Psychedelics, Shrooms, MDMA…For Human Potential?

Why Aren’t You Reaching Your Potential With Magic Mushrooms? 

Tim Ferriss once said, **“I don’t know any billionaires who don’t do psychedelics.”** Let that sink in. What do these ultra-successful, high-achieving minds know that you don’t? What’s hiding in the *shrooms, MDMA, and ayahuasca* that’s got the world’s richest and most innovative people cracking open their minds like cosmic piñatas?

Turns out, psychedelics aren’t just for hippies and Coachella kids anymore. We’re smack in the middle of a **psychedelic renaissance**, and the research is so damn compelling that even the FDA is on board. MDMA is expected to be legalized for PTSD therapy in 2026, and psilocybin (yep, magic mushrooms) will likely follow in 2027.

But why the sudden comeback? Indigenous cultures have been using these compounds for thousands of years. And now, Western medicine is finally catching up—realizing that these substances aren’t just trippy distractions, but powerful tools for healing, self-discovery, and unlocking human potential. Psychedelics are said to “reveal the mind to itself”. That’s some heady, healing shit!

This week, I sit down with Matt Zemon, an absolute psychedelic evangelist, author, and mental health entrepreneur, to talk about how these mind-expanding substances are changing the game for mental health, personal growth, and even addiction treatment.

What’s Revealed In This Episode?

🍄 Can psychedelics help you reclaim your true self (the person you knew when you were a child before the world trained you to be an emotionally-detached robot)?
🧠 Healing vs. Optimization—Are psychedelics just fixing mental illness, or can they actually make you *better* than baseline?
🚀 Microdosing – Does it actually work, or is it just a placebo for Silicon Valley bros?
🔍 Myths, truths, and the crazy hype around psychedelics
⚕️ Psychedelic medicine vs. traditional antidepressants—Which one’s the better healer of the heart and mind?
🔥 Legal Psychedelics? Yep, they’re already here (hello, ketamine therapy!)
💡 How to prepare for a psychedelic experience—because flying blind is a bad idea

Matt Zemon—A Guy Who Really Knows WTF He’s Talking About

Matt isn’t just some dude who ate a handful of mushrooms and decided he was enlightened. He’s got a Master’s in Psychology & Neuroscience of Mental Health from King’s College London and has spent years studying how psychedelics affect the brain. His Amazon best-seller, *Psychedelics for Everyone*, lays out how these substances are revolutionizing treatments for **anxiety, depression, PTSD, and addiction**—all while opening doors to expanded consciousness.

Oh, and he co-founded multiple companies in the psychedelic and mental wellness space, including HAPPŸŸ (a ketamine-assisted therapy company) and PSYCHABLE (an online community connecting people with legit psychedelic practitioners). So yeah, the guy *knows his sh*t.*

If you’ve ever been curious about psychedelics, mental optimization, or just WTF all the hype is about, hit play now. You might just get to know your own mind, and become happier and healthier in the process.

🚀 Tune in & Expand Your Mind (Literally). 🚀

To cleanse the windows of your perception and see things as they truly are – infinite (to paraphrase Aldous Huxley, and listen to this one on Podomatic, click here.

To watch this mind-revealing video, simply click Play below.

If you’re old school, like John and Joree and prefer to read through the transcript, read on intrepid inner explorer…

Why Aren’t Your Reaching Your Potential With Psychedelics? W/ Author Matt Zemon -Transcript

Can Psychedelics Help Us To Heal Our Mental Health AND To Realize Our Potential?!

Dr. John Schinnerer: Hey everybody, this is Dr. John back with the latest episode of the Evolved Caveman podcast, and I am psyched to have with me today Matt Zemon. Matt is a dedicated explorer of the inner world and a passionate advocate for the thoughtful and responsible use of psychedelics. With a Master of Science in Psychology and Neuroscience of Mental Health, With honors from King’s College London, Matt has studied the effects of psychedelics on the mind and the potential for these experiences to serve as a catalyst for positive transformations.

His work in this field is motivated by a profound desire to help people navigate the sometimes challenging terrain of the psychedelic experience. And he merged from it with a deeper sense of purpose, connection, and understanding. In other words, to reclaim their true self. Matt’s the author of the Amazon bestseller, Psychedelics for Everyone, A Beginner’s Guide to These Powerful Medicines for Anxiety, Depression, Addiction, PTSD, and Expanding [00:01:00] Consciousness.

And as an entrepreneur in the well being sector, he’s co founded various companies including Happyy, with two Ys, A mental wellness company specializing in psychedelic assisted ketamine therapy, psychable, an online community connecting people who would like to explore the healing power of psychedelics with a network of practitioners and psychedelic based treatments.

And take two minutes, a nonprofit dedicated to helping individuals improve their mental health and wellbeing. Matt, welcome. And thank you for coming aboard. 

Matt Zemon, Expert on Psychedelics: Dr. John. I’m glad to be here. Thanks for making some time for me. 

Dr. John: So tell me a little bit about this idea of reclaim your true self. I 

Matt: think one of the most powerful parts of psychedelics is the idea that it helps you remember.

So let’s, at a science level, what happens in the brain is neurons that don’t typically fire, start to fire. And these are neurons that used to connect when, at some point when you’re younger which allows you to remember a different way of thinking than potentially how you [00:02:00] think today. And many cases you can remember that you are loved and you can remember that you are enough and you can remember that you don’t need to do anything to be worthy of that love and to being enough.

And I believe that’s, we, as many of us as children, we knew this and over time we forget. So I think this is a powerful technology to unlock that remembrance and and reclaim that you reclaim your true self through this process. 

Dr. John Schinnerer, Top Couples Counselor: Yeah, I love the way that you put that in. I’ve had that experience myself on psychedelics where you just understand your position or your place in the interconnectedness of all things.

Dr. John Schinnerer, Top Couples Counselor: You remember that Yeah, you are worthy that you belong and I agree that you don’t have to do anything to be worthy. I think you just have to be born to be worthy to take breath. And I think that’s something that we all, everyone I’ve ever talked to seems to have wrestled with is [00:03:00] that sense of unworthiness and it’s no, you don’t have to do anything to be worthy.

Matt Zemon, Expert on Psychedelics: I think it’s, you work with a lot of high performance people. And I think for a lot of us, we are in this doing mode and performing well, because at some level we feel like we need to do that or we won’t be loved. And maybe that goes back to our relationship with our parents or ego is somewhere.

Matt Zemon, Expert on Psychedelics: The doing is something that our society rewards, even if it is harmful to us, even if it means we are workaholics, even if it means we’re avoiding our our families and our spouses, we’re getting stuff done. So we’re not looked at as having trauma or things that we need to unpack. We’re looked at as successful people.

Matt Zemon, Expert on Psychedelics: Okay. Yeah. And there’s things to look at and remember that this technology can unlock. 

Dr. John Schinnerer, Top Couples Counselor: And that’s, an idea that I came across when I was 17, this idea of being [00:04:00] successful and fucking miserable. 

. 

Dr. John Schinnerer, Top Couples Counselor: And that seems to be the blueprint for so many of us in this day and age that we’re killing ourselves to be successful, but we just have completely let go of the idea that we can be successful and happy, successful and worthy, successful and content or relaxed.

Matt Zemon, Expert on Psychedelics: And I 

Dr. John Schinnerer, Top Couples Counselor: do think these medicines are a way to get back to that. 

Matt Zemon, Expert on Psychedelics: Absolutely. I think a lot of us, we’re as a culture, we live in a scarcity culture. So we’re taught very young. Oh, you’ve got to get what’s there for you. You’ve got to watch out for yourself. You’ve got to take care of yourself.

Matt Zemon, Expert on Psychedelics: You’ve got to work hard to get ahead in life. And we’re not taught that there’s enough. There’s enough for everybody that we’re only going to move forward. There isn’t any real way to fail. You can feel like a task. As long as we’re living, we’re learning, healing, and growing, and moving forward. Until we stop living, that’s the only direction there is to go.

Matt Zemon, Expert on Psychedelics: How do, [00:05:00] how are we going to spend our time here? And if we can switch our mindset to, Oh, wait a minute, if there is enough, and I get to play in this playground for whatever time I have on this planet, what am I scared about? What am I trying to accumulate for? Why am I skipping days, or weeks, or months, or years, or decades to accumulate Versus playing while I can play.

Matt Zemon, Expert on Psychedelics: Yeah. And that doesn’t mean not generating resources, but just enjoying the process. 

Dr. John Schinnerer, Top Couples Counselor: Yeah. Yeah. And I think that’s, happiness is largely about learning to enjoy the journey and not just looking for the outcome, but, you mentioned that scarcity mindset. And I think that. There’s a lot of fear and anxiety in the vast majority of us that drives us because of that scarcity mindset.

Dr. John Schinnerer, Top Couples Counselor: And I often see that doing mentality as people running away from their own anxiety. Like they can’t handle sitting still and not doing, so they just have to do, rather than learn how to [00:06:00] be. And you see this just undermining the quality of their relationships in their desperate attempt. To not sit still 

Matt Zemon, Expert on Psychedelics: that we can hide behind our to do lists and our tasks.

Matt Zemon, Expert on Psychedelics: And I’m really busy. I don’t have time for whatever it is. I don’t have time for the people I enjoy spending time with. I don’t have time for my family. I don’t have time for my children. I have time for my friends. I don’t have time for me. I can’t work out today. I can’t, I don’t have time 

Dr. John Schinnerer, Top Couples Counselor: really. It’s ironic in the sense of people, because I think that very dynamic.

Dr. John Schinnerer, Top Couples Counselor: Keeps people from trying something like psychedelics to break out of that mindset because there’s a fear or anxiety or The fear of loss of control that keeps people from trying these which would allow them to break free of that dynamic At some level. 

Matt Zemon, Expert on Psychedelics: Yeah, without a doubt. And combined with that, any of us who were born 1971 or later, we’ve lived our entire lives in a [00:07:00] prohibition that no one told us it was a prohibition.

Matt Zemon, Expert on Psychedelics: We thought it was just science that, Oh, drugs are bad. They’re going to fry your brain. There’s no medical use. And nobody set up, but this is just a construct. And this is just a philosophy. And then again, you’re the high performance people you work with. You’re talking about people typically late thirties, forties, fifties, I would imagine.

Matt Zemon, Expert on Psychedelics: Yeah. All they know is what they’ve been told. And and it’s funny, like I do these multi day ceremonies and some of the entrepreneurs I talk to, it’s oh, I can’t get away for three days. Really? And it’s just, it’s amazing. It’s like you, you don’t have three days for yourself that could impact the rest of your life.

Matt Zemon, Expert on Psychedelics: That’s I get it. I get it resonates and it’s a shame. 

Dr. John Schinnerer, Top Couples Counselor: And to dovetail on that idea, I love the idea of success being control of your own time. That’s one element to it that I think is very important. So is it that you can’t take three days or is it that you don’t want to? 

Matt Zemon, Expert on Psychedelics: Yeah, exactly. 

Dr. John Schinnerer, Top Couples Counselor: And [00:08:00] if not, how successful are you?

Dr. John Schinnerer, Top Couples Counselor: But I also have seen a lot of interest in psychedelics and microdosing in the Silicon Valley area. Like a lot of these high level entrepreneurs are looking for ways to get a mental advantage, looking for ways towards greater creativity, innovation, idea generation. 

Matt Zemon, Expert on Psychedelics: Tim Ferriss says, I think he said, I don’t know any billionaires that don’t do psychedelics.

Matt Zemon, Expert on Psychedelics: That’s a powerful line. 

Dr. John Schinnerer, Top Couples Counselor: Yeah, 

Matt Zemon, Expert on Psychedelics: I think people come to psychedelics from three different angles. I think there’s some people who want to meet this in a medical model. I have depression, I have anxiety, I have an eating disorder, I have a substance use challenge, I have something. And I want to meet somebody in a white lab coat and try psychedelics.

Matt Zemon, Expert on Psychedelics: Okay. Great. That’s beautiful. The work that maps is doing for MDMA for treatment resistant post traumatic stress disorder. Fantastic. Super important. Johns Hopkins with terminal psilocybin for terminal cancer patients. Amazing. End of life 

Dr. John Schinnerer, Top Couples Counselor: anxiety. 

Matt Zemon, Expert on Psychedelics: end of life anxiety. So that’s one way. Other people are like, ah, go fuck yourself.

Matt Zemon, Expert on Psychedelics: I believe that it’s decrim nature and [00:09:00] nobody should tell any adult that any plant that grows in the ground is illegal for me to put in my body. And I don’t want to hear it, but I don’t need to tell anybody why I’m doing this. Okay, great. I agree with that too. That’s a beautiful beautiful perspective.

Matt Zemon, Expert on Psychedelics: And then the third are the people who say, I want to practice with psychedelics because I connect with a higher power. It gives me a connected, interconnectedness of things. And it’s more of a religious freedom issue. And I think that’s important. So regardless of where you come into on why you’re, so the optimization of which you’re just talking about.

Matt Zemon, Expert on Psychedelics: That’s not really medical because I think a lot of people who say in Silicon Valley won’t say I have a diagnosis of depression or anxiety. No, I just want to be a better human. So is that religious? Is that Decrim, is that recreational with intention? I don’t know, but it’s, I think it’s important that all of this is allowed to exist.

Matt Zemon, Expert on Psychedelics: And most importantly, that it should be allowed to exist in the open under the [00:10:00] best possible wisdom of, from the medical community and the spiritual community. And how do we do this safely and how do we do this effectively? 

Dr. John Schinnerer, Top Couples Counselor: Yeah. And I do really believe that these medicines unlock human potential. I think it’s a great vehicle to get closer to your true potential, to your idea of reclaiming your true self.

Matt Zemon, Expert on Psychedelics: Absolutely. And I think I know again, in the ceremonial space, a lot of people come to us from coaches like you, where they’re like, okay, we’re not going to deliver medicine to people, but we can prepare them. We know their intentions. We’ve worked, we spent years with them, and then we can help the integration process.

Matt Zemon, Expert on Psychedelics: So now that you’ve seen the person seen whatever it is that they’ve seen and they’ve unlocked whatever they want to unlock and they’ve unlocked creativity or they have unlocked connection or they’ve unlocked answers to something they’ve been working on. It doesn’t have to be a licensed therapist that works with them.

Matt Zemon, Expert on Psychedelics: It can be, but it can also be just a really effective coach who’s okay, you said this was important to you. And you said, this is how you’re going to get there. I’m just helping to remind you of what you said and keep you on this [00:11:00] path. 

Dr. John Schinnerer, Top Couples Counselor: Yeah, let’s talk a little bit about the integration piece. There’s a bunch of ways I can go right now, but let’s talk about the integration piece because the integration piece to me, when you’re helping clients.

Dr. John Schinnerer, Top Couples Counselor: post journey to make sense of what they’ve experienced and to lock down those learnings. It feels a lot to me like dream interpretation or archetypal analysis, like Jungian analysis, like you’re dealing with themes and you’re dealing in kind of I don’t know if they’re mentally generated scenarios or spiritually generated depends on your perspective, but what is your take on the integration work?

Matt Zemon, Expert on Psychedelics: I think the best in my experience, the best integration coaches aren’t there to tell me what my visions meant, and they’re not there to tell me what I need to do. They’re there to support the thought process to say, you’re not crazy. Tell me more about it. How does that make you feel? Where did, what does that emotion come from?

Matt Zemon, Expert on Psychedelics: What are you thinking about in terms [00:12:00] of the action from this? They’re also there to help with guardrails. You just had a psychedelic a couple of weeks ago. You’re thinking about this decision. Let’s hold off on this decision for a couple more weeks. And if you’re still important to you, we’re not going to forget about, we wrote it down.

Matt Zemon, Expert on Psychedelics: We’ll come back to it. But it’s a little bit of both. So it’s helping prompts. Yeah. It’s providing prompts and questions so that the person themselves can provide the answer. I think what’s different about psychedelics versus any of the traditional therapies today is it’s not Yeah, there’s no the idea is it’s an inner wisdom.

Matt Zemon, Expert on Psychedelics: You have the wisdom inside of you. Nobody knows what’s best for you better than you do. 

Dr. John Schinnerer, Top Couples Counselor: Okay. So what about if you have a client that is, you’re trying to help integrate their gains and they had this experience, they had a vision, let’s say, and they have no idea where to go with it. 

Matt Zemon, Expert on Psychedelics: I think then that’s great.

Matt Zemon, Expert on Psychedelics: Okay, so let’s unpack that. Dr. John, you said you want to take the Evolved Caveman to be a million viewers, and you can see [00:13:00] it that you’re going to be this, that, and the other thing. What else do you see? And where did that come from? Because maybe what you think you saw, or what you started off as, this is what’s important to me, isn’t really what’s important to you.

Matt Zemon, Expert on Psychedelics: So why do you want to be at the million people? How are you going to get there? What are you talking about? What are the steps you’re going to take? But continuing to ask the questions to help the person develop their own answers and their own plans, and then to make them look a little bit deeper as they’re answering those questions.

Matt Zemon, Expert on Psychedelics: Okay. So that I understand what you’re saying there. How does that relate to you and what you want? I understand how you can do what you just said and that you’re probably very good at doing what you just said. But is that what you want? Is that what you really want to need? 

Dr. John Schinnerer, Top Couples Counselor: Yeah, I guess I’m talking about, some of these visions someone sees a fiery lion, an animated fiery lion, but they have no idea where to go with it.

Dr. John Schinnerer, Top Couples Counselor: And so when I say it’s like dream interpretation to me, when I’m doing dream interpretation, it’s something like if it were my dream, Matt. It [00:14:00] might mean this to me. And so you can throw out hypotheses that they can either feel are accurate for them or say, I’m not really feeling that I don’t have any aha there.

Dr. John Schinnerer, Top Couples Counselor: So that may not be it. So that, it’s just throwing out hypotheses or possibilities. 

Matt Zemon, Expert on Psychedelics: Yeah. Yes. And I think especially with men where we’re less likely to go to our emotional place. To ask that question. Okay. Fiery lion. How did that make you feel? Just tell me more about that. Let’s forget about the lion as it, as a symbol of anything.

Matt Zemon, Expert on Psychedelics: Just how did it make you feel? Why did it make you feel? Where were lions in your life? What do you think of? What does a lion even mean to you? Is a lion, your father is a lion. You as a line of the unsung voice inside your head is a line. It’s so different by person to person, which is also where I think.

Matt Zemon, Expert on Psychedelics: It’s tricky to give somebody an interpretation versus just to keep asking good questions. Why was it [00:15:00] fiery? What do you think that fire means? Is it a warm fire? Is it a blue fire? Is it a red fire? Did you have fire in your life? Does fire have any role in your, just asking the questions and let them talk and talk it out until they find.

Matt Zemon, Expert on Psychedelics: They’ll find an answer. And I think that’s the other piece about all of this for both of us. Cause we’re talking we both deal with a lot of people who are doing all sorts of different things. I love this notion of, I don’t know what’s best for you. I don’t barely, I don’t know what’s best.

Matt Zemon, Expert on Psychedelics: I know it’s best for me and I don’t always do it. So let’s, if you’re our role in this role is for me to help you draw this out of you and help you be the best you can be. Let’s just let me help ask you questions 

Dr. John Schinnerer, Top Couples Counselor: when and one of the things that’s really gobsmacked me I guess or smacked me in the face about psilocybin in particular is this idea that the plant knows what’s best for you The plant knows where you need to go.

Dr. John Schinnerer, Top Couples Counselor: There’s some sort of innate intelligence In the plant, which the more work I do in this [00:16:00] area, the more I’m astounded at the truth of that. 

Matt Zemon, Expert on Psychedelics: It’s Dr. John, it’s a, it’s I’ve, I feel like I walk a line where I want to provide information that is helpful and not be quote too woo. And I can’t help but agree with what you’re saying.

Matt Zemon, Expert on Psychedelics: When you talk about the knowledge of these plants and these compounds that it knows it can help in ways that we can’t understand. 

Dr. John Schinnerer, Top Couples Counselor: And Matt, I totally, pardon me for interrupting, but I totally feel you like, I don’t want to be too woo. I’ve got a PhD from UC Berkeley in psychology. Like it was drilled into me science studies research.

Dr. John Schinnerer, Top Couples Counselor: But there’s some stuff that science can’t quite explain yet. Science is slow to catch up. And so if you see a truth over and over without. Disputation without anything refuting that truth. You have to honor the truth in my mind Especially when something’s been around for thousands of years 

Matt Zemon, Expert on Psychedelics: I am so grateful for you being willing to [00:17:00] look at this like this I mean we I talk a lot about in the olden days in the old way back when There wasn’t a separation between physician and priest, right?

Matt Zemon, Expert on Psychedelics: It was one role and So much of our psychiatry and psychology is wants to be quote pure science And wants that similar they want more of a medical take on things. And I think when it comes to these compounds, it’s a complicated position. And I get the argument if we’re to say to that this should be in the domain of the clergy it is fair to argue what they don’t have is enough knowledge about the brain and the body to keep us safe.

Matt Zemon, Expert on Psychedelics: But conversely, if we put this in the domain of the pure science, they don’t have enough knowledge of the spiritual. And I do believe it’s time for reconciliation between the two and that there is a way we, so many people are looking for something different. They’re looking for a way to understand, and it’s going to take both working together [00:18:00] to meet the demand that is out there.

Matt Zemon, Expert on Psychedelics: And there’s both the clergy side can learn best practices on medical intake and informed consent. And integration and the medical side can learn about ceremony and how do they play in the spiritual realm, which is, yeah there’s a faith component to it. 

Dr. John Schinnerer, Top Couples Counselor: Yeah, I absolutely agree with you. I think that.

Dr. John Schinnerer, Top Couples Counselor: The sweet spot here is the bridge or the nexus between science and spirituality. And it’s one of the things that Jory and I have realized the more we get into this space, that neither either having just the spirituality or just the science is not sufficient. Like to me, you need both. And so I’ve really been personally boning up on the spirituality side of things, which, necessarily means dipping more into the woo.

Dr. John Schinnerer, Top Couples Counselor: But I’ve also found that. As I get more into that spiritual side of things, more into the animism side of things, the, the idea that all living [00:19:00] things have a spirit and a sentience, that’s a world that is vastly more joyous to live in. 

Matt Zemon, Expert on Psychedelics: Yeah, absolutely. We start talking about the energy of all things, the connectedness of all things that we ourselves are just, we’re just nature.

Matt Zemon, Expert on Psychedelics: We’re just, we’re not separate. There’s no other, there’s no wall between you and me, John, it’s, we’re all together. We might be different waves, but we’re still part of the ocean. And that’s, and we’re going to return to the ocean and we might come back as different waves and all of that is beautiful. 

Dr. John Schinnerer, Top Couples Counselor: When I really think that separateness, that illusion of separateness that I, John, I’m separate from you, Matt, and from the 8 billion other people on this planet is one of the hallmarks of mental illness, because I’ve seen it with depressed and anxious people that they are so attached to their own suffering, to their own I ness, their own uniqueness, their own ego, that they can’t get out of that to understand that that’s true at one level, but And the other truth is that [00:20:00] we are all deeply interconnected and we all influence one another every day.

Matt Zemon, Expert on Psychedelics: Yeah, that is, that’s a beautiful way to look at this. It’s it’s actually why for most people, when they’re talking about doing psychedelics, I encourage them to do it in a group setting. I think when you do psychedelics, we can psych, so a lot of research is psychedelics, one person, two people with two facilitators that’s the MDMA protocol.

Matt Zemon, Expert on Psychedelics: So I get it. And. When you’re in a group setting and someone else is crying and it’s not you or you’re crying and it’s not someone else or someone else is laughing and there’s this energy exchange where again, you realize that I have things that have, I’ve experienced that have hurt, but that doesn’t define me.

Matt Zemon, Expert on Psychedelics: And it’s not that different than the things that you’ve experienced that have hurt you. And I want to live in a joyous world and I am connected to these people. I am not alone. I don’t, our culture is again we get in our cars, we go to work, we do our job, we get back in our cars, we go to our house, we shut the [00:21:00] door.

Matt Zemon, Expert on Psychedelics: It’s a very lonely, it’s an, we have an epidemic of loneliness in this country. People have left the churches and droves. We don’t make time for our friends. We don’t at work. It’s much more about what are you going to do for me? And then so much of our culture is look at what the kids are growing up with today about how important class rank and GPA and how many AP tests did you take?

Matt Zemon, Expert on Psychedelics: And there’s no incentive for me to help you succeed. If you’re, I’ve got to be better in my ranking to get into the school I want to get into. 

Dr. John Schinnerer, Top Couples Counselor: Yeah, 

Matt Zemon, Expert on Psychedelics: It’s. It’s competition everywhere is the culture and it’s just make believe to get it. What’s really the difference in most colleges where a kid goes?

Matt Zemon, Expert on Psychedelics: It’s all, it’s so much make believe, but it feels so real. 

Dr. John Schinnerer, Top Couples Counselor: And to that point, I love the research that shows that there’s zero relationship between the college that you go to and how successful you are, how happy you are, or how much money you make. This is zero. So to kill [00:22:00] yourself to get into Harvard and then to kill yourself and be depressed while you’re at Harvard doesn’t really help you all that much, if at all.

Dr. John Schinnerer, Top Couples Counselor: And so why not just go to a four year and enjoy yourself and enjoy your time in high school and take the pressure off of these kids. I’ve told my own daughter, look, what I want for you is to go to the best college, the best fitting college for you. I don’t care where that is. As long as you’re happy there.

Dr. John Schinnerer, Top Couples Counselor: And I also want you to stay intact, keep your curiosity intact because I think the school system does a great job of killing young people’s curiosity and I want you to stay curious throughout your lifespan. Other than that, I have no ego attached. 

Matt Zemon, Expert on Psychedelics: This learning period does not end at college or the end of college or the end of grad school.

Matt Zemon, Expert on Psychedelics: It’s life. This is, this is, again, we’re here to play. We’re here to have creative fun. And to and to think that, okay, I’m going to get, I’m going to do this degree and then get this job and then make the collect these resources is a [00:23:00] farce. I know in my experience, like I, as an entrepreneur, it’s okay, I’m going to be happy when, and then I can pick the decade and see what the goal post was, and then I can watch the goal post move.

Matt Zemon, Expert on Psychedelics: I will be happy when I have a hundred employees, I’ll be happy when I have 500 employees. I’ll be happy when there’s a nice name of the company on a building. Every time you hit a goal, it just moves. I’ll be happy when a company buys us. I’ll be happy when it’s just, it’s anything external is going to fade.

Matt Zemon, Expert on Psychedelics: As is my experience. And then that’s again, the reclaim yourself, the psychedelics, it’s everything he needs inside of you. 

Dr. John Schinnerer, Top Couples Counselor: The other part of that is in pursuing those goal posts or goals. I’ve seen with so many men and I imagine women too, once we achieve a goal and it could be a big goal, You can enjoy it.

Dr. John Schinnerer, Top Couples Counselor: Most men can enjoy it for, I don’t know, five to 30 seconds. And then they’re like, okay, what’s next? That is not a good formula for happiness. [00:24:00] 

Matt Zemon, Expert on Psychedelics: And you’re back in this driving 

Dr. John Schinnerer, Top Couples Counselor: mode. You’re back in the scarcity mode. You’re back in, anxiety and, punishing yourself because you’re not getting enough done.

Dr. John Schinnerer, Top Couples Counselor: And that’s what I see over and over. 

Matt Zemon, Expert on Psychedelics: Oh, and you start I’m sure a number of your high performers have sold their business. And all of a sudden the fear goes from, is someone going to buy me too? Is this deal going to close too? Oh my God, what am I gonna do with this money? Is someone going to take it?

Matt Zemon, Expert on Psychedelics: Am I going to lose it? Yeah. Yep. 

Dr. John Schinnerer, Top Couples Counselor: Or who am I now that I don’t have this business? And 

Matt Zemon, Expert on Psychedelics: then the identity crisis that occurs where I’ve been, I am Mr. Or Miss whatever I was doing. And that’s not true, but we internalize it. We’ve made it ours. I’ve perfect. Yeah. People have gotten moved out of their organization.

Matt Zemon, Expert on Psychedelics: The, or they’ve taken their company public. They’ve moved into a great role. And then all of a sudden there’s a board thing and now they’re out of the company. It’s who am I? 

Dr. John Schinnerer, Top Couples Counselor: Yeah. I remember talking to a lot of entrepreneurs who would refer to this as getting shot. Someone will come in, they want that guy’s position.

Dr. John Schinnerer, Top Couples Counselor: They’ll do some underhanded machinations and then the [00:25:00] guy’s out of his own company. And yeah, I got shot wow, that’s a really violent metaphor, but yeah, I guess that party got killed. But anyway so let’s talk a little bit about microdosing because I’ve done microdosing, but I’m not familiar with much research because I don’t think there’s much research out there about microdosing.

Dr. John Schinnerer, Top Couples Counselor: So tell me a little bit about how and why people are microdosing. 

Matt Zemon, Expert on Psychedelics: Yep. So the quick, the two second answer is micro dosing is when you’re taking a 10th to a 20th of a traditional dose that you would do for spiritual exploration or human optimization or. One of the isms that we talked about, so non 

Dr. John Schinnerer, Top Couples Counselor: psychoactive, 

Matt Zemon, Expert on Psychedelics: Yeah, they used to say non perceptual.

Matt Zemon, Expert on Psychedelics: Now they say it’s non intoxicating, but somewhere in that zone where you can function, you can go to work, you can have, you can talk to your meetings, you can do all those kinds of things, but it’s but you’ve taken something, you’ve put something in your body. And people do it for connectivity. They do it for creativity.

Matt Zemon, Expert on Psychedelics: They do it for [00:26:00] depression. They do it for anxiety. There is some research and the research is split. There’s some research that says, yeah, this does work. And there’s others that says it’s a placebo. So it’s, I think what we’re going to see more research coming out. There’s a group called the microdose microdosing collective that is doing a bunch of work on.

Matt Zemon, Expert on Psychedelics: Gathering all that research and making it available. It is and then when people microdose, they’re typically talking about psilocybin or magic mushrooms or LSD. No, yes, you can microdose with other things, but those are the two most common. Two main ways people microdose there’s the Dr. Fadiman protocol, which is you take the microdose on day one, still in your body on day two.

Matt Zemon, Expert on Psychedelics: You let it out on day three and you repeat on day four. You do that for about four weeks, take a two week break and you repeat. Paul Stamets, the mycologist, says that’s too complicated. Take it four days in a row, let it out for three days, do that for four weeks, and take a two week break. And then Stamets actually goes one step further.

Matt Zemon, Expert on Psychedelics: He said add a little lion’s mane and add a little [00:27:00] niacin, and now you’re gonna add some help with memory and dexterity. So that’s, and he’s got some research around that’s pretty interesting to look at, and I think some patents coming out and And then, going back to how people meet the medicine, there are some people who microdosing is their toes in the water.

Matt Zemon, Expert on Psychedelics: Okay, I’ve heard about psychedelics. I’m not really wanting to do a deep dive, so I’m just going to microdose. All right, try it. Great, good for you. And then there’s others who have done some kind of deep they’ve had a big journey and they want to support that big journey, so then they are maybe doing microdosing as scaffolding after the big journey.

Matt Zemon, Expert on Psychedelics: So I think people come to microdosing for a lot of different reasons. There’s a interesting group moms who microdose that I think is interesting. And then like you said, there’s a gazillion people in Silicon Valley who are macro and microdosing. 

Dr. John Schinnerer, Top Couples Counselor: Yeah. And so thanks for that because I, it fits with what I know of microdosing that the research is mixed.

Dr. John Schinnerer, Top Couples Counselor: So whether it’s a placebo or whether it’s an [00:28:00] actual effect, it does seem that there are positive benefits to it. And. Even if it’s a placebo, I’ll take that because the mind is very powerful and we know the placebo effect is powerful. We know the nocebo effect is powerful, where if I don’t believe something is going to help me, it’s not going to help me likely.

Dr. John Schinnerer, Top Couples Counselor: So let’s talk about, how these psychedelics are being used legally for, some of the main issues, depression, anxiety, trauma addiction. PTSD. 

Matt Zemon, Expert on Psychedelics: Can we just stick on nocebo for a second? Cause I think it’s funny. So psychedelics is one thing. And Sam Harris talks about this a lot.

Matt Zemon, Expert on Psychedelics: You could go in with low expectations. I don’t know what psychedelics are going to do, but if you’re willing to surrender and let the, as you said, the medicine show, what’s going to show you. It’s one of those things, like you can meditate for 20 years and never really have a breakthrough. But you take five grams of psilocybin mushrooms in a.

Matt Zemon, Expert on Psychedelics: Safe setting [00:29:00] with you’re going to see something 

Dr. John Schinnerer, Top Couples Counselor: I agree. And I think there’s a difference between micro dosing and yeah, dosing. That is true. And I remember there was a researcher who’s been researching psilocybin since 1967, which is amazing, but he said, psychiatry does not have a tool in its toolbox as powerful as psilocybin.

Dr. John Schinnerer, Top Couples Counselor: In other words, there’s no one pill that you can give someone. They take it once and it’ll change the way you fundamentally see the world. And stay with you. There’s some research that it stays with you up to 10 years with psilocybin. And those changes are more flexible thinking, more open mindedness, which is good stuff.

Dr. John Schinnerer, Top Couples Counselor: We all need more of that. 

Matt Zemon, Expert on Psychedelics: Absolutely. I’ve certainly talked to people in their sixties and seventies who said, Oh, I had one major experience back in college or back when I was younger. And I’ve never needed to do it again. And I’ve never seen the world the same that stuck with them for 40, 50 years. 

Dr. John Schinnerer, Top Couples Counselor: And yeah, I completely agree with you.

Dr. John Schinnerer, Top Couples Counselor: You take four or five grams of mushrooms. There’s no such thing as a nocebo effect. 

Matt Zemon, Expert on Psychedelics: Yes. And that’s where I was [00:30:00] going with 

Dr. John Schinnerer, Top Couples Counselor: that. So that does blow that out of the water. I completely agree with you. 

Matt Zemon, Expert on Psychedelics: So before I interrupted you, you were asking about what’s being done with these different items. So post traumatic stress disorder or substance use, right?

Matt Zemon, Expert on Psychedelics: That’s where you’re headed with that. I love talking about what’s happening with post traumatic stress disorder, specifically treatment resistant post traumatic stress disorder. This is so wild to me. So for your audience, picture veterans, first responders, victims of sexual assault, where No, things work.

Matt Zemon, Expert on Psychedelics: They’ve tried different psychotropic medicines, they’ve tried different talk therapies, and they still have PTSD. And for an average 

Dr. John Schinnerer, Top Couples Counselor: length of time of 14 plus years. Big number. That’s insane. 

Matt Zemon, Expert on Psychedelics: And it’s a hard group to research. This is a, this is not the research dream of population. This is a challenging, challenging treatment resistant group.

Matt Zemon, Expert on Psychedelics: Phase three clinical trials sponsored by the multidisciplinary association of psychedelics studies. 

Dr. John Schinnerer, Top Couples Counselor: I was struggling with that acronym. Yeah, it was like in there for a [00:31:00] second. 

Matt Zemon, Expert on Psychedelics: They did, they gave these, this population some therapy. They gave them three sessions with MDMA and they gave them some more therapy.

Matt Zemon, Expert on Psychedelics: 67 percent no longer qualify as having PTSD and 88 percent had a clinically significant improvement in symptoms. 

Dr. John Schinnerer, Top Couples Counselor: Yeah. 

Matt Zemon, Expert on Psychedelics: 67 percent no longer qualify. 

Dr. John Schinnerer, Top Couples Counselor: And then the FDA fast tracked MDMA. 

Matt Zemon, Expert on Psychedelics: Correct. And that’s, yeah, we should see MDMA legalized again this country end of this year, beginning of next. After a 30 year, it’s been, I think since 86, it’s been, the battle has been on to re legalize this beautiful medicine.

Dr. John Schinnerer, Top Couples Counselor: It’s amazing. Rick Doblin of MAPS has been pursuing this for 37 years. Privately funded. 

Matt Zemon, Expert on Psychedelics: Yeah. And almost, or at $200 million of donations to make this happen from both sides to the aisle, by the way. We’re with over 20 veterans a day, killing themselves, taking their own lives. We need something else.

Matt Zemon, Expert on Psychedelics: Yeah. And there hasn’t really been a shift in, in mental health options since the creation of the [00:32:00] antidepressant over 50 years ago. 

Dr. John Schinnerer, Top Couples Counselor: And I think that MDMA is amazing for working couples therapy and largely because you get that open heartedness that interconnectedness, the flood of positive emotions, but also the downplaying or downregulating of the amygdala and the fear response.

Dr. John Schinnerer, Top Couples Counselor: So you can calmly talk about deep troubling issues without getting flooded by negative emotions. It’s huge. 

Matt Zemon, Expert on Psychedelics: It removes, first of all, it was used for couples therapy for many years. And then again, that’s again, one of the downsides in the space for those of us in the psychedelic space we actually recommend to couples like, yeah, you can well before you have marital issues or relationship issues a couple times a year, take an MDMA break with your spouse or your partner.

Dr. John Schinnerer, Top Couples Counselor: It’s amazing. 

Matt Zemon, Expert on Psychedelics: It’s amazing. And you remove shame, blame, and guilt from a conversation. And you can say to that person you love, Hey, when you do this, I feel that, and that person, instead of [00:33:00] responding out of fear or anger 

Dr. John Schinnerer, Top Couples Counselor: or defense, just look 

Matt Zemon, Expert on Psychedelics: at you and look at you with the eyes. It’s okay, I love you.

Matt Zemon, Expert on Psychedelics: And I remember how, why I love you. And I don’t want to hurt you. And I didn’t realize that this was doing this. It wasn’t my intention. And both parties can hear, heal, and move on 

Dr. John Schinnerer, Top Couples Counselor: here and be heard. 

Matt Zemon, Expert on Psychedelics: Yeah. 

Dr. John Schinnerer, Top Couples Counselor: Because the be heard part, I think is where we struggle because you tell me I hurt you and then I get defensive.

Dr. John Schinnerer, Top Couples Counselor: It wasn’t that bad or, I didn’t do that or whatever I say in response. And then you’re never heard.

Matt Zemon, Expert on Psychedelics: It’s a it’s incredibly powerful medicine. And again, I’m not trying to be chauvinistic, but especially for us men who so often live in our heads. 

Dr. John Schinnerer, Top Couples Counselor: I don’t think that’s chauvinistic. I think that’s realistic given how we’re socialized in a man box culture. 

Matt Zemon, Expert on Psychedelics: Good. So for us who we have a hard time expressing and showing emotion and feeling, allowing ourselves [00:34:00] the gift to feel.

Matt Zemon, Expert on Psychedelics: So again, you take this medicine and just open the heart up. It’s beautiful. And it’s and it can be done in a with a sexual context that can be done without one. And it’s really beautiful when it’s, no, we’re not going to engage in any sexual contact. We’re just going to feel each other. It’s just, it’s such a beautiful medicine and so many different ways.

Dr. John Schinnerer, Top Couples Counselor: Let’s talk a little bit about the difference between. Using MDMA to party, go to a rave or go to a disco versus using it to heal, because I’ve seen, it’s a fundamentally massive difference. And I’ve, I know some people, married couple that have done MDMA hundreds of times together. And I asked them recently have you ever done it and just sat together and talked focusing on healing your relationship?

Dr. John Schinnerer, Top Couples Counselor: And they both looked at me blankly and were like, no, oh my God, you really should. 

Matt Zemon, Expert on Psychedelics: Yeah, we talk a lot about intention and attention [00:35:00] and as we, when we think about our intention for these medicines so there’s an Alan Watson analogy where he says, look at this piano. I think he said a guitar.

Matt Zemon, Expert on Psychedelics: Even with someone who doesn’t know what they’re doing, they can pluck that guitar and just the craftsmanship of it, they can make some music, but you put that guitar in the hands of a professional musician and it’s just not making music. It’s telling stories. It’s evoking emotion. It’s doing all sorts of amazing things.

Matt Zemon, Expert on Psychedelics: Same thing that’s true about a psychedelic like MDMA, anybody can take it and have a good experience. If you take it in a party setting and you want to feel the music and feel the love of the room. That’s beautiful. Great. Good for you. But taking it with the intention. Of emotionally connecting with another human being or other human beings, plural, and and wanting to share and to be heard, like we talked about, and to hear.

Matt Zemon, Expert on Psychedelics: And to commit, it’s a different intention and that intention, therefore that [00:36:00] yields different results in this. And then that same premise can be true about, you can go to a dead show or I guess not anymore fish show and take a, take psychedelics and and have a good concert and you can sit in a ceremony.

Matt Zemon, Expert on Psychedelics: And give thanks to the mushrooms and give thanks to the ancestors and say I’m doing this I want to connect with my higher power and I want to understand what’s inside of me and I want to the medicine to show me what it needs me to see. And then consume the medicine and it’s a completely different experience.

Matt Zemon, Expert on Psychedelics: And then the third, just again, there’s, I’m sure there’s people listening who’ve had awful experiences because they took something at a party where they weren’t in a controlled setting and they didn’t know the people and they didn’t know the music and they didn’t know. There’s just too many variables and they were scared.

Matt Zemon, Expert on Psychedelics: And that can happen with these medicines is that everything can get heightened and colors can get distorted for sounds and sounds with colors and it’s, it can be scary if in that. I like Stanislav 

Dr. John Schinnerer, Top Couples Counselor: Grof’s [00:37:00] definition of psychedelics as nonspecific amplifiers. So they amplify things and you’re not quite sure what they’re going to amplify.

Dr. John Schinnerer, Top Couples Counselor: And so you want to make sure you’re in a safe setting. I think you want to have a good mindset going in. I think another big one, I don’t know that with psilocybin, this is so important, test in terms of harm reduction, like for MDMA, you want to make sure that you’re taking MDMA.

Matt Zemon, Expert on Psychedelics: Yeah. There’s a study. I think they looked at what was sold as MDMA from 1996 to I think 2017. And almost half of what was sold as MDMA had no MDMA in it. It’s a big number. So a lot of us or a lot of people took ecstasy in high school or in college or thought they took that and they didn’t, but that’s their experience and what they think MDMA is.

Matt Zemon, Expert on Psychedelics: Dance safe is an organization that sells test strips drug checker. You can send in drugs and they’ll check it. And then you can also look at how other drugs you can see in your area. Oh, this was I actually just gave a speech at or a talk at MIT and I was looking at I [00:38:00] pulled up drug checker, cocaine, Boston area.

Matt Zemon, Expert on Psychedelics: And it’s look, what’s in liquid was just sold last month. I don’t even want to. It was terrifying as what was sold as cocaine. And you can look at it, pick your medicine, pick your drug. And you can see what other ingredients are laced in these medicines. It’s a it’s one of the awful things about having an underground drug market in this country.

Matt Zemon, Expert on Psychedelics: It’s so dangerous. We talk about hundreds of thousands, 140, 000 drug deaths a year. How many of those are preventable, but we don’t have a, we don’t have a centralized place that we can trust as our source. Yeah. 

Dr. John Schinnerer, Top Couples Counselor: It’s not like going to the, to Walmart and picking up a six pack of beer and knowing that you’re going to get beer.

Dr. John Schinnerer, Top Couples Counselor: That’s 4. 3 percent alcohol content. 

Matt Zemon, Expert on Psychedelics: And for 7. 9%. And at least you’re aware you can choose your, I want to drink heavy alcohol. I want to drink light alcohol. You at least know what you’re getting. 

Dr. John Schinnerer, Top Couples Counselor: Yeah. Yeah. And dance safe. org. Both. Those are great resources that you mentioned. Dance safe has like fentanyl test strips [00:39:00] as well as drug test kits for multiple reagents for multiple substances.

Matt Zemon, Expert on Psychedelics: And they have just such an incredible organization that they again, for your listeners who aren’t familiar and a lot of the festival circuits, they’ll be there and for free people will drop off. And then they’ll take one or two pills of whatever it is that they’re thinking about taking dance safe.

Matt Zemon, Expert on Psychedelics: We’ll test it right then and there, and then they’ll Instagram out, Hey, blue Smurfs are not MDMA. Don’t take the blue Smurfs. What a service. 

Dr. John Schinnerer, Top Couples Counselor: Yeah, it’s huge. 

Matt Zemon, Expert on Psychedelics: Huge. 

Dr. John Schinnerer, Top Couples Counselor: So let’s talk a little bit. We’ve got about 10 minutes left about psychedelic use for depression. 

Matt Zemon, Expert on Psychedelics: And 

Dr. John Schinnerer, Top Couples Counselor: I’m assuming that’s mostly psilocybin.

Dr. John Schinnerer, Top Couples Counselor: At least that’s most of the studies that I’ve seen. 

Matt Zemon, Expert on Psychedelics: There’s a bunch of, so ketamine is our only legal psychedelic, disassociative anesthetic. Would you say ketamine 

Dr. John Schinnerer, Top Couples Counselor: is a psychedelic? 

Matt Zemon, Expert on Psychedelics: I think because of, I think it’s being classified as psychedelic is that it could be partially marketing, but it is, if it’s a 

Dr. John Schinnerer, Top Couples Counselor: dissociative, it’s a dissociative [00:40:00] 

Matt Zemon, Expert on Psychedelics: anesthetic.

Matt Zemon, Expert on Psychedelics: Yep. But you do drop into a, you drop into what they call the K hole. You have visuals, you have this you have many of the same properties as a psychedelic. It’s just not a classic psychedelic. Okay. And the research for depression, anxiety are pretty, pretty powerful. When you compare that to, if we say 40 percent or though for the general population, roughly 40 percent with work with an antidepressant, I think ketamine is closer to 70.

Matt Zemon, Expert on Psychedelics: So that’s a pretty big number. Again, all these studies are, can be skewed. What I like about ketamine is it doesn’t have the side effect profile that antidepressants have. So that’s nice. I like that you don’t take it every day. It’s, it, for many people, you take six doses over six weeks.

Matt Zemon, Expert on Psychedelics: So once a week for six weeks. And then maybe you go on to a quarterly or a bimonthly or an episodic regiment. It’s only about an hour journey. So figure you allocate two, three hours of your day for this. And then you’re the biggest side effect that they talk about is a [00:41:00] potentially liver issues over time, but that’s not really in the medical.

Matt Zemon, Expert on Psychedelics: It’s in the recreational versus what 73 percent of those who are taking an SSRI have sexual dysfunction 

Dr. John Schinnerer, Top Couples Counselor: or weight gain 

Matt Zemon, Expert on Psychedelics: or weight gain or lethargy or suicidal ideation. Those big side effects, it’s a big price tag and you don’t get addicted to ketamine. Again, you can with recreational, with high dose and high frequency.

Matt Zemon, Expert on Psychedelics: But you definitely get addicted to antidepressants coming off of those are a bear. And they’re not, they were never meant to be decade long solutions. They were meant to be to help people through episodes. And in our country, we’ve gone to, Oh, you’ve been prescribed it. And it’s a life sentence.

Matt Zemon, Expert on Psychedelics: And none of the doctors have the time to really work with their patients to get them off. So it’s I love, I always point people to the spirit pharmacist, Dr. Ben Malcolm. 

Dr. John Schinnerer, Top Couples Counselor: He 

Matt Zemon, Expert on Psychedelics: has a free guide to tapering antidepressants. That he, again, he won’t do your, be your local physician or [00:42:00] psychiatrist, but you can take that and say, okay, doctor, this is what I want to do.

Matt Zemon, Expert on Psychedelics: And this is the path I’m going to be on and have them oversee your process. Because if people don’t stand up for themselves and say, I want to get off of this very often, the doctors aren’t going to do it. It’s just too much work and there’s no money in it. So sorry, you were saying with depression, I’d love the work Johns Hopkins is doing with end of life depression and anxiety and saying, okay, we don’t, the other challenge with antidepressants is it can take up to 14 weeks to figure if it works.

Dr. John Schinnerer, Top Couples Counselor: People 

Matt Zemon, Expert on Psychedelics: with an end of life diagnosis, they don’t have 14 weeks, 

Dr. John Schinnerer, Top Couples Counselor: right? 

Matt Zemon, Expert on Psychedelics: And they certainly don’t want to be messing around with with that. So the idea that, okay, we’re going to give them a single dose of high dose of psilocybin. And it’s going to lift the depression, lift anxiety, show them the connectedness, potentially that there is a longer life, longer thread to this existence other than the human form that they have taken.

Matt Zemon, Expert on Psychedelics: And it’s, it doesn’t change the terminal diagnosis, but it does change the way they experienced the [00:43:00] last chapter, the way their family experiences them, the way they experienced their family. Oh my God, that is so beautiful. Like, how is that just not allowed? Period. Yeah. Yeah. And then certainly there’s a lot of other work with depression on whether it’s identity, whether it’s a lot of times it’s mad, they look at the manifestation we’re going to look at psychedelics for eating disorder, psychedelics for over here, psychedelics for substance use challenges and psychedelics for depression and anxiety.

Matt Zemon, Expert on Psychedelics: And it just seems. LSD, ketamine, psilocybin, MDMA, they’re all effective in this area. 

Dr. John Schinnerer, Top Couples Counselor: And let’s talk about the research on psilocybin and treatment resistant depression because, you talk about another hard to treat population and that’s right up there. 

Matt Zemon, Expert on Psychedelics: Yeah. And ketamine has similar results with psilocybin.

Matt Zemon, Expert on Psychedelics: Again Dr. John, there are people who are willing to. To dive into psilocybin and do something in this country that’s illegal. [00:44:00] And there’s others that want to be met at this medical model. And and both are beautiful and both are powerful and they’re very different. They both can work depending on what you’re trying to achieve as a person looking for your, looking for these answers inside that are inside of yourself.

Matt Zemon, Expert on Psychedelics: So it’s, how am I going to use any of this technology to look inside myself? And if ketamine gets you there, great. And if ketamine just opens up the idea of, oh, I can do this and I want to do something that’s longer, maybe then maybe you do that. 

Dr. John Schinnerer, Top Couples Counselor: Yeah. Do you have any concerns about the medical model of psilocybin, which seems devoid of the spiritual element?

Matt Zemon, Expert on Psychedelics: I have concerns. And I also want to. I think it’s all an, and I think there are people who I’ll use ketamine as an example because it’s a little bit easier. There are people in the medical field who are anesthesiologists who say, this is our domain. We are the ketamine experts in medicine and we [00:45:00] know it’s best.

Matt Zemon, Expert on Psychedelics: And it’s a biochemical reaction. And you’re going to come into our clinic and we’re going to take your vitals. We’re gonna put an IV in your arm and you’re going to have a biochemical release of relief of depression, anxiety, and we’re gonna send you on your ways. And we know it’s best. That feels cold, but it’s.

Matt Zemon, Expert on Psychedelics: I’m not a doctor. That’s it’s legal. There are others who are other worlds in the medicine or some anesthesiologists who say, no, let’s combine a little bit of ceremony here. Let’s do some preparation. Let’s treat this like a ceremony. Let’s do some integration. I like that model, but I personally like that model better.

Dr. John Schinnerer, Top Couples Counselor: The,

Matt Zemon, Expert on Psychedelics: and I do, as we talked about earlier, I think there a reconciliation between this medical and the spiritual. I think the pure science model can feel too clinical. And I think maybe the most important thing is I’m not sure they actually know what they’re going for. Is it just a biochemical reaction and we’re just trying to cure people or numb their symptoms, [00:46:00] or is it a biochemical psycho social spiritual solution and to help somebody with that, I need to address all of that.

Matt Zemon, Expert on Psychedelics: And I don’t know if our medical system’s really equipped to do that in the way that doctors and other people get paid. So I personally think it’s, if you can find the right spiritual communities on which to do this, you can both connect and do this type of work at the same time. 

Dr. John Schinnerer, Top Couples Counselor: Yeah. And I agree with what you’re saying.

Dr. John Schinnerer, Top Couples Counselor: I think that most medical professionals have maybe never had or have lost the holistic approach of looking at the whole person to your point. And I agree that there are layers to this and the spiritual layer is an important one to consider. 

Matt Zemon, Expert on Psychedelics: Yeah. That whole notion of, in the old days, it was a priest and the 

Dr. John Schinnerer, Top Couples Counselor: physician or shaman or, yeah, it 

Matt Zemon, Expert on Psychedelics: was one role 

Dr. John Schinnerer, Top Couples Counselor: medicine, man.

Matt Zemon, Expert on Psychedelics: Yeah. And now with the separation it’s just more [00:47:00] complicated. 

Dr. John Schinnerer, Top Couples Counselor: Yeah. Matt, this has been a fascinating and amazing conversation. Thank you so much. Where can people get ahold of you if they want to find your book, if they want to find out more? 

Matt Zemon, Expert on Psychedelics: So my book or both my book and the journal is everywhere books are sold.

Matt Zemon, Expert on Psychedelics: There’s an audible version of the book that where I read all the parts I wrote and women read all the parts that they wrote. And it’s beautiful. It’s a lot of fun to listen to it. Mattzieman. com. I’ve got a bunch of free videos. I’ve got a free guide to microdosing and people are welcome to send me messages there.

Matt Zemon, Expert on Psychedelics: And then I’m pretty active on LinkedIn and on Instagram. And I really do want to just provide whatever information that I can. So if you’re anyone in your audience has a question, So please feel free to to send me a message and it might take me a minute, but I’ll get back to you as a response.

Dr. John Schinnerer, Top Couples Counselor: Awesome. Thank you so much for your time. I truly appreciate it. 

Matt Zemon, Expert on Psychedelics: I appreciate you taking this much time to talk about this topic for your audience. So thank you, Dr. John. 

Dr. John Schinnerer, Top Couples Counselor: You bet. And that’s it for this episode of the Evolved Caveman Podcast. If you liked or loved this episode, please be sure to like, [00:48:00] rate, review, and share.

Dr. John Schinnerer, Top Couples Counselor: And if you didn’t like it, you don’t have to do a damn thing. Thanks so much. Until next time. This is Dr. John.