, if, if a listener right now is, um, it thinks about something orange, um, and wants to look out in their perceptual world for orange things like I'm now looking around, um, the environment that I'm in and I can see little orange things everywhere. Even though 0.0, zero, zero 1% of my visual experience right now has orange tint. But my consciousness is now filled with all of the orange things. It's what it's, it's what it's focusing on because it's, it's been, it's been given that, that goal. And so this is a lot of what setting intentions is doing and a lot of what integration is doing. So. So I, I'm not saying that, that, um, I'm completely dismissing the idea of manifesting things and what not, but no matter what, what we know for a fact is that confirmation bias, Israel consciousness, um, is very flexible and, and seemingly responding to the environment. And so, so that's how I would give us more scientific explanation.
Dave:I wish I could remember, where I heard this, but somebody explained it to me in this way once where they, they talk about the mind to being, um, a ski hill, a snow hill filled with snow. And as a child you can get, you can go anywhere you want and as you get older you start developing these, going down the same path and getting into ruts and what these psychedelics seem to do for a lot of people, it seems to be a fresh snowfall where now they can go anywhere again. It's or just even like imagining a shaking a Snow Globe and, uh, it's just resetting everything, right?
Shane:Yeah. Yeah. It seems, so this is this growing field of, of neuroplasticity and what we can do to introduce a little more of that childlike creativity into our adult lives. You know, and it's an important to remember for people that, um, that shaking up the snow globe isn't always the, um, the best thing. I mean, some of these patterns are, are really useful. I know to associate the color red with stopping. So when I'm driving and a cars, red lights go on in front of me. I, without having to sit there and be like, Hey, what does that mean? What should I do in this situation? I have reflexes that quickly stop my car without having to involve my consciousness in, in the experience. And, and so there's, there's reasons why we developed these patterns over time. It's just that a lot of these patterns, um, you know, helped us along at one, um, in, in our life and now we just, and they're not necessarily benefiting us anymore. Um, like say smoking cigarettes when I was a teenager was, it was cool and way over battle against my parents and I'd catch a buzz. And, and then, but then as an adult, you're no longer getting that buzz. You no longer give a shit about the rebelling against your parents. And, and it's, it's not, not quite as cool looking as it used to be. And, uh, you know, so this is, this is, uh, you know, something that that was arguably a, um, um, potentially positive strategy at one point that kind of then got hijacked by it. Bye. Um, these drugs and addiction and, and then becomes this, um, this negative pattern in your life. And so, so that, that's, that's the ability to identify what patterns are worth holding onto and, and what patterns, um, you want to let go of. And, and psychedelics may be giving just a little bit of, it takes a long time to form a new habit. It's like, um, six weeks or something like that to have something fully ingrained. I think it's like, I think it's three weeks to break a habit or, or something like that in six weeks before. It's like a new part of your lifestyle. And psychedelics seem for many people to really speed along that process. And so if you implement change, um, after the psychedelic experience and focus a lot of[inaudible] integration, those, those new patterns can, um, can hopefully form faster would be the idea.
Dave:Yeah, I find it all fascinating. It's also seems that, uh, it's an ordeal going through some of these, um, like ayahuasca is not the most fun experience. Both.and it seems like the work you put in sort of does pay off in the end that it's almost like you have to go through something and work towards it, but it does seem to be cutting down the time in which people are having to suffer through withdrawals or it's a, seems to be, I mean, now researchers now are starting up with John Hopkins and they've already been doing the MDMA for PTSD. It seems like they're taking notice of what these substances can do nowadays, which is awesome. I was gonna ask you, after the movie came out, what was the reaction? Are people coming out to you now as far as their psychedelic use or are people coming up to you and sort of talking to you more about it? They did before or,
Shane:yeah, I mean the, the, you know, all the reviews have been fairly positive. Um, you know, I think it has like a, um, 80%, five, five star rating on Amazon and one out of nine people hate it or one out of 10 people hate it. But just like, uh, I think that this sign up doing something good in different and, um, and I get, I get emails from people all the time, all the time having had kind of shared experiences and um, you know, people have been coming out to shows more and more, especially since it, you know, at first you had to rent it and now it's available for free on Amazon prime. And so since that's happened it's, it's um, open things up a lot.
Dave:I will let you go. I know you have to run, but, thanks for being on the show and to hope we can catch up again sooner. It's been great talking to you, Shane. Thank you. Alright, awesome. Thanks, And that was my conversation with Shane Mauss. To find out more about Shane, go to Shanemauss.com to find out about the documentary we talked about, his podcast. Here we are, and his standup tour stand up science, the psychedelic suitcases produced by Carolyn Myers and myself, your host, Dave McNee. So please join us every two weeks where we unpack more of the psychedelic suitcase. Safe travels