Dreaming Awake: Beta-Carbolines & the Alchemy of Consciousness

Podcast Highlights

• Rumi, Sufism, and the traditions of Sufi Whirling.
• Exploring the unique dreamlike effects of beta-Carbolines and Syrian Rue.
• Ayahuasca vs. Haoma (speculated to include Syrian Rue).
• Iboga as an oneirogen.
• Research into the impacts of beta-Carbolines on memory.
• Considering the preparation and integration for oneirogens like beta-Carbolines.
• Lucid dreaming, archetypes, and the sacredness of dreamtime in indigenous traditions.
  The neurobiology and subjective effects of beta-Carbolines vs. classic psychedelics.
• Unique potions and stacks featuring beta-Carbolines.
• VCENNA’s current drug research.

Show Links

1. Ancestral Magi
2. Ancestral Magi on Instagram
3. Jonathan & Shauheen’s first episode, #190. Ancient Psychoactive Potions: Beta-Carbolines & Syrian Rue
4. “Dreaming Wide Awake” by David Jay Brown
5. “Drugs of Dreaming” by Gianluca Toro
6. “Liminal Dreaming” by Gianluca Toro
7. “Zarathustra’s Out of Body Experience” by Jack Tanner
8. “The Tibetan Yogas of Dream and Sleep” by Tenzin Wangyal Rinpoche

This episode is brought to you by Magi Ancestral Supplements, makers of the world’s first beta-Carboline nootropics for cognitive health. Magi’s Stard Deep Meditation Aid (minidose) helps you get to stillness much faster. Their Haoma Revelation Aid (macrodose) is a unique psychoactive ideal for inner spiritual journeys.

Get a discount on any of Magi’s beta-Carboline nootropics. Visit ancestralmagi.com and use coupon code TW10.

Podcast Transcript

0:00:00.3 Paul F. Austin: Hey folks, and welcome back to the Psychedelic Podcast by Third Wave, where we explore how the safe and responsible use of psychedelic substances catalyzes both individual and collective transformation. My name is Paul, and today I am speaking with Jonathan Lu and Shauheen Etminan, the co-founders of Magi Ancestral supplements.

0:00:18.8 Shauheen Etminan: When you're taking beta-Carbolines alone, it's not as exciting of an experience as let's say, DMT, but that openness to the dreamy state is like an epiphany to the fact that the life is like a movie and then you can't step out of the movie, and that's also a source of epiphany. So it's kind of like a lucid dreaming. It's a way of, let's say, a very deep meditation that allows you to be a third person, or let's say, witness of what is happening, and then realize that you are part of something bigger.

0:00:58.9 Paul F. Austin: Welcome to the Psychedelic Podcast by Third Wave audio mycelium connecting you to the luminaries and thought leaders of the psychedelic renaissance. We bring you illuminating conversations with scientists, therapists, entrepreneurs, coaches, doctors, and shamanic practitioners, exploring how we can best use psychedelic medicine to accelerate personal healing, peak performance, and collective transformation.

0:01:25.7 Paul F. Austin: Hey listeners, this is Paul F. Austin, founder and CEO at Third Wave, and today we welcome back Jonathan Lu and Shauheen Etminan and the minds behind VCENNA and Ancestral Magi. They first joined us for episode 190 where we journeyed into the mysticism of beta-Carbolines and Syrian Rue and discussed the significance that psychoactive potions might have had in the ancient traditions of the Oriental East. You can find that episode linked here in the show notes. In today's episode, we're diving into the neurobiology of these substances, comparing their dream-like effects to classic psychedelics like Ayahuasca and Iboga. Jonathan and Shauheen take us through their cutting-edge research at VCENNA and share tips on how to get the most out of Magi's formulations to explore expanded states. Finally, we explore how beta-Carbolines can be used to aid in the practice of lucid dreaming while touching on the sacredness of dreamtime in indigenous traditions.

0:02:30.3 Paul F. Austin: By the way, if you're interested in trying out these legal supplements for yourself for a limited time, they're offering a discount on the full product line over at Magi. You can head to ancestralmagi.com and use the code TW10 at checkout, and you can find that link in the show notes. Here's a little bit more about Jonathan and Shauheen. Jonathan is an engineer who has been studying 2000-year-old Chinese texts in search of compounds, formulations, and rituals that have been lost to history. He graduated from Stanford University's graduate school of business and holds a BS in chemical and biomolecular engineering from Cornell. Shauheen Etminan is a founder and entrepreneur with a track record of working in multiple sectors, including psychedelics for mental wellness and cognitive growth. He holds a master's of science and PhD in chemical engineering from the University of Calgary and is a secular mystic who practices Sufi dervish whirling meditation.

0:03:26.1 Paul F. Austin: Together Jonathan and Shauheen co-founded the Drug Discovery company VCENNA, where they've applied advanced scientific tools to the study of Haoma, the ancient Iranian inebriating elixir of truth. Their team has discovered the neurological health properties of beta-Carbolines from which they developed the nootropic formulations for Magi Ancestral supplements. This is a rich conversation that you might want to play more than once to capture everything that we cover. As always, you can let us know what you thought about this episode by signing into Third Wave's community, community.thethirdwave.co, which is our platform for the intentional and safe use of psychedelic substances. You can create your account for free. Again, community.thethirdwave.co. Alright, that's it for now. I hope you enjoy my conversation today with Jonathan Lu and Shauheen Etminan.

0:04:16.0 Paul F. Austin: Hey, listeners, welcome back to the Psychedelic Podcast. Today we have Jonathan and Shauheen back, Jonathan and Shauheen, our co-founders of VCENNA and VCENNA is probably best known for their Ancestral Magi supplement, which is, Haoma, Syrian Rue, to help facilitate these sort of dreaming meditative states amongst other subjective effects. And we brought Jonathan and Shauheen back to go a little bit deeper into the pragmatic aspects of how we as listeners can actually integrate Haoma and Syrian Rue and some of these beta-Carbolines into our everyday life because they're currently legal right now. So anyway, Jonathan and Shauheen welcome back to the podcast. It's great to have you both on.

0:05:03.2 Shauheen Etminan: Hi Paul. Thank you so much for having us. And hello to your listeners.

0:05:06.7 Jonathan Lu: Yep, thank you, Paul. It's an honor to be in the esteemed company of one of my favorite authors, Stephen Kotler as a repeat guest. [laughter]

0:05:11.9 Paul F. Austin: It's good to have you both. So I'm gonna start on a little bit of a tangent, but we'll find our way back in terms of how it weaves in. In our first episode, we talked a lot about the historical context around these beta-Carbolines around Syrian Rue and Haoma, and I think one part that we didn't mention so much is the relevance of the Sufis and mysticism and particularly the practice of... I don't know how to contextualize this correctly, but the practice of whirling and what the sort of utility and the presence of the whirling dervish meant and we are fortunate enough to have a whirler. Is that what they're called? Shauheen present with us on the podcast and Shauheen as just an intro for the episode, I'd love if you could tell our listeners a little bit about the whirling dervishes and why you chose, or how you became a whirling dervish yourself?

0:06:10.2 Shauheen Etminan: Absolutely. It was a surprise question, so... Yes. Whirling is a practice that's been within the Mevlevi Order that goes back, or the lineage that goes back all the way to the Jalāl al-Dīn Muḥammad Rūmī, or Rūmī most of people, and they know the Farsi poet, they're a Persian poet, based in... They know that's Iranian, he was born in today's Afghanistan, and his tomb is in today's Turkey. But I'm sure that many of your audience, they know about him, and they have probably read his poems, and basically the state, the ecstatic state, that Rūmī came out with his poems was on whirling. So the word whirling is a practice of... It's like a meditation in motion, or a practice of invocation that you tap into a higher state of consciousness, and in a meditative state, while you are on a motion, you are in a full balance while you're turning.

0:07:26.5 Shauheen Etminan: So many of other mind-altering practices that psychedelics is included, whirling is also one of those. And then the state of mind that you receive is within just going finer and finer to a state of balance, and a state of presence at the moment, because you can't really... If you think about turning, you're gonna just fall out, but you have to forget about and then the whole body goes in harmony to hold you in that space. So I have been practicing whirling for about, I think, seven years now, but I have been exposed to Sufi teachings from when I was 15, 16, but I never really practiced. It was only in California that I actually joined the Mevlevi Order in Berkeley, and then started when I went to Konya in Turkey. But in general, one thing that might be interesting for your audience is that we are one of the very rare companies that we're also, as part of our studies, our neuroscience study, we have been also looking into the neuroscience of whirling and...

0:08:47.3 Paul F. Austin: Interesting.

0:08:48.5 Shauheen Etminan: Yeah. And hopefully we're gonna have some data and maybe a paper published on that in terms of how the brain, what brain waves, and then what state of mind is being tapped within that realm. But again, the way that this is related to the whole context is within the state of meditation and full presence while you're in motion.

0:09:21.8 Paul F. Austin: So, love it. And I would love to do a course or a training on whirling myself, because I think about whirling, it's like when we're a little kid, we go in circles again and again and again and again, because we know it puts us in an altered state, but we also get a little nauseous or sick or we only can do it for so long. And I think what's so interesting about whirling is you're whirling for a long time. And I'm curious, just as a follow-up question, how do you not fall over, get dizzy, get nauseous? What is the technique that whirlers use to be able to continue to do that and access that altered state?

0:10:02.2 Shauheen Etminan: First of all, it's exactly like running a bike, you never follow a few steps, or maybe that you just follow it on the first time and then your body gets to that equilibrium state, I would say. Whirling for me also, I never was taught whirling. I was basically enrolled into with an intention and I turned and I basically just found myself. But then after a while, you start to learn and then try to see how you're, let's say, moving your foot, because there are different ways and there are also different ways of turning, which in the more Iranian or they call it the Chishti or these are most northeast of Iran, west of India, old India, to this part of Pakistan, they are just very free format that's more related to the way that Rūmī was turning.

0:10:55.3 Shauheen Etminan: But the lineage that is called the Mevlevi Order is very codified. If you go to Turkey, that's a very specific ceremony and way of turning that they have. But in general, if you just strip away all of these, the reason that you're not feeling dizzy is mostly the feeling of dizziness is because of your middle ear. And when you're just moving your head, that's a big part into feeling just balanced. And then basically just how you get into turning without losing your... It's kind of like the opening and closing is more important. And then the rest is you are fully present, it's just your eyes probably doesn't see the environment as a normal way because speed is really high but still it's exactly like meditation with closed eyes or you can roll with closed eyes, you can roll with open eyes and yeah, so the technique is basically just finding yourself in equilibrium versus any specific thing if I wanted to share.

0:12:13.7 Paul F. Austin: Great. And I'd love to come back to what happens if I do a bunch of mushrooms and try to whirl, does that create an even more amplified altered state? But Jonathan I want to pass it over to you, and I'd love to hear a little bit about... You've rolled out the Syrian Rue, these Magi supplements, they've been out now for upwards of two years, I believe, and I'd love for you to talk a little bit about what are the most common questions that you get for folks who are interested in working with Syrian Rue, who maybe purchase the Magi and the supplements? What do you think people are most curious about, most interested in, in terms of the pragmatic and practical aspects of weaving this into their everyday life?

0:13:01.9 Jonathan Lu: Yeah, thanks, Paul. It's been about a year, a little bit less than a year, maybe. And it's kind of three categories of questions that we get. When we first began, we only had a series of microdose and mini dose products, as we intended for this to be something that's much more around proactive daily health, something to amplify your sleep habits, or something that you take daily as a brain vitamin or particularly our star product for meditation.

0:13:26.4 Jonathan Lu: What we've learned along the way here is, while there are certainly those use cases that a lot of our customers and our community are really interested in, why we released our most recent product, which is what we named in reference to Haoma, which is our macro dose product, is a very large portion of our following here would ask, "Okay, this is great from a micro dose and mini dose standpoint, but really, what do beta-Carbolines feel like when you take them in as a high dose?" And everybody thinks about them just as the context of Ayahuasca from Banisteriopsis caapi, where they're also found in terms of, "Well, they're just there to potentiate DMT, they don't do anything by themselves."

0:14:02.4 Jonathan Lu: So that's a big portion of, number one, why we produce this product ourselves, to be a safe version of a high dose beta-Carbolines. And number two, to just address those questions which is around, "What does it do to you? What is it like?" And of course, the third category of questions is around, "How do I take it?"

0:14:21.1 Paul F. Austin: Anything to add there, Shauheen? In terms of most common questions or perspectives that people are sort of coming in with or asking about?

0:14:29.5 Shauheen Etminan: Yeah, absolutely. I think this psychedelic renaissance is formed as a psychedelic renaissance. And when you go to the categorization of different mind-altering or psychoactive compounds, psychedelics is only one of them. There are also Oneirogens, there are dissociatives, and there are deliriants. So these are other type of compounds that are psychoactive or hallucinogens, that they are less known by people or I think this narrative, this current narrative is more around empathogens and psychedelics, that's been received well.

0:15:14.1 Shauheen Etminan: But for example, when it comes to beta-Carbolines, that Jon said, beta-Carbolines is, I guess this is what we recently wrote an abstract about this. This is like being popularized by Terence McKenna, that Ayahuasca is the DMT, and then beta-Carbolines are there as an MAOI to potentiate the oral use of DMT to make its effect longer. But that is like this is not the real... The whole story at least, as we know. And there are works by people like Richard Schultes, Ayahuasca used to be only the bark. I went with El Ponte project to Amazon this past April and I participated in making Ayahuasca with Santo Daime Church.

0:16:08.2 Shauheen Etminan: And even when you participate, the men are those who are actually cleaning the Banisteriopsis caapi bark, and then they hammer it and then their women come and they basically they took all the Chacruna leaves and then they clean it and then they bring it. So a big part of when you participate in that making of Ayahuasca, you realize that even though in Santo Daime there's only these two compounds, there are not other additives but the bark is the primary thing. Even if you go just walk in the jungle and then you see that this is the significance of a compound.

0:16:45.6 Shauheen Etminan: So I think when in 1960s and '70s, with those understanding of psychedelics, specifically with some of the OGs like Terence, so some of the formation of the context and subjective experiences was formed and then there was disconnection, and then that stayed as the state of art for many years. But now that we are having more people just testing those, I invite everybody, just think about the difference between taking DMT, a DMT pen or mushroom, versus Ayahuasca. There's always... What comes with Ayahuasca is always this openness to the realm of dreaming.

0:17:25.4 Shauheen Etminan: So you are in a potentiated state of mind that your thoughts are processing so much, and you may and may not, depending on the body, you may or may not see visions. But what is the denominator is that opening to this realm of unknown, which the realm of unknown is where there is no boundary for our consciousness to process. And then you may even encounter things that you have never been encountered to. And that's exactly like dreaming. The dreaming state, we don't remember them when we wake up. But when you are awake in your dreaming, then you remember.

0:18:00.3 Shauheen Etminan: This is like in the realm of sleep it's like lucid dreaming when you're awake. This is exactly like an Ayahuasca effect, but Ayahuasca is more potentiated processing versus just dreaming. But practices, let's say, of coming to lucidity in your dream or coming to lucidity in a dreamy state has been as part of many traditions over time, basically to realize that even though you're dreaming you are not part of your dream...

0:18:31.0 Shauheen Etminan: You see that things are... You differentiate, you discern yourself as an observer. And I think this is the biggest understanding about beta-Carboline, is that the beta-Carboline is creating those dreamlike states that is mostly induced. We believe that they're induced by this understudied receptor imidazoline that has shown the same effect in rodents and mices. And this has nothing to do with MAOI part. So what happens is that you feel that hypnotic state while you are open to dreaming, you are still present. And this is a definition, or at least a sense of the effect of Ayahuasca as well. And I guess this is the same as Haoma when we consider that Syrian Rue harmaline compounds was within Haoma. And recently, actually there was another study, so yeah, another discovery from a waste from Ptolemaic Egypt, that they also found a water lily and harmaline compound in those which was associated to another ritual. So it seems that there's always a relation between dream sacredness and beta-Carboline seen within different tradition. That is, this is fascinating that what we are also trying to connect our compounds to a practice rather than just, let's say, bring it as a compound.

0:19:57.3 Paul F. Austin:  Hey folks, I want to pause this conversation for a moment. Look, if you're a coach or a practitioner or you know someone who is, this is for you. Whatever domain of coaching you work in, ultimately you're in the human potential and behavioral change field because every single thing that we do as coaches hinges upon changing established patterns to tap into our greatest potential patterns that are neurologically anchored in the brain. So whether you're talking about shifting limiting beliefs, habits, conditioning, negative images, set points, and resistance, or you're focusing on creating breakthrough aha moments, mindset work, shifting relationships, or unlocking the next level in any domain, ultimately, you're talking about changing neurological.

As you may have experienced with clients or maybe even in your own life, getting changes to stick is not easy. And that's why psychedelics are so incredible, because they work directly on the neurological level to make these changes more accessible and sustainable. They are the biochemical keys to transformation and behavioral change.

And with guidance, they can accelerate just about any growth or creative process by facilitating the release of old patterns and the rapid adoption of new ones. Used within the right frameworks, psychedelic substances are the cutting edge.  of leadership, performance, and well being. And that was the inspiration behind our coaching certification program.

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It gives you neurobiological access to co create breakthrough results for your clients with greater alignment between mind, body, and spirit. In fact, we've trained coaches in every industry you can think of from executive and high performance to relationships. Life coaching, creativity, mindset, psychedelic substances are an incredibly potent tool for any coaching practice because the fundamentals of neurochemistry and human behavior are the same across every domain.

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All right. Thanks for listening. Now let's drop back into this riveting conversation.

0:22:38.3 Paul F. Austin: Okay. So I just want to make sure I'm understanding everything correctly. So traditionally we've thought of these beta-Carbolines as synergistic with, let's say, DMT, tryptamines, as a way to amplify the psychoactive effect of a psychedelic. So this is how Terrence McKenna has talked about them and thought of them. So we've really seen beta-Carbolines as MAOIs as adjuncts to tryptamines or lysergamides, or maybe even phenethylamines to amplify this sort of visionary capacity and visionary state, the classic psychedelic state. And what you're communicating is that beta-Carbolines in and of themselves, without the tryptamine, without the lysergamide, without the psychedelic, beta-Carbolines in and of themselves when they're consumed at high doses, actually facilitate a dream-like state. And that dream-like state is potentially just as useful as the "psychedelic state". It just has a different purpose or a different intention. Am I understanding that correctly?

0:23:47.9 Shauheen Etminan: That's exactly the right summary.

0:23:51.5 Paul F. Austin: So let's talk a little bit, Jonathan, I'd love to hear from you now, what are some of those intentions? Why might someone be interested in this sort of beta-Carbolines-induced dreamlike state versus the Ayahuasca, psychonautic, psychedelic visionary state?

0:24:09.6 Jonathan Lu: Well, they're also not necessarily exclusive of each other as well. But, the fundamental reason, which is the same reason why any of us look after any psychedelic experience, is to try to better understand ourselves, try to better understand what's within our own psychology and hidden within our own subconscious. Some of the Native American tribes and actually far eastern tribes as well, that Shauheen referenced, that have been using dream states for a long period of time, believe that that was the access to, whether it's other worlds or it's whether towards our unconscious, but, it's an access to some type of information about us, some type of really emotional feeling about ourselves that help us to better understand why are we here, the fundamental question of humanity. And at the level of when you take them and you're in an oneiric state, oneirogenic state, I never quite get that right there, the intensity of what you're physiologically and the set and setting may be a little bit different than a fully psychedelic state, but the intention is really the same. And I think the two are not just overlapping in terms of the experiences that you can face when you're in that experience, but also how to help prepare before and how to help integrate after such an experience.

0:25:20.1 Shauheen Etminan: Yeah. I wanna add a little bit to that. I think when you take psychedelics that are tryptamine-based, mostly this processing of thoughts is, and then interconnected thoughts itself is very amusing. So you have, when you take psychedelics, you have a thing to do, you go through your thoughts and then it might be, let's say, some of the memories that are surfacing and then that's a source of epiphany. That's a source of breakthrough about things that you are processing. When you're taking beta-Carbolines alone they are... All of our bodies, they have their own endogenous DMT, depends on different bodies, but forget about that part, in general, if you just take... If you, for example, experience our Haoma, it's not as exciting of an experience as let's say DMT, but that openness to a dreamy state is like an epiphany to the fact that the life is like a movie and then you can step out of the movie to watch the movie from outside.

0:26:34.1 Shauheen Etminan: And that's also a source of epiphany. So it's like a lucid dreaming. It's a way of, let's say, a very deep meditation that allows you to be a third person, a spectator or, let's say, witness of what is happening and then realize that you are part of something bigger. I had a friend actually in Vancouver who wanted to test our product, and then she ordered and she tested, and it's very interesting. She is, I think, she's 31, 32, she's very active in so many areas. She is in tech. And interestingly, one of the things that she always had an issue with was, "Okay, we do all of this for what?" This sense of... The nihilistic sense that, "Okay, why is life the way it is?" It was interesting when she took it, it was for the first... She told me that, "It was for the first time that I realized that there is something behind this curtain."

0:27:31.1 Shauheen Etminan: And that was some contribution at least to meaning of life that I think sometimes you can have it from a dream that is very lucid, that you really feel something. And, I would say this oneirogens or are compounds that they contribute to that sense, that experience, that phenomenology. And when you're there taking intentionally, then they're are a source of, again, lots of breakthroughs and specifically just about the self, because the big part of the self is really the unconscious self. That's the source of the shadows, parts that we don't see to catch our own grip. The grip are basically just the problem that we have. But, when you have that third person view that you can see the other side, that allows self-discovery, self-realization, self-development, it's like a technology for all of those.

0:28:31.7 Paul F. Austin: Okay. I'm learning more and more, but I still have a lot of questions to clarify because I think this is a very unique perspective as it relates to the psychedelic work, like distinguishing a tryptamine-based experience versus a beta-Carboline-based experience. And one thing that's coming up for me is Iboga. That Iboga is known as sort of more of a classic psychedelic, but it does tend to have this dream-like quality to it. A lot of people will talk about it. So tell us a little bit about how Iboga fits into this equation. Would it be a good bridge between the classic tryptamine experience and what's happening with beta-Carbolines? How do you think about Iboga and its sort of role as we're talking about this context?

0:29:25.1 Shauheen Etminan: Yeah, I think the first time that we saw that Iboga was counted as an oneirogen was Jon and I were in Stanford University this past May and were in this symposium. And, but, I guess maybe to explain that a little bit more, again, in the psychedelic space, psychedelics is a very general term that's being used for most of the mind-altering substances. But when you go to that four categories, that basically these are hallucinogens, psychoactives, that psychedelics is only one of them. Then the deliriants, oneirogens and dissociatives, they come as the other three. So Ayahuasca, if we...

0:30:10.1 Paul F. Austin: What would MDMA be as part of that? Just so I'm clear, would MDMA be a deliriant?

0:30:14.8 Shauheen Etminan: MDMA is also is a... Is binding to so many different things. It's a, Jon can talk about this profile way better than me, but I would say MDMA is partly psychedelic, partly empathogen?

0:30:28.0 Jonathan Lu: Yeah. And all these words here are, like, these words represent our best use of this tool called the English language to trying to describe this experience. It's very hard to [chuckle] to actually describe, and it's very quality in that respect. And psychedelic ultimately means what? Mind manifesting. So you also refer to sugar or coffee, but somehow it's been kinda bastardized to this. Now it's only psychedelic give effects the 5-HT2A receptor, that's never the original intent for what Humphry Osmond meant for that word. So these are all our best attempts here to try and quantify this subjective experience in some language that's understandable.

0:31:01.3 Shauheen Etminan: Yeah. Yeah. Well, when it comes to, I would say, when it come to admixtures like Ayahuasca, let's say in the Santo Daime church that they only mixed it to, I would say, the original Ayahuasca, the wine was an oneirogen. It was only a dream-inducing. It was not as exciting as what it is today. But then the DMT was added, and then there were other additives being added, including some of this scopolamine and those compounds that are more deliriants. Some Ayahuasca people when they go to take it with a South American shaman, they find Ayahuasca very heavy and very masculine. They feel that they're getting punished rather than being healed. I would say those are mostly the additional deliriants that you don't really process what's happening. But in general, I would say Ayahuasca is a psychedelic oneirogen. And then when it comes to Iboga, I would call Iboga an oneirogen and dissociative. It's like combining, I don't recommend this but it's like combining ketamine with beta-Carbolines.

0:32:10.8 Paul F. Austin: Interesting.

0:32:14.8 Shauheen Etminan: And, yeah. And when it comes to Haoma, the original Haoma, because the Haoma was not only beta-Carbolines, original Haoma was also a... It was pressing out. I think based on what we have found, that was also a combination, of always a combination of beta-Carbolines and amphetamines that was mostly coming from, it's like mixing, again, it's like mixing beta-Carbolines with MDMA, let's say, the profile is very similar.

0:32:43.7 Paul F. Austin: What was the amphetamine?

0:32:45.6 Shauheen Etminan: Amphetamine was coming from Ephedra plant.

0:32:47.1 Paul F. Austin: Gotcha. Okay. Yeah.

0:32:49.5 Shauheen Etminan: Ephedrine, basically it's ephedrine that's the source of amphetamine. And we know that some of the potions that they used, they also had the atropine, they basically did some of the dissociatives, the atropine alkaloids like scopolamine, atropine, so it's like the tropane alkaloids, that there are a few. So again, as you see, these are different channels that they can be concocted and based on different dosing, you just tap into different channels. And we learned about that because Jon and I actually went through our discovery with different dosing and different combination and composition of beta-Carbolines. One thing that is coming actually more and more about beta-Carbolines, that's also part of the research that we have been supporting, is how beta-Carbolines are impacting basically the hippocampal memory, which is the episodic memory. An episodic memory is more... It's like you're taking a picture of an event. It's not just a single event. It's like a whole event, and then you remember, and then through that process, that can come from the hippocampus to your cortex, and then it becomes, from an episode, it may become a belief that then it's more like a semantic memory.

0:34:06.4 Shauheen Etminan: So beta-Carbolines impact hippocampal memory very significantly. This is coming from a research that was kind of like a clinical research on Santo Daime Church participants that took Ayahuasca more than 500 times. And so one thing that specifically harmine does is when you take, for example, I would say this can be some of the subjective experience of, let's say, taking our Haoma is that you may get visions. It's not like the DMT vision that's... Or let's say something is moving or there's a light. It's like the flash of a picture, flash of a place, flash of a face, very clear, very close. It's like you're channeling to something. I'm not sure what's happening from a phenomenological point of view, but this is what happens.

0:35:03.5 Shauheen Etminan: And then harmaline is more of that opening up to wider consciousness, start effect, that is when and where you feel that openness to something that is bigger than you, that's more collective. So that collectiveness of dream, there it's, let's say, collective conscious or is collective unconscious is more associated with, I would say, with the effect of harmaline. And then there's always a mixture especially when it was pressed out of a, let's say, plant. It was not exactly what we do, that we are extracting them to pure compounds and then we're recombining them for different formulations. So Haoma is actually one of our macro doses. We're actually looking into launching another macro dose by the end of this year that is a little bit different of an experience, but again it is within the same realm of oneirogens.

0:36:02.0 Paul F. Austin: All right, so I'm starting to wrap my head around it. I think it's becoming more clear. One thing that's coming up for me is that as we think about the modern psychedelic renaissance, we've really become quite bucketed into LSD, psilocybin, Ayahuasca, Huachuma, 5-MeO-DMT. And I think what I'm picking up on from this conversation, and there's three books that I've read that are phenomenal, the 'Pharmako Series' by Dale Pendell, that goes into a lot of these substances as well, like the one that you just mentioned combining Ephedra with Haoma, with Syrian Rue, these were some of these ancient potions. So I think what I'm really picking up on on this is to get outside of the lens of psychedelic-only, to look at psychedelics as facilitating various subjective effects. And that the dreamlike state that can be facilitated through beta-Carbolines is a very unique type of state that, from what I can tell, we in the western world are just not familiar with whatsoever.

0:37:09.5 Paul F. Austin: We just don't have a lot of experience in navigating that dreamlike state. And one other thought that's been coming up for me as we've been working our way, bush whacking through some of this new material is the aboriginals used to talk about dream time, right? And they would have the song lines that they would sing as they would navigate the Australian Outback. And they really saw life as emergent as a dream that was constantly manifesting and being created. And I think this dovetails well with what you talked about in terms of there's a distinct relationship between the beta-Carbolines that a lot of ancient societies used, and just the sacredness of these beta-Carbolines. Why is it that you've, that a lot of these indigenous societies, or even ancient societies, the Egyptians were not necessarily indigenous they were more of a civilization. Why is it that dreams were so sacred? What is so sacred about that dreamlike state?

0:38:14.1 Jonathan Lu: Yeah, I'll let Shauheen cover that one there, but I wanna touch on one thing that you triggered within me when you brought up around the indigenous, which is of course, well, well known by your community here, that it's obviously not just the pharmacology, it's the set and the setting together with the drug and that set and setting, the environment you're with, your own mindset of cultivation is incredibly important towards not just the effect that you get the subjective experience, but also what you integrate coming out of it there. So by no means would I want anyone to think you can just take this pill and all of a sudden, "Oh wow, I'm dreaming and I'm gonna remember everything." In fact, actually having been in a narrow knot myself for a long number of years before I got into, I guess, being a psychonaut, myself here, I can tell you that there's nothing actually much more effective when it comes to lucid dreaming than actually just the preparation, setting a dream journal, getting yourself into the mindset of, "I'm going to try and remember everything I can. I'm gonna try and keep some common motifs inside here." The pharmacology certainly helps, but without the cultivation of the mindset and the setting, whether you're together in a communal group or you're just preparing your own self, you need to be prepared for this like any other journey yourself in order to really get the maximum benefits from it.

0:39:23.9 Paul F. Austin: And so, I wanna double down on that question, Jonathan. How might then the preparation, the set and setting defer for these beta-Carbolines compared to a classic psychedelic experience?

0:39:33.7 Jonathan Lu: Yeah, I'm gonna offer a very strong bias from my own opinion, just because of what works well for me, which is meditation. Meditation has been the way that I've gotten to know myself. Beta-Carbolines I've found to be very effective towards facilitating enhancing meditation, which in some ways, when I look at it, dreaming is the way to explore your subconscious when you're asleep, when you're going through the sleep cycle. Meditation is the way to explore, or the way that I explore my subconscious when I'm awake, and the beta-Carbolines help with... I love Shauheen's analogy of the movie. That's oftentimes how I've come to see this as viewing my own life through the lens of a movie as a third party.

0:40:07.0 Jonathan Lu: What we oftentimes are counseled, whether in coaching therapy of what's the advice that you would give to yourself if you were talking to a different person? And in being able to actually somatically live that experience is very different when you can actually start to see the experiences if you had and you realize that... As I say, there's no such thing as a bad trip. No, they're sad trips. It's just like watching a sad movie. It's not a bad movie, but you learn a lot from it or you can learn a lot from it if you're properly prepared. So long story short, for me, it's really around the preparation of meditation and cultivating this mindset of awareness of, "How can I pay attention to myself and what I'm feeling and why I'm feeling?"

0:40:46.5 Paul F. Austin: And then also, what I'm picking up on is archetypes. Archetypes are certainly present in these sort of classic psychedelic tryptamine-induced experience. But it sounds like archetypes, the unconscious, are much more present in these dreamlike states and learning how to understand and navigate symbols, archetypes, it feels like that has a lot more relevance here than the classic psychedelic.

0:41:10.2 Shauheen Etminan: Absolutely. Yeah. I guess, back to the question that you asked, why dream is a path to mysticism, I guess...

0:41:18.6 Paul F. Austin: Yeah. Why is it considered so sacred? Why has it often been so central to indigenous societies but also other ancient civilizations. 'cause we don't talk a lot about it in Western thought. Now there's not a lot of emphasis on dreams necessarily. Dreams are seen as these weird things that happen at night-time, but there aren't a lot of folks that necessarily give dreams the credence that they need to be given.

0:41:40.7 Shauheen Etminan: Yeah. I think the... What I've also learned is that the experience is that we are divine being in a material body. So the moment that you really learn that you are a divine body is when you feel different from about your life experience for the time that you're alive, and then the opportunities that you are exposed to, the potential that you can fulfill and how you can get to that realization and when you get to that realization is when you are ready to, exactly, to die to get back to your divine being. And that is why when you... That's why dreaming is where your body, for example Suhrawardī, which is also a philosopher, an Eastern philosopher, who actually makes it... Suhrawardī is a very interesting philosopher, a mystic philosopher that mixed Zoroastrianism with Sufism and part of basically the work of, let's say, most of the European philosophers.

0:42:51.5 Shauheen Etminan: So he come to a point that when we are free from our body is when you learn to be that you're divine. And that is why lucid dreaming is a way to experience that. The moment, again, that you get to lucidity about the experience is when you are an angel, when you are divine. So when you are becoming one with the rest, and then you see yourself from that perspective is that you're this eagle that is having this life with this family, and this condition in the world was happening in this time of, let's say, 21st century. But that coming to that lucidity is a practice that some people, for example like teenagers are more exposed to lucid dreaming. But then the whole practice of lucid dreaming is that you have to practice it when you go further and further.

0:43:39.8 Shauheen Etminan: And then what the technique is then is that then you insert intention to, let's say, go wherever you want to go, because you are free from your physicality and you're free in the time. So when it comes to taking, let's say, oneirorigens or in general, this experience, some people they have out-of-body experiences that were practiced out-of-body experiences, that's again, an experience of living the divine or being your angelic life. And I think some of these are hush-hush in the West, that's why we don't talk about this. But let's say if you go to any mystical, let's say, teaching, it's either Kabbalah or it's Sufism or any of them, or even secular mysticism. So you get to a point that your wholeness is a combination of your mind, of your intellect, of your psyche and of your spirit. And that's where the wholeness is defined, and then you are becoming part of something bigger.

0:44:38.8 Shauheen Etminan: But when you talk about the archetypes, actually, this is a very interesting part because the archetypes based on what Yung defines. Archetypes are within our collective unconscious. So that is where the residue of the human consciousness exists over centuries. Let's say if you are in South America, these people, they have always sung... They sing a song and then that had those dreams exposed to a leopard or jaguar. And that is why you tap into the same residue of thoughts when you are getting it in that context. So if you go take it somewhere else, and then in another context, maybe you're exposed to those archetypes. So, I would say the best environment, the best holder for facing the archetypes is actually, is under dreaming, and then under dreaming... And oneirorigen is a way to provide that.

0:45:35.8 Shauheen Etminan: So basically the beta-Carboline is the best way. That is why we actually came up with this lucid dreaming. I wanna just add this because many of people that they are taking our lucid dreaming. Our lucid dreaming supplement is not really helping you to immediately lucid-dream. Lucid dreaming is very... Is a practice. It allows you to dream a lot and then remember your dream, and then you have to develop the practice to remember that you are awake in your dream. So that is where it becomes lucid dreaming. And then the same thing happens when you are, it is much easier when you take Haoma because you're already awake, you can't fall asleep. You're dreaming while you're awake. And again, you're exposed to the archetypes, you're exposed to this whole pool of information that you don't know what it is, but it helps you to have a better coordination of where you are with as it being within this whole realm of existence.

0:46:32.6 Paul F. Austin: Okay. I wanna ground us for a little bit. This is interesting. I wanna talk a little bit about the neurobiology. We've hinted at it a little bit in terms of the activity in the hippocampus. How might the... Well, how does the neurobiological mechanism of action defer between beta-Carbolines and the classic psychedelics?

0:46:54.7 Shauheen Etminan: So what we found here, was that one of the receptors that beta-Carbolines bind to, which is actually a very, I would say, the high affinity binding is a receptor called Imidazoline.

0:47:11.7 Paul F. Austin: How do you spell that?

0:47:12.6 Shauheen Etminan: It's, I-M-I-D-A-Z-O-L-I-N-E.

0:47:19.8 Paul F. Austin: I-M-I-D-A-Z-O-L-I-N-E.

0:47:22.2 Shauheen Etminan: Yeah.

0:47:23.1 Paul F. Austin: Imidazoline. Okay. As it sounds.

0:47:29.2 Shauheen Etminan: Yeah. We have imidazoline type 1, imidazoline type 2, and imidazoline type 3. They are pretty... They have been discovered because they were very close to nonadrenergic receptors, but then they found that they are different from other nonadrenergic receptors. So then they called them imidazoline. So beta-Carbolines are... If you just look into the profile of different binding, this is the heaviest binding that beta-Carbolines harmine and harmaline and Tetrahydroharmine have. There is very limited work on the effect, but for example some of the effect they make sense. For example, one of them is that you feel numb. When you take enough beta-Carbolines, you feel like... That's why there is a lot of work around painkiller, basically just making them as analgesic, non-opiate analgesic effect of imidazoline-type binding.

0:48:29.2 Shauheen Etminan: And I guess this is one thing, but there are other studies that, again, it's still within animal study that shows that when these receptors are stimulated in animals, they also feel that hypnotic dream or a sleep-like state. We think that this is pretty consistent with the effect that we feel under beta-Carbolines. But again, this is a study of a new receptor, is a very... It's at least a few million-dollar research by itself. So when we were working on our drug discovery path for pharmaceuticals, we got to this point that we just have to probably dedicate a 5 million to define what we are measuring.

0:49:23.1 Shauheen Etminan: But based on the measurements and based on the subjective experience and the evidence that we have and people are reporting to us, we are just reading a lot of trip reports from people that are taking our meditation supplement or our, let's say, Haoma, which is our macrodose. So they all feel that dreamy state. They all feel that awakeness. It's like a waking, dream-like state. So you're awake. You don't fall asleep. Oneirogen is like a... Some people they think that you get to a dreamy state. You dream more. It's not like you're dreaming... Or it's very important that you're awake when you're dreaming. You're present.

0:50:02.3 Shauheen Etminan: And this is very consistent with the effect of this. But again, this is a theory because it needs a lot of work to be done and it needs capital, but this is what we theorize based on the similarity between, again, the phenomenology, the experience, and the neuroscience.

0:50:23.1 Jonathan Lu: Yeah. And that's just this one receptor here. Of course, it hits a lot of different things here. Beta-Carbolines, specifically, harmine, harmaline, Tetrahydroharmine. They also agonize the 5-HT2A receptor like a lot of the other psychedelics do, or the classic psychedelics do, not nearly as strongly as it would something like imidazoline. They are known, of course, as we know, as MAO inhibitors, very, very strong MAO inhibitors there. So naturally, there is this mood lightning that comes as a result of that. I think they also lightly agonize 5-HT2C.

0:50:52.0 Jonathan Lu: But if you were to compare that versus something like a psilocybin or an LSD that's much stronger on 5-HT2A and 5-HT2C, there you can see that there's some confounding effects that are in place there. If you were to take a high enough dose of Beta-Carboline to the level of agonization you get out of psilocybin, I don't know if that would be your predominant feeling around actually having a classic trip, considering just how strong the MAO and the imidazoline effect would be? Sorry for de-grounding us here, but we talk about this classic one drug one target approach here. It's very, very hard to look at here 'cause rarely is anything ever one target. There's a long cascading effect. So that's why we often look at those subjective phenomenological effects of common things like dreaming while I'm awake or having a sense of disorientation in the case of something like a dissociative or a deliriant like Ibogaine. Those tend to be a little bit more useful.

0:51:49.9 Paul F. Austin: So we've already... I love this, by the way. The focus on the imidazoline I think is super interesting. It's nothing I've ever heard of before. I think that's an interesting way to distinguish it, and obviously this is quite complex. It's not like we can just boil this down to one specific thing, but I think a question that's coming up for me, just based on our conversations so far, is what are some interesting and novel ways then to utilize Haoma and Syrian Rue and these Beta-Carbolines? What are some more common ways that people are working with this, either by itself or in conjunction with certain types of psychedelics? And what are some very maybe unique potions or other ways that, Shauheen for example, you maybe have tried or worked with that would be sort of maybe a bit different or unique?

0:52:40.6 Paul F. Austin: For example, we talked about the ancient potion that they would combine Ephedra with these Beta-Carbolines. I'm really interested and curious about what are current legal substances that maybe can be woven together to create unique phenomenological effects that maybe no one on the podcast has heard about before? So what are the common ways that people are using this and then what are some very unique or never-before-heard types of ways that people might or could work with Syrian Rue or Haoma?

0:53:14.1 Jonathan Lu: Yeah, I want to also restrict it there to just the necessarily legal ones there. But I also am curious, as Shauheen brought up before, that he wouldn't necessarily recommend combining with ketamine, and that's probably coming from some personal experience that I'm very curious to hear about myself that I have not heard. And I say that because we have heard from people in our community say that they have combined with ketamine with some pretty interesting results. So I'll leave it there for maybe Shauheen to begin on some very interesting personal experiences.

0:53:43.5 Shauheen Etminan: [laughter] Well, I think honestly, my experience recently has been more about... I've been reading a lot about the states, and then I retest them just to see if the navigation is right. But there was some point when we were doing our clinical study that it was just a black box, we were taking this, this next Sunday, and then we were just trying to see what we are facing with.

0:54:10.7 Shauheen Etminan: I think I would definitely, first of all taking Syrian Rue and our supplements is a very two different stories. Syrian Rue even though we talk a lot about Syrian Rue and Haoma, again, Haoma was not only Syrian Rue, Syria Rue was a main compound of Haoma like beta-Carbolines in Ayahuasca. When you talk about Syrian Rue, Syrian Rue can be toxic. We get a lot of reports about the fact that some people that they take Ayahuasca that has been made with Syrian Rue, they felt tremor, heavy tremors. So I would say be very careful about even, let's say, taking or brewing the seeds because it has toxic material. So what we have is only the beta-Carboline extract of Syrian Rue, and we know exactly what it is. And my first recommendation for people is that, if they wanna take it to have a new experience, definitely try our Haoma because that gives you... Specifically in an intentional state. We have a French who she takes it at 0:12:43.0 PM at night, and then usually it goes to around 4:00 AM and then she's awake.

0:55:19.4 Shauheen Etminan: And she was saying that's very... She gets a lot of thoughts process, and this night time also was helping her. But I think this is the first thing then they can have a baseline and then from the baseline they can always now mix it with, let's say, if they are, yeah, if they wanna, let's say, mix it with some of the tryptamines, then they have to do it with the right dose. And it's all about... Exactly like Ayahuasca. Some Ayahuasca, they have more DMT less beta-Carbolines, you exactly gauge what type of experience you want to have. This recent study that I said, it was just almost close to zero amount of DMT. So there are some of the batches that even Santo Daime church make that. There's almost no new DMT there. So I think that's if they wanna mix it, for example, with some of the tryptamines like DMT or psilocybin I think for the rest of the, let's say, there are... Recently we talked about something with Jon about this, again, this ritual that came from Egypt about mixing Beta-Carbolines with water lily flower, that is also is a very different... I haven't tried it.

0:56:36.2 Shauheen Etminan: This we are also working on that. And then for example, again, in Iran, the context of Haoma, if it was Ephedra, that's also some way of taking it. The Mang, which was an ancient portion in Iran, which is... These are not institutions...

0:56:53.8 Paul F. Austin: What is it called?

0:56:54.0 Shauheen Etminan: It was called Mang.

0:56:56.9 Paul F. Austin: M-A-N-G?

0:56:58.7 Shauheen Etminan: Yeah.

0:57:00.3 Paul F. Austin: Okay.

0:57:00.6 Shauheen Etminan: Yeah. Mang in Farsi... Today's Farsi means when you feel dizzy and you don't feel right but Mang as a potion it's... We put it on the name or as a name of our lucid dreaming. But again in a more intentional basis, Mang was a combination of tropane alkaloids and beta-Carbolines, I would say if they want to mix Amanita muscaria, which I don't recommend, [laughter] with beta-Carbolines. So some of these trips are not pleasant. I think again, passing through a state of mind is like somebody has had to walk through that and then say, "Okay, this is safe, if you wanna come come." Some of them it's very exploratory. Some people they may not like it, that they feel... For example, if you just read TiHKAL many of those reports about beta-Carbolines that people have taken high doses are unpleasant experiences. So I think there is a specific...

0:58:10.0 Paul F. Austin: Unpleasant physiologically or unpleasant emotionally...

0:58:12.6 Shauheen Etminan: Both.

0:58:12.6 Paul F. Austin: Or both sometimes?

0:58:14.2 Shauheen Etminan: Both.

0:58:14.2 Paul F. Austin: Okay. 'cause I know when I... Sometimes when I take the Magi, the Stard, it does create some upset in my stomach. There is some nausea that can be somewhat intense and I don't vomit necessarily but that can happen as well. So I think it's important to note that. Yeah, these aren't... There's a lot of uncharted waters out here. And of course this is part of the fun of being an explorer is going places that people haven't been before. But that also requires a certain level of courage and devotion to the path.

0:58:45.6 Shauheen Etminan: But, it's just something about my own experience. I have been taking our Mang, our lucid dreaming for, very seriously, from beginning of August, continuously every day. And I think for half of it, maybe 30 days, I recorded my brainwaves at night as well just for our own study. But I would say I feel a lot of change in my... There's so many aspects of my own life from let's say, just from, first of all, from this habit of trying to solve some of my problems in dream world, I get excited to go to dream because I feel that there something may happen that I get some visions. And I'm not really into interpretation of dreams. I think I like to be present. And what's happening there, it's already releasing, is not just come next day and then try to interpret what you saw there. I don't think that that is... I don't really like that practice. I guess this is what's been, one, I'm very focused. I feel like my energy is very contained specifically for people around their sexual energy, which is not... Doesn't mean that having sex is mean it's the distraction of your body's energy. It's just you feel very... I feel very contained. And I guess the other thing is that I have also very regularly meditated with it. This is our baseline practice.

1:00:15.6 Shauheen Etminan: So, that definitely has an impact. But back to what you said, there have been days that I took our Stard and Mang and I felt the same nausea. So I decided to just go with one of them. But it was just right after each other because I do my meditation at night and then I took the Mang, and then the next day I still was a little bit wobbly. So.

1:00:37.2 Paul F. Austin: So you'll take it before you go to bed sometimes, because that helps to elicit stronger dreams?

1:00:43.0 Shauheen Etminan: This is the lucid dreaming, yeah. We take it before going to bed.

1:00:47.8 Paul F. Austin: Wow. Well, we've covered a lot of territory today. I feel like this is a podcast that I'll have to listen to again, or two or three times. We did cover a lot of the neurobiology, we also discussed the efficacy of beta-Carbolines, how they differ from the classic psychedelics, why the dream light state is so sacred, the role of archetypes, then that. Jonathan just to bring us home and wrap it up for us, what research and drug development is VCENNA exploring over the next year to two years to three years, what are you going to continue to look at and research as a company that's sort of within this realm?

1:01:30.1 Jonathan Lu: I'll get to start it and turn it over to Shauheen here. We have two branches that we work on. One is over on the actual pharmacology side where we continue to always look at new compounds and particularly new mixtures as historically that's rooted within our own DNA here is that rarely was there ever medicine that was one drug one target. It was always mixtures of plants and our thesis has always been around, what are these different mixtures? What is the right doses that we have to figure out in order for them to have, number one, the right agonization of the right receptors are going after and then two, the right subjective effect. So certainly that's going on, and then the second portion is really much more directed specifically towards the supplements themselves as... If Shauheen wants to take it over here, or some of the research that he's got planned here.

1:02:15.9 Shauheen Etminan: Yeah, absolutely. Yeah, I think one thing, I guess this position with what we are doing is very specific in this realm of mind-altering substances because we are working actually with a psychoactive supplement that is legal, and it's not scheduled and it allows us to bypass many of those business models that needs 500 million to get to something on a very specific pathology that can't even be created. So we can work on meaning of life as a customer use case, if that helps them and then show efficacy with proof of a mystical questionnaire that if they feel it. So what we are doing as our next step plus constantly just looking into combining some of these other additives and other plans is actually looking into efficacy of some of the indication that... I don't call indication.

1:02:21.8 Shauheen Etminan: 'cause indication they use it for medical realm, so I would say the benefits, the customer benefits, but for example, one of them that we are working on is about the restful sleep and how people they feel restful, what are the effects? And then measure that and then when you have it measured in a... Either through citizen science, but something that you can really rely on and then pass it down, or let's say through a sleep lab in a university. So we have been working on creating some partnership about measuring the effects that we put out. Now we have some feedback from our customers and now we're going deeper and deeper into proving the efficacy and then learning about what they are really doing. So this is a new... This is what we have been working on for the past few months, and I think we can share more specifically soon about this. I also want to add something, there are a few... Because some of these might not be heard specifically about oneirogens, there are a few books that I want to introduce as well. Whenever you think it's a good time, I can do that.

1:04:35.5 Paul F. Austin: Yeah, now would be a good time.

1:04:37.1 Shauheen Etminan: Yeah, I think there is actually a book called 'Dreaming Wide Awake' it's by David Jay Brown, I would say definitely look into this book. There's also another book called 'Drugs of Dreaming' and it's by Gianluca Toro. There's another book called 'Liminal Dreaming' which is by Jennifer Dumpert, and there was actually a very interesting book that I read this summer, which is very educational for me. It's an interesting book that doesn't exist anywhere, but it's called 'Zara Hustra's Out-of-Body Experience' by Jack Tener. So this last one is specifically is all about oneirogens and then oneirogens versus psychedelics and why oneirogens are more important it access more to, again, to the realm of divine and then basing neurobiology and neuroscience of it. So I think these are more... The books that are not as known as many of the psychedelics books, but I wanted to share those with your audience.

1:05:41.5 Jonathan Lu: Yeah, and let me add one as well that's not around the pharmacology, but more around the overall practice, cultivation of set and setting particularly with dreams was my early bible from about 10 years ago, it's called 'Tibetan yogas of dream and sleep' that was written by a monk named Tenzin Wangyal.

1:05:56.9 Paul F. Austin: Tibetan yogas of dream and sleep. And we'll include links to all of those on the website, so don't worry about writing those down if you're listening to this, we'll link out to them so you all can pick them up. Shauheen that you mentioned last, I'm most interested in. I think that will be cool to go deeper into. We've reached the hour mark though folks, this has been fun, it's been great to have both of you back on the show if folks are interested in learning more about Ancestral Magi, potentially working with these beta-Carbolines themselves, where should they go? Remind us the website and how that works.

1:06:35.7 Shauheen Etminan: Yeah, our website is ancestralmagi.com, ancestralmagi.com, and then you can...

1:06:41.3 Paul F. Austin: M-A-G-I. Right?

1:06:43.9 Shauheen Etminan: Yeah. And you can find us on social media with the same name and Ancestral Magi.

1:06:49.8 Paul F. Austin: Great, and I believe there's a Third-Wave-specific code that you can use to get a discount. Do you remember what that code is, is it just Third Wave?

1:06:58.7 Shauheen Etminan: TW10.

1:07:01.5 Paul F. Austin: TW10. If you wanna take a little bit of a discount if you're interested in this, TW10 ancestralmagi.com, Jonathan and Shauheen, thanks again for coming back on the podcast. This was super interesting. Once again, I'm glad we got to get deep into oneirogens and the dreaming state, and I can't wait personally to go deeper into this role, that's something I really haven't explored much, but now that we've had this conversation, I'm feeling curious about what there is that I've missed out on that might open up through this work.

1:07:35.9 Shauheen Etminan: Awesome, thanks, Paul for having us. It's always good to sit with you and then associated with all the Third Wave team, so we know ourselves are your close friends.

1:07:47.4 Paul F. Austin: Absolutely. Thank you...

[overlapping conversation]

1:07:48.1 Jonathan Lu: Thanks again, Paul.

1:07:56.3 Paul F. Austin: Hey, listeners, Paul here. That's it for this episode of the Psychedelic Podcast. I hope you enjoyed my conversation with Jonathan and Shauheen and found it as interesting as I did. Make sure you subscribe to the Psychedelic Podcast if you want us to continue to bring you conversations like this one. You can also help us by a leaving a review wherever you listen to podcasts. Until next time.