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Giants Shoulder: Daily Summaries Delivered
by Evan McGloughlin
A Neuroscience podcast. Each week I talk with experts on a range of topics from consciousness and neuroplasticity to evolution and everything in between. I have a particular interest in consciousness and understanding our inner subjective conscious experience. Evan has a Neuroscience degree from Trinity College Dublin and is the co-founder of 2 (failed) edtech startups. He is a professional tennis coach and Triathlete enthusiast.
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- Today1h 15m
#129 - Meet The Worlds Greatest Emotion Neuroscientist
Want a full breakdown of your own conscious inner experience? Join the Giant’s Shoulder community: https://www.skool.com/the-giants-shoulder-6526/aboutJoseph LeDoux is, by almost any measure, the greatest emotion neuroscientist who has ever lived. His work has been cited more than 185,000 times, he wrote The Emotional Brain — the book that defined the field — and he put the amygdala on the map as the brain’s fear centre. Then he spent a decade arguing that everyone, including himself, got the lesson wrong.Expect to learn how a marketing student accidentally became the most-cited emotion researcher alive, what split-brain experiments reveal about why your brain invents fake explanations for your behaviour, why the amygdala is not a fear centre and what it actually does, how every act of remembering chemically rewrites the memory, why anxiety drugs have been targeting the wrong brain circuit for 50 years, what the Four Realms of Existence means for the concept of self, why emotions are culturally acquired schema rather than universal hardwired states, and much more…Timestamps0:00:00 Trailer0:02:43 From Marketing Student to Neuroscientist0:06:18 Moving to New York and Meeting Gazzaniga0:07:37 How Split-Brain Surgery Works0:09:58 The Chicken and Shovel Experiment0:12:13 We Are Confabulating 24/70:17:13 Why He Chose to Study Emotion in Rats0:19:26 His Grant Was Rejected for Studying Emotions0:22:30 Masquerading as a Learning Researcher0:25:22 Growing Discomfort With the Amygdala Fear Centre0:28:23 Rethinking the Emotional Brain0:30:47 Why Fear Isn’t Universal — Danger Is0:33:19 Emotions as Acquired Schema0:35:22 The Four Realms of Existence0:40:36 Cognition vs Consciousness in Animals0:41:29 Tulving’s Three Kinds of Consciousness0:47:57 The Brain Region Only Humans Have0:53:40 Your Model Is Still on the Slide — And You Disagree0:55:05 The George Martin Analogy0:56:37 Why Anxiety Drugs Don’t Actually Work0:58:21 The Three-Step Fix for Fear1:01:27 Higher-Order Theories of Consciousness1:05:36 Using AI to Decode Conscious vs Unconscious Speech...... Email for sponsorship enquiries: evan@thegiantsshoulder.comGuest LinksNYU Faculty Page: https://as.nyu.edu/faculty/joseph-e-ledoux.htmlPersonal Website: https://www.joseph-ledoux.com/Google Scholar: https://scholar.google.com/citations?user=iAqJssMAAAAJ&hl=enPsychology Today: https://www.psychologytoday.com/us/contributors/joseph-e-ledoux-phdThe Four Realms of Existence (Harvard University Press): https://www.hup.harvard.edu/books/9780674291003
- 5 days ago1h 50m
#128 - Meet the Neuroscientist Proving Scientists Got Conscious Ai WRONG
Get Jenni, Your Intelligent Research Assistant (GIANT20 for 20% off): http://jenni.ai/?utm_source=youtube&utm_medium=inf&utm_campaign=thegiantsshoulderGet the Muse EEG Headband (15% off): https://choosemuse.com/giantsshoulderPaul Cisek is a control neuroscientist at the University of Montreal who records from single neurons in the brains of monkeys as they think, and who has spent decades reconstructing how the brain evolved across hundreds of millions of years. His verdict cuts against everything Silicon Valley believes: the brain was never a computer — it's a control system built to keep a body alive, and the most advanced AI on Earth understands nothing it says.Expect to learn why Richard Dawkins is wrong that Claude could be conscious, why every era wrongly compares the brain to its fanciest technology, how a baseball outfielder reveals what the brain is really doing, why large language models are "Eliza on steroids" and 100% illusion, where meaning actually comes from and why LLMs can never have it, why the real danger isn't ChatGPT but the agentic systems that come next, whether a paramecium could be conscious, what Michael Levin's neuron-growing biobots tell us about minds, and much more…Timestamps0:00:00 Trailer0:02:33 Why Paul Rescheduled to Watch a Monkey Learn0:06:13 Probing Electrodes Into a Living Brain0:13:42 What a Single Neuron Actually Sounds Like0:20:41 The Brain Is Not a Camera Plugged Into a Computer0:24:55 How an Outfielder Catches a Ball Without Doing Physics0:33:24 Why Federer "Lets the Cerebellum Run the Show"0:38:09 Richard Dawkins Says Claude Might Be Conscious0:39:11 Every Era Thinks the Brain Is Its Latest Gadget0:42:36 Why AI Is "Eliza on Steroids" and 100% Illusion0:45:38 The Mechanical Turk and the Stage Magician0:48:09 The Mimicry Irony at the Heart of Dawkins' Mistake0:52:32 The One Thing AlphaFold and ChatGPT Both Lack0:53:30 Where Meaning Actually Comes From0:57:55 Language Is Persuasion: The Crying Baby Problem1:03:14 The Paper With Friston and Clark on What AI Misses1:04:48 Could You Build a Machine That Wants Things?1:10:23 Build a Mind, Build a Rival: Do We Even Want To?1:13:32 Is a Paramecium Conscious?1:18:11 Why There's No Line Between a Lump of Cells and You1:23:18 Population Thinking: It's All Continuums1:30:36 The Mad Scientist Won't Be Sam Altman — It'll Be Michael Levin1:36:29 Does Synthetic Biology Deserve Its Own Doomsday?1:39:37 Why Real Intelligence Would Be a Competitor We Should Fear1:43:20 Why the Real World Humbles Every Robot...Want a full breakdown of your own conscious inner experience?Join the Giant's Shoulder community: https://www.skool.com/the-giants-shoulder-6526/aboutEmail for sponsorship enquiries: evan@thegiantsshoulder.com...GS Episodes MentionedPaul Cisek Round 1: https://youtu.be/C6frE6nj1tYMichael Levin — Meet the Scientist Creating New Forms of Synthetic Life! Dr Michael Levin: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LTBZRVKUwyMAnil Seth — No. 1 Consciousness Expert: Optical Illusions that Prove Reality is a Lie, Emotions, Books and AI: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lOSA06K0l1oKarl Friston — Meet The Neuroscientist Who Created The Best Universal Theory Of Brain Function: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=R-IZOFs4qmYMark Solms — Meet the Scientist Proving Dreams Hold the Key to Consciousness! Dr Mark Solms: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nMWaQ1U6dcc...Guest LinksPaul Cisek — Faculty page, Université de Montréal: https://neurosciences.umontreal.ca/en/our-team/staff-directory/staff/cisek-paul/Cisek Lab: https://www.ciseklab.umontreal.ca/Google Scholar: https://scholar.google.com/citations?user=Bbk0DEcAAAAJX / Twitter: https://x.com/PaulCisek...
- 1 weeks ago1h 10m
#127 Meet the Neuroscientist Who Gave A Brain to Michael Levins Xenobot’s
Get One Month Free of Consensus (The Best Ai Science Tool): https://get.consensus.app/we00d2cmjpqeUpgrade Your Shaving Experience With Henson (100 FREE BLADES): https://hensonshaving.com/thegiantsshoulderWant a full breakdown of your own conscious inner experience? Join the Giant's Shoulder community: https://www.skool.com/the-giants-shoulder-6526/aboutHaleh Fotowat is a neuroscientist who builds nervous systems from scratch — the scientist who gave neurons to Michael Levin's xenobots, the living robots made from frog cells. When those neurons self-organised into a working nervous system, they switched on genes for eyes, in a creature that has never had eyes and never existed in nature.Expect to learn how a clump of frog skin cells becomes a moving biological robot, why these cells secretly default to becoming neurons unless their neighbours stop them, what happened when the neurons grew axons and reached out for the body, why every neurobot develops its own movement personality, how a brainless blob forces you to redefine agency and goals, why the neurons switched on genes for eyes despite having none, what a seizure drug revealed about which biobots truly have nervous systems, what might happen if you gave the neurobots DMT, and much more…Timestamps0:00:00 Trailer0:02:05 What Is a Neurobot?0:02:39 Building a Living Robot From Frog Cells0:08:46 Why These Cells Secretly Want to Be Neurons0:10:48 What's the Point of This Research?0:16:26 Brain Cells in a Dish Playing Doom0:18:16 A Warehouse Full of Human Neurons0:19:16 What Happened When the Neurons Grew0:21:36 The Neurons Reached Out for the Body0:25:51 Why Each Neurobot Has Its Own Personality0:28:51 Can a Blob of Neurons Have Goals?0:39:42 Braitenberg's Vehicles: Complexity From Simplicity0:42:25 Biology Is Cognition All the Way Down0:49:12 The Eyes That Shouldn't Exist0:54:18 Xenobots Grew Genes for Hearing1:01:16 The Role of Bioelectricity1:04:02 One Question for Michael Levin1:06:53 What If You Gave the Neurobots DMT?1:07:27 The Seizure Drug That Surprised Everyone...... Email for sponsorship enquiries: evan@thegiantsshoulder.comGS Episodes MentionedMichael Levin — Meet the Scientist Creating New Forms of Synthetic Life! Dr Michael Levin: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LTBZRVKUwyMBrett Kagan — Meet The Neuroscientist Creating New Forms of Sentient Biological Intelligence: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TXlJc4tu1F8Philip Ball — Biology Is Infinitely Weirder Than We Thought: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9SseGx0R0fYJosh Bongard — Meet The Scientist Who Created The First Living Robot: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3h908uoH6n4Guest LinksAllen Discovery Center (Tufts) Profile: https://allencenter.tufts.edu/our-team/haleh-fotowat-ph-d/Art Website: http://www.halehfotowat.comGoogle Scholar: https://scholar.google.com/citations?user=W5KTeEMAAAAJLinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/haleh-fotowat/ResearchGate: https://www.researchgate.net/scientific-contributions/Haleh-Fotowat-2245482149
- 1 weeks ago1h 39m
#126 - Michael Levin & Earl Miller: Bioelectricity, Platonic Spaces, Cell Intelligence & Neurobots
Get Jenni Your Intelligent Research Assistant (GIANT20 for 20% off) - http://jenni.ai/?utm_source=youtube&utm_medium=inf&utm_campaign=thegiantsshoulderUpgrade Your Shaving Experience With Henson (100 FREE BLADES): https://hensonshaving.com/thegiantsshoulderWant a full breakdown of your own conscious inner experience? Join the Giant's Shoulder community: https://www.skool.com/the-giants-shoulder-6526/aboutMichael Levin is a developmental biologist who builds living creatures that have never existed before, and Earl Miller is a neuroscientist who has spent thirty years arguing that your thoughts live in the brain's electric fields, not its wiring. In the same room together for the first time, they agree on something that sounds insane — that bioelectricity is the engine of mind at every scale of life, from a single cell deciding to grow an eye to a human deciding what to eat for lunch.Expect to learn how cells use a bioelectric code you can read and rewrite to grow an eye on a tadpole's tail, why no single cell knows what an eye is but the collective does, how a flatworm regrows a whole new brain and keeps its old memories, why the brain is an orchestra of electric waves and not a telegraph of wires, how three different anaesthetics switch off consciousness through one mechanism reductionism can't explain, why consciousness may just be the story your brain tells about what it already did, whether memories can be transplanted between bodies, what the Platonic space of minds is and why Levin thinks physicalism died with Pythagoras, and much more…Timestamps: 0:00:00 Trailer0:02:46 The Vacuum Tubes That Started It All0:08:36 How to Read and Rewrite the Bioelectric Code0:12:36 Why No Single Cell Knows What an Eye Is0:15:22 Your Brain Is Not a Telegraph System0:19:30 Why They Called It Magic and Bullshit0:24:56 Flatworm or Human Brain — Same Code?0:30:00 Where Is Memory Actually Stored?0:32:24 The Flatworm That Regrows Its Memories0:34:34 People Living Without Most of Their Brain0:40:32 Can Memories Live Outside the Brain?0:43:26 Will a Rat Pop Down to the 7-Eleven for Smokes?0:49:14 Consciousness Is Overrated (Says a Neuroscientist)0:53:17 Hey Liver, Why Do I Feel Like Crap?0:54:20 Nobody Knows Why Anaesthesia Works0:57:21 Three Drugs, One Mystery, One Mechanism0:58:50 Why Anaesthesia Is Dangerous When You're Old1:02:12 What Is a Neurobot?1:08:18 The Eyes That Shouldn't Exist1:13:28 What Is the Platonic Space of Minds?1:20:44 Devil's Advocate: Have We Just Not Figured It Out?1:24:03 The Free Lunch: More Out Than You Put In1:29:36 Why Physicalism Died With Pythagoras1:32:52 How Bioelectricity Touches the Platonic Space...GS Episodes MentionedAnil Seth — No. 1 Consciousness Expert: Optical Illusions that Prove Reality is a Lie, Emotions, Books and AI!: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lOSA06K0l1oGuest LinksMichael Levin — Allen Discovery Center (Tufts): https://allencenter.tufts.edu/our-team/michael-levin/Michael Levin — Website: https://www.drmichaellevin.orgEarl Miller — The Miller Lab (MIT): https://ekmillerlab.mit.edu/Earl Miller — X: https://x.com/MillerLabMIT
- 2 weeks ago1h 46m
#125 Meet The World’s Greatest Endogenous DMT Psychedelic Scientist
Get One Month Free of Consensus (The Best Ai Science Tool): https://get.consensus.app/we00d2cmjpqeUpgrade Your Shaving Experience With Henson (100 FREE BLADES): https://hensonshaving.com/thegiantsshoulderWant a full breakdown of your own conscious inner experience? Join the Giant's Shoulder community: https://www.skool.com/the-giants-shoulder-6526/aboutSteven Barker is the world's longest-running DMT researcher and the analytical chemist who helped prove the molecule exists in the mammalian brain. He argues your brain manufactures its own psychedelic at the same concentration as serotonin — and floods your cortex with it under stress and as you die.Expect to learn why Steven believes your brain produces DMT at serotonin-level concentrations, how 29 years of drug-testing racehorses gave him the tools to find it, why he says David Nichols is wrong about endogenous DMT, why stress can make brain DMT spike tenfold, how a hidden receptor inside your neurons may explain how psychedelics rewire the brain, why the DMT trip might be neuroplasticity you can actually feel, what DMT entities really are, and much more…Timestamps0:00:00 Trailer0:02:40 The Recurring Dream That Started a 50-Year Obsession0:06:53 Hunting For The Brain's Own Psychedelic In 19720:12:54 The Discovery That We ALL Make DMT0:19:07 Were Psychedelics Ever Meant To Be Medicine?0:22:17 How The War On Drugs Killed The Research0:24:02 Funding Psychedelic Science With Racehorse Drug Tests0:34:56 Why You Can't Patent A Psychedelic0:36:31 The Psychedelic Trip Is Just An "Overdose"0:41:58 Why David Nichols Is Wrong About DMT0:50:16 The "Pineal Is Too Small" Argument Is Ludicrous0:54:20 DMT Is In Your Brain At Serotonin Levels1:01:00 Stress Floods Your Brain With DMT1:02:32 Why Everyone Else Failed To Detect DMT1:12:05 The Hidden Receptor Inside Your Neurons1:19:54 Is The DMT Trip Just Neuroplasticity You Can Feel?1:26:09 What DMT Entities Actually Are1:32:15 Are We Building A New Psychedelic Religion?1:42:11 50 Years of DMT and The Nature of Consciousness1:44:26 Why He's Still A "Proud Reductionist"...Email for sponsorship enquiries: evan@thegiantsshoulder.comGS Episodes MentionedDavid Nichols — Meet The Greatest Living Psychedelic Scientist You've Never Heard Of: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6umTgXsW1lQBryan Roth — Meet The World's Greatest Psychedelic Receptor Scientist: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sEmmmMma8QsAndrew Gallimore — No.1 DMT Neurobiologist: Alien Worlds, DMT Entity Encounters, Attractor States and Consciousness: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=USgWrxEFWDAGuest LinksResearchGate: https://www.researchgate.net/profile/Steven-Barker-8Cottonwood Research Foundation: https://www.cottonwoodresearch.org
- 2 weeks ago1h 45m
#124 - Meet the Professor of Paranormal Consciousness - DMT Entities, Telepathy Tapes & OBE's
Get One Month Free of Consensus (The Best Ai Science Tool): https://get.consensus.app/we00d2cmjpqeGet Muse EEG Headband (15% off): https://choosemuse.com/giantsshoulderWant a full breakdown of your own conscious inner experience? Join the Giant's Shoulder community (100% free): https://www.skool.com/the-giants-shoulder-6526/aboutDavid Luke is the world's first and only Professor of Exceptional Experience — a parapsychologist and psychedelic researcher at the University of Greenwich who has spent two decades running experiments on the phenomena mainstream science refuses to touch. His naturalistic DMT field study found that 90% of participants encountered autonomous entities, 85% believed they were real — and some were blocked from returning by the entities themselves.Expect to learn why 90% of DMT users encounter entities and 85% say they're real, what happens when the entities refuse you entry, how your body responds to images before you've seen them, why someone with zero visual imagery can still meet elves on DMT, how entity encounters shift people's sense of purpose and meaning more than any other psychedelic effect, what the telepathy tapes are and why they show 100% success rates, why physics gets to be weird but consciousness doesn't, what a neo-pagan shamanically-informed lazy mystic actually believes about reality, and much more…0:00:00 Trailer0:04:03 Double Career Suicide0:07:32 The DMT Field Study0:13:45 Your Body Predicts the Future0:16:01 Huxley's Reducing Valve Theory0:20:23 Chris Timmermann's DMT Research0:23:20 90% Encounter Entities0:24:48 Punched in the Head by God0:27:17 The DMT Entity Taxonomy0:29:03 Experiencing Entities Without Vision0:48:28 The Aphantasia DMT Trip0:53:47 Entities Leaking Into Other People's Trips0:54:23 DMT Blocking0:56:30 The Entities Said Bugger Off0:59:57 Endogenous DMT and the Pineal Gland1:02:55 David Nichols Dismantles the Pineal Theory1:05:52 Giant Mantis Entities1:11:12 Purpose & Meaning: The #1 Wellbeing Shift1:12:06 The Telepathy Tapes1:19:54 The Ganzfeld Experiment1:24:16 Physics Gets To Be Weird But We Can't1:26:33 Why DMT Entities Are So Reliable1:29:33 Pablo Amaringo's Ayahuasca Art1:36:34 Do You Have a Stable Ontology?1:38:12 The Lazy Mystic1:39:34 In the Province of the Mind There Are No Limits...Email for sponsorship enquiries: evan@thegiantsshoulder.com ❤️ Subscribe to our main channel - https://www.youtube.com/@thegiantsshoulder?sub_confirmation=1💚 Follow on Spotify - https://open.spotify.com/show/5m3Gta5MtIYdk59pb2GJ7M?si=Ka2rAQv7TyqiC9wvGwERpA💜 Follow on Apple Podcasts - https://podcasts.apple.com/ie/podcast/the-giants-shoulder/id1752486249Download my FREE EBook 26 Neuroscience Books for 2026 HERE: https://thegiantsshoulder.com/
- 3 weeks ago1h 17m
#123 Meet The Most Persuasive Panpsychist Alive Today
Want to go deeper on consciousness? Join our community where we run live discussions, inner experience challenges and early ad free access to every episode: https://www.skool.com/the-giants-shoulder-6526/aboutPhilip Goff is a professor of philosophy at Durham University and author of Galileo's Error and Why? The Purpose of the Universe. Stephen Fry called him the most persuasive panpsychist alive.Physics tells us everything about what matter does — but nothing about what it actually is. Goff argues this isn't a gap we'll close — it's a permanent hole. And the best candidate to fill it is consciousness itself.Expect to learn why physics can only describe what stuff does and not what it is, how Evan's sister discovered at 31 she has zero mental imagery, why Bertrand Russell may have already solved consciousness a hundred years ago, what 5-MeO-DMT revealed to a philosopher about the nature of reality, the difference between weak and strong emergence and why it matters for AI, and much more…Timestamps:00:00 Trailer02:21 What Makes Consciousness Radically Different05:24 Evan's Descriptive Experience Sampling Experiment06:42 Discovering Aphantasia at 3108:27 Change Blindness and the Invisible Gorilla10:40 Mary's Room: What Red Looks Like13:21 Why Consciousness Theories Ignore Subjective Experience16:48 The Resurgence of Panpsychism18:14 Bertrand Russell: The Darwin of Consciousness20:13 Evan's Psychedelic Journey Toward Biopsychism22:12 Taking 5-MeO-DMT as a Philosopher24:38 Michael Pollan, Plants and Psychedelic Openness28:45 Is Consciousness Computational or Biological?30:43 The Combination Problem: How Tiny Minds Become One37:17 Russell's Inversion: Start With Consciousness40:21 The Hole in Physics: What Stuff Does vs What It IS41:50 Why Bernardo Kastrup Gets Cross44:41 Galileo's Error: The Decision That Broke Science47:20 Aphantasia, Visual Decoding and the Consciousness Gap49:50 Front Brain vs Back Brain: Where Is Consciousness?52:40 Eric Schwitzgebel's Snail Problem55:40 Philosopher-Scientist Teams: A New Model1:03:01 Strong Emergence and New Causal Dynamics1:04:47 Will We Fall in Love With Robots?1:07:22 The Genome Didn't Solve Life1:10:54 The $10 Billion Consciousness Experiment...GS Episodes MentionedAnil Seth — Consciousness, Controlled Hallucination, Perception: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lOSA06K0l1oPhilip Ball — Quantum Mechanics, Brain Organoids, How Life Works: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nNbG5lnp51EKevin Mitchell — Free Will, Neuroplasticity, Strong Emergence: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0VGWzGqA32EMatthias Michel — Consciousness Philosophy, Aphantasia, Fish Consciousness: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gtVWgpVPr1sRussell Hurlburt — Inner Experience, Descriptive Experience Sampling: https://youtu.be/j0gKl-g3DNgRobert Prentner — Conscious Agent Theory, Mathematics of Experience: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kTKE8eLo8CUCharles Fernyhough — Inner Speech, Hearing Voices, Memory: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mJFY6dypPc4## Follow PhilipEmail for sponsorship enquiries: evan@thegiantsshoulder.com❤️ Subscribe to our main channel - https://www.youtube.com/@thegiantsshoulder?sub_confirmation=1💚 Follow on Spotify - https://open.spotify.com/show/5m3Gta5MtIYdk59pb2GJ7M?si=Ka2rAQv7TyqiC9wvGwERpA💜 Follow on Apple Podcasts - https://podcasts.apple.com/ie/podcast/the-giants-shoulder/id1752486249
- 3 weeks ago1h 39m
#122 - Meet the Psychiatrist Training To Be An Ayahuasca Shaman
Want to truly understand your own conscious inner experience? I built a tool and its free - https://www.skool.com/the-giants-shoulder-6526/aboutDr Simon Ruffell is a clinical psychiatrist and the CEO of Onaya Science, the research organisation that studies Amazonian ayahuasca healing alongside Shipibo curanderos in the Peruvian rainforest. His team ran the first-ever study on a psychedelic and human epigenetics — finding that ayahuasca methylates the trauma-memory gene SIGMAR1, mapping precisely onto what the Shipibo have called "cleaning ancestral lines" for thousands of years.Expect to learn why a Maudsley-trained psychiatrist walked away from the NHS to apprentice as a Shipibo shaman, what happens when a curandero performs an exorcism on you mid-ceremony, how 80% of veterans no longer met PTSD criteria six months after a two-week retreat, why the curandero traditionally drinks the ayahuasca and the patient doesn't, what happened when Simon gave a Shipibo curandero a hit of pure crystal DMT, why DMT entities might be real and where Robin Carhart-Harris and Andrew Gallimore disagree about it, and much more…Timestamps:00:00 Trailer03:20 What is Shipibo Curanderismo?04:52 From disillusioned NHS psychiatrist to the Peruvian Amazon10:14 First ayahuasca: shown two versions of myself15:41 The demon attack and the three suckers26:13 Bridging Western psychiatry and Amazonian shamanism36:04 Are DMT entities real? Carhart-Harris vs Gallimore49:50 Inside the multimodal veteran PTSD study52:41 DMT vs ayahuasca — what's actually different57:11 Should you try this? Preparation and "gringo wasca"1:04:52 The first-ever psychedelic epigenetics study (SIGMAR1)1:12:17 "Cleaning ancestral lines" — when Indigenous science met Western1:16:51 80% no longer meet PTSD criteria — the real numbers1:20:37 The shaman drinks, not the patient — traditional protocol1:30:41 The spiritual mechanism of action1:34:54 The dream experiment — plant personalitiesEmail for sponsorship enquiries: evan@thegiantsshoulder.com FOLLOW SIMON:Website: https://www.drsimonruffell.comInstagram: @sgdruffellOnaya Science: https://www.onaya.ioHeroic Hearts UK: https://www.heroicheartsuk.orgPAST EPISODES MENTIONED:Robin Carhart-Harris — Entropic Brain, How Psychedelics Really Work and Consciousness: https://youtu.be/t-GkE4YtLRkAndrew Gallimore — DMT Neurobiologist: Alien Worlds, Entity Encounters, Attractor States and Consciousness: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=USgWrxEFWDAGrace Blest-Hopley — Psychedelics Expert: Who is Blocking Psychedelic Research?: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FBcLxMfUzxw
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About Giants Shoulder
A Neuroscience podcast. Each week I talk with experts on a range of topics from consciousness and neuroplasticity to evolution and everything in between. I have a particular interest in consciousness and understanding our inner subjective conscious experience. Evan has a Neuroscience degree from Trinity College Dublin and is the co-founder of 2 (failed) edtech startups. He is a professional tennis coach and Triathlete enthusiast.
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