How to Change Your Mind

How to Change Your Mind is quite a different pace from the author's other books; but the result is excellent nonetheless. I typically had read Michael Pollan for his food non-fiction works but How to Change Your Mind is a personal journey of psychedelics that the author bolsters with history and science to help the reader learn about a subject that is seemingly wrongly a taboo. There's a lot of ground covered in the book and the level of objectivity is to be admired. For a person looking to learn about psychadelics, the mind and perspective on a balanced life; this is worth the read.The book is split really into 3 parts. The author gives a quick introduction to how he came to want to take the personal journey to understand psychedelics and the potential benefits as his personal background was largely absent of substance use/abuse so the first chapter really just contextualizes the why for this project as its a different pace than his previous books. The book then gets into a more structured approach and discusses the history of the use of psychedelics in the West. He discusses how mushrooms were discovered in Mexico and had been used for spiritual journeys and also how LSD was synthesized and shelved by Sandoz and how its use by an individual was largely a random act. Its pretty interesting to learn the history of what early benefits were perceived for LSD; in particular as a means to understand psychosis but soon after as a means to help with addiction and terminal illness. LSD and mushrooms were made illegal partially due to Timothy Leary and the counterculture that evolved and embraced their use and the author gives the stories of events. Its definitely interesting for those unfamiliar. After giving the reader a good sense of how people used and thought about psychedelics as they first explored their potential, the author gets into his experience in using them for the first time. Inevitably communicating the experience is tough as one has an altered state of consciousness that is difficult to communicate with accuracy, but to one gets a shadow of the author's experience on some serious mushrooms, LSD and a hallucinogenic toad. Its definitely entertaining and the sense of connectedness is conveyed. Especially if one has personal experience with doing the drugs the author does a pretty good job of describing some of the sensations. In any case the author goes through experiences of mushroom hunting as well as the perceptions while on it and the lingering aspects of the experience. If one has read the omnivore's dilemma, mushroom hunting falls within the author's expertise but magic mushrooms are seemingly much harder to distinguish from many poisonous mushrooms so the hunting process is pretty interesting. The author then discusses some of the understood neuroscience of hallucinogens and some theories about how psychedelics operate. This remains a subject of study so there aren't definitive conclusions but the author argues that mushrooms and LSD improve communication between parts of the brain which don't communicate actively and suppress activity in the more self referential parts of the brain which the author names the default network. The author discusses recent studies in psychedelic clinical research and notes funding for such programs has increased in the last decade. The author finally discusses how these substances might be useful to people. The focuses of discussion are on those terminally ill, as psychedelics can help a person come to grips with their mortality; the author takes a case study approach with this chapter and discusses the effects on particular people who found them extremely useful. The author discusses addiction as well and how addiction can be broken with psychedelics when properly applied, it is caveated though that the effects are unlikely to be permanent but can help behavior on the order of months. One needs to remember that these are areas that need to be studied such that clinical data can lead to actual conclusions about these topics rather than the stories and hopes projected by believers or the fears projected by the puritanical. The author finally discusses depression which is a huge category. The anecdotal evidence from the authors interactions were all positive about the benefits of clinically administered psychedelics to combat depression.How to Change Your Mind is an informative book to consider. The author partially argues that psychedelics become very useful as we get to middle age and get entrenched in our way of thinking. These drugs expand the way the mind processes and bring back a youthfulness to the way that the mind thinks about things that is very spiritual. The author is scientific in approach and given his non substance intensive background it seems to be an honest account of a subject which I am sure many people consider taboo so its quite convincing. The book definitely helps rationalize doing psychedelics for tangible benefit without real side effects; though it is careful to remind the reader the environment of consumption matters. Definitely worth the read and almost definitely worth the experience if one can!

Pollan’s book is a fascinating exploration of the history and science of psychedelics, as well as their resurgence in both current research and public interest. He weaves together vivid personal narratives with well-researched reporting, and his use of metaphor adds both clarity and pleasure to the reading experience. His explanation of the neuroscience—especially the Default Mode Network (DMN)—is the clearest I’ve encountered. For the first time, I feel like I understand what the DMN is and why it matters. Throughout, Pollan maintains a thoughtful skepticism and stays grounded in evidence. It’s an engaging, informative, and thoroughly enjoyable read.

I've enjoyed several if Michael Pollan's other books and I was intrigued after watching his Google talk on this one. I have never used psychadelics and knew very little about them, other than various stereotypes from TV and film, anecdotal reports from friends, and horror stories from health class. In his talk he touched on a few points that really stuck with me, such as the promising research into psychadelics treating a variety of mental disorders, and the history and influence of them in high tech. I'm so glad I decided to pick this book up because I absolutely loved it. It's one of my favorite books I've read, and my favorite from Michael Pollan. Other longer reviews likely delve into what content to expect so I'll outline what stuck out to me as especially interesting and enjoyable.- Michael Pollan's writing is a joy to read. I highlighted a hefty portion of this book, and many of those were little phrases and descriptions which perfectly captured what he was trying to describe or captured the essence of someone's character.- Speaking of characters, Michael Pollan crossed paths with a host of eccentric characters, and his descriptions of them were a delight to read. Many were "out there" by most standards but he documented their ideas, theories, and life choices fairly and without judgement.- On that note, this book deals with a tricky subject matter, and handles it quite well. Much of what he's documenting is at least for now outside the realm of science, and he does an excellent job describing what science is there now, where the research is headed, and what experiences and ideas we may just never be able to explain with the tools of science. The subject matter is also, of course, illegal, and many readers with certain backgrounds or in a certain age bracket will come to this book with prejudices, thinking they understand psychadelics as a negative force on society which derails lives and drives young minds to mental disorder. I would strongly encourage anyone with a negative view of psychadelics to give this book a try. Michael Pollan's narrative on these drugs is largely positive (assuming the right setting and context), but I think he also gives a fair voice to their potential risks and detractors.- This book changed how I think about my own mind, and while I'm not about to rush out and buy a bunch of LSD I have been very reflective of how my mind works, what this experience of conciousness even is, and most importantly how my ego / sense of self doesn't have to be my entire identity and what the benefits of letting go of that a bit could be. I've struggled my whole life with anxiety, depression, obsessive thinking, and thought spirals. The descriptions of getting stuck in certain modes of thinking and becoming destructively inward focused felt dead on. That something as simple as a mushroom or meditation can shake the brain up and help someone escape from deeply ingrained patterns of thinking is fascinating and potentially extremely important. I feel like I can now step back a bit and identify some of these destructive patterns in my own thinking where my ego runs wild, and on the other end of the spectrum can reflect back on sublime "mystical" feeling experiences I've had, and how small but connected I felt to things (like MP I feel uncomfortable using like "mystical" and "spiritual" but that's the language I have to work with).- The stories in this book are great and often very funny. Because each section, even the more science heavy ones, are presented as well told stories, the book is very engaging and information easy to take in.This review may come across as disjointed but that's because I'm still sorting out all of the interesting information and insights I gained. Definitely give this one a read if you're feeling open minded.

Very informative. I loved the historical aspect of the book and learned a great deal about the history of psilocybin. The author does get a bit repetitive about his personal experiences but it's still a very solid and fascinating read.