Sam Harris speaks with Robin Carhart-Harris, a leading neuroscientist and psychedelic researcher. They discuss the current state of psychedelic science, including the FDA's recent denial of MDMA-assisted therapy for PTSD and the critical importance of set and setting. Carhart-Harris explains the REBUS model of how psychedelics relax the brain's high-level beliefs, the role of the default mode network in ego dissolution, and what microdosing research has (and hasn't) shown. The conversation also touches on the neuroscience of consciousness and the puzzling phenomenology of DMT entities.
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Canon
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Set and Setting as Critical Determinants
The mindset (set) and physical/social environment (setting) are crucial for shaping the psychedelic experience and ensuring safety and therapeutic benefit.
Psychedelics reliably decrease activity and connectivity in the default mode network, which correlates with the dissolution of the sense of self or ego.
The REBUS model (Relaxed Beliefs Under Psychedelics) proposes that psychedelics reduce the brain's reliance on prior beliefs, allowing a more unconstrained form of cognition.