194 Manesh Girn: Deep Innovation: A Neuroscientist’s Guide to Breakthrough Ideas

[00:00:00] ck: Welcome to Noble Warrior. My name is CK Lin. This is where I interview entrepreneurs and practitioners about how they move from finite games to infinite games. And pursue a life of greater purpose. Enjoy. My guest today is Manash Grin. He's a postdoc neuroscientist at UCS F1 of the leading universities in the world.

[00:00:20] ck: Dr. Grin is also a scientific director at the Center For Minds, a non-profit research organization spearheading the potential of psychedelics and consciousness practice to enhance creativity and problem solving. He is also known as the Psychedelic Scientist on YouTube and Instagram.

[00:00:38] ck: Welcome to Noble Warrior, Manesh.

[00:00:39] Manesh: Awesome.

[00:00:40] ck: Thanks so much for having me, CK. I'm excited to chat with you. Well, number one, let me give a shout out to Dr. Bruce Dahmer. He's the person that introduced us. He said, CK, you gotta talk to Manesh if you wanna talk about psychedelic assisted innovation.

[00:00:56] ck: Awesome. Yeah. So, as a neuroscientist, I'm [00:01:00] curious, given that's my particular interest in psychedelic assisted innovation, What are some of the foundational ideas that one needs to know if they want to pursue psychedelic assisted innovation?

[00:01:12] Manesh: Yeah, so the premise of psychedelics being useful for innovation is based on their idea.

[00:01:18] Manesh: Basically for us to generate a large volume of new ideas we wouldn't usually explore. The neuroscience and psychology research on psychedelics has been showing how they can really expand the repertoire of brain and mental states, that you naturally start to traverse and explore. And so we can see ourselves as usually operating within This kind of paradigm of order and stability in our lives, we kind of know who we are and what's what.

[00:01:45] Manesh: And we live in this kind of constrained, logical, rational world, which we need to interface with society and other people. And the idea is with a higher dose of a psychedelic, those kind of break down. We open out of that box and explore new [00:02:00] lines of thought, find distant connections between ideas.

[00:02:03] Manesh: Um, and it, um, Initiate this kind of unconstrained mental state that's conducive to ideas. And so I think that's kind of like the fundamental basis of how psychedelics can potentially be used for innovation.

[00:02:14] ck: Well, let me ask you this. From a subjective experience, often, I don't know about you, but I take copious notes during my psychedelic journey and experiences just because that's how my mind works.

[00:02:25] ck: Often after ceremony and journeys, I looked at some of these world changing ideas. And it wasn't that world changing after all. So I'm curious, I don't know about your experience. Was it pure downloads?

[00:02:36] ck: Was it mostly bad ideas? Some of them were like, oh, this is really interesting. Let me go team. Deep into that.

[00:02:43] Manesh: Yeah, it's interesting. I think, you know, what I had said just now is very carefully, that it produces a large volume of ideas. Not that these aren't all necessarily good ideas, right? It's like you produce, let's say 10 new ideas, and then maybe two of them are actually [00:03:00] useful or appropriate for what you're trying to do.

[00:03:02] Manesh: And, so I think psychedelics can catalyze a lot, but they can also mislead you. You can feel like, Oh, this is it. I understand the nature of this thing, or this is a huge groundbreaking insight. Then you look at it later, either it's like completely trivial or just like nonsensical. Right. Um, but the idea is not all ideas.

[00:03:17] Manesh: They're necessarily like that. Not all insights are like that. And it's really upon you to then parse through your ideas afterwards and determine what's a good idea. And this kind of mirrors the creative process in general, because often to be creative into like kind of, Um, create, you know, new creative outputs.

[00:03:32] Manesh: Usually there's distinct stages, right? The first stage is let it all out. Be stream of consciousness, just get it all on paper and then evaluate after. So kind of the idea is that psychedelics are enhancing this first idea generation stage.

[00:03:45] ck: What am I, ways of training my clients who basically let go of the internal control, the internal limitations is to just tell them to generate hundreds of bad ideas.

[00:03:58] ck: Just don't even worry about the merit [00:04:00] of the idea. Actually the worst idea it is, the possibly we're just trying to go for volume and then inevitably maybe one or two or three or four or whatever. decent ideas will come about, then we can have a deeper dive into the merit of the ideas itself. I'm curious though, I know we're talking about psychedelics.

[00:04:22] ck: So this is venturing to not necessarily just a realm of innovation per se, because often, you know, in psychedelic experience, we receive, you know, divine download, or some kind of like the truth, like the answers, the universe. So I'm curious, do you have a litmus test to evaluate? The validity of such, quote unquote, downloads ideas that come during journeys.

[00:04:49] Manesh: Yeah. It really depends on the type of idea, right? I think if it's a personal insight, that's often very difficult, but just having a sober view of how it relates to past [00:05:00] experiences you've had and how it checks out. And if you have like, let's say a therapist or professional you've been working with or, close friends who know you very well, it's like, Hey, this came up.

[00:05:08] Manesh: What do you think about this? I think just hashing it out and dialoguing about it can be really useful. It can be possible to have what seems to be an insight and then kind of confabulate sort of memories to go along with it and then confirm it. And then you're kind of just creating something that wasn't there.

[00:05:24] Manesh: And there's lots of instances, um, of this happening in the, in the past, in different contexts. Um, so you to be really careful. Um, and then on the other side, in terms of like innovation, let's say in entrepreneurship or even science and engineering, ultimately you gotta try to implement these ideas, right?

[00:05:33] Manesh: Is this implementable? Is it actually offering. Is it moving the needles in some kind of capacity that's meaningful? It actually goes back to how scientists describe creativity. They describe, something as creative if it's novel or innovative. But also it's useful or appropriate for a given problem because something can be novel and innovative, but have nothing to do with anything, right?

[00:05:55] Manesh: Or it could be useful and appropriate for a problem, but not, it's not [00:06:00] novel or innovative. Both these things have to be satisfied. And so I think in evaluating ideas, you know, cross checking what else exists out there. Is this solving the problem in a meaningful way? Or is it just a different variant on something that already exists that doesn't offer anything new?

[00:06:13] Manesh: And just like that kind of humility and honesty with yourself around that and just validation like external validation is really important too.

[00:06:20] ck: Thanks for that. I appreciate that. What comes to mind immediately is, like musical artists or, or painters, this type of artistry. If it's purely for art's sake, like avant garde artists, which is purely innovative, but really not that.

[00:06:37] ck: lack of better words, commercializable. So novel, so weird, nobody wants to buy it. And then there are those were extremely useful, but then it's not that novel, not that innovative. It's very commercial. So anyways, that's kind of what comes to my sort of the main diagram of novelty as well as useful.

[00:06:55] ck: Totally. Totally. So I'm curious as the [00:07:00] scientific director. For the center of the mind, how do you think about, methodology or testing, you know, protocols to apply these insights into address real, real world problems? Have you guys come up with some level of protocols already to help people frame, their psychedelic experiences with an intention of problem solving, creativity, innovation, et cetera?

[00:07:30] Manesh: Yeah, we're in the early stages, but we're definitely thinking about these things. And something that Bruce actually says a lot and which I really appreciate is, you know, we often talk about in psychedelics, the importance of set and setting points to how context dependent psychedelic effects are, where set is kind of like your mindset, everything you're bringing cognitively mentally to the experience and setting is your environment, right?

[00:07:54] Manesh: But he talks about set setting and setup. And so in the context of using psychedelics in a targeted [00:08:00] way, It's how you prime yourself ahead of time, how you set yourself up, that really matters. And so I think, in terms of protocols to maximize creative problem solving during a psychedelic experience, one of the most important things is loading as much information as possible related to what you're interested in or what you're trying to solve ahead of time.

[00:08:21] Manesh: And so the example that comes to mind is Bruce, maybe he talked about it in his episode, but he had a, you know, insight related to the origin of life and this had been a problem that he had been thinking about for many years prior and he's like read extensively on it, thought about it, sketch things out.

[00:08:37] Manesh: And so he had all of that preloaded in his mind. Such that when he was in the experience, it was able to tie it together in a new way and create this visionary experience. And so I think psychedelics are really powerful and they can take you in all sorts of directions, but I think they're sensitive to what you're priming yourself with.

[00:08:56] Manesh: And so I think ahead of time, you know, reading and really [00:09:00] engaging with the material in the process of the creative process in general, in science, a lot of talk about, you know, first loading all the information, then having the incubation phase. It's like doing all the thinking and reading you can and then forgetting about it, going on a walk, and it's often in those kind of unsuspecting moments that will pop into our minds.

[00:09:20] Manesh: And so we can think of psychedelics as perfect for that incubation phase for enhancing that subconscious processing and integrative, kind of connecting of ideas. And so, so that setup is really important. And then during the experience, setting it up such that you're primed as well. So you wouldn't necessarily, that could be helpful, but in this wouldn't necessarily being in a festival context or even in nature for that matter, it could be.

[00:09:42] Manesh: In a room with whiteboards with objects that remind you of the problem you're trying to solve of things that put you into the headspace of working on a project, right? So all these kinds of little supports and things I think are really important.

[00:09:56] ck: Okay, that's interesting. I love the way [00:10:00] your brain works because that those are the ideas that I would do, right?

[00:10:04] ck: And some of my friends may think I'm a little crazy for wanting to whiteboard and then have group discussions about these types of things. But because it's almost sacrilegious in the ayahuasca context, so to speak, but that's something that I do want to experiment because. I want to know, you know, so, so this is what comes to mind immediately, right?

[00:10:28] ck: Whiteboards, group discussions, pair shares, definitely paper, butcher paper, or something like that. And then, maybe using some other,

[00:10:38] Manesh: Um,

[00:10:38] ck: uh, tools like, um, one of those lights that shines in your face, right. To, you know, uh, bring you to certain alpha or theta or gamma brain states and things like that, those are just things that I wanted to try.

[00:10:38] ck: So I'm curious what, mechanisms. Maybe you have tried already or maybe you haven't tried, but you're thinking about trying.

[00:10:46] Manesh: Yeah. I mean, I think the things you've mentioned are all really interesting to try to, to working with psychedelics and yeah, you know, you mentioned ayahuasca and that's an interesting one because people often have very strong ideas of the ritual context for that as compared [00:11:00] to LSD or psilocybin.

[00:11:02] Manesh: When I think of these things, I'm mainly thinking of psilocybin and LSD. And actually there were like Neurobiological reasons why that's the case too, which I can get into if you don't mind, but yeah, I can briefly comment on that. I mean with ayahuasca, it's often Much more of a somatic experience.

[00:11:18] Manesh: And it's just this unique combination of two different plants, usually with different sets of molecules. You got the DMT and then the thing that blocks the enzyme that makes them, those two in combination seem to also elicit all sorts of physiological kind of like bodily things. Um, you know, not to mention vomiting and nauseous and all that.

[00:11:37] Manesh: And I feel like, my experience is the nature of it is it kind of like. It's hard to do anything active when you're in that state, although some physicians do do that. Whereas, for example, LSD, which I think might be the best for this, because it's, you know, subjectively, people often report feeling more lucid and, able to think clearly under LSD than mushrooms or ayahuasca.

[00:11:59] Manesh: And I think one [00:12:00] of the reasons for that is that LSD hits your dopamine receptors. Your D2 receptor much more than psilocybin ayahuasca barely hit this receptor, but LSD does. And this is one of the main receptors that stimulants and dopamine in general help improve focus. So LSD might actually have some focus enhancing effects similar to ADHD meds that psilocybin doesn't.

[00:12:24] Manesh: So for that reason, I think LSD can be particularly good for this, not to mention it lasts a bit longer too. But I think in general, there's a lot of things you can combine with psychedelics. Psychedelics are these synergistic medicines that amplify, and increase your sensitivity to anything else you're doing.

[00:12:40] Manesh: So whether it's like these strobe light brain and training rhythms, my brain might be much more responsive to that kind of auto hypnosis. It might also be helpful, to, have a video playing to help prime your mind. Because when you're in a psychedelic state, you get very sucked into what's around you.

[00:12:58] Manesh: You're very impressionable. You're [00:13:00] very suggestible. And that could happen negatively and put you down a bad spiral. But you can do that in a huge, arguably infinite variety of ways. Like if your emphasis is not on healing and processing traumas, but it's instead on creating a new architectural design or creating a new art piece, that's a completely different application.

[00:13:20] Manesh: And so then, you know, it's like, what practices would you do outside of psychedelics to support that? And just bringing that into the psychedelic experience to amplify with it. And so I think neurofeedback things, if you're able to actually, you know, manage the technology could be really useful.

[00:13:36] Manesh: I mean, there's applications for VR potentially for priming us mentally towards certain directions. And also having different prompts available for you to reflect on and just things to like steer that ship once it's launched. I think you're really useful.

[00:13:51] ck: Well, I mean, here's. Here's an interesting, question I want to ask because part of being the psychedelic space is the openness, allowing your [00:14:00] subconscious to show you things that you may have not think about.

[00:14:05] ck: So there's advocates for no control, no intentions. And then there are those for me and I advocate for intentions would be essentially my teaching is strong intentions, hold it loosely, essentially, right? So how do you make sure that you try all these things, but you don't oversteer, then you become attached to just the egoic mind of trying to drive something or force something,

[00:14:31] Manesh: yeah, totally. It's a tricky balance and I agree with you in having strong intentions, but then not trying to rigidly hold on to it because that's just going to create anxiety most of the time. And not be really possible to do, but the idea is rather than controlling it's priming and just trying to influence the flow of it, of the experience towards particular directions.

[00:14:51] Manesh: But that said, if your mind wants to go into something that happened when you're eight years old, some event that had an imprint on you, you got to go there [00:15:00] first. This is where something else, Bruce says, and even at Minds in general, it's like first you do the healing, then you do the revealing, right?

[00:15:07] Manesh: It's like, in order to use psychedelics as a tool, especially at higher doses, you have to be pretty clear and grounded within yourself. Because a lot of people might hear our whole conversation here, it's like, oh, like, if I did a couple grams of mushrooms, there's no way I'm solving, I'm not focusing on anything science related, that's absurd.

[00:15:24] Manesh: Because a lot of people might have challenging emotions come up, things that pulled their attention and pull them in different directions. Um, and the idea is. to really process and move through that enough so that then you have that lucidity in that space where you have, some kind of agency come back.

[00:15:38] Manesh: And that's also a dosing thing, too. If you take too much, then you're gone, you're gone. But there's a place where you're tripping. You're not tripping, but you're still retaining some agency because you've become acclimated to that environment and you know how to navigate it. And so I think Psychedelics are really powerful tools in order to gain the ability to use them outside of these contexts and have some agency, you have to do a lot of work on yourself [00:16:00] first.

[00:16:01] ck: Thanks for the very measured response. Well, let me ask you this, we talked about, I just listed like eight different mechanisms that you can try, right? As a scientist, right? Because if you test eight things and you have a positive favorable outcome, you don't know which one attributed to.

[00:16:20] ck: You don't even know which one's the cause, but at the same time too, for me it's rarely one lever results. Usually it's like multiple levers and then results, some kind of favorable outcome, right? So as a scientist, trying to quote unquote reduce this to something that's more causal, how do you think about ways to, design the experiment so that we'll have some level of causal, relationship.

[00:16:51] Manesh: Yeah. Totally. That's like, that's the ultimate question, right? And this is why creativity research is so difficult and psychedelic research is as a general, thing. You can [00:17:00] isolate variables, it's operationalized, you can quantify as much as you can, but you want it to reflect real life.

[00:17:06] Manesh: You don't want it to be this really simplified toy experiment that, is, as scientists would say, not ecologically valid. It doesn't reflect the real world in an accurate way. So that trade off is always a difficult one. And a lot of creativity research in the past has been using these really watered down, kind of basic, contrived tasks you do on a computer screen, which don't reflect necessarily, you know, real life creativity.

[00:17:33] Manesh: And so, I think there are different stages here in how to approach that. I think with minds, one of the things we want to do first is what is called more observational research. It's, in essence, allowing things to be a bit less controlled and, going in the real world and how are people using this in the real world and what measures can we give them before, during, and after to kind of track that as much as possible.

[00:17:58] Manesh: Um, so then we try to isolate by different measures, right? So we have a measure. [00:18:00] for, creativity proper or like how much did your sense of what was significant change in your environment, how much mystical experience that you have, how much anxiety do you have? And how much did you feel like the whiteboards helped you?

[00:18:12] Manesh: We would basically ask all sorts of different questions to try to get data and then parse out what correlates with what, and they'd be like, Oh, the people who performed the best, also had high scores on. Changes in meaning attribution to stimuli and, they use the whiteboard the most.

[00:18:27] Manesh: And it's like, okay, so then there's something mechanistically related to those things that are useful. And then in a later study, in a more control context. would be like, Oh, like psychedelic, uh, assisted innovation with and without whiteboards, you know, and then, then you get into the really slow incremental nature of science where you have to just bring in elements one at a time, do a whole study on it and just really do that.

[00:18:35] Manesh: But I think that is important and needs to be done. But I think We're not there yet, necessarily. We still want to see broad strokes, what's happening and do these kind of messier, complex studies. And I think that's partially what we're gonna be doing initially at Mines.

[00:18:49] ck: Oh, I appreciate that. I mean, already that's very thoughtful because in my mind, it's an impossible task to do a single variable test, right?

[00:18:58] ck: I want, cause I want to already off the top of my head, eight different things. I don't want to run eight different experiments. So I appreciate it. Essentially the [00:19:00] cluster, the trimming approach, here's a bunch of things. Let's see which one people actually use, you know, who actually have favorable outcomes.

[00:19:08] ck: And then you've started trimming it down to single, single variable experiments. I like that. Okay. What kind of tests do you do in terms of standardizing? Oh, did this person move the needle to be quote, unquote, more innovative, creative or not?

[00:19:27] Manesh: So there was one study published in 1966 that actually was this kind of messy observational study with mesclun, looking at it in a bunch of, professionals, right? So just to give more detail, they brought together people who are kind of like technical professionals in their field, scientists, engineers, who are struggling with a problem and had this kind of obstacle problem they were working through for some time that they needed a breakthrough on and they brought them in and had them all do mesclun together in this kind of protocol where they, it was like a group of them.

[00:19:57] Manesh: I'm not, I forget how many, maybe 10 around 10 [00:20:00] people. This is what I was describing. And they measure success by. Their self reported success is like, do you feel like you had a breakthrough in your problem and describe it to us qualitatively? And then it's like number of patents, number of scientific papers.

[00:20:17] Manesh: And then even as far as revenue at their companies. So they just found kind of quantitative and qualitative metrics specific to each person. And what does success mean to them? And then kind of like collated them in a way that made sense. And so of course this is like messier, but this is kind of what I'm saying.

[00:20:35] Manesh: It's kind of a first approximation of it. So really it would be something like that. And something we're also thinking about at Minds is how to refine that, right? These days, it's easier to bridge the qualitative into quantitative. And what I mean by that is qualitative is people talking, usually.

[00:20:52] Manesh: It's like, interview them and you get this whole transcript of text of them talking about, Oh, like I had this problem and I broke through in this way, this is how psychedelics [00:21:00] helped me. There are ways to use natural language processing. You can use large language models, but you don't necessarily need that.

[00:21:06] Manesh: There are different ways to analyze recurring themes in what they're saying. The sentiment of what they're saying, what words they're using and try to use the nature of the language to quantify, to find a more reliable measure that's generalizable of, whether they're more creative or not.

[00:21:23] Manesh: And so we really got to innovate in all these things and that's what we're trying to do at Minds.

[00:21:28] ck: Yeah. It sounds like there's going to be some AI recording in real time, you know, query during your experimental sessions.

[00:21:36] Manesh: Yeah, possible. We're open to it. And actually, the other thing I can add here is we're putting together a special issue of an academic journal right now to bring together all sorts of different researchers who are interested in creativity, whether it's kind of like traditional researchers that have nothing to do with psychedelics.

[00:21:54] Manesh: and bring them in, bring in the psychedelic people, bring the meditation and mindfulness people in, because there's a lot of [00:22:00] interesting work on mindfulness and creativity these days. And then there's this whole like subfield emerging, applying large language models and advanced natural language processing algorithms to understand quality of data in psychiatry and in neuroscience.

[00:22:14] Manesh: And it's like, oh, like, What if you brought that to bear on creativity? And then what if you brought all these people that we don't usually speak together? And so we're trying to do that through this special issue that I'm leading with a couple others from my.

[00:22:23] ck: So following up on the standardized test real quick, innovation, at least for me, you know, you're the expert.

[00:22:31] ck: I'm curious to know your thoughts. It's rarely, aha, you know, and then I solve this thing and, you know, from zero to one, just like that. Typically for me, anyway, there's an incubation period and then, you know, then the solutions sort of emerge, it becomes, you know, Like an emergent type of property, so when you think about the test, how long is, you know, the pre test, the ceremony, or the [00:23:00] experience, and then concretely I can say, alright, this thing moved the needle or not, is it immediately, is it 7 days, is it 3 months, is it 6 months, like, what are you thinking about in terms of this?

[00:23:13] Manesh: Yeah, it's a really good question. And it's true. It's like these things are iterative. They kind of go on and on and their impacts aren't usually obvious right at the beginning. And so I think in the ideal case, we'd have a multiple stage process. Kind of what we do for mental health studies where it's like, okay, 24 hours, fill out all these things, interview them, and then check in again one month later than three months and six months.

[00:23:34] Manesh: That's often what a lot of mental health studies, in general, chemical trials do, and so we would probably have this staged follow up process with, quantitative, kind of measures, but then also more unstructured interviews at each different stage to look at that. It is an interesting thing to include, more of an emphasis on that iterative kind of protracted nature of it that hasn't been really looked at in creativity studies either, because they're usually not real world in this kind [00:24:00] of a way.

[00:24:00] Manesh: So really, this is a lot of this is new territory. And so we're just trying to do it the best way we can.

[00:24:05] ck: Is brain imaging useful at all in this matter or not really because brain imaging is more of like structural change and things like that.

[00:24:13] Manesh: Yeah, it's an interesting question where it fits in. I mean, like there's two general questions here, right? It's like, can psychedelics help with creativity? And how do psychedelics affect the creative brain, you could say. And those are two kind of different questions because, you know, in essence, we can determine whether or not it helps people be creative without knowing what's happening in the brain, right?

[00:24:37] Manesh: But by knowing what's happening in the brain, we can maybe think about how to replicate it in other contexts. We can use it as a way to understand more about the brain and what makes a brain creative. there's like more basic science questions that are mechanistic that can emerge from that, which I find interesting.

[00:24:53] Manesh: That's a, as a neuroscientist, I love that stuff, right? It's more, it's a bit more abstract and theoretical, but it's like, [00:25:00] how does the brain work? How do these processes interact? And there is practical applications just a bit farther down the line. And so, you know, I think it would be interesting to include, brain imaging, but then it's like, when do you brain image them?

[00:25:14] Manesh: You can't really do it during the process, right? It'd have to be before and after, then it's like, okay, then what are we looking at before and after? And it gets kind of tricky.

[00:25:23] ck: Yeah. I mean, my fantasy is. Okay. Everyone, you know, pre ceremony, you do some kind of brain imaging or, you know, baseline of neural feedback.

[00:25:36] ck: So you understand how your brain is firing during ceremony after it's activated, then you measure it again. And then after that, you measure it again, but I'm a data nerd, right? So it's not quite practical because when people are in activation, You know, you don't want to mess with their process. Hey, come over here.

[00:25:53] ck:I want to measure your brain.

[00:25:53] Manesh: Yeah, it's what we do in the lab, but it is probably not the best for the process. Right?

[00:25:55] ck: And it also has that interfering effect, right? The observer effect. If you [00:26:00] say come over here, already you're disrupting their natural environment, their experience. So again, I don't know how you can do a minimum invasively to do that.

[00:26:11] Manesh: Yeah, one way to do it is just have an EEG headset on them the whole time. Or just have it on their head and then record periodically throughout their session. That might be one way to do it, but that's not the same as putting them into a giant fMRI scanner to get more high resolution images of their brain, which is what we do at UCSF mostly.

[00:26:30] Manesh: We do EEG as well, but that's like the ultimate question in this kind of research is like, how can we study it, with minimally perturbing it?

[00:26:39] ck: That's right. Hey, go through your experience. Just ignore this giant thing with lots of

[00:26:41] Manesh: wires. Right now, exactly. Answer this question on your experience, but then just go back to doing what you're doing.

[00:26:47] Manesh: Yeah.

[00:26:48] ck: I think you have some interesting questions. So it comes to me also priming because part of it is neurotransmitters, right? Is there any particular neurotransmitter that you [00:27:00] can, you know, perhaps ingest quote unquote to prime your brain for the. optimal experience for creativity and problem solving, psychedelic sessions?

[00:27:11] Manesh: Yeah, that's a good question. Probably really not as much because like, You know, things like dopamine and noradrenaline are things that stimulants often work on and relate to our focus and attention and kind of wakefulness. The thing is, the more focused and awake we are, often the less creative we are, because we're more in this kind of rational, linear, like left brained, if you will, kind of processing.

[00:27:36] Manesh: which is not conducive to kind of this kind of free flow, a interconnected associative and way of thinking. And so if anything, you don't want too much neuroadrenaline dopamine in that state, cause that could be prohibitive to a certain extent. I think things like, often closing your eyes can induce more of a creative state because it brings more alpha, brain waves and [00:28:00] just like puts you in this injured state.

[00:28:03] Manesh: But I mean, yeah, I'm trying to think of any supplements that might improve the creative aspect. psychedelics. I would think a lot of them might just get in the way. Um, cause psychedelics are, you know, we think we kind of, what we expect based on research is they're helping with creativity through this receptor called the serotonin two way receptor.

[00:28:22] Manesh: And the thing is it's really hard to activate that receptor with any kind of supplements or any kind of things that release. Serotonin naturally, because mostly serotonin will go to the serotonin 1A receptor, which is very different. And so there's like this unique mechanism that psychedelics are tapping into.

[00:28:38] Manesh: It's hard to just endogenously activate with a supplement.

[00:28:43] ck: Okay. So no coffee then.

[00:28:47] Manesh: Coffee can be prohibitive for creativity.

[00:28:51] ck: Helps you really focus on your attention on a specific thing, right? I mean, again, I don't know the exact mechanisms, how it all worked. Just [00:29:00] anecdotally, I know that's what it does.

[00:29:02] Manesh: And one of the things caffeine does is it also increases dopamine in your prefrontal cortex. So people, I mean a lot of people, people think of dopamine as like reward and pleasure, but it's also one of the main things that helps us focus in the prefrontal cortex, right behind our forehead here.

[00:29:19] Manesh: And, one of the things caffeine does, same as Adderall, same as, you know, Ritalin, Vyvanse, whatever stimulant, is it increases dopamine. And so, yeah, it's like, you don't want that tunnel vision when you're trying to be creative, you know, if you want, but if you had, let's say three creative ideas and you want to elaborate on one of those ideas.

[00:29:37] Manesh: then caffeine is probably good for that stage, but for the initial diffuse stream of consciousness, creative generation, it might not be the most helpful.

[00:29:46] ck: Are there things that you do to train yourself to have that diffusive way of thinking to be get as loose as possible without, say, any kind of exogenous molecules or medicines or [00:30:00] sacrament of any sort, just just your training?

[00:30:02] ck: Because the way I think about this is we're mental athletes effectively. Right. So how do we train ourselves to be super focused when we need to super lose when we need to? So using that metaphor,

[00:30:15] Manesh: totally. So I think there are three things which helped me do it the most, number one would be meditation and this mindfulness practice.

[00:30:22] Manesh: I've been a daily meditator since I was 18 or 19 years old and, rarely missed a day meditating, you know, often a couple of times a day, or I'll just drop and sit on my mat in the middle of the day sometimes. You know, a lot of my practice now is more mindfulness, where I feel like, you know, I sit, I ground in the body, and I just feel myself pulling back from my thoughts and feelings, as if it's like, they're a scream, they're happening, but I just like pull back into the stillness, where I'm just able to see the whole landscape without getting bogged down in any individual thoughts, and I'm able to, you know, I just rest in that place for a few minutes, for even five minutes, [00:31:00] and When I'm doing that, I'll have connections and insights come to me in that moment.

[00:31:05] Manesh: because I'm like pulling back and being patient and not grabbing onto anything. And I think that practice alone often brings a lot of insights and, the kind of spaciousness that's conducive to this kind of freer exploration. So I think meditation, mindfulness practice is so helpful and there's research on that as well.

[00:31:25] Manesh: And, um, in addition to that, I go to the gym a lot. I'm in the gym three, four days a week. I've done that since I was a teenager. I like to run a lot. Um, and going for runs and getting the blood going is also a great way to do it. Um, a lot of my, you know, I get excited with ideas and my mind comes to life when I'm jogging, whether it's outdoors or at the gym.

[00:31:38] Manesh: I find that really helpful because it also, is paradoxical because like, no adrenaline is really high. But since you're not really focused on anything, it's kind of just like this open exploration of mental content and, And that's really useful. And then the third thing is I also like to play guitar and I find guitar.

[00:31:55] Manesh: It gets me out of my head and just gets me. I like to play, like, I just like to [00:32:00] improvise and noodle on my guitar a lot. And I play like Spanish, flamenco style of guitar and I'll just sit there and just jam out, improvising for like 20 minutes. And then, you know, during that process, my mind. Cause I'm embodied and I'm activating different parts of my brain, not involved in logical thought.

[00:32:17] Manesh: My mind is just kind of moving in through different things in a free way that I'm just kind of like watching and not engaging in actively while I'm playing. And that also is conducive to that kind of thing. And so those are the three things I think helped me.

[00:32:30] ck: Oh man, there's so many things I can say.

[00:32:32] ck: Okay, so immediately what comes to mind is, again, you're a neuroscientist, so do you think about things like, oh yeah, I'm running, I'm generating BDMF, and then, you know, yeah, let's go. Things like that, or you're just, ah, you know, forget about it, and then let me just get into the body and Yeah,

[00:32:55] Manesh: I'm aware of it.

[00:32:55] Manesh: I know this is great. I know my learning and memory is going to be enhanced immediately after [00:33:00] or, and the stuff I learned right before it, it's probably going to be encoded more deeply. Sometimes I strategically time things where it's like, I'll try to read a more dense article.

[00:33:09] Manesh: Right before I go into the gym or use that opportunity after the gym to read something. Cause I know my brain has more resources to potentially encode it. So I'll do that. But other than that, when I'm taking a psychedelic or when I'm on a run, I take off the scientist hat, I'm just there to be a

[00:33:26] ck: The reason why I asked this question, cause I have a lot of musician friends.

[00:33:29] ck: They don't listen to other people's music because their critic comes in and trying to analyze the compartmentalized mechanics of music. And this person is doing this. Core that core, you know, this, this, this core progression or whatever the thing is that they like, they can't even listen to anything.

[00:33:47] ck: Right. I was curious to know how your brain works. And then I want to go a little nerdier on the, on the specific run. Is it, any specific heart zone [00:34:00] for a specific duration or is it hit base or is it

[00:34:05] Manesh: I vary it. These days it's mostly like zone 2 and sometimes like zone 3 cardio for, I'll do 20 minutes of that, you know, usually maybe 4 days a week.

[00:34:16] Manesh: And I'll sometimes go on longer runs, so like a 20 minute run that's like, 3 miles or whatever. And outdoors and that, usually for those I run a bit harder. And so it's often just like more or less like low to moderate sustained cardio. But sometimes I'll do hit as well.

[00:34:34] Manesh: I'll like alternate 10 and five on the treadmill at the gym, for 10 minutes. And that also can be really useful. Because with that you get more, you get like a really immediate, at least I do, endorphin rush. So I get, I'm like, get really high pretty fast with HIIT, but also for running, you know, a sustained way.

[00:34:51] Manesh: And when I'm in that kind of like semi euphoric state, that's when I'm just like getting excited about ideas and thoughts and things. And so whatever brings you to that [00:35:00] state I think could be really useful.

[00:35:02] ck: I'm listening to Steven Kotler's program called something about cloud night or something like that.

[00:35:10] ck: It was an interesting way. So he essentially optimized, or at least he's preaching his teaching. Stay as long as in flow as possible because life is better that way. Basically, you can be more innovative, more joyous. If you just hang out there as long as possible, very similar to. Dr. Joe Dispenza's teaching is same, same thing.

[00:35:29] ck: You want to hang out in that non dual state as long as possible, because that's where healing happens and manifestation and all those things, right? The messages are different. The language is different, but the message is the same effectively. So I'm curious, what's your take on, you know, their teachings as a neuroscientist?

[00:35:49] Manesh: Totally. I think what you're pointing to is also very similar to this place I get to when I'm meditating, right? It's like, they're speaking to these states, what we can call egoless awareness, right? [00:36:00] We're in these states where, our mental chatter is not consuming us and we're kind of flowing, we're gliding through experience, in this kind of open receptive state, right?

[00:36:11] Manesh: We were in that kind of like beginner's mind, openness, state. And I think that's what allows us to make these distant connections, and allows us to explore the broader landscape of our, of our thoughts. And I'm just getting an image to my head of like, if you imagine our minds as like a network of like, like nodes with connections between nodes, when we're focused, we're like in one neighborhood of that network, we're really in that area.

[00:36:35] Manesh: And if we're really trying to solve a problem in that kind of network in that neighborhood, we're kind of like recycling the same information and perspectives, you can get stuck right and not have a solution. But if you forget about that neighborhood and relax into the state, whether it's dispensive meditations or getting in flow or meditating or running, you kind of expand out and you start exploring other neighborhoods.

[00:36:56] Manesh: And maybe one of those other neighborhoods has some like new connection, a new perspective on [00:37:00] the problem you would have never thought of in that way that you were really hitting your head against the wall. So it's kind of like opening up that network einstein said as well, right? The same level of thinking can't same solve the same level.

[00:37:12] Manesh: Same level of thinking can't solve the problem that was, I'm butchering it, but you might got you

[00:37:17] ck: into that problem. The first, yeah, exactly.

[00:37:18] Manesh: You can't, the question is asked at some level of thinking. You can't solve the problem at that same level of thinking. Right. And this is basically the same idea of like diffusing our attention, spreading outwards and exploring different solutions.

[00:37:31] Manesh: And there are a lot of ways to articulate that, whether it's non duality, whether it's flow, whether it's, um, you know, athletes being in the zone, which is basically flow, but there's a variety of ways to get into that or describe that same state.

[00:37:43] ck: I love that. And you're a scientist talking about somatic intelligence and, you know, flow and non dual states.

[00:37:51] ck: That's awesome. What about With again, right, with the intention of innovation, creativity, problem [00:38:00] solving all these things. What I also hear you say, you said meditation, you said exercise, you said guitar playing. So the latter two are very much somatic practices. So can you speak a little bit about that, you know, looking at it through that lens, somatic practices?

[00:38:18] Manesh: Totally. I think there's a lot to say about getting out of your mind and going in the body, right? I feel like we spin our wheels a lot in the head, which is just us releasing pent up energy in our nervous system and in our body. And we're just like not grounding it.

[00:38:34] Manesh: We're not bringing it down. We're not releasing it. It's just like up here and we're just cycling nonsense in our head. And that could be, us trying to solve a problem, by incessantly thinking about it, which often, has diminishing returns pretty quick. Right. And so, the lesson I've learned, like I'm a neuroscientist, I'm naturally in my head a lot.

[00:38:50] Manesh: And so I've learned like the meditation helps, they're working out, they're running. Yeah. And it's like body scans and movement. These things are super powerful because they give you a break from the incessant chatter and [00:39:00] allow you to deal with things in, what we could say is more of a bottom up way.

[00:39:05] Manesh: It's like we're changing our felt experience in our body and our sense of restlessness, anxiety. For the effects that's going to have on our mental clarity. And I think we're embodied beings. We have to integrate both. We have to pay attention to that side for sure.

[00:39:18] ck: I'm having a huge smile because, you know, I've been talking about this to my clients and, you know, I'm a PhD and executive coach, so there's a certain weight to what I'm saying, but neuroscientists is talking about it.

[00:39:34] ck: So we're going to just point to you and say, look, UCSF neuroscientists said the same thing. So to someone who may be a nonbeliever, right, like, is there any writing or body of thoughts that can concretize essentially what we're describing, perhaps scientifically, perhaps in a way that it's, has certain logical [00:40:00] progressions so we can enroll those who are, I don't know, you know, those very mental people that way.

[00:40:05] Manesh: Yeah. Totally. I think one way to frame it is in terms of interoception. So interoception is a scientific term for our awareness of our bodily feelings, states, and sensations, and so on. And there's a lot of evidence we've known for decades that our body signals and feelings play a critical role in our decision making and thought processes.

[00:40:31] Manesh: Like, you know, the idea that humans are rational is a huge fallacy, right? It's like, we often will have a feeling that motivates an action. Then we kind of post talk rationalize what we had that like, Oh, I did it because of this. No, you did it because you felt something in your body, which you didn't know the source of.

[00:40:47] Manesh: Right. And, this was, you know, even there's cognitive scientists in the late nineties talking about this. There's like a researcher named Antonio Damasio, who had his somatic marker hypothesis. Basically saying this, [00:41:00] and this is like published in 98 or something of how our somatic sensations are what dictate our decisions in other direction.

[00:41:07] Manesh: And so it's like, okay, if we take for, if we accept that our somatic feelings play a much more larger role in our action selection or decision making our thoughts, then we expect that we might first kind of acknowledge that it's like, Oh, how can we get more in tune with that? How can we. be more clear on what our bodily states are telling us and what these feelings are and have more awareness around them.

[00:41:29] Manesh: Um, because without, without that embodied connection and semantic attunement, our feelings are dictating our thoughts without us knowing. We're not, we have less agency by definition. And um, you know, I can also just go into all the details about how the neuroscience of this, right? We have like, in our spinal cord, we have nerves bringing sensations from all over our periphery, our visceral, kind of like our organs, our gut, you know, when we feel.

[00:41:47] Manesh: Our heart hurts, or we have like a heartache, or, we're hungry, or our stomach hurts, or we have anxiety in the stomach, that's all interoception, it's coming up into our brain, processed, you know, often through the insula, which is a [00:42:00] really interconnected part of our brain, that, processes bodily signals and integrates it with our cognition.

[00:42:06] Manesh: And so we know all the mechanisms through which this happens, not to mention things like the vagus nerve signaling from our gut in other places, straight to our brain and changing our neurotransmitter levels. Like there's so much information on the mind body, you know, connection and, people who don't acknowledge it are just at a limited amount of agency and awareness in their life, which is not going to make some more easy to be manipulated by social media and ad targeting and all that.

[00:42:31] Manesh: I mean, people really need to get, get with it at this point. I love that. Shots fired

[00:42:38] ck: to the ads industry. All right. So zooming out for a bit, right? Are there any kind of synergistic effects with integrating the psychedelic, innovation sessions with. establish innovative processes like design thinking or any specific kind of like seven [00:43:00] hats brainstorming sessions or have you thought about or is there anything that you wanted to

[00:43:07] Manesh: To be completely honest, we haven't ventured into that territory yet. We're still, like, trying to articulate how to study, like, most basic level of creativity and psychedelics. And so I think you're speaking into more organizational leadership and creativity in these other contexts.

[00:43:22] Manesh: And we've honestly yet to bridge that. So, that could be something we can collaborate on or something, because I'm sure you know much more about that than I do.

[00:43:29] ck: Yeah, I mean, there are just, just different modalities, right? Different ways to foster innovative, you know, ways of thinking and group flow effectively.

[00:43:38] ck: How do we do that within group or, anyways, yes, for sure. Are there any kind of, I get excited. I got excited when Bruce told me that phrase, psychedelic assisted innovation, like, aha, that's something that I'm personally very passionate about. Yes. There's the place for psychedelic assisted [00:44:00] therapy and things like that, a place for that, but that's not my main personal passion.

[00:44:05] ck: I'm more interested in how do we use this. Beautiful experience to solve problems, to innovate, to create interesting things in service of the world, so I'm curious, you know, you've been thinking about it for longer than I have. What are some common misconceptions that most people don't know about in terms of psychedelic assisted creativity, innovation that you'd like to share?

[00:44:34] Manesh: Yeah, I think part of it is that it's a very nuanced process. It's not that, you know, you take psychedelics and instantly you're more creative in all these ways. It's, there's research showing that it can impair creativity in certain contexts, at least during the experience. And it's a ballot. Oh, in what

[00:44:49] ck: way?

[00:44:49] ck: How does it occur? It's kind of

[00:44:50] Manesh: funny. It's like, you know, it's like giving somebody a psychedelic, then putting them in front of a computer and having them do some tasks around. You know, find associations between these rows of images [00:45:00] or come up with as many things as you can do with a brick in this context or something like that.

[00:45:06] Manesh: People often do worse because like they're probably just really high and not wanting to look at a computer screen doing this silly task, right? But there's also, it speaks to, you know, psychedelics can impair focus intention, attention, and kind of like distract you. Um, like there are a lot of distractions that pull you away from having to do some focus tasks.

[00:45:26] Manesh: Right. Like how to juggle and manage that, right. But I guess what I'm saying is like, psychedelics don't enhance creativity in all aspects and we're really in the process of figuring out how they do. And this is why I've been focusing on the idea generation. It's like creating new connections, associative thinking, and just coming up with a volume of ideas which then can be evaluated after.

[00:45:48] Manesh: Um, and so I think there's nuance around that and also around, um, not all insights are good or true, so it could be harmful. Um, they're really important. And then also, you know, a lot of people like microdosing, right? And so there's a lot of talk of microdosing. And, the research on microdosing and creativity hasn't been [00:46:00] the most, striking or promising.

[00:46:01] Manesh: They found people who microdose, scored higher on creativity measures, but so did the people who got a placebo and thought they got a microdose, right? And so microdosing for creativity is, it's like really unclear what the real effect is there. And people might also be, surprised to know that the amount of research, like actual published research on psychedelics and creativity.

[00:46:23] Manesh: There's barely anything. And even though this has been talked about for like 60 years, we're really, really early stages of it. And so people are often shocked to hear about that as well. The other is just like, you know, as we've kind of been saying, the context that you're doing it in is just as, if not more important than the drug itself, right?

[00:46:39] Manesh: It's really about the priming, the kind of support structures around you and the preparation. It's like the kind of combination of all these things coming together. It's not just the psychedelic.

[00:46:50] ck: So I actually have a question specifically around priming because as you think about as you were discussing it and as I'm recalling Bruce's He's famous example, he, the way he [00:47:00] described it, he says, he has a mental movie about the different molecules and the environment during the volcanic lake, so type of situation.

[00:47:10] ck: And he just run through in his brain over and over again. And then once he gets into a low dose, ayahuasca journey, and then he just lets everything go and you know, whatever flows, flows, right? That's kind of the way he. Articulated it. I think that's interesting, but most people are not solving astrobiology type problems.

[00:47:33] ck: They're thinking about maybe should I get married or not to do this, this person, or they're thinking, like, how do I create the next, Startup that I really wanted to bring to fruition, or how do I, I don't know. And they have a health issue that, that, that. So as you thinking about priming, what comes to mind immediately was we were talking about that.

[00:47:55] ck: I was like, okay, got to prime my brain. Let me, read my business plan [00:48:00] right before ceremony. That's kind of what comes to mind as you're speaking. So, so I don't know, like to the level of details. You know, is there any qualification or, you know, that you can discuss in terms of quote unquote, priming a person for a psychedelic assisted innovation process?

[00:48:18] Manesh: Well, you know, it sounds funny to say you're going to read your business plan beforehand. But like that can be helpful if you're going into the experience of using psychedelics as a tool. for enhancing innovation and creative problem solving. I think framing it in that way is totally valid. Right. And I think part of this is, you know, some might say this is, what's the word?

[00:48:41] Manesh: Like de sacralizing them, or it's like heretical to use psychedelics in these ways. Right. And so it's like, You know, I think if we are going to be using psychedelicist tools for these things, we need to be open to totally new ways of using them. Of course they come with, from sacred context and these ritualized ways for mental health and [00:49:00] spirituality and all these things, but it's like, Hey, the world needs creative solutions to problems.

[00:49:05] Manesh: It needs new breakthroughs and insights. Why not use this in a completely different way, to see how, what effect it has. Right. So it's like, like do it in your business boardroom with your business plan laid out in front of you. Do it in that kind of energy, in that, that, you know, experience, that environment.

[00:49:22] Manesh: And that you can have very different experience and it could be useful in ways that people can't predict. So I think priming can take various forms and we have to, you know, I think if we're going to apply this in these contexts, we have to fully embrace that and see like, Oh, what is truly in service of that outcome?

[00:49:40] Manesh: Like I'm not here to do healing on myself. I'm not here to, you know, speak to God necessarily or like merge with the universe or, you know, have ego death. I'm here to solve this problem and have a new insight related to X, Y, or Z and what supports that, and that's going to look very different for different people.

[00:49:59] ck: [00:50:00] Okay, again, I appreciate your very measured response. What I'm getting, getting from you is, it's individual specific, it's situation specific. To the extent that will work for the individual, it's about workability. If it works for you to read a business plan or the annual report of a specific investment company you're about to do, try it.

[00:50:20] ck: You know, if it works, great, if it doesn't, okay, don't do that again and try something else. You know, loosen it up a little bit. That's kind of what I'm gathering from you, you know, you're, you're very careful about not to make specific recommendations.

[00:50:31] Manesh: Right. Is that accurate? Yeah. Yeah. It's hard to make specific.

[00:50:32] Manesh: Yeah. No, what you said is totally accurate. And I want to emphasize here. It's like, maybe you'll go in there and be like, Oh, like give me more insight into my investment portfolio or something or like, what are, you know, and it might tell you it's like, You're full of shit. You're, you should go live in the mountains, you know, that's very possible.

[00:50:48] Manesh: That's in the, realm of possibility of the insights you can get. And so I think you can prime and, want to solve the problem, but if that's not the problem you should be solving right now, that's probably going to come up. And so that's [00:51:00] where I think to fully use these tools again, as I was saying before, it's like, do your healing and get yourself to a place where you feel like you're aligned with something that's really aligned with your purpose for the greater good.

[00:51:12] Manesh: Cause if you're lying to yourself, if there's some BS there, if you have some ulterior motive that even you're not admitting to yourself, psychedelics might throw that in your face. And that's just part of the experience, right?

[00:51:24] ck: Yeah. I love that. It's a, for me, the way I'm teaching my students is non specific amplifier of your consciousness.

[00:51:30] Manesh: So

[00:51:31] ck: if you're at a good place, guess what? You're going to see more good stuff. And if you're not at authentically at a good place. shadows, dragons, whatever it is that you've been hiding from yourself is going to show up. And what a great opportunity to actually deal with it. It's not, it's not bad. It's actually really good.

[00:51:50] ck: So enjoy it, you know? Yeah. Yeah, totally.

[00:51:54] Manesh: Totally.

[00:51:54] ck: Yeah. So I want to ask you a question about, microdosing. I know I'm kind of jumping [00:52:00] a little bit, but I think it's important to ask, do you personally do microdosing yourself? Since, again, since you're a neuroscientist, you understand the mechanisms, you understand, even for placebo effect.

[00:52:13] ck: It's still positive, right? So do you, do you, how do you think about it personally?

[00:52:17] Manesh: Yeah, I mean, I have, I've been on and off microdosing for a long time. I think I first tried microdosing back in 2015 or something like that, It's something that I find does help. Like, it's interesting. Like the placebo effects in the studies are in relation to what they're measuring, right?

[00:52:29] Manesh: You're always limited by what you're measuring. When I think of microdosing for myself, I feel like it just makes me a bit more aware and in tune with what I'm thinking and what I'm feeling. I just, you know, amplifies my sensitivity to what's, In my experience, right? It's at a lower dose, lower extent than a full dose.

[00:52:48] Manesh: And that can be useful if you're applying it, in service of being more mindful of engaging in habits that are more in service of yourself and. All these things, if you combine it with these lifestyle things, right? And so when I think of microdosing, it's like, okay, it's adding a little [00:53:00] amplifier to what you're doing and what your lifestyle is.

[00:53:03] Manesh: So it's not a magic thing you take and you're just going to feel better. Even if you're in a shitty environment, eating shitty food, it's like, no, it could be, it could be. An important, valuable amplifier to an overall holistic lifestyle thing you're doing. And so these days I don't my overdose necessarily consistently, I do it here and there for no good reason.

[00:53:18] Manesh: I think I should probably, it probably would be in service of myself to do it a bit more. I just find I don't absolutely need it or feel a call to it, but I think, it could help, for the potential, self awareness expanding side of it, but also might be anti inflammatory to some extent.

[00:53:34] Manesh: It might also be pro neuroplasticity in like the lower amount as well.

[00:53:39] ck: Yeah, when I learn about, neuroplasticity and neurogenesis impact of ayahuasca, fine. And I got really excited. I started looking at that, versus psilocybin versus some other compounds. And I got excited. Oh, great. You know, there's the impact lasts more than a few hours up to two weeks.

[00:53:57] ck: That's amazing. Oh, okay. So maybe there is some microdosing [00:54:00] possibility for the ayahuasca vine. I obviously couldn't find any other research to validate that or not, but

[00:54:08] Manesh: I've seen ayahuasca tinctures for microdosing and

[00:54:12] ck: a lot of people

[00:54:12] Manesh: are upset by that, but yeah, it's out there. If you Google it, it's probably.

[00:54:16] ck: Okay. I didn't know that. That's good to know. That's great. That's amazing. Um, yeah, the way I think about microdosing is I think about it more like vitamins. It's not that I need it, but is it nice to have? Sure. Is it, I'm going to take this forever and ever. Are we not? That's how I think about it. What are you, what's your take on that?

[00:54:35] Manesh: Similar to me. I think it's like if somebody is struggling with depression, anxiety, or some kind of mental health symptoms, That they want help with might have a larger effect for them and they might be more inclined to stay on it. Like I know a lot of people do it to stabilize their mood, reduce anxiety, these kinds of things and find a lot of benefit.

[00:54:52] Manesh: But I don't necessarily struggle with these things. And so for me, it's kind of like a cherry on top or bonus or from having an off day. I'm like, Oh, I'm just gonna take a little microdose [00:55:00] today to change it up. Change my energy a little bit. So yeah, that's kind of how I approach it.

[00:55:06] ck: Well, Manesh, I know that I asked you a lot of different questions.

[00:55:07] ck: We're, you know, we're going from the Center for the Minds to, uh, anyways, we asked a lot of different questions. Are there questions that you think I should be asking, but I didn't ask you?

[00:55:12] Manesh: Um, I guess it always, uh, fun question is always like, you know, you know, framing is you asking me, it's like, Oh, what do you see as the broader potential of psychedelics for, uh, For a society and for healthy people and et cetera.

[00:55:12] Manesh: Yeah. And what I would answer to that, one of the things I would say is that, they just, you know, they provide a way for people to, change and transform themselves. And that, you know, the scale of that can vary, but like on the lower end, change your perspective on your life and your life situation.

[00:55:32] Manesh: It's very easy for us to get bogged down in the daily grind and a particular way of viewing ourselves in the world and our habits. And we throw a psychedelic experience in there, properly supported with the right preparation and all that, the right precautions, it'll shake you up a little bit.

[00:55:49] Manesh: It'll like. open you up to things that maybe you hadn't thought about in years and, um, give you a new perspective on your life, see places where you're doing things that might be harmful to yourself or others, and kind of open yourself up [00:56:00] and give you momentum to then change that. And so I think You know, people need that because it's very easy to get bogged down, you know, these days with all this stuff going on in the world and the, you know, difficulties people are facing, but this allows a kind of a little refresh to see things from a new perspective that can then motivate different actions and, and so on.

[00:56:13] Manesh: And I think as psychedelics gain more prominence and more visibility, we're kind of spreading the idea on possibility of changing ourselves. And, you know, the worst thing I hear people say, especially, you know, people that older, you know, previous generation is like, this is how I am, you know, I am just this kind of person.

[00:56:35] Manesh: I'm just bad at talking to people. I'm just an anxious person. And that's like, I see that as like a profoundly limiting statement that you're just, this is a self fulfilling prophecy you're creating. But they're speaking to something that is true, which is it's very difficult to change.

[00:56:49] Manesh: But there are countless examples of people later in life, you know, even 50s, 60s, 70s, radically transforming themselves. And I think, Something that psychedelics do is they show [00:57:00] the possibility of that really clearly. Because there are people who had depression for 20 years, tried, you know, half a dozen different medications, didn't work, but then they find that with psilocybin therapy.

[00:57:11] Manesh: Or, you know, there's all sorts of examples. Doesn't work for everybody, but it does happen. And I think all it takes is for it to happen in one person for us to know that it's possible. Then it's like, okay, if it's possible with psychedelics, it's probably possible without psychedelics, if we do the right things and put the effort in.

[00:57:22] Manesh: And so, like, I'm really excited just about that possibility being available to people.

[00:57:28] ck: Yeah, man, I appreciate your double clicking on that. Well, for the Noble Warrior podcast, where the podcast really is centered around transformation. So you're speaking to the crowds that are already dedicated, you know, with diligence and protocols and noble allies to talk about how do we change ourselves for the sake of, You know, the person that we always wanted to be, right?

[00:57:49] ck: This is a down nine, the recreational way, but in a very intentional way. And for me, I feel very much the same way. When I say I'm just this way, I've [00:58:00] never this way. It's so static and it's so limiting because ultimately I personally believe that we're infinite, there's infinite possibilities.

[00:58:09] ck: If you want to do something short of becoming taller, go to the NBA. Okay. You could learn it. You can learn it. You can, that's the beauty of life. We can learn anything. Yeah. I don't know how to play the guitar very well yet. I hope one day, you know, with enough diligence and intentionality and discipline, I will be able to jam with Manash.

[00:58:31] ck:All right. So, you know, that's the way I think about it.

[00:58:31] Manesh: Yeah, no, I totally agree. And it's kind of like, rather than I am this person, I'm the process of overcoming or I have been in the past, right? And these are like, neuro linguistic programming, different framings, for example, all that matters.

[00:58:46] Manesh: Yeah.

[00:58:47] ck: And I think, for me anyway, ayahuasca specifically, but psychedelics in general. It's been life transforming, because even though I had been a student for life to wanted to [00:59:00] learn the art of transformation, there were things that I just didn't know that I didn't know. It was able to penetrate, pierce my very static belief of identity and who I was and all this and that and realize, zoom out.

[00:59:16] ck: To your use, the Einstein quote, right? Zoom out and have a different perspective. Oh, you know? You don't need to be so hard on yourself anymore. Let go forgive it's okay. And then all of a sudden, I have a new path to be this person that I am. And the job isn't done though. I'm continuing to move forward, so thank you so much for bringing that up.

[00:59:39] Manesh: Yeah. My pleasure.

[00:59:42] ck: Um, and I'm really look forward to Center for the Mind, what it's doing, I think, having more scientific rigor. Around these protocols could be really helpful because we do have a lot of anecdotal, evidence, so to speak, how this is helpful for problem [01:00:00] solving, creativity, innovation, but, you know, I wanted to see more rigor so I can convince those who want that materialistic evidence, you know, with the whole only believe in scientists.

[01:00:14] ck: So, as I can point them to see, to use it in a more productive way. Totally.

[01:00:19] Manesh: Yeah. And it's also like, you know, how we can do it in the best way, right? It's like, how can we use these tools in the best possible way? And, you know, I think science is the best way to figure that out. It's like, you look at it very precisely.

[01:00:33] Manesh: How can we know what moves the needle, what doesn't, what's important, what isn't. And so. That's, yeah, what I'm excited about as well.

[01:00:40] ck: Actually, on that note, quick question. This is an aside outside of neuroscience. AI is here and now, and I'm very excited about the computational power that it has, and more specifically to understand how the brain works and more specifically how, you know, how individual [01:01:00] medicine, personalized medicine, how it applies to that and all those things.

[01:01:03] ck: I'm curious. From your perspective, do you use. You know, AI, these type of LLM models as a way to help you innovate on top of psychedelics, or you separate them, do you combine them? Do you do sessions with them? Like, how do you, how do you think about it?

[01:01:22] Manesh: You know, it's a really good question you're raising because a lot of people will be like, Oh, like, Forget about trying to enhance human creativity.

[01:01:28] Manesh: Let's just leverage LLMs so that they can parse massive datasets and integrate things far beyond human capacity. But I think, you know, as you're kind of alluding to, they complement each other and there's a lot of ways I use LLMs. Like I use ChatGPT every day, multiple times a day. And one of the things I like to do is, I'll prime it with two different things.

[01:01:48] Manesh: And I'll ask it one set of questions, let's say this for purpose of example, like a bunch of questions related to neuroplasticity and psychedelics. And then I'll find, you know, I'll ask it to summarize or tell me about [01:02:00] something completely different. Like peak performance in athletes, right?

[01:02:04] Manesh: And then after setting that context and that conversation, then ask for it to integrate these concepts in a new way. They're like, Oh, I got to think of that connection. Oh, this is interesting, you know, and then use that for my own reading and follow up afterwards. And so I think, in the ideal sense, we would use the kind of internal creative process that can be catalyzed by creativity with the kind of external integrating of completely different realms of knowledge that is available with just a couple prompts.

[01:02:33] Manesh: Together, you know, in the service of insights and breakthroughs and all that. And so I think there is definitely a synergy that's important there.

[01:02:42] ck: Do you think that since you're still in academia or you're a postdoc right now in UCSF, do you feel that it's helping, is accelerating the process of innovation with the advent of these LLMs or, or not really making a difference at all or what's your [01:03:00] take?

[01:03:00] Manesh: Yeah, I think it's helpful because there's a lot of things that academics have to do that just is time consuming, whether it's like writing, recommendations for others or kind of writing abstracts for summarizing things. Or even just writing the paper writing process. I think there are ways to leverage AI to help with that.

[01:03:18] Manesh: And I know there are tools. I haven't done a full search of what tools are best for it, but people use Cloud AI assistance for writing things, in addition to chat GBT and your stuff like site. ai, which I've looked at for literature searches. So there is bespoke AI kind of platforms now that are specifically aimed at academics and scientists.

[01:03:40] Manesh: And I think they can really speed up a lot of things, which is hinder us, you know, just in terms of finding the right literature, and even writing. Just to help us get our ideas out faster to, free up time for other things. And I think that's like the biggest, you know, the draw of AI, right?

[01:03:55] Manesh: It's like, we're covering these basic time consuming things to free up energy and [01:04:00] time for the more creative high level things that we enjoy as researchers. And so I, I'm all in favor of leveraging it to whatever extent. I feel like the people who don't are just going to be slowly left behind. Right. And so it's just kind of, it's how things are moving.

[01:04:13] ck: So it sounds like you're a, a, optimist.

[01:04:16] Manesh: I mean, optimist in terms of the value we could provide in certain areas, but like in the broader sense of it, we have no idea what's going to happen, I think with the development. And so like, I am generally, an optimist, but like a cautious, cautious optimist, you could say.

[01:04:31] ck: Do you see any synergistic. Use of psychedelics and ai, for example, using ai, you know, a creative writing process. Actually, I have, I started to have friends who use that. They have, a high dose, psychedelic experience and they communicate with AI and just back and forth and, you know, it's like, oh, this is amazing.

[01:04:50] Manesh: So

[01:04:50] ck: cool. Curious to know. Have you tried that or.

[01:04:52] Manesh: I haven't used that thing. I mean, I use ChattyBT as like a personal therapist or a coach all the time, and I think it's [01:05:00] amazingly useful for that. Um, and I could see applications for integration coaching or integration support after a SegiLab journey. I might have to go in and look at what kind of responses actually giving and if it's actually good But I think there's a lot of attention for these kind of advanced chatbots Essentially to help support people who can't access the therapist and who are tripping and need that support Especially the audio version you could have a conversation and So I think there's a lot of potential for things to go wrong and be bad in these types of contexts, but there's a lot of potential for it to be done well to really help.

[01:05:35] Manesh: And so I think, the field, the space is just beginning to explore that, but I think there are definitely potential positive applications there.

[01:05:42] ck: Beautiful. Well, Manish, I really appreciate you being here on Noble Warrior. Thank you for the sincerity. Thank you for indulging in my curiosity on some of the random mechanisms I wanted to try and being cautiously optimistic to how we can use the advent of these [01:06:00] beautiful technologies, whether it be You know, LIMs or, psychedelics in synergy for the betterment of ourselves the people that we serve.

[01:06:10] Manesh: Totally cool. Yeah. My pleasure. Thanks so much for having me.

[01:06:13] Manesh: This is a lot fun conversation. We explore a lot of terrain. I don't usually explore on podcast, I enjoyed it a lot.