Can Psychedelics Cure Your Allergies? - Joe Rogan and Andrew Weil

What are you making the micro dosing phenomenon? This is pretty astounding to see this happening. Bunch of pussies, you're scared to jump all the way in. Just get it all into one big scary dose, man. Why you want to medicate every day? That's kind of how I feel. No, I'm just joking around. I think I know people who have experienced some pretty severe benefits of it. Especially people that weren't doing so good health-wise. And we're just really kind of feeling down and depressed. And all of a sudden the outlook radically changed. Particularly psilocybin micro dosing. I know a lot of people who are doing that. I have a lot of hope that Oregon becomes the first state to legalize psilocybin. That'd be a big one. It would be gigantic. And I think once we realize that no one's dying and a lot of people are getting helped. And a lot of people that are terminal are having some really amazing alleviation of anxiety and understanding that it's going to be okay. And just, I think, between friends and just the camaraderie, sort of, when you have these group experiences together, like there's some incredible benefits to that in terms of reinforcing community and civilization. The way we feel about each other. Now aside from the psychological and emotional benefits, I think you would be fascinated by some of the things that I've observed and written about of real physical benefits of psychedelics. And I'll just tell you a couple. Please. When I was in my late 20s, I did a lot of experiments, it was in the 70s with LSD, mostly with LSD. I had a lifelong allergy to cats. If a cat got near me, my eyes would itch. My nose would run. If a cat licked me, I'd get highs where it licked me. So I always avoided them and didn't let them touch me. So I took LSD with a group of friends on a spring day, I was living in Virginia. It was fabulous. I was outside, running around, having a lot of fun. And in the middle of this, a cat jumped into my lap. And I had a moment of trying to defend myself. And then I thought, this is silly. And I relaxed, played with the cat, had no allergic reaction, and never did ever after. Instant disappearance of an allergy that had been there all my life. What would be the physiological mechanism for some point? Well, clearly that's a very profound mind-body interaction. Now we know that allergies are influenced by that because you can show a person allergic to roses, a plastic rose, and they'll have an allergy. So there's a learned component to allergy that can be unlearned, but have an instant... I didn't know that. Yeah, interesting. Now, all right, this is even more dramatic. Maybe a year later, same thing, it was LSD in the spring. I had also grown up with very fair skin and was told I couldn't get tan. And we used to go down to the Jersey Shore. I can't remember. I remember innumerable times, you know, getting second-degree burns, sheets of skin peeling off, Noxema at night. You know, we didn't have sunscreen in those days. Right. So I just accepted that's how I was, you know, I can't get tan. So again, high on LSD, lying out naked in my great woods in my home in Virginia, and the sun was up there. And I thought, this is ridiculous, you know, I should not be afraid of the sun. The next day I got tan and I have ever since. Now that's a little more... I'm not quite sure of the mechanism there, but it's pretty amazing. How long were you outside for, though? Because if you're outside long enough, you're going to get burnt. I was out in good time. You know, I would have normally have... Yeah, at least. I would have had my usual reaction, but then my skin got tan. It never had in my life. So what are you suggesting happened? Again, you know, there must be a way in which the nervous system influences melanocytes, which are the, you know, the cell, the pigment cells in the body that can either extend their, you know, projections with pigment granules. So the nervous system controls that and the mind connects the nervous system. But what about someone who's like ridiculously fair? Like what about someone who lives in Scotland or some shit? Well, see, what I would do is, when Dr. Weil's psychedelic clinic opens, I would have like... When's that going to open? Well, we'll see. But there'll be an allergy program, right? You go in on the first day, you take a full dose of something and you're exposed to the allergen and, you know, magic happens. And then you come in for 10 sessions with a decreasing dose. And at some point you're not getting, you're just getting a placebo and you don't know when that is. And people are trained to lose their allergies. I think you do the same thing with suntanning. Maybe not with people from Scotland because they've got fewer pigment cells. But I wouldn't rule it out. I'll tell you one more. Also from this period, I told you I was playing with yoga. There was one posture I couldn't do, the plow, where you lie on your back and try to touch your toes behind your head. I got to where I could get my toes to a foot from the floor and I had excruciating pain in my neck. And as much as I tried that, I made no progress. So I was on the verge of giving up. I thought I was too old. I was 28. So again, in an LSD state, my body was feeling totally elastic. I thought, oh, I had to try that. So I'm lowering my feet. I thought I had a foot to go and they touched the ground. I couldn't believe it. I raised it, lowered it. Oh, wow. Fantastic. The next day I tried to do it. I got within a foot of the ground. I had excruciating pain in my neck. But now I knew it was possible. Before that, I didn't know it was possible. So knowing it was possible, I was motivated to keep at it. And in a few weeks, I was able to do it. If I had not had that experience, I would have given up. So I think this is the magic of these things. They can show you possibilities. They don't necessarily teach you how to maintain them, but they can show you the things that are possible you'd never believe. Well, it didn't even seem like it was just showing you a possibility. It was actually showing you capability. Like you were capable of moving in a way that you didn't think you were moving before. Exactly. Right. And it was because of your own tension and worry. Yeah, probably learned patterns of tension that had built up all my life. And maybe some, because of the conscious or the psychedelic state, rather, there's some alleviation of tension. Or my mind was out of the way. Right. Yeah.