Russell Brand Wants to Know About DMT | Joe Rogan

But like, I'm interested as well with this. I keep bringing up the subject of DMT. Like, what... I guess what I want to know about is like... Because I'm, you know, obviously a person in recovery. I don't drink, I don't take drugs, haven't done for a long time and I recognise for certain people that they can't do it safely. Psychedelics and hallucinogens, it seemed to me, exist in a realm outside of that, because they're not about... They're not pleasure-seeking. They seem to me like it's a spiritual portal. However, I'm a crafty bastard when it comes to this stuff and I'm always looking for an in. You know, when I see your cannabis treasure trove over there, I mean, that is, yeah, as you said, the Raiders of the Lost Ark stuff and I'm holding in my hand now the CBD-rich cannabis soft gels, clasping it. You know, so I'm fascinated. So you're worried that that is a gateway, that CBD, which is not necessarily psychoactive, although... As long as it's more psychoactive. It's not, but it does help you with anxiety. It helps a lot of people because it alleviates a lot of inflammation, which tends to have a corresponding impact on your anxiety. Hold on, so this says here 11 milligrams of THC. Does that mean... It says THC? It does say that, but... Probably a one-to-one. Is this a one-to-one? Might be. Or I'd say like an 18-to-one. Or 11, it says there's an 11-to-one. There's a couple different ones in that box. Oh, I almost gave you the wrong one. Giant, what's next? You read. A bag of smack. Don't take that. This one goes back in... I'll take this one. This one's way more powerful. That's a one-to-one. You seem very relaxed and free from anxiety. Oh, great. I will say that. But like, what I suppose I'm interested in, because listen, I'm meditating the whole... I meditate a lot. I'm doing all these things. I'm experiencing transcendent states. I'm experiencing what it's like to not feel attached to my identity as Russell. Who are you before you are Russell? Who are you before you identify yourself as a man in England? Who are you? Who is the person? Who is the consciousness? Who is the awareness? Now, when I listen to, say, Terrence McKenna talking about his experiences in psychedelia at such length and with such lucidity and with so many philosophical connotations and the way that he uses the information he's getting from hallucinogenic experiences to speculate on how we should organize society, what the implications are for freedom, his refusal to accept that there are certain kind of experiences that should be prohibited, that it's ridiculous that adults should be prevented from having that. I'm fascinated. But I'm also, I suppose, part of my bias is I love anything that gets me out of my head. I feel a tremendous sense of relief, whether it's through meditation or even sport or sex, being relieved of the burden of the constantly thinking mind. But when I hear like those vivid descriptions of DMT realm or Wesker realm, I think something in me hungers for that, hungers for it. Do you worry that you're trying to get intoxicated? Do you worry that you're trying to find a loophole? Yeah, because I am doing that. I'm looking for a loophole. It's like I'm going around like a sort of a trash lawyer looking for some way. Is there, hold on a second. What about this course? A trash lawyer, that's a great way of putting it. Yeah, I mean, I know people that have problems with addiction that have done psychedelics and didn't have a problem. But I'm sure some people have had problems and I don't know about them. DMT is interesting in that first of all, it's very quick. The experience is only about 15 minutes, 20 minutes max. And it's also, it's not necessary, it's not an intoxicant in the way that you would think about traditionally. You are still you in the face of this experience. And I think it's some sort of a chemical gateway. That's what I think. I think there's a gateway in your mind that can lead to some other dimension that's probably there all the time. If there is a omnipresent, continually existing realm that human beings aren't accessing because of that particular biochemical formulation of consciousness as it is in this point in our evolution, and that we can get there, and it seems as like, you know, I've heard Terrence McKenna say, it's more real. You know, it's more real. There's stuff in there. You know, and excuse me. And when he talks about them beings, you know, like that he describes as self dribbling, basketballs, creating like Faberge egg, like, you know, devices through vibration. And I didn't see you to do it. I never saw. I want that. He's called the machine elves. He's called them all sorts of different things. The way I've described them is they're the geometric patterns made out of love and understanding. So they seem like so you read. You can look at a geometrical pattern and read meaning into it. It had an emotional quality. They're made out of something and they move. They change like they don't stay what they are. They're constantly evolving in front of you into something more and more beautiful. It's very weird. What did it make you feel? Like I knew nothing. That was the most profound aspect. Like all of this stuff that you concentrate on every day is nonsense. And there is some other thing that's connected that's probably influencing this world. Yeah. And it's probably what people see when they have near death experiences, the depictions of the afterlife. I mean, it's probably what it all is. And religious experiences. When prophets are talking about, oh my God, I went into this realm. There's these beings. They've told me we're all one. We have to love each other. Scholars in Jerusalem are connecting Moses' experience with the burning bush to the Acacia tree, the Acacia tree, which is rich in DMT. The burning bush is what God was to Moses. And that through this burning bush, he came out with these 10 commandments of how people should live their lives. I mean, that easily could have been just a very convoluted sort of translation of a DMT trip. Certainly. And also, when you think of, certainly there are archetypal images that seem to be repeated through our ancient cultures and archaic stories that seem to refer to the potential for plant experiences to affect consciousness. Even the Garden of Eden, do not eat of the fruit of the tree of knowledge, that otherwise you will become as gods. I sense that. Now, if there is some realm that we can reach through that experience that puts into perspective everything else we experience on the material realm, and that thing seems to, in your words, be emanating love and understanding while ever changing, completely formless, and communicating love and understanding, I can't help but think that that should become our priority to have a relationship with that realm and to bring about that experience. And I don't even mean in a literal way, because even Terrence McKenna said there are some people, vulnerable souls, he was probably referring to people like me, that probably shouldn't mess around with that kind of stuff. I think he was really talking about people with schizophrenia, which he believed he had, by the way. Did he? Yeah, he had some very unique perspectives on schizophrenia and the way people interact with the world itself. I think if we lived in a healthy world, a healthy civilization that had a healthy relationship with psychoactive substances, we'd probably have centers where you would have a legitimate shaman, a medical advisor, and someone would take you through a guided experience. We're doing that now with ketamine. There's a lot of people that are very depressed that are having these physician-controlled ketamine experiences that have had a profound effect on their depression. My friend, Neil Brennan, has gone through several of them. And he's a comedian, a very funny comedian, so when he was describing it, it was hilarious. He was going to a doctor's office tripping his fucking balls off. The doctor's shooting him up with intramuscular ketamine. Oh my God. Yeah, and he's having these insane, I go, so you're having psychedelic experiences, he's like, oh yeah! Like, describing it was really funny. Tripping his fucking balls off in these whatever states that ketamine, I've never experienced ketamine, I don't know what it does, but it's apparently profoundly hallucinogenic. And you have these wild, crazy experiences on it. And for whatever reason, it has a great impact on depression for a lot of people. I think it's a perspective enhancer, but it also does something to rewire the mind. Well, what some of this suggests is that mental illness is a response to our material conditions. Whether that mental illness is schizophrenia, depression, or addiction, it's like people are going, hang on a minute, this isn't how we're supposed to live. I took that ketamine one time towards the end of my using, and as usual, it's not in the right type of environment. You should be doing stuff like that in a nightclub. You need to be under that shamanic conditions, white coat guy, or whatever, whoever you nominate is a shaman. But I felt like it was like going into a tunnel made of sound, and having to navigate. I was like, oh shit, I'm still in reality. What am I gonna do? Is it, meh! As my consciousness becomes a noise, instead of a string of words and signs, I'm gonna get out of this place. So for me, it's clear that drugs were never meant to be recreational. In fact, they never were. I was like, hey man, this is crazy. I was always like, I'm in fucking pain. I need some shit to help me out. Otherwise, I'm gonna probably kill myself. So it was a way of holding that stuff at arm's limb. So I guess my renewed curiosity around DMT and IOSC and other plant medicines, and like, do you know Daniel Pinchbeck, and them guys that are part of that? I'm curious about it, because I guess I'm continually trying to find a way where someone goes, right, here's a way where we can do it, where it's sort of safe. I've heard of other people in recovery doing it. And when I think about what my motivation is, is when I hear people talking about and my own recollections of experiencing what felt like God, and by God, I mean a sense of oneness, and that my individual identity isn't my real identity, and I'm connected to everything, and love is the most important thing. I want a real experience of that, so that when I'm out in the world, I can remember when I'm driving, or when I'm dealing with people, or if I'm buying something, or if I'm feeling inferior, or feeling superior, that like you said, this is bullshit. This is like a secondary reality. Don't let it govern you. As someone that's been seduced by fame, a person like, oh, if I get this part in this film, then everyone's gonna love me. Oh, if this stand-up set goes well, you know, like a person that's placed all of my wellbeing outside of myself, the certain knowledge that there is an inner connection that will take care of you, that's accessible, I guess I'm hungry to sort of feel it in a way that's like, oh my God, now there is no doubt. So in a sense, it's a crisis of faith, not a crisis of faith. But there's some psychedelic states that you can achieve without taking anything. I mean, you can certainly get there in a flotation tank. You can get there through holotropic breathing. I've never done Kundalini yoga, but apparently the people that get really deep into Kundalini yoga can literally have DMT trips. I know, I have friends that have done DMT and have experienced DMT trips through Kundalini. But you have to be really dedicated. I mean, there's a lot of time. A lot of time, a lot of energy, and you have to really understand the methods and follow them to a tee, and you can achieve these altered states of consciousness that are apparently, not from my personal experience, but from what people tell me, incredibly profound. Yeah, I mean, I've had comparable things, I guess, that what is the difference between feeling something that's that overwhelming that gives you no choice. Yeah. It's not like, Kundalini, you've got to do these breaths correctly, you've got to sit there, you've got to try again. Have you done it? Yeah, I've done it quite a bit, Kundalini. For me, what I felt quite a lot, yogically and meditatively, is a cessation of what I would call my individual consciousness. Like, oh, I'm not this, this isn't who I am, this is just a temporary experience, and all of the value systems of our world are built upon these primal drives in collaboration with a culture that likes to stratify people and manage people and operates like a massive farm where it's easier to keep people together, operating in these kind of ways, systemically. I've sort of felt rushes of that, like a certain wordless clarity, if you can imagine me having anything that was wordless even for a moment. And in that space, there is great peace. So I suppose what's turning me on about the DMT and IOS thing is that the way it's narrativised, that you're gonna meet characters and stuff like that, and it's gonna be plain and beyond doubt. Because I suppose what prophets do, when a prophet returns from there, whether it's the burning bush or the cave, they come back and they say, all this stuff that you're taking seriously is not real, there's this other realm, start prioritising it, or you are gonna live in hell on earth. You're gonna be governed by your materialistic drives, your sexual drives, and it's gonna imprison you. And it turns out that they're right. And so I suppose what I'm after, because I'm partly on a super, on one level influenced by what you're doing and how you've created your own business and your own success, this symbiosis of stand up and the podcast, and it's become a sort of a lifestyle brand in a sense, Joe. I'm sort of like, yeah, I don't wanna be continually dragged into these, working within institutions. I'm over here doing a bloody, doing ballers, and I'm bloody glad to be over here doing ballers and working with The Rock, and I've got a funny story about that if you want it. I don't know. Like, really what interests me is, can I be, and can I dedicate my life to humorously communicating spiritual information and indeed starting to live it? So like, and I suppose what that would mean is, I'm getting better, but I'm not a person who's obsessed with porn or sex or drugs or whatever, like to become it, to become what you actually are, to recognize that we're all different. Your perfect realization of you is gonna involve hunting and all of these things that you've created through your gift, and that my perfect version of me is gonna involve all of this. Not everyone needs to be able to sort of empire or entertainment industries or whatever, but all of us are on some journey to self-actualization and realization as individual as our fingerprints and as natural as a seed turning into a tree. And if we don't have a way of accessing that, no wonder we're dissatisfied, no wonder we're tired, there's an opioid epidemic, no wonder people are bored and angry and lonely. Well, I think what you can do is be yourself, and what you can do is express yourself, and what you can do is constantly seek to improve and grow, and you are doing those things. So if you're saying, can I do these things, can I be comedic and spiritual, and well, you're doing it. Right, you're ready to be done. So it's, you're doing it. You know, it's all just a matter of what, whether or not you're satisfied with your progress and where you are and who you are and how you express yourself. Yeah. Yeah.