Cannabis & Psilocybin: New Avenues In Sleep & Wellness

Introduction to CBD and Psilocybin 0:00

Hi everyone and welcome again to the Sleep Deep Summit. New approaches to beating sleep apnea and insomnia. I'm your host, Dr. Audrey Wells. And this next speaker is someone that you don't want to miss. She is a treasure trove of information about the effects of CBD and psilocybin on sleep and on your life. Now, Dr. Lida Fatemi is a seasoned physician. She practiced for a decade as an academic hospitalist. But now the work she does is with a psilocybin assisted coaching program. She's the first in the nation to start this, and I'm really excited to have her wisdom today.

She's also a bestselling author. She has written "Trauma to Self-Love: Conscious Life Practices & Psilocybin" and she is an author for “Thriving after Burnout” which is a book for physicians who are struggling with this problem. Welcome, Dr. Fatemi. Thank you so much for having me. Dr. Wells. It's great to talk to you because I think the work that you're doing is cutting edge. We're going to talk about CBD and psilocybin in in the context of sleep today. I want to start with CBD, which is something that I get asked a lot about because as more and more states incorporate cannabis and even cannabis, including THC with CBD into their legal system, I think people are curious about what effects it might have on sleep.

Yeah, it's a wonderful question as we're seeing this resurgence of plant medicine come about for therapeutic benefits as used as medicines, you know, Dr. Wells, today I'm going to tell you how little we know about plant medicines and how they affect our bodies in general, and especially when it comes down to sleep. Now, as we know, sleep is a foundation to well-being. And I do have a lot of clients and patients who end up using and I looked at the research regarding CBD and cannabinoids in general cannabis.

What we are seeing is, you know, the categories of the species that we talk about this, the sativa species and the indica species. If you go to, you know, any dispensary, they're going to categorize them as such. I'm not going to get into the weeds of why they were called such. And, you know, we're just going to through the overview of what we're seeing. So one sativa tends to be more of an opiate, so you don't want to use that at night. The more indica species are more of the downers that you can use closer to sleep time.

Now, I have a lot of elderly patients because I do hospice medicine as well as palliative, and a lot of them have sleep issues and pain issues. So when you look at it in conjunction together and you're trying to use something more natural to help the patient with their pain, we see that it also affects their sleep positively because they're not in as much pain. PPD itself has been shown to be anti-inflammatory. Now there are other subtypes. There's also CBG that is anti-inflammatory and very good for pain.

So if I have patients on opioids, which very often I do on hospice research has shown when you put the two together, the cannabis product plus the opioids, there's a synergistic effect. Therefore helping the patient sleep better at night. Now looking at, you know, if we have randomized controlled trials,

How CBD and Cannabinoids May Affect Sleep 4:24

double blind, we are you know, there is one study that is coming out. It's still the study design is up, but it is not completed yet. And they are looking at CBN. And, you know, if I'm going to, you know, tell you a particle product to use, I would be lying that, you know, don't use that only extract go for the entire plant. So all plant based medicines are the best. So anecdotal from my clients and patients, what I hear is a CBN and helps them at night to you know, to sleep. And I'm super curious to look at the sleep architecture when we do use these plant medicines.

And so I'm curious if you don't mind sharing your expertize, if you've seen or if you've seen studies looking at the sleep architecture regarding plant medicine, cannabis, specifically. You know, that's such a good question. And I think it's something that underscores the cutting edge nature of plant medicines for not only sleep, but things like pain, PTSD, trauma. And for me, when I look at somebody who has a sleep problem, oftentimes there's a competitor for sleep. So I mentioned pain and PTSD.

Anxiety is another big one. So common. And I think, you know, it's very attractive to think of a natural sort of remedy for that, which is why the cannabis question comes up so much. There's not a whole lot known. And to your point, the research is relatively scant in terms of how cannabis affects one's sleep. But I can tell you that there's probably a great deal of personalization that's on the table, so people will need to do some trial and error to find out what works for them. And I generally recommend a higher CBD ratio over the hallucinogenic component THC.

But people who respond well to it tend to like it. They tend to work out sort of a minimal dose that helps them to sleep well and they tend to notice that it doesn't cause a lot of the hangover effects that are associated with some over the counter medications or even the long term cognitive impairments associated with use of prescription sleep aids. So I do see it as an option for folks who want to improve their sleep. I'm so happy to get your collaborative experience as well. Yeah, no, I love that.

It's just all about the discussion and collaboration. We learn the best that way. And, you know, it's it's it's also interesting that we see an entire endocannabinoid system within the body. We have CB1 receptors, CB2 receptors that are modulated based on what, you know, is happening with the with the being and everyone is different. So you can't just map out like 50 people and say, this is how it is because it's constantly CB1 receptors which are predominantly in the brain, they lessen in in numbers or in different cells and then they show themselves depending on how much an individual's also using cannabis, which is fascinating, right?

It's this constant movement and we're so alive. It's there's always change happening within us. And to, you know, be concerned, considerate of that, I think is really important because we do see that as CB receptor owners and the cannabinoid system changes. It also changes with depression and anxiety and pain and so forth. So, yes, this field is is in its infancy from a research standpoint, and that's what makes this super exciting for sure. I'm really excited about it. And I want to say to that, no matter what treatment that is discussed for aiding in sleep, aiding in end of life care, which I know you're really experienced with PTSD, trauma, pain, etc., no matter what sort of intervention we're taking on.

I think it's always great to kind of have the pillars of good, healthy life practices supporting that. So what I mean is good sleep practices, healthy nutrition and plenty of physical activity. We need those things to be well functioning human beings, but to also support the treatments that we're going to talk about today. Absolutely. Absolutely. In fact, in my coaching program, as you mentioned, it's Psilocybin Assisted Coaching But really, the plant medicine comes in as one of the tools. It is not everything.

It is all of what you talked about and many more tools that we implement into our lives. We understand the research behind it. And there has been shown to be so much benefit to optimizing our neurobiology, our physiology, and also the part that we, a lot of us forget to talk about is our spirituality, because, you know, that path of self-discovery is what is teaching us the most. And to having a guide help us with that is essential. And also, you know, through that's been connected with our community at large, which we also see huge health benefits from, you know, all cause mortality to cardiac mortality.

I mean, this is there's a lot of great data behind that decrease in all cause mortality by 35% having is community that you feel connected to you can pick up the phone whenever you're in trouble and you have 12 people picking up the phone and trying to help you out. So those are all really, really foundational to to our overall well-being in life. It makes so much sense and I'm really glad to hear you put a number to it, too, because that helps me understand that people have looked into this. You know, it's been defined. And, you know, one of the things I like to explore with people who have sleep problems is their relationship with their self as they're lying in bed at night, in the cold and the darkness and the quiet.

You know, sometimes that's the first time out of all of the time in the day that people actually have some white space to kind of let their brain run freely. But that can be problematic for people who have trouble with insomnia and for those who suffer with sleep apnea at these nighttime awakenings to breathe and to bring their blood oxygen levels back up can induce kind of a stress response that makes it difficult to get back to sleep. So one of the things I talk about is the emotional status, whatever you're feeling and whatever you're kind of feeling in your body and also in your mind at the time of trying to get to sleep is really important to kind of make it into that loss of consciousness that we understand as sleep.

Yeah, absolutely. And you know, if, if you are an avid meditator versus I've never actually sat for 5 minutes because my thoughts are just, you know, everywhere or, you know, just breathing, you know, that's one of the very important physiological things we do automatically that we are not conscious of. And as soon as you bring conscious awareness to it of how to breathe and how to breathe so that we can get into our parasympathetic side, because majority of the day we are in a sympathetic, overstimulated state.

You know, and I think the days that I was an academic hospitalist, I would say, you know, and I did look at time and all of that to see how much of the time I feel sympathetic. You know, throughout the day, the beginning of my seven days, it was, you know, I was more calm. And because I have all these life practices that were still working and seeping into my daily practice, and then by the end of the seven day, day five and on, it would make it would be much more difficult

Sleep, Stress, and the Nervous System 13:12

to keep that equilibrium in my autonomic nervous system. And I would feel being in that sympathetic, overstimulated state for almost 100% of the day. And of course, my nighttime sleep was affected. That anxiety just thought, oh, my gosh, did I do the right thing for the patient? Did I tell, you know, the resident to do this or you know, did I teach enough or whatever it is that internal dialog is, it really translates, you know, and we know about brain waves, right? As we're in the high beta waves throughout the day.

And we can't, you know, or we don't know what tools to utilize to go into the alpha waves so that we can land nicely in a, in a sleep state. Then sleeping is going to be an issue. And we see that in all psychiatric illness does. I mean, I don't want to call them illnesses just because we slap on diagnoses based on symptoms. You know, and in the recent years, in my research, in all the wonderful books and research that I've come across and the psychiatrists I've spoken with, mental discomfort or suffering really all stems from trauma, past trauma that we have not examined or it's just been too much to examine and go there.

So once I see us move through those traumas of the past and bring in self love the feeling, then I see people's sleep get much better because that is absolutely essential tenant in in my coaching program that it also teach people. That's amazing you know I've always thought it was a little bit ironic that the sympathetic nervous system, you know, it sounds kind of pretty. It sounds nice and, you know, sympathy, sympathy stick. But that's the fight or flight nervous system. Everybody, this is the agitation that we need to draw on when there's a threat in our environment and in the modern world, it doesn't work so well.

And oftentimes people stay in that highly vigilant state for longer care than is really necessary because of the way we respond to modern stimuli. I think one thing that I have always noticed and I'm proud to call you a friend, is that you're so deliberate and intentional about helping somebody with their personal growth out of respect for medication. You know, these are medications that we are helping someone to get an effect from. So whether you're talking about cannabis or CBD or the plant medication, psilocybin, these need to be administered very intentionally on a backdrop of self-growth, awareness and moving forward, kind of cultivating those principles as somebody goes through treatment with these substances.

And I want to kind of transition to psilocybin right now for people who aren't aware. Can you give some background on how psilocybin is used? Absolutely. This is my favorite subject. So so Celui CI Bean is an active compound, is a psychoactive compound found in over 200 species of mushrooms. It is a trip to mean in its chemical structure and it has been utilized since ancient times. Ancient Greece, if you want to look of the elusive Indian mystery rites, where women, you know, who were healers, you know, considered healers in their society at that time, in their community, would create these medicines.

And they would be mystery rites, you know, a few times a year where they would bring people out of the community. And, you know, the philosophy, the loss of our communities. Well, so if you look at the historical evidence, you'll see that Plato, Plutarch, Socrates, Aristotle, just to name a few of the philosophers who went through these elucidating mystery rites to gain insights into their higher self and expand conscious ness and also bring healing into their community. And they went through these rights.

And there is a wonderful book, long to read it called The Immortality Key The History of a Religion With No Name. And he goes into depth of the research and the evidence behind all of this. But we do see evidence from even 9000 years B.C in Algeria on wall arts that they were using psychedelic mushrooms or psilocybin mushrooms at that time for conscious expansion. There is the Stoned Ape Theory where Terrence McKenna talks about apes using psilocybin mushrooms in order to expand and be able to communicate.

So connection is a really big thing that we see when we use psilocybin mushrooms. So, you know, psilocybin is in the mushrooms. When an individual ingests the mushrooms in the body, it is converted to psilocybin and still a scent is what interacts with the receptors in the brain to produce the effects that we see being produced now on lower dosages, on micro doses, we see a different effect. We have a self perspective effect. And to give you a range of an idea of what a, you know, so perceptive or and microdosing really means is, or to give you a range of like the effects as well, it helps to visualize or think about it cognitively to about five milligrams all the way to about 250 milligrams of psilocybin.

Mushroom is considered microdosing. 250 to about a gram is a mild dose, and then from a gram to two, you have a moderate dose, two grams and then two grams up to five grams is what we what we know as a macro dose or a large dose. So you can utilize this plant medicine, which is fascinating in so many different levels of dosing to get a particular effect that you're looking for. And intentionality is everything in how we're going to choose what dosage to use, in what, in in in what set and setting in what situation.

So I have clients who want to use the micros and want to know more about it. They want to be able to use it, you know, in their life, integrate it in their daily life. They want to feel more connected to their children. And that's what you go after that the micro. Micro is what you can utilize in that kind of a setting to enhance your life, to increase communication, to increase that heartfelt connections with yourself. Number one, and with the with your loved ones. And then when we get to the higher doses, you will the individual is incapacitated and will need a guide at their side to be safe.

And so you're going to I leave it up to you to ask me questions about that. Dr. Wells, there's I covered a lot, but please. I think this is really good information. And for me, it kind of comes up to ask the question that a lot of people are kind of wondering right now, which is who is a good candidate for psilocybin treatment, especially given that currently

Psilocybin Basics and Dosing 22:00

in the United States it is not legalized everywhere. And so in that context, who would you recommend and kind of look into this a little bit deeper to find out if there is a match? Great question. You know, it's a it's a challenging question. I would say, you know, given the status of legalization, you know, it is legal in Colorado, legal in Oregon or Australia has legalized and allowed psychiatrists to use that medicine in their practice. Canada is very open to it and they believe they've legalized maybe, you know, in British Columbia, even though in other states and in the rest of the world it is considered illegal.

People are using it. 50 million Americans as of right now, they're using some kind of psychedelic to help themselves through their trauma and mental health suffering. I'm sorry. I want to backtrack about other countries. Majority of South American countries, they don't even see it as something to consider it in their legal realm at all. So that's why a lot of retreats, you know, that I even do. They are in South America or Central America because they're like, Oh, these are plants. How can you legalize a plant?

You know? And so that's kind of the battle that we're fighting in America now through organizations which do incredible work, such as decriminalize nature. Dr. Larry Norris is a friend of mine as well, and he's a co-founder and he's responsible. Him and his team are responsible for this decriminalization movement and legalization movement that's happening throughout the cities, 22 cities have already gone through this. And Decriminalize is pushing a lot in California, starting with Oakland. So I would say, you know, it's when you look at the research behind psilocybin being the number one researched plant medicine in this very moment and time, you will see it being used in so many different realms, starting with depression, anxiety, PTSD, OCD in autism, in neurodegenerative disorders such as a less such as post strokes, such as TB eyes and so on and so forth.

I mean it is being studied and with positive results. Now we're seeing more of the positive results in high doses, macro doses one time. And a lot of times it's the individual just needs one session or maybe two sessions in their entire lifetime. That's what's what's making it so incredible, because none of us want to be dependent on a multitude of medications or anything for that matter, that is not easily reachable to us. And so the shift that happens with a macro dose, the caveat here is that you got to do work.

And, you know, I love that you mentioned, you know, the emphasis on self growth and self evolution because that's everything that I do in my program is we do extensive, deep coaching beforehand. You know, if somebody wants you know, is interested in the macro dose, then we'll go, you know, to a South American country, we'll do a retreat. I'm there with them. And then afterwards we do Deep Dove into integration. And, you know, how do I how to bring in the things that I saw, felt and experienced during my big dose session into my life in this very moment?

What does that mean? How do I do that? There's a lot of embodied practice that can be utilized. I also have a community of healers. They are majority of them. Are these in what's in their field, in psychology, and they have extensive plant medicine, background and experience to be able to hold space afterwards as well. So, you know, I do majority of the work and then if I need help, there's always someone that I can call up and connect the individual with to get even deeper in their integration.

Integration being one of the most important part of it, really. The entire container is everything is if if you know, there are people that I turn down, if they don't want to do the work, I say, you know, this is not the path in this moment for you and that's okay. Everyone has a time. And so that's the macro dose. I also do work with in Microdosing for individuals. I educate them again, people are using it. We're talking like 50 million Americans are already using psychedelic medicines and most of that is psilocybin.

From what we gather. And so to me, I'm like, people are already using it. They know where to get it from, they know where to source it from. And again, those are things that everyone should be concerned about and should be asking questions about. And I'm always available to answer questions because I want people to do the safe thing. But with Microdosing, I educate them on how to use utilize it. Most of the people that reach out to me are physicians again because you know, we are burnt out. And the burnout is also another symptom of a deeper issue that has been going on for a long time.

A lot of them, you know, I have female physicians or female physician moms who reach out to me. And a lot of them have had depression for ten plus years or since childhood or anxiety since childhood, or they have PTSD that they don't know what to do with and they don't want to be on medications anymore. Again, you know, I don't take them off medications because of the coaching relationship we have. But, you know, I will work with their therapists, with their psychiatrists, you know, and and we create a collaborative efforts to get them what they want because we all have a dream life that we want to live and we deserve it.

We deserve to live it. Why can't we utilize XYZ better methods to to bring that into our life and get closer to it? And we can and we can. You know, this this is such a helpful discussion because I know a lot of people who are watching our conversation will have not had this information come up on their radar before. And your description is beautiful because it's like this arc of self growth and self development, of which psychedelic medication is a part, a very important part. We're not just talking about, you know, a magic pill or a magic elixir here.

This is a big process that people undertake so that they can achieve a degree of spiritual growth, mental health, as well-being. That's more profound than what they had previously known. And it's fantastic to hear that psilocybin is kind of coming up as a possibility. I'll add that in my own research of psilocybin, I found out that Johns Hopkins has been doing a ton of research. Stanford has been doing a ton of research. These are credible institutions who undertake this this path really mindfully.

And what they're finding is really exciting going forward as a new option for people who would benefit. I'm sure in your work, as in palliative care and hospice, you've also had the experience of helping people through their end of life, even managing feelings around cancer and, you know, sort of heavy burdens mentally can you speak about that and what you've noticed? Absolutely. Heavy burdens is what I've experienced of suffering. You know, when we go through life, we all have challenges and we have pain in the body.

We have painful moments that where we are suffering life in life, we have pain, but we don't have to have suffering.

Who May Benefit from Psilocybin Therapy 31:00

Tell me the difference between pain and suffering. I think that's really interesting. Yeah. You know, we can have physical pain from an accident that we were in and we can have chronic pain from that. And in fact, as you know, as I'm speaking to you right now, I have pain in my upper back shoulders. You know, I've been a few accidents in my lifetime, and I'm sure some of it has to do with whiplash. And, you know, I get, you know, my workouts in it gets better. I get, you know, some treatments gets better, but it's always kind of there, you know, up and down.

There was a time that I would so focus on it that it would get worse and I would feel this, you know, feeling of being down, down and just depressed and shoulders down. And my entire posture would be affected. I would feel this suffering. And when I was feeling more depressed, I would feel it in my posture even more. And I would feel the pain more as my own self evolution as you, you know, has has blossomed. And it's an everyday thing. It is not that it's not a destination. It is every day, every breath, every moment that we are choosing to go to this on this path of self-discovery or not.

And that's a very individual and personal choice. But I decided, okay, I've had enough. I would like to not suffer anymore. And so started taking steps towards that trajectory. And so as I stand here in speaking to you all today, I have the pain, but I'm not suffering from it. It is not something that is bringing me down. And oftentimes at the end of life, you know, we have issues with forgiveness. We have issues with in our relationships and who doesn't, right. Life is made out of relationships, relationship with self.

That's where it starts. Relationship with the air we breathe, the relationship with the food we eat and with each other. And so what I see in my end of life patients is if they are more at peace with themselves and with having those sacred quiet moments, just like, you know, we do right before falling asleep or when we have woken up and we're trying to fall back asleep, the individuals who are more seasoned and in dealing with those spaces within themselves, they have an easier time transitioning.

The individuals who had psychedelic experiences and we know this from the Hopkins study in 2015, they took 5052 individuals with a terminal ill diagnosis who had fear of death at the end of life. And they administered they did intensive spiritual holding and also psychotherapy. And then they had a high dose psilocybin session with them. And then they did post work with spiritual care and also with therapy, psychotherapy. And they followed them for a while, actually, and, you know, inevitably they all expressed that this was their top five most meaningful experiences of their life and their fear of death was gone.

And so for me, it's, you know, what that also indicates and the experts in the field is when we are tapped into these expanded states that are unfamiliar to us, when we see that, oh, all is well, when I move through those challenging portions of my journey and I've made it through, it's going to be fine. Everything is fine, in fact. And I wish I really do wish that we were in a state that I could prescribe psilocybin as a medicine, and you got to know what you're doing. It's not just like, Oh, take whatever.

There is a whole thing around it. There is. I call it a container because it truly in my mind, it is where you have to do the work before I teach my clients and my patients how to breathe and how to meditate and how to use writing and creative expression, which we know all of these modalities used to also help us connect with ourselves and also optimize our neurobiology and our physiology and how to hydrate even, you know, how how do we hydrate so that we stay hydrated through the day because we know even just hydration.

If we're dehydrated, we feel more anxious, we can feel more depressed, and we have more toxins that are built up. And so our physiology just does not work as well as not optimized and so all these little things, little steps that are so reachable, so accessible to every one of us when we add plant medicine, it you just see it from a different perspective. There's less resistance to doing what's right for us to do what is serving us. A lot of us who have gone trauma and don't know how to get through it, we have a lot of resistance towards things that are healing towards us.

Is that self-sabotage parts that I don't deserve better. In fact, we do. When you come through on the other side, you're like, Oh, of course I can do anything. And I and I deserve to feel better. And so I really wish I had more freedom legally, legally, to be able to. I speak about it, but I can't prescribe it. And some people, because it's illegal, they they just are completely, you know, completely closed off to it, which is totally fine. I just, you know, from a policy standpoint, it would be nice to be able to utilize these as tools.

General in that patient population. Also. I think it's coming. I mean, I, I have to hope it's coming because I see it as a tool as well. And, you know, one thing that strikes me as you were talking is we are both coaches for people who want to undertake this self development process. And I like to say that I'm a coach for what keeps you up at night. You know, whatever that thing is is going to be the thing that you think of in the middle of the night.

Pain, Suffering, and End-of-Life Care 38:00

But it's interesting to me how coaching kind of stretches your perception not only of yourself, but your situation. It's kind of a workout for the brain, and I see these psychedelic substances as contributing to that, you know, kind of opening up to what's possible, what may be better for you, giving a new perspective. I wonder if you might kind of tell me about a situation that you've had that was maybe a success for somebody who had a situation that was difficult going in. And then after kind of going through this process, what were you able to notice?

What benefits, what was the experience? I'm really curious. Yeah, absolutely. You know, one of my favorite clients who's given me permission to use his name in my book, so I'm sure he'd be okay talking on air as well. But I'm not going to. I'm so, you know. Yeah, very respectful of, first of all, his courage to be okay using his name. But he is a gay man. He is in his sixties and he's a young ian therapist of over 30 years who's been really helping our community here for 30 plus years. And he was experiencing extreme anxiety still after all these years of working on himself and sort of evolution and all of that.

And he reached out to me through a friend. And so we started working. He was very committed, feeling better. He didn't want to live from a place of fear any longer. And he was just done with that and he wanted to bring more to his clients. Also So we started talking and you know, I have a whole vetting process of seeing where the individual is or is their commitment. If there is not really commitment, but they want to just use the medicine like I'm not your person, this is too much work. But he was willing and so he did.

And we started the coaching program. I educated him on the microdosing so he started with that process and and breathing and he was an avid meditator, but we started doing meditation in a different way, incorporating breathing and mind body connection exercises. He was very to me, he felt very disconnected from his body, very heavy, very cognitive, but, you know, not grounded in his body. And so we started this work and he also wanted to be able to write his poetry with more ease and with some more creativity and felt a lot of blockages there, too.

And so throughout our time together, we really tapped into, you know, his traumas of childhood where, you know, there was sexual abuse and for years and, you know, when he came out as a adolescent, being a gay person back then, it was completely unacceptable. And we're talking a long time ago, you know, like 50 years ago, 46 years ago, and his family never accepted him. And there particular people that did that were particular people that they didn't. But he just never felt accept in his family but he had to come out and be is true self and he ended up subscribing to a lot of abusive relationships as well as that self-sabotage.

I don't deserve you know more I don't deserve better mentality and he the rumination that was happening it's really PTSD that we're talking about and he didn't he didn't have the diagnosis of PTSD. But, you know, we all go through these things where we are ruminating about things that happened in the past and can't move through them. It's something that keeps people up from sleep regularly. I mean, I hear this all the time, the monkey mind in the middle of the night or at the beginning you just can't settle.

And so this self-exploration is necessary. I'm so glad you're talking about this. That's awesome. And yes, that's exactly what keeps us at night. And the amygdala, the limbic system is is super engaged. And so the mind body exercises, including breathing because, you know, I've been talking about breathing like every 5 seconds. I feel like it allows us to disconnect from the limbic system that rumination and connect with our bodies. And, you know, the way I talk about it is breathe through the nose and out the nose, not the mouth.

When do that, the vagus nerve and the parasympathetic system is more the rest and digest. Part of the nervous system is more in engaged and so we can be more in equilibrium in our autonomic nervous system. So and then there's a body connection where you feel chest rise and fall. So if you all want to try this at home, you can breathing through the nose, feel the chest rise, feel it fall as you exhale and keep doing it at least for five breaths and see how you feel. After I did this recently with a group of high school students at my daughter's high school, and they were they all felt so much better after.

And I consider that success when you can get into teenagers. But yeah, so we continued the work for months. We worked together for months and he was, you know, I educating him about the microdosing he found his own and you know, so on and so forth started using it particular times. Usually. I also coached people on how to use it, when to use it. There are different protocols that you can utilize to see how it affects you, and there's a lot of that self-discovery. And so that's really the mainstay of all of it.

Throughout the time, there was a lot that came up for him and he wanted to dove a bit deeper. And so I held in my macro dose session for him in a legal setting, and he his initial experience was more of the colors and the beauty and the movement and, you know, things that you just are not tapped into. And he was he got to super that he was an avid music listener and that was a big part of his, you know, therapy throughout his life. That's what kept him safe in his space as a teenager. Yeah. And as he was growing up and he saw a lot of that and he felt a lot of that and he heard a lot of that the music and felt synesthesia where you hear music, but you see colors.

So it's, it's the integration of different senses into each other. And we went through, you know, self-love practices, forgiveness practices, a lot of, you know, holding childhood trauma and allowing it to go. And then, you know, months later, after the integration of the first session, you felt the calling to do another narrative session, which, you know, I usually I'm hesitant to do, but if the individual we've given it enough space and time in between for the individual to really digest what they've learned from that macro session, then, you know, if it's like more than four months later, I usually say, okay, let's revisit what's happening.

And then we start the program again with them. So started the program again seeing what's going on. It's a very different space that he's in. He was no longer I mean, let me tell you, even that first Microdosing session, he slept for majority for the hour, 15 minutes. We were together because of his nervousness. And I had always been in this fear, response and anxiety to this who I am landing. It felt as if he was resting for a lifetime, and that was just with a micro dose. And later on, months later, you know, this is like an eight month course.

I'm I'm sharing with you quite a journey. And he wanted to go deeper. That was his intention. This time he wanted to go deeper. He wanted to get into the maybe the darker sides of things.

Set, Setting, and Guided Psychedelic Work 47:00

And sure enough, that's where he went. And that was a very challenging experience for him where, you know, if you're not an experienced guide or a facilitator, it is it can be scary to have the being go through all of those things because, you know, there were times he would share with me like, I don't think I'm breathing I can't breathe. In fact, he was breathing. And, you know, me knowing the research and having done this for, you know, I have experienced for a decade in my own experiences, personal experience.

I've been holding space for about three or four years for other individuals. And so having multiple people mean maybe over 50 and of more than 50 I think is the good. And to have number two have I was able to help him through this journey of he you are breathing tap into your breath and because of the work we had done for so many months then it was easy to get him back into that pattern of your breathing. Feel the earth under you. How, how do we ground individuals that are going through these challenging moments and going back into, you know, trying to even cry, you couldn't tap into crying.

You could tap into his feelings as we were through the going through the journey with medicine. But, you know, the role of the guide is huge. And how do we take them through forgiveness as they're going through these horrific things that he had gone through as a child? How do I forgive the perpetrator? How do I forgive myself for not knowing, for not being able to hold myself in a particular for saying no, how do I forgive myself for for not doing those things? And so it's a very sensitive, very vulnerable space that needs to be held with the utmost respect and love and care.

And that is the setting that we talk about. When you look at psychedelics, research is includes the guide and the environment that the individual is in and creating. How do we create a healing environment for the individual? And most of it is really coming from the guide and having that rapport with the guide is really, really important. Do you want me to talk about sets or do you have questions before we move? Let's move on to set. But I'll tell you that this description is so profound and, you know, it's exciting for those who feel like what they've done so far to go on journey of self-exploration has been unsatisfying or there's no end in sight.

But I think the care with which you treat the medicine, the care with which you select people who are ready, is just profound. So why don't we move to set and kind of talk about the experience and some of the practicalities? Thank you so much. And thank you for the for the comments. Dr. Wells. It's you know, this is very deep in me, and I there's so much sacredness. I compare it to my children, you know, having kids being my most important responsibility and helping them be raised in in a good way, in a loving environment.

And in this work is is parallel to that. And, you know, I see each individual that moves through their challenges and their traumas and connects with their own light and continues on the path of self-discovery has so much to give to society. And, and I see that as a responsibility for myself as well. So thank you for recognizing the set. So set is the mind set that the individual goes in with in a journey and, you know, I don't just describe it as just the macro dose journey or the large dose also in micro doses to see that as a journey of life in in that day that, you know, you are taking that medicine and all its sacredness and the connection that it's going to create for you throughout the day.

And the thing is, it's going to bring up for you, how do I navigate through that? That's a whole it's very similar to a macro dose in that way that they're both steering monies. So not to take the micro dose lightly at all, but to also, you know, really polish our mindset as we're going into a micro or a macro dose and polish ourselves and our physiology and neurobiology, optimize yourself before going into it. Because the word psychedelic was coined by, I believe, Dr. Albert Hofmann, who analyzed psilocybin and and got a means and created LSD in Switzerland through Sandoz labs back in the 1950s.

The reason he called it psychedelic is because it's mind manifesting. And so whatever is in our minds, in the conscious or the subconscious, can present itself through a macro dose journey, and you have to be prepared for that and okay with that. And we know also in in the more mystical side of these journeys that the subconscious will not show you more than you can digest in that moment that you've chosen. This is my time to experience. It's so fascinating, you know, fascinating. And the medicine to the medicine is also respectful of that.

Now, again this is, you know, going back to the role of the guide being paramount to your experience. It's the guide that's going to choose the amount of the dosage of the medicine that's going to be administered to the individual. And so knowing dosages is super important. And that's where the rapport that you build before getting to know the individual beforehand is so important in my work to know, Hey, how much are they needing in this moment in time? Because if you overshoot,

Where to Find Dr. Fatemi 54:00

you can take them to places that they may not be ready to see. If you, you know, you can't really undershoot because no matter really what amount of medicine you have, you can still work with that and tap into spaces that you couldn't see otherwise. But there's always a sweet spot for each individual that is very customized, at least in my practice, that's what really speaks to that individual in that moment and will bring up the most healing that the individual wants. So that was set and setting all in one in a long answer.

Yeah. You know, your expertize really shines through. You've been doing this a while. I think you are seasoned in a way that people can have confidence that if they work with you, they're really getting the best experience possible. And I think your respect for this process is well-deserved and, very important. As we wrap up today, I wonder if you can tell people where they can find you or how to get in touch if they want to know more or even work with you. Absolutely. So I have a website drlidafatemi.com You can always contact me there and I'm also on social media.

Majority of my posts are on Facebook. I do breathing exercises with my audience. I'll do lives, you know, whatever it is needed in the moment as we all go through trauma, you know, and difficulties in our lives. So, again, Lida Fatemi is my Facebook and I'll share the handle with you if you want to share that in the notes and so forth. And the other space is, you know, you can, by the book “Thriving after Burnout” which I have here, I coauthored with 49 other female physicians who are absolutely wonderful and they're doing beautiful work in this realm of coaching and helping individuals through burnout.

And so yeah. And my own book, Conscious Life Practices & Psilocybin Trauma to Self-Love is also coming out in the next couple of months. So I'm so glad to be here. Dr. Wells, thank you so much for having me and helping educate the community on things that are coming up. But not a lot of people are talking about. Truly cutting edge stuff and a new way of thinking about one's relationship with themselves, particularly as this is highlighted with sleeping problems. Thank you so much, Dr. Fatemi It was a pleasure to speak with you.

Thank you.