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How to Change Your Mind
Book Club 2019
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October 2019 - How to Change Your Mind
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Just read Camelia's excellent review and will share my response with the group (confession time!) I gave this book 5 stars, love Pollan anyway, and here is my comment: I'm glad our book group selected this one for our monthly read, as I read it recently and found it remarkable. You're review is great! I agree about the name, it somehow does not fit the book; it does sound like self-help. "How to Change Your Brain" would be more accurate but somehow doesn't have quite the ring to it.
Anyway, I must admit that at the age of 30 or so, being one of those people with a dangerously high level of almost unbearable curiousity about ... well, anything I don't know anything about ... I did try LSD and found it not only really, really fun, but, as the author says, it really DOES alter one's perception of the world. When I say "fun," I mean, how cool is it to watch the wood grain on the boring cheap paneling of the walls start to flow like a slow meandering river, and to stare at the boring whitish ceiling and watching it turn into oozing psychedelic patterns? Apparently this happens with many if not most people, it's not just an experience unique to myself, and this fact fascinates me ... how does it DO that? The author explains, somewhat. (And yes, some people might find this very frightening; I guess if you didn't know what was going on, you'd be terrified you were losing your mind; to me, it was an experiment so it wasn't scary.)
As far as your addiction question, personally I can only say that while quite a blast, it doesn't seem to be something you physically crave or even emotionally (like a really hot boyfriend.) It's more like that really cool trip to some exotic place ... you'd love to go back but you can't go back every day. It's energy and time consuming.
I also tried the ayauasca vine recently because I had a tenant who is a shaman (complete with drums, dancing, smoking herbs and weird smelling sprays) and all I did was feel real weird and puke. She said this is good, you're "purging." Uh-huh. Not fun.
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Saw this story today - My Adventures in Psychedelia by Helen Joyce. https://www.nybooks.com/daily/2019/10... The author's trip after reading Michael Pollan.What a Beautiful experience!
I thought a psilocybin trip sounded interesting until I read his description in chapter 4.The neuroscience chapter left me curious about other interpretations of data from fMRI and the default node network.
This will sound paranoid. On p376 he notes that governments in North America & Europe are again interested in research on psychedelics; I wonder for good or nefarious purposes?
Joan wrote: "This will sound paranoid. On p376 he notes that governments in North America & Europe are again interested in research on psychedelics; I wonder for good or nefarious purposes?"Both.
Finally finished review of this work.... I enjoyed this audio book. For much of it, I found the author's style a bit grating. Not sure why. Lacked fluidity in someways, and had an air of superficiality. However, this may be a reaction to the subject matter.
I've done psychedelics and suffered the consequences. Voices, paranoia, depression, anxiety... Yes, this may be the product of Borderline Personality Disorder, but the way drugs in general can mess up the brain is not overstated, as it should be. Yes, there is the disclaimer 'Not to try this at home' throughout the book, but perhaps a chapter dedicated to the problems the various compounds can cause should have been included. And not just the bad trips. The permanent psychosis that author's like Philip K. Dick sometimes write or refer to.
Read full review on Goodreads...
https://www.goodreads.com/review/show...
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