#135 - Consciousness Expert Explains The 5 Levels Of The Psilocybin Experience

Get One Month Free of Consensus (The Best Ai Science Tool): https://get.consensus.app/we00d2cmjpqeGet Manta Sleep Mask: https://bit.ly/4ilzfBL and Code GIANTSMANTA10Matthew Johnson is a psychedelic addiction scientist who spent over two decades at Johns Hopkins before becoming the senior researcher at Sheppard Pratt's Center of Excellence for Psilocybin Research. He's personally guided over 100 people through high-dose psilocybin sessions and says the "mystical experience" that shows up in the data predicts recovery even after you strip out how strong the drug felt.Expect to learn how the psilocybin experience changes as the dose climbs from one gram to a full "heroic dose," why a mystical-type experience predicts addiction recovery even after controlling for how intense the drug felt, what separates a mystical experience from personal insight and emotional catharsis as predictors of healing, why DMT users around the world keep reporting the same handful of entity archetypes, the peer-reviewed Rupert Sheldrake experiment testing whether people can sense who's about to call them before the phone rings, why he thinks rigorous telepathy research keeps getting ignored rather than debunked, why a hard-nosed behavioral pharmacologist ends up leaning toward an idealist view of reality, and much more…Timestamps:0:00:00 Trailer0:02:28 Who Matt Johnson Actually Is0:04:34 How He First Got Into Psychedelics0:09:07 Did He Sense Addiction Benefits Early On0:15:03 The First Mystical Experience Trial At Hopkins0:16:42 What Counts As A High Dose Session0:22:17 How The Trip Changes From 1 To 5 Grams0:30:41 Why Mystical Experiences Predict Better Outcomes0:33:34 Insight And Catharsis As Separate Predictors0:39:49 DMT Entities And Machine Elves Explained0:44:02 Why 20% Of DMT Users See The Same Beings0:52:58 The Peer-Reviewed Telepathy Experiment That Shocked Him0:59:32 Why No One Has Funded A Real Telepathy Study1:11:04 Attention Schema Theory And The Illusion Of Self1:16:00 Could A Single Cell Have Experience1:17:54 Why He Leans Toward Idealism Over Materialism...Want a full breakdown of your own conscious inner experience? Join the Giant's Shoulder community: https://www.skool.com/the-giants-shoulder-6526/about... Email for sponsorship enquiries: evan@thegiantsshoulder.comGS Episodes MentionedMichael Graziano — Challenging a Famous Neuroscientist On When Consciousness First Emerged: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZnasmLpY5_8Guest LinksSheppard Pratt Profile: https://www.sheppardpratt.org/news-views/story/sheppard-pratt-announces-dr-matthew-w-johnson-as-senior-researcher-for-the-center-of-excellence-for-psilocybin-research-and-treatment/X: https://x.com/drug_researcherGoogle Scholar: https://scholar.google.com/citations?user=fWhYUvwAAAAJ&hl=enResearchGate: https://www.researchgate.net/profile/Matthew-Johnson-57JHU Faculty Bio: https://hub.jhu.edu/experts/profiles/matthew-johnson/