The Melanie Avalon Biohacking Podcast Episode #205 - Paul Austin

TRANSCRIPT

Melanie Avalon: Hi, friends. Welcome back to the show. I am so incredibly excited about the conversation that I am about to have. So it is about a topic, I have been thinking a lot about for a long time but sort of peripherally. [laughs] I haven't really dived deep into it, but it's something that I've been wanting to personally experience. And I also have been really wanting to do an episode all on the topic. And I sort of just figured, like I do with this show a lot when the right time happened, that the perfect source would come to me to do this interview. And that definitely happened. So, I was approached by the team for Paul Austin. He is the founder of a company called Third Wave and he also has a book called Mastering Microdosing: How to Use Sub-Perceptual Psychedelics to Heal Trauma, Improve Performance, and Transform Your Life. And so, when I got the information about this potential interview, I was just an immediate yes. I was just like, "Yes" [chuckles] this is what I've been waiting for. So, I immediately booked Paul, I got the book, I read it, it was awesome because it was the deepest dive that I was wanting and wanting to share with you guys on all things psychedelics, the history of psychedelics, how they affect us, and importantly the difference between microdosing versus macrodosing. And that's just a surface level. It goes really deep into everything and especially the potential there is for the future of the world and humanity implementing microdosing psychedelics in our lives. So, I am just so, so excited about this conversation. Paul, thank you so much for being here.

Paul Austin Thank you for inviting me on the podcast. I've been eagerly anticipating our interview. I think it's been on the calendar for like three or four months now so the day is here. I'm stoked to dive in.

Melanie Avalon: I am as well. I have so many questions for you. Okay, so to start things off, so I think I just said this but yes, I did just say this. [chuckles] So, I have never done psychedelics in any capacity. I'm very interested in it, and I have questions about that. But before that, just to introduce yourself to our audience, you talk in the book all about your personal story and something that I really liked about your personal story. It sounds like our backgrounds were very similar in the whole raised Christian, kind of strict with everything, but also, I'm not resentful about my upbringing and I felt like I got a lot of values from it and it was very strict and things were noted as bad, drugs, sex, [chuckles] stuff like that. What was your background, your personal story growing up and what led to your first psychedelic experiences? I mean it's a long story, but [laughs] why are you doing what you're doing today? 

Paul Austin: Yeah. Let's get into it. Look, when I tell people I'm from West Michigan nowadays and they know what I do professionally. They don't get it. It just is like opposite worlds. West Michigan is similar to the Bible Belt in the south in terms of conservative traditional values, widespread Christianity, quite republican, all those sorts of things is like West Michigan is a hub for that. Detroit, the eastern side of Michigan, much different, but West Michigan, particularly Grand Rapids, which is close to where I grew up, is known for these traditional Christian Protestant values. I was raised in that environment. My parents were both democrats, so socially progressive but also enthusiastic church goers. We went every Sunday for the first 18 years of my life. I probably missed church maybe once every two years, something along those lines. Oh yeah, it was like every Sunday you're at church and then not only is it the church service but there's also second hour after church service, there's youth group on Sunday evening. 

So, most Sundays I was spending like four hours at church. And within that I learned a lot about Jesus, I learned a lot about the Bible, I learned a lot about the 12 disciples. And yet this whole concept of believe in God, believe in Jesus and you'll be saved and you'll go to heaven, I never really got it. I just never could really figure it out. Like I don't know if I really trust this fully or believe this fully. I'll walk the walk because my parents are requiring me to go, but I'm not sure I'm totally on board with everything that is being communicated from like a dogmatic perspective because I was also a very precocious child. I was rebellious, I was quite independent, I did whatever I wanted to do. And so, I always was questioning, I always was slightly skeptical and I was always very curious, none of which are great orientations for a more rigorous Christian upbringing. 

And then at the age of 16, I smoked cannabis for the first time. And soon after that my parents found out and they sat me down on a Sunday after church. And look, I love my parents, we still talk and have a great relationship. My dad is a phenomenal human, super kind, super loving, and they had no idea what to do with me now that I was smoking cannabis. They knew it was highly illegal, they knew that it was a drug, they thought it was incredibly bad. And so, my dad looked across the family room at me and essentially said I haven't been this disappointed since my brother passed away in a car accident. And of course, that was just a lot to handle. I stormed out of my house, walked around the neighborhood for like an hour, came back, ended up being grounded for like six weeks. I basically made sure my parents never found out that I ever smoked weed or did any psychedelics for many, many years after that. And so, what I learned from that experience is clearly these drugs are misunderstood and highly stigmatized.

Clearly, my parents think they're awful, even though they're not nearly as bad as they think. And so that sent me down my own path of really starting to individuate from that upbringing. So, at the age of 19, I was going to a small private Christian liberal arts school. My dad taught there, so I got free tuition. I was about 30 minutes away from where I was raised, and my best friend from high school, the same friend that introduced me to cannabis, also introduced me to psilocybin mushrooms at the age of 19. And I had an interesting experience. I did about 2 g of psilocybin, which is, like, enough to have a few visuals, enough to have some interesting insight, but not like, awe inspiring, mystical experience, paradigm shifting type of mushroom trip, basically.

It wasn't until about five months later that I had my first experience with LSD. It was the end of my sophomore year and I took about 250 mcg of LSD and went hiking in the woods on the coast of Lake Michigan, these beautiful, beautiful woods and down into the beach. It was 75 degrees, early May Day, and it was just like a stunning, beautiful, connected experience. And that experience really turned me on to how incredible LSD could be. And so, for the next couple of years, I just did it quite a bit. I probably between the age of 19 and 21, I did higher doses of LSD and psilocybin anywhere from 15 to 20 times. What I noticed from those experiences is that I felt more connected, more present. It was easier to make decisions around healthy diet, exercise. I meditated more often. I just noticed that I felt like a better person. I felt less depressed because I also had struggled with depression a little bit and melancholy. It was just a lot of the rumination was cut out. And so, for a week or two weeks or even three weeks after those experiences, I would feel amazing. But then, inevitably, a lot of those benefits would dissipate, and I'd kind of like, I'd have to go back to doing it again to feel this experience.

So, long story short, at the age of 21, I graduated from university. I moved to Turkey, where I taught English for a year. While teaching English, I learned about the concept of being a digital nomad, where I can work online and travel. And so, I ended up, throughout my 20s, traveling to about 70 countries, a lot in Europe and Southeast Asia, but also, I went to Nepal and hiked in the Himalayas. I went to Tanzania and climbed Mount Kilimanjaro. I spent two weeks in the Amazon in Brazil, so I had a few other journeys along there as well. And in that journey of my 20s, I was living in Budapest and was doing acid once again a higher dose of acid with a couple of friends. And this was 2015. We were just reflecting on the psychedelic space. We were reflecting on the fact that some really famous podcasters like Tim Ferriss and Joe Rogan were starting to publish things on psychedelics. That there was a lot more research coming out from NYU and Johns Hopkins and that cannabis was becoming kind of reevaluated, legalized in many places. And so, where we landed was psychedelics are incredible tools when used with intention and responsibility in a safe environment, they can be incredibly healing and transformative and that they will be this sort of next thing after cannabis, but that they will be way more potent and powerful than cannabis and potentially pave a new path for how we look at what it means to be human.

In 2015, I started Third Wave with a core focus of educating people about the pros and cons of psychedelics rooted in objectivity rather than misinformation and propaganda. And at that point in time, we chose microdosing as an angle to focus on, as a lens to focus on because we believed that microdosing was a great bridge into this sort of weird world of psychedelics. That what went wrong in the second wave of psychedelics, the counterculture is it was high doses of LSD for everyone. Timothy Leary had this phrase "Turn on, tune in, drop out." And what we saw as an opportunity with microdosing is sub-perceptible. It's easy for novices to begin working with, it has felt intangible benefits and it's not going to be overly intimidating for the ego. And so microdosing has been a key focal point of what I've oriented around over these last seven or eight years. And it's just been-- for me, it's always I don't like being this person at work and this person at home. I like full integration of my life and I feel just so grateful that I can work on a mission and a business and a vision that I feel like is significantly helping a lot of people.

Melanie Avalon: I was listening really recently, Joe Rogan had an interview with Rick Doblin all about psychedelics and that was really interesting. He was talking about a really good point, which is how we have this one word of-- Joe was talking about how we have this one word drugs that encompasses all these things that does a disservice because really they do different things. So, I'm really fascinated stepping back a little bit because you mentioned like the stigma surrounding all of this. Why are some drugs legal like caffeine and alcohol and we can talk about the history of marijuana and others just not or varying levels of legality. And you talk in the book about the evolution and legalization and decriminalization of psychedelics. I'm really interested, why are some things okay and others not? 

Paul Austin: Yeah. It's a great question. So, it's funny when I first started Third Wave in 2015, this is one of the first topics that I wrote about. Like I looked into the etymology of the word drugs. It comes from Droges D-R-O-G-E-S which is a Latin term and it basically stands for anything that impacts our physiology in a significant way. Because I also was trying to understand that. I'm like, "Why is it that heroin, cocaine, methamphetamines, crystal meth are drugs just like psilocybin and LSD are drugs, even though they're significantly different?" And so, what I quickly learned is psychedelics, just to start with, psychedelics are very different than most drugs in that they are not addictive. In fact, they are anti-addictive. Clinical research shows that psychedelics can be efficacious in treating alcoholism and in treating certain types of addiction like opioid addiction. And the reason for that is because psychedelics are serotonergic agonist. So, they work largely in the serotonin system rather than the dopaminergic system, dopamine system like a lot of stimulants and opiates and methamphetamines work on. 

First of all, from a neurobiological perspective, the reason psychedelics are anti-addictive is because they're working in a totally and completely different way compared to a lot of these other substances. And in fact, the former home minister of the UK, David Nutt back in the mid-2000s, like I think 2006 or 2007, basically told the UK government that taking ecstasy, MDMA was less dangerous than riding a horse. And so just like riding horses is not prohibited, why would you prohibit taking ecstasy? And so, he was promptly fired from his job as the UK home minister for providing scientific evidence. And he published an article in 2010 with there's a really cool graphic that shows that LSD and psilocybin are the safest drugs known to man, and that things like alcohol and tobacco are actually two of the most dangerous drugs and yet these are legal drugs. So why is this, so let's go back to your question. Let's focus on alcohol, caffeine and tobacco.

So, if we look at the growth of industrialization from, let's say, the invention of the printing press in 1450 all the way until the second wave of psychedelics in the 1960s, what was central to industrialization was colonialism, was the slave trade, was this beginning of a globalized society where things from Europe were shipped to the Americas, things from Americas were shipped to Africa, things from Africa were shipped to Europe. And there was this more or less triangle that we had between the Americas, Europe, and Africa. And what was core to that trade was tobacco from the New World would go to Europe, alcohol from the New World would go to Europe, slaves from Africa would go to the Americas, sugar from the New World would go to Europe. And so essentially, we utilized slaves from Africa to grow sugar, to grow tea, to grow coffee, to grow tobacco, all of these drugs. And so those were central to the economic engine of industrialism. And because they were so central then coffee houses popped up in London and coffee houses popped up all over the new colonies and tea was sold everywhere in Central.

This whole sort of the whole tea revolution and the American revolution, the Boston Tea Party, like tea was central to that. So, these drugs were really central to the economic engine of early industrialism. And so those quickly became normal, those quickly became integrated, they quickly became accepted. And when other drugs started to come on the scene, like peyote and mescaline in the early 20th century, cannabis and hashish, psilocybin and LSD in the 40s, 50s and 60s. These threatened this sort of economic paradigm of caffeine, tobacco, and alcohol. And so there were a lot of rationalizations then given, many of which were racist rationalizations, as to why cannabis should be illegal, as to why LSD should be illegal, as to why psilocybin should be illegal.

There's a quote from this guy Richard Ehrlichman, who was high up in Richard Nixon's administration. And it goes something along the lines of, "We couldn't make being black illegal and we couldn't make being an anti-war protester illegal." Because this was during the Vietnam War protests of the 60s and all the black riots of the 60s. But what we could do is we could make the drugs that they were using illegal. And by doing that, we could then oppress them, we could then throw them in jail, we could then ensure that they do not have the freedoms that they want. And so, more or less, that's how the modern war on drugs started is in the late 60s then every drug except cannabis, tobacco, and alcohol was made illegal because of America's Hegemony at that time in the UN and a globalized society because of how much we had done in World War II, because of how much power we had during the cold war. In the years of 50s, 60s, and 70s we required then every other country in the UN to adopt our drug law rules. And so quickly, every drug except caffeine, tobacco, and alcohol became illegal everywhere in the world. So that's more or less the short version of it.

Melanie Avalon: I mean that's really a paradigm shift, like, if you really think about it, because I think it's so hard to see beyond what we've been conditioned to think. This is just what I experience because I've just been raised and from culture being told that these psychedelics are in this category of bad hard drugs. And if you just step back and look at it very objectively and it's hard to do, like, I can literally see my biases in my brain. It just doesn't make sense though. Like with that stat [chuckles] you just said about the dangers of alcohol compared to psychedelics, do people die from psychedelics? 

Paul Austin: Let's focus on LSD and psilocybin because there are a lot of psychedelics. It is physiologically impossible to die from taking-- from overdosing on LSD or psilocybin. What is possible is if you make a really bad decision. So, if you're having a really bad trip or if you're in a really, really altered state and you're not in a safe environment, like people die from jumping out of windows and running in front of cars and that can happen. But this is why we emphasize so much in Third Wave, the importance of education setting, safe and intentional and responsible use because that is so rare and it doesn't need to happen ever, ever. So physiologically these are the safest substances known to man. You cannot die from an overdose. When we start to get into--, I'm sure some of your listeners have heard of Ayahuasca, that's a bit more particular and there are a lot of sort of if, ands, and buts around that but generally, again, ayahuasca is super, super safe.

There's another one called Iboga. Iboga is an incredible opiate addiction interrupter, incredible but it also is super intense and really hard on the heart. So, there are some people who work with iboga who have cardiac arrest. So that's why it's like if you're going to work with something as intense as iboga, have a doctor, a medical doctor there present with you as you're moving through it. But again, by and large these are the safest substances known to man. And not only are these the safest substances known to man, but they are the substances that we have the longest relationship with as a species. We've been eating psilocybin mushrooms for tens of thousands of years as a species. There's archaeological evidence of peyote, which is a cacti in Central and South America. There's archaeological evidence that an indigenous people in Mexico have been working with peyote for 15,000 years. So, we have a long rich lineage with these medicines which I think is another great indicator as to their benefits and potential for healing. 

Melanie Avalon: Actually, yeah. To that point you mentioned in the book so is it Stamets? Is that how you say his name? 

Paul Austin: Paul Stamets? 

Melanie Avalon: Yeah Stamets. How he has his evolutionary theory about--

Paul Austin: Like the stoned ape theory and all, yeah.

Melanie Avalon: The psychedelics might have played a role in our vision and our development as hunter-gatherers, I guess, or our ability to hunt and our brain development. While we're talking, though, about the legality aspect of everything, it's funny, even something like marijuana and CBD, like seeing how far that's come. Because especially with podcasting, because I've been podcasting for over six years now and I remember when I first started, we would get a question about CBD and fasting and my cohost and I at the time, this was like at the very beginning, we're like, "I don't know if we should talk about this." Like is this too-- And then fast forward to now CBD, like one of our longest sponsors is a CBD company. It's really fascinating to see just with the CBD example, how fast, or at least from my perspective, how fast it went from being sketchy to now brands left and right and very accepted. What do you think is the potential for that with the psychedelic world? And also, I'm so interested in the difference between legalization and decriminalization. So, what's happening with all of that?

Paul Austin: That's a great question, Melanie, and I think it's important just so your listeners have a sense of the legitimacy and credibility of what we're talking about. Because what most people don't know is that psilocybin mushrooms are actually now legal in Oregon. So, you can go to the state of Oregon, they're not just in a dispensary model like cannabis, you have to work with a certified facilitator, but you can go to Oregon and legally work with psilocybin mushrooms. Colorado in the recent election just passed a proposition called Prop 122, which decriminalizes all possession of psychedelic medicines and legalizes psilocybin to be used in service centers by the end of 2024. So, we now have two states that have legalized psilocybin. So, you can tell that it's following a similar path as cannabis because early on in cannabis there were what are called the COCAW states, Canada, California, Oregon, Washington and Colorado. I don't know how all that adds up to COCAW. It does somehow, but I just remember. 

Melanie Avalon: Can we get in my head? 

Paul Austin: Yeah. I'm trying to do it in my head too, but I'm like, I don't know, but that's just the phrase that I heard. 

Melanie Avalon: Where's the A? 

Paul Austin: Exactly. Where is the A? Maybe it's like Washington or California or Canada. 

Melanie Avalon: Oh, like CA. [chuckles] Okay,

Paul Austin: Yeah. So, California also has a bill that's very similar to Colorado's that they think will pass reasonably soon. What's California goes? It's the 6th biggest economy in the world. That's going to be a huge indicator for the rest of the states that are really looking at. There are also several states that are looking at legislative bills right now to medicalize psychedelics for therapeutic purposes. So, there's a ton happening at the state level. Outside of that, a lot of cities have decriminalized possession, meaning you can no longer get arrested for having personal possession of some of these plant medicines. Oakland is one of the biggest ones, Detroit has also decriminalized it. And there are several other cities as well that have decriminalized plant medicines. And then, and I think what's really most important from a credibility perspective is getting these medicines FDA approved. 

And so right now we're in phase 3, the end of phase 3 clinical trials for MDMA, also known as ecstasy, to be used to treat PTSD. They expect that to be medically available in 2024 to treat PTSD. And then we are also in, I think, phase 3 clinical trials for psilocybin for both treatment resistant depression and major depressive disorder. And they expect that to be approved by the FDA ideally in 2024, but no later than 2025. And so within just a couple of years, there will be widespread medical access to psychedelics through the FDA to treat PTSD, treatment resistant depression, and major depressive disorder. And that's important, that's essential, because our current treatments just don't work that well. 

There was a recent article that was published and study that was published that showed that SSRIs are actually no better than placebo. They work about 40% of the time. And what we know with psilocybin is that it's about two times as effective as regular treatments. And we know with MDMA for PTSD that it's about three times as effective as conventional treatments. So, while we're living in the midst of a mental health crisis, it is essential that people have access to these medicines that actually work. And this comes back to my own mission and why I love doing this, why I started Third Wave, why I do all these podcasts. And whatnot is I'm really into personal development, I'm really into growth and evolution. I'm really into human potential and in my intentional work with psychedelics, I have found no better tool, no more efficacious tool than these substances. And that's why I'm such a huge proponent of them in a safe, intentional, and responsible container.

Melanie Avalon: So, I definitely want to dive more into that. Some last follow up questions just about the current topic, because I have wondered this for so long. So, the [chuckles] decriminalization means you're not allowed to have it, but you're allowed to have it essentially.

Paul Austin: You're not allowed to sell it, but you're allowed to have it. Yeah, you're not allowed to sell it. Become a drug dealer, if you will, but you are allowed to have personal possession of it. And I would even go so far as to say it's not really actually that you're allowed to have personal possession of it, it's that you won't go to jail if you have personal possession of it. But you can still, like, in some of these jurisdictions, they can still write you a citation or a misdemeanor for having it.

Melanie Avalon: So, it's kind of like a moving violation in traffic. 

Paul Austin: Yeah. Think of it as like a traffic, like a parking ticket. That's a good way to frame it.

Melanie Avalon: I've wondered about that for so long, so thank you. And then the other-- What about ketamine? 

Paul Austin: Great question. So, ketamine is a disassociative, has been used since the 1960s largely as anesthetic in hospitals, in the emergency room, in particular for children, because it's extremely safe. And in the last 25 years or so, there's been a resurgence of interest in it from a psychiatric perspective. So, looking at how ketamine can be useful for treating depression, there is a substance that has already been approved by the FDA called SPRAVATO, that's made by Johnson & Johnson that can be useful for depression. And then there's just generic ketamine everywhere, basically, at this point in time. So, I look at ketamine as like medical marijuana. If you struggle with depression or anxiety, you can more likely than not get a prescription to ketamine. And there are a lot of clinics that have popped up that are working with ketamine. There are a lot of practitioners who work with ketamine, so that is medically and legally available in every state across the United States at this point in time. It does require a prescription because it is a Schedule III substance and ketamine just to emphasize going back to my previous point about psychedelics being anti-addictive, ketamine is slightly more addictive than the classic psychedelics. So, it's just good to be mindful of if you want to work with ketamine, just be mindful of that and aware of that, to only use it in an intentional container for healing and transformation and to not necessarily use it as a recreational drug.

Melanie Avalon: So, addictive in the aspect, does it create withdrawal symptoms? 

Paul Austin: Probably, if you were to do it every day for a period of time, eventually you would be suffering from withdrawal symptoms. If you just cold turkey stop. I don't think they're significant by any stretch, not like trying to get off of benzodiazepines or SSRIs or anything like that, but there probably would be slightly withdrawal symptoms and it's just like it's disassociative. So, the way that I frame it's like similar to cannabis and how it's addictive. People just like the disassociation. They like not having to confront the reality of where they are and their situation. And so, ketamine is just an easy thing that you can take to check out. And if you do it too often, it can create a lot of bladder issues, which is not a good thing. And people more than anything just get addicted to the experience of it, the checking out part of it. And there are withdrawals, but like I said, they're not as bad as a lot of SSRIs, benzodiazepines, even alcohol, tobacco, things like that. 

Melanie Avalon: With the psychedelics, do people have that experience where they crave that feeling? And I guess we would need to answer these questions for microdosing versus macrodosing as well. 

Paul Austin: Yeah. All this is a great flow to follow because the answer is these are not physiologically addictive. So, if you're microdosing twice a week for seven months, like I did when I first started microdosing, I took LSD twice a week for seven months. I stopped. No withdrawal symptoms whatsoever. So, there are no withdrawal symptoms with microdoses of psilocybin and LSD or microdoses of psychedelics. You could microdose twice a week for a year, stop cold turkey and you'll have no withdrawal symptoms. What does happen though, is people get psychologically attached to the substance. Meaning for someone who struggled with depression for a long time, they've been unnecessarized, they don't work, they start microdosing.

Finally, something that works. "Hell, yeah." They keep microdosing. They do it two or three times a week, let's say for six months. Their life gets substantially better, their depression lifts, their mood improves, and then they run out of a substance. And then they have to confront the fact that they might fall back into old patterns. And so, I think this is why it's important that microdosing is not looked at as a magic pill. And I think this is very difficult for a lot of America to do because we're so conditioned to want to have magic pills that do everything for us. But instead to look at microdosing as a catalyst, as a tool for neuroplasticity, as a channel that can open the opportunity to integrate new ways of being, but that we should not give our power away to the substance itself. Instead, we should commit to a microdosing protocol, let's say, we should do it twice a week for two months. And as part of that protocol, we should explore why is it that I'm depressed, why is it that I have anxiety, why is it that I'm socially anxious? Why is it that I drink a lot of alcohol? And then what are the fundamental things that I need to start to shift? Do I need to change my friend group? Do I need to start to see a therapist? Do I need to make better food choices? Do I need to treat my wife or my spouse or my partner better?

The awareness then that comes from that microdosing protocol should allow for shifts. And because of the neuroplastic benefits of microdosing, it's easier to make those shifts than without the microdoses. So, I think that's for microdosing. For high doses, what can sometimes happen is "people get lost in the sauce" is a phrase that I hear sometimes. So, they'll do mushrooms in a high-dose container, they'll have a profound insight and breakthrough experience and then they'll do mushrooms every week for the next year. I think what's important is that there's ample time given for integration, that the insights and downloads that come from that psilocybin journey or that ketamine experience, that you actually give them enough space to weave them in, and that you don't necessarily try to continue to come back to the medicine again and again and again in a short period of time. Because that can lead to mania, that can lead to disassociation, that can lead to a fractured sense of self. It's really important that there's balance with how we're working with psychedelics. So, the metaphor that I often use, Melanie, is like a dentist.

Every six months you go to the dentist, you get a deep clean. Sometimes it feels amazing, sometimes it doesn't feel so amazing. But every time after you leave the dentist, you're grateful you did it because your teeth are clean, your mouth is clean, it feels amazing. And then every day you show up, you floss your teeth, you brush your teeth, you use mouthwash, you maintain a clean mouth. But you know, that just with the way that life works you're going to have to go back to that dentist again just to get that deep clean again. But the more often you brush your teeth, the more often you floss, the more, the better you take care of yourself, the less confronting and painful that dentist experience is going to be. And I think it's similar with psychedelics. Every six months or so, that high dose psychedelic experience is a great cleanse. It's a great cleanse. And then every day we show up, we meditate, we do breath work, we do yoga, we have contemplative practices that help us to stay present, connected, aware. And then maybe every now and then we take a microdose or a lower dose as a way to deepen our yoga practice, as a way to deepen our meditation, as a way to better connect with friends. And we look at that as a nice adjunct in our overall flow of healing and transformation. 

Melanie Avalon: I don't know if this study has been done. Oh, which by the way, before I say that something I really appreciated about your book and listeners, if you're interested in this topic, definitely get his book Mastering Microdosing is you have a lot of studies. Well, as much as there can be for the research that's being conducted, a lot of studies and clinical literature and all of this and references. And so, it's a really, really valuable resource for people. Do you have any thoughts? Because I'm really interested on the experience of people. I would love to see a study with the four different types of people. So, people who have only done microdosing, people who have done microdosing and then macrodosing, people have only done macrodosing and people have done macrodosing and then microdosing. All of that to say the options of doing one, both, either, neither, do they inform each other. So, like if you've done microdosing and then you do macrodosing, is that a different experience? Or if you've done macrodosing and then microdosing, is that different? You mentioned earlier microdosing being a bridge to this whole world, so I'm just wondering about the experiences people have doing the combinations of them. 

Paul Austin: That's a great question Melanie. I think a good frame to come into this with, what states do psychedelics facilitate? There's a lot in common with a psychedelic state, as there is with a deep state of breath work, or going into a float tank, or meditating in a 10-day Vipassana, or doing even sauna cold plunge, hot /cold, hot /cold, hot /cold. We can facilitate similar states of being also fasting. Anyone who's done a week long fast or a vision quest knows what that feels like. In the old days, dancing for hours and hours and hours on end would get us into these ecstatic states. Self-flagellation would get us into these ecstatic states. So, there are many roads to the same destination. And so, when we're looking at that relationship between macrodoses and microdoses, what we're really asking is how quickly do you want to weigh it in to a deep nondual state?

And for a lot of folks, if they've never meditated before, if they've never done deep breath work, if they've never really been into that deep nondual state, just to take 5 g of mushrooms right off the bat could actually be more harmful than helpful. It could push them too far beyond their comfort zone. A good metaphor for this is CrossFit. You see this a lot in things like CrossFit, where people just get pushed too far, too fast, and they end up with massive injuries as a result of that. So, I think what's really important is, first, how much experience does the individual have with contemplative states? How much experience does the individual have with these states of nonduality with mystical experience? If it's nothing, then probably it's good to maybe start with a float tank, just start with some breath work or to start with a microdose to see how that feels. And then slowly, as they become more familiar with these altered states of consciousness, to way deeper and deeper and deeper in. So, the metaphor that I often use to describe this is like when we're learning how to swim at a young age, hopefully our parents didn't just throw us in the deep end and say, "Figure it out, Johnny." Hopefully, if we had good parents, they put swimmes on. They paired us with a swimming teacher. They helped us to hold the side initially, we kind of learned how to kick a little bit, and then we eventually went out into the shallow end. Maybe we could touch, and we felt good in the shallow end and then as we got more comfortable in this really new and novel environment of the pool or water, we went deeper and deeper and deeper, and all of a sudden, we're jumping off the diving board and doing flips and having a great time. 

So, I think that metaphor for contemplative states applies. It's like sometimes people just got to learn the fundamentals. They got to feel like it's easy. They got to feel like it's not too far out of their comfort zone. And then as they get more and more comfortable with these weird altered states of being, then they go deeper and they look at Ayahuasca or 5 g of mushrooms or Bufo alvarius, the toad and they have an opportunity to explore that as well. Because a lot of folks, they don't want to-- as you mentioned, they don't want to just take 5 g of mushrooms. I have a lot of clients and a lot of people who go through our programs who they start microdosing first, and they slowly work their way up. They do 50 mg which is a real microdose. They do 250 mg. They go to 500 mg, maybe a gram, then maybe to 2 g, and they slowly work their way up and that's a great way to do it because throughout that whole process you're building a relationship with this intelligence.

These mushrooms, Ayahuasca, these sacred plant medicines have an intelligence in and of themselves. And so, part of safe and intentional use of these psychedelics, these plant medicines, is actually communicating in some ways with these medicines through experience, through trial and error, through hands on. And then if someone has already had a lot of high dose experiences, microdosing can be a great integrative tool. The way that I have framed it is, I go back to those early LSD and psilocybin experiences that I shared with your audience for a week or two weeks or three weeks after I had this sort of open window of neuroplasticity where everything just felt more flowy and easy. And then eventually that would sort of shut down and dissipate and blah, blah, blah, blah, blah. So, when I heard about microdosing, I thought, "Oh, this is a great way to elongate that window of neuroplasticity, to keep it open instead of just for a week or two, maybe for a month or two months or three months. So, it is easy to continue to make behavioral changes overall." So, I think that's the other way to think of microdosing as an adjunct to that high dose experience is it can really help with the process of integration. So, we can take these insights and downloads from high dose experiences and actually make them tangible in reality. 

Melanie Avalon: The microdosing experience, for somebody who's never done anything, I'm sure it's different for different people. But do you feel it? [laughs] What happens? Is it like a mood shift, a vibe shift? What do you actually feel from microdosing? 

Paul Austin: Paul Stamets, who I mentioned in the book, I had a chance to interview him a few months ago and the way he framed it is it's a subintoxicating dose. So, the subtitle I use in my book Mastering Microdosing, how to use sub-perceptual psychedelics to heal trauma, improve performance, and transform your life. That was the initial definition that was laid out by Dr. James Fadiman, who's more or less the father of microdosing. But what we've come to realize over the last five, six, seven years in doing this work through Third Wave and with microdosing is that a lot of people get confused then. Can I feel it? Can I not feel it? If I feel it, is it a true microdose then? And so, an easier way to think about it is subintoxicating. It's a dose level where maybe you do feel a little more euphoria or maybe you do feel like I took, for example, I took a little bit of acid this morning, a little bit of LSD. I took 10 mcg. It just so happens to be a holiday in the psychedelic world called Bicycle Day, which is the day that the world's first ever LSD experience happened.

Melanie Avalon: Really? Today? 

Paul Austin: Today, yeah. Good timing, good timing. April 19,1943 the inventor of LSD, Albert Hofmann, takes 250 mcg of LSD, which is not a microdose everyone takes, 250 mcg of LSD, all of a sudden notices that he's starting to trip pretty hard, takes his bicycle, rides it home and ends up having this full blown mystical experience with LSD. And so, to honor the legacy and the memory of Albert Hofmann, this morning during my morning meditation, I took about 10 mcg of LSD, a microdose. I taught a lecture right before this, so I feel a little bit more articulate when I'm microdosing. I feel like I have a little bit more energy. Microdoses of LSD are more dopaminergic and dopamine is tied to focus, attention, and motivation. So, I feel a little bit more focused, my mood is a little bit more brighter and generally life just feels good. And that won't necessarily be the case for all people who microdose. 

Some folks during their microdosing protocols have to confront shadow. They have to release repressed emotions like anger and sadness and grief. And sometimes it could be challenging as well. So, I think what is important is even in a microdosing protocol, to do it with a therapist or a coach or a practitioner, or a facilitator, someone who can be present with you and for you as you move through that experience. Because the end goal is a better mood, more energy, more integrated, more whole. But as we all know, anyone who has embarked on a healing journey, healing is not always easy. Healing is sometimes messy. It's not all rainbows and butterflies. We sometimes have to confront certain demons. And having the support and the courage to do that is where psychedelics can really really help accelerate the overall process. 

Melanie Avalon: Something I loved in the book, you talk all about the studies that have been done on how psychedelics affect the brain and the different networks and how these seemingly forgotten or parts of the brain that we don't normally use light up and how it compares to dream states. Is there the concern? Like I've heard stories, at least with high dose psychedelics, where people say it changed their personality. They were like a different person, maybe not for the better. So how does it actually change the brain? And is it more of a concern, like when you're younger, when you have a developing brain versus later, how can the brain actually change? 

Paul Austin: Another great question. You're really hitting it today with all the great questions. Yeah. I love your interview style. That's great. So, a couple of caveats here. Like psychedelics must be used in a safe and intentional container. A lot of the ways that people use them if they've had this sort of bad experience, has had negative consequences for a long term it's because it's been used typically in combination with alcohol or at raves and festivals, or they've done way too much, or it's polydrug use they're doing that plus four or five other things that's most often the case. And so, what matters a lot is the container that is created for it, that there's preparation, that there's adequate attention paid to integration and that I did LSD for the first time at the age of 19. A lot of indigenous tribes and groups of people, not a lot, some use psychedelics as a rite of passage at the age of 13 or 14.

Consistent psychedelic use at a young age can definitely impact brain development and that is not recommended whatsoever. But sometimes, a high dose experience as sort of an initiatory process can be really beneficial. Like I'm really grateful that I did LSD at the age of 19 because it really helped to send me down a path that I felt very aligned with from a super young age. Psychedelics offer a deconditioning process. They help us to decondition from all these expectations and really tune in to what it is that we really want. With that being said, there are some people who should not be working with psychedelics. Anyone who has a predisposition to psychosis or schizophrenia should not be working with psychedelics. That's central and key. And then anyone with a family history of personality disorders should be very mindful about working with psychedelics. So, there are definitely some small segments of people that should not be touching these substances whatsoever because it could potentially send them down a path of psychosis and schizophrenia. So just to land that intention, a safe container, preparation and integration, and if you have a family history of psychosis or personality disorder, probably best not to work with these substances. 

Melanie Avalon: To clarify, when you say container, you mean like the environment and the setting, not the actual literal container, right, that it's in?

Paul Austin: Yeah. Like have a set and setting where you feel really comfortable in like your house or a friend's house or the woods or something where you feel safe, you feel calm, you feel held. That's what I mean by the container. Because what psychedelics are doing, and this gets into the second part of your question is psychedelics are facilitating incredible connectivity between both hemispheres of the brain. So, there's brain scans from Imperial College out of 2014 that show your brain on placebo and your brain on a high dose of psilocybin. And the connectivity and the communication between the two hemispheres is incredible to see with a high dose of psychedelics. A lot of times when people have these high doses, they experience what's called synesthesia where they can taste colors and they can feel music and synesthesia is because of that connectivity between both hemispheres of the brain. 

Melanie Avalon: Here's a huge question I have, huge I have wondered this for so long, so often, again, no experience of my own with these substances. Often in movies and TVs when they're tripping in the scenes, the characters will be experiencing the same thing like they'll be seeing the same thing. And I've asked my friends who have done this and they say that happens and that blows my mind. I don't understand. [laughs] So can people together experience the same thing even though they're taking it separately? I don't understand this idea. [laughs] 

Paul Austin: So, are you familiar with like Jungian psychology at all? 

Melanie Avalon: I don't think so. 

Paul Austin: Okay. The idea of like the conscious, the subconscious, the collective unconscious. 

Melanie Avalon: Oh, Jung. Like Carl Jung. 

Paul Austin: Yeah. Carl Jung? Yeah, yeah. Jungian psychology, so Jung talked about this collective unconscious. Aldous Huxley, who was a pioneer, really well-known writer, he wrote a book called The Doors of Perception in the 1950s about his masculine experiences. And he talked about how psychedelics in normal waking consciousness we only experience about 10% of what we can experience because that helps us to stay focused on the things that need to get done and handled. But when we work with psychedelics, we open the aperture of our consciousness. So, all of a sudden, these things, these emotions, these stories, these memories that have been stuffed into the subconscious or the unconscious, that is a lot of the healing potential of psychedelics. As those come forward, we're able to confront those, we're able to work with those, we're able to have a catharsis with those and integrate those to become a more whole individual. And so, when we're working with psychedelics, we're opening that aperture. And so, then this sort of unconscious, what people might call the overmind, we get plugged into something that is much greater than ourselves.

And so, people who are journeying together may often have these sorts of paranormal experiences where, like, I'll give you an example. I was in a ceremony a few weeks ago, I was drinking ayahuasca in Mexico and during the ceremony one of the lead facilitators, the shaman, came over with a hawk wing and had me stretch out my arms and gave me wings, which was a really beautiful and meaningful experience. And I was chatting with someone else in that container and keep in mind it's like pitch black. You can't see the person next to you in this container. And someone who was across the room from me was like, "Paul, I had this vision in the ceremony where I saw you with wings." I was like, "Armando, who is the lead facilitator, came over and gave me wings." And so, people experience things, they see things with this sort of subconscious or unconscious mind that wouldn't normally be possible in just normal waking state consciousness. Now, whether or not everyone is going to experience the same visuals and the same things is up for discussion. But it's very commonplace for multiple people to have similar visions, to have similar experiences when they're all in the same space. 

Melanie Avalon: I actually find that to be one of the most convincing things as far as just getting rid of the stigma of it being like, woo-woo or people just losing their grasp on reality. I mean, I just find that very telling. If people are experiencing similar things, that's fascinating to me. Big question. What do you do at Third Wave? Where are you based or is it just virtual? 

Paul Austin: Everyone's virtual. I have team members in Germany, Malaysia, Utah, California, Florida, and New York all over. 

Melanie Avalon: So, it's education based I'm assuming. So how do people actually engage in this? I think for me, my biggest concern talking about feeling safe in the container in the setting is I would just be paranoid of doing something that I thought I could get in trouble for. Yeah, so how do people actually do this? 

Paul Austin: Yeah. Prohibition is not a great set and setting for psychedelic experiences because of the illegal nature of it, and that can create issues and challenges. So, what we've created at Third Wave is we have three core pillars, education, a provider network, and community. So, we have a ton of guides. My whole thing is I want to democratize education so that we as a culture can become more psychedelically literate. And so first and foremost, it's to learn, so learn about these different medicines, it's to learn about the different pros and cons, to learn about the different experiences that can be facilitated through these medicines. So that's step one, is learning about it, teaching yourself, educating, we have a podcast as well that I've hosted for seven years now. We have over almost 200 episodes now that we published with the podcast. And I interview clinicians, researchers, doctors, therapists, coaches, writers, artists, you name it and we do a ton of interviews on that.

First and foremost is education. Once you learn about the experience, then it's how do you find a safe and trustworthy provider? And we sort of separate that into four categories. Clinics, so as we talked about, ketamine clinics are now legal. A lot of folks are going into that. Retreats, so although psychedelics are illegal in most places, there are like I set up a legal psychedelic retreat in the Netherlands where psilocybin is legal. Psilocybin is legal in Jamaica, so there are psilocybin retreats there. A lot of these medicines are decriminalized in Mexico and Costa Rica, so a lot of folks will go do retreats in Central and South America as well. And then therapists, there are a lot of therapists who work with ketamine legally. There are a lot of therapists who also do underground work with psilocybin and with MDMA. And so, part of it is then how do you find a trustworthy therapist who you can work with? 

And then we have a lot of coaches because we have a training program for coaches. So, if there are any coaches, facilitators, practitioners who actually want to potentially work with psychedelics in their practice, we train them in what I call the skill of psychedelics to be able to weave it in and coaches are really much more about the assessment, prep and integration, not the actual experience itself. And then after we have these experiences, they often shake up our view of reality, which is where a lot of the benefits come from, is we often need to be deconditioned from our current scope of reality in order to step into a new way of being. So, psychedelics facilitate this death and rebirth process. And what's so necessary and needed as part of that healing process is to feel like you're in a supportive community as well. So, we also offer a supportive community where people can essentially find the others that they can be in touch with and in contact with as they move through this new journey. 

The key sort of vision or mission of Third Wave is how do we make these medicines legally accessible to everyone? And I think by educating people, by creating a provider network of trustworthy vetted verified providers, and by really nurturing a community of folks who are interested in doing this work, that to me is the key for cultural integration. So, we still have a long way to go. In terms of legal accessibility, we're really just starting off but that is so necessary. So, folks like you can actually feel like they can fully surrender and they don't have to be paranoid or worried about breaking the law and potentially getting in trouble.

Melanie Avalon: I love in the book you talk all about you have a nice chapter on leadership and how psychedelics could help with just changing our world [chuckles] and how companies happen and you talk about the different levels of community tribes, it's very cool. Your experience with your company, what has it been like having a business model based on this? 

Paul Austin: Yeah. I mean, surprisingly nothing has ever happened and I always knock on wood when I say that. I have managed to stay on the right side of the law. I sort of know the lines not to cross. So, we don't provide any of these psychedelics. We do have a mushroom grow kit so people can grow their own mushrooms if they wish to pursue that path. But a lot of what we do is just education and helping to navigate it. These are still Schedule I substances from a federal perspective, these are still highly illegal and so we just have to be very careful about the sort of sourcing process, if you will. I mean, I might be on a list somewhere. I also know that when it comes to psychedelics, the DEA has made it explicitly clear that it's not a priority. That going back to the conversation about other drugs, drugs like fentanyl, cocaine, opiates are way more dangerous, way more addictive and way more harmful. And so, a lot of the time and energy that the DEA and the police and governments are focused on is these harder drugs. They simply at this point don't really care about psychedelics, which is awesome for anyone who really wants to explore it. 

Melanie Avalon: Is there a concern about fentanyl lacing of psychedelics?

Paul Austin: Only with white powders like MDMA? MDMA is a white powder, so if anyone is looking to work with MDMA, you always want to test your substances to make sure that it's pure MDMA. But with things like psilocybin mushrooms or even LSD, psilocybin mushrooms are a mushroom, so ketamine is also a white powder. So, if someone is sourcing ketamine illegally or underground in like a white powder, they also need to test that. So, with the white powders, MDMA and ketamine, there does need to be drug testing that's done, but for the other plant medicines or fungal medicines like mushrooms, there's really little to no concern about fentanyl in those. 

Melanie Avalon: Awesome. Well, this has been so amazing. I want to be respectful of your time. I just so appreciate what you're doing. I will just mention this one last thing that to speak to the stigma that were talking about in the beginning and the role of government, another thing that Joe Rogan was talking about in that episode was how one of the major studies that was used to demonize was it psilocybin or LSD? Where they were actually doing it with meth, like they were doing it with the wrong substance. Do you know what I'm talking about? 

Paul Austin: It was with MDMA. Yeah, it was with MDMA. They said it was eating holes in the brain and they were actually using methamphetamine and not MDMA.

Melanie Avalon: Like they were using the wrong drug. That's so upsetting to me. So, upsetting [laughs] because once the message is out there, it's really hard to undo that. Even if you do retract it and say this happened, it's just upsetting. But what's not upsetting [chuckles] is everything that you're doing to really spread awareness about all this. And I really cannot thank you enough. I think it's so, so valuable. So how can people get more involved? Where can they find your work? What links can you put out there? 

Paul Austin: So, thirdwave.co is the website. We have a newsletter that we send out every week. We have a podcast that we publish every week. We have a YouTube channel where we publish educational videos about psychedelics. We also have a directory of providers that I mentioned and within a month or two we'll be rolling out an app that people can download, the Third Wave app, which is a community where people can find the others and connect with other people who are interested in this path. We also have if there are any practitioners or coaches who are listening into this, we have a training program for coaches and more information on that can be found on thirdwave.co as well. And then finally, if folks want to reach out and they have any questions personally for me, I am on Instagram and Twitter @paulaustin3w.

Melanie Avalon: Awesome. Well, the last question that I ask every single guest on this show and it's just because I realize really relates to this more and more each day how important mindset is. So, what is something that you're grateful for? 

Paul Austin: I think I'm really grateful for the shift in conversation around psychedelics since I started Third Wave in 2015. When we started in 2015, these were still heavily stigmatized, not well understood, very few people were interested in them. And now, eight years later, they're one of the trendiest and hottest topics out there. There're a lot of educational resources. And so, I'm just so grateful for the progress that we've made, for the awareness that is being brought to these medicines and for the, I think, optimistic hope that they provide for a better future for mental health, for the environment, for our communities. I really think that these are incredible medicines when used with intention and responsibility. And I just remain incredibly grateful and humbled that I get to do this work and I get to be sort of a spokesperson for these substances and these medicines. 

Melanie Avalon: Well. Thank you so much for doing that because I just really-- I haven't even done it, but I just see all of the potential and the effects that it can have and I'm really excited about the change in culture and the stigma and legalization and access, and you're really a huge catalyst in that happening. So, thank you so much for what you're doing. This was such a pleasure. I just really enjoyed today's conversation and looking forward to the future of it all.

Paul Austin: Thank you. Melanie, it was a pleasure to chat with you for the podcast today. 

Melanie Avalon: Thanks, Paul. Bye. 

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