Manoj Doss, PhD, has been known as a force of skepticism in psychedelic science and a critic of psychedelic neuroimaging. But he is also an expert on one often overlooked—but potentially very important—aspect of how psychedelics and other drugs impact people: how they affect memory. We also learn how Manoj became interested in memory research through a rollerblading mishap.

We talk about how psychedelics might increase our sense of familiarity, how this might play a role in people developing odd beliefs, but also how it could be part of their therapeutic mechanism. How might drugs create a sense of “downloads” from the universe, perhaps due to changes in memory processing? We also explore how other drugs impact various memory systems.

For example, we discuss a common non-psychedelic substance that can help you remember what you recently learned better—maybe you can guess what this mysterious drug is.

We also hear more about directions in psychedelic science that Manoj is more optimistic about.

Little announcement: Book Club

Furthure is starting an online book club! The book club will meet every other month over Zoom. I realized I was basically going through withdrawals from not having an English-language book club around me, haha.

We’ll meet at a time that works for both U.S. and European time zones. The first meeting will be on October 26th at 7:30 pm Central European Time / 1:30 pm Eastern / 10:30 am Pacific.

For the first book, we’re going to learn a little bit about Furthure’s namesake by reading The Electric Kool-Aid Acid Test. This book tells the tale of Ken Kesey and the Merry Pranksters running around the U.S. from coast to coast on a bus called Furthur—which has the same intentional misspelling as the Furthure podcast, minus the extra “e”! The book is a bit of a time capsule, but it also reminds us how different psychedelic culture is today compared to the late 1960s. One event in the book, the Acid Graduation, even took place on Halloween in the 1960s, making it a fitting choice for October.

Look for details on Furthure’s social media!

• Instagram: @furthure707
• X (Twitter): @Furthure707

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